Dream a Little Dream (The Silver Trilogy) (F) (7 page)

The statue lowered its beak majestically. “Just Freddy, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, but that’s too simple,” I said, disappointed, and almost annoyed by the failure of my dream mind to think up anything better. “Ydderf, Ydderf, Ydderf.”

“That’s right,” squeaked Freddy. “You can come in.”

“Okay.” I pushed the door open. When I stepped through the doorway, I wasn’t in the front hall of the Spencers’ house, as I’d expected, but in a meadow. Although it was night, and quite dark, I could make out trees and rocks sticking up above the ground. A little way ahead of me, Grayson was sweeping the beam of his flashlight over the ground.

This version of the dream was definitely cooler than my Hansel and Gretel variation just now.

“Is this a
cemetery
?” I asked.

Grayson swung around, shone the flashlight on my face, and let out a small sound of alarm.

I smiled at him.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “Go away again, would you?”

“Yes, it
is
a cemetery,” I said, answering my own question. Because a little way off I could see the outlines of assorted stone crosses, columns, and statues. My power of vision was sensational in this dream, and improving by the second. “We’re in Highgate Cemetery, aren’t we?”

Grayson ignored me. He lowered the beam of the flashlight to a gravestone on the ground.

“How cool. I know it only from photos, but I’ve always thought I’d just love to see it,” I said. “Except not by night.”

Grayson grunted in annoyance. “Me neither. This is a totally crazy meeting place,” he said, although more to himself than me. “As if the whole thing wasn’t weird enough anyway. What’s more, no one can see more than a meter ahead.”

“I can.” I had to stop myself jumping up and down in my enthusiasm. “I can see in the dark like a cat. Only in this dream, I’ll admit, but it’s great. In the normal way I’m blind as a bat without my glasses or contact lenses. So what are we looking for?”

“
We
are not looking for anything.” Grayson sounded distinctly annoyed. He was shining his flashlight on the inscriptions on the gravestones beside the path, whether they were vertical or lying flat. They seemed to be ancient. Many of them were cracked or covered with ivy. Mist drifted, true to form, over the ground, and the wind made the leaves of the trees rustle. There were sure to be rats here too. And spiders. “
I
am looking for the tomb of Christina Rossetti,” he added.

“Girlfriend of yours?”

Grayson snorted, but at least he answered this time. He sounded resigned, as if he’d decided to make the best of my presence. “Christina Rossetti was a Victorian woman poet. Haven’t you ever had to analyze one of her poems?
Where sunless rivers weep their waves into the deep
 … blah, blah, blah, something about a star and shadows and a nightingale.”

“
She sleeps a charmed sleep: Awake her not
.” A figure emerged from the shadows of a weeping willow and came toward us, declaiming poetry. It was the boy who’d jumped for the grapefruit in school today, only I’d been quicker off the mark and caught it first—the character with tousled hair from our flight. Nice of him to turn up in this dream, because in the meantime I’d entirely forgotten him. “
Led by a single star, she came from very far to seek where shadows are her pleasant lot
.”

Hmm, not bad—so at least in dreams there were boys who could recite poetry.

“Henry,” said Grayson, addressing the newcomer with relief.

“Where on earth have you been? The Rossetti grave is back there.” Henry pointed to somewhere behind him. “I told you to take your bearings by the creepy angel with a cowl on.”

“They all look creepy in the dark.” Grayson and the new arrival performed a kind of kindergarten finger game by way of saying hello, a mixture of high fives, hooking their fingers together. Sweet. “Thank God you’re here, or I’d have been wandering around the place forever.”

“That’s what I thought. Jasper didn’t find it either. Arthur’s looking for him. Who’s that with you?” Henry’s eyes didn’t seem to see as well in the dark as mine, because he hadn’t recognized me. But now he groaned out loud. “Oh no, why do I have to go dreaming of the cheese girl? Just now I met my cat Plum, who was run over when I was twelve. He rubbed around my legs purring.”

“Oh, how cute,” I said.

“Not cute at all. He looked just the way he was when I last saw him: all-over blood and with his guts coming out.…” Henry shook himself. “Compared with that, you’re a positively welcome sight. All the same, go away, will you? I really don’t know what you’re doing here. Get out!” He waved one hand as if shooing an annoying fly away. “I said
get out
, cheese girl!” When I didn’t move, he seemed to be annoyed. “Why doesn’t she disappear?”

“Could be because I don’t answer to the name of
cheese girl
, idiot,” I told him.

Grayson cleared his throat. “I’m afraid she … er … came here with me, Henry.” Judging by his tone of voice, he seemed to find this somehow embarrassing.

“You know my cheese girl?”

“Looks like it.” Grayson rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand again. “She’s my new little sister. I only found that out this evening.”

“Oh, shit!” Henry looked dismayed. “You mean…?”

Grayson nodded. “I told you all hell was let loose at home. Talk about a super dinner party. Florence did her nut when Dad told us his professor, her two daughters, their nanny, and their dachshund were going to move in with us. In two weeks’ time.”

“Buttercup is not a dachshund,” I said indignantly. “Or at least only about a tenth of her is.”

Neither of them paid me any attention at all. “Hey, I’m really sorry about that.” Henry had put an arm sympathetically around Grayson’s shoulders. They were going back the way Henry had come from, walking side by side down an overgrown gravel path, and I was scurrying along in their wake.

“Then your dad is really serious. No wonder you dream of her.” Henry turned around to me. “Although you really could have done worse. She’s kind of sweet, don’t you think?”

Grayson turned his own head. “And she’s still following us.”

“Yes. Only, she feels it’s a little bit creepy here,” I said. “And what’s more, I’d like to know what you two are up to.”

“You’ll have to send her away,” Henry told Grayson. “Very firmly! It worked for me with Plum just now. He dissolved into crinkly drifts of smoke. Or of course you could turn her into a gravestone or a tree, but telling her to go away ought to be enough for a start.”

“Okay.” Grayson had stopped and was waiting for me to catch up. As he did so, he sighed deeply. “What are we really doing here, Henry? This is all
crazy
.”

“I know.”

Grayson looked around. Then he whispered, “Aren’t you frightened?”

“Yes, I am,” said Henry seriously. “But I’m even more afraid of what will happen if we
don’t
bring it off.”

“This is a nightmare,” said Grayson, and Henry nodded.

“No need to exaggerate, boys,” I said. “You’re going for a nice nocturnal walk in a famous cemetery, and what’s more, I’m with you—other people might enjoy a dream like this.”

Grayson groaned. “You’re still there.”

“Just send her away,” said Henry. “Concentrate on making her disappear.”

“Right.” Grayson looked firmly into my eyes. This was only a dream, so I looked equally firmly into his. I wouldn’t have dared to stare at him so hard earlier at supper, and I’d been concentrating more on his wrist, anyway. But now I had to admit that my future stepbrother was very good looking, in spite of his family likeness to Ernest and Florence. Everything soft and round about Florence was hard and angular in her brother, particularly his chin. Best of all were his eyes, which were caramel colored in the dim light here. Grayson’s glance blurred slightly and wandered slowly from my eyes to my lips.

Aha! Lovely dream. Really lovely dream. I just hoped Lottie didn’t turn up with her hatchet at this point.

Henry cleared his throat. “Grayson?”

“Er … yes.” Was that a touch of pink on Grayson’s cheeks? He shook his head. “Please, Liv, be a good girl and go away.”

“Not unless you tell me what’s written on your wrist,” I said, to cover up for my own embarrassment. “
Sub um
 … and how does it go on?”

“What?”

“
Sub umbra floreo
,” Henry replied, stepping in for Grayson. “You have to be firmer about it, Grayson, and you really have to want her to disappear.”

“But I do!” Grayson assured him. “Only, she’s kind of so…”

“I know what you mean,” said Henry. Then he stopped short. “Is that by any chance your sweater she’s wearing?”

Dismayed, I looked down at myself. Sure enough, I really was wearing Grayson’s hooded sweater. Over my nightie. I’d felt so cold when I went to bed that I’d put it on again. Apart from that and my nightie, all I had on were my fluffy gray polka-dot socks. Typical of my dreams: I was never properly dressed for the occasion.

Grayson groaned. “Yes, it could well be my sweater,” he admitted. “Oh God, how I hate my unconscious mind. Why does it do these things to me?”

“Oh, come on, it could be a whole lot more embarrassing. Think of poor old Jasper and Mrs. Beckett in her bikini.” Henry laughed. “Hurry up. Jasper and Arthur will be waiting for us. That’s if Jasper made it here at all.”

“I hope he didn’t,” muttered Grayson. “Then at least we’d have a reprieve until the next new moon.…”

“
Sub umbra floreo
—what’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. “‘Planted under the flowers?’”

Henry chuckled.

“Look, I only studied Latin for six months,” I said, slightly wounded, “and that was ages ago, so I don’t remember a lot about it.”

“We noticed,” said Henry.

Annoyed, Grayson shook his head. “This is too much. Go away, Liv!” he said firmly. “Get out of here! Clear off!
Er
 … begone!”

Henry looked at me with interest. He was probably expecting me to dissolve into smoke.

“Okay,” I said, when nothing of the sort happened and Grayson’s face assumed an expression of despair. “If you don’t want me hanging around, I will clear off. Have fun.” I turned and marched along the gravel path. Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw that Grayson and Henry watched me for a couple more seconds, and then they went on in the opposite direction. As soon as they did that, I took two steps sideways and got into cover behind a large tree trunk. Did they think they could shake me off as easily as that? Oh no, not now. Just when the dream was getting really interesting.

8

THIS WAS FUN!
While I was stalking Grayson and Henry, I felt like Catwoman. Or James Bond. Or a cross between the two of them. Coolest of all were my improved powers of vision. There wasn’t a streetlight switched on anywhere, and even the moon wasn’t shining in the sky, but I could still see everything. I could avoid overhanging branches and stones lying on the path. The soles of my fluffy socks meant I was walking so quietly that I could get really close to the two of them, keeping an eye open all the time for the nearest hiding place. I was just surprised that I hadn’t woken up yet. Normally the phase of a dream when I knew for certain I was dreaming never lasted long, particularly not when it was as entertaining a dream as this one.

“There you two are!” The beam of Grayson’s flashlight had found two more figures: Arthur and Jasper, I assumed. With a judo roll worthy of the movies, I hid behind a gravestone, just in case they, too, had developed catlike powers of vision. I cautiously raised my head so that I could peer over the top edge of the gravestone. Like I said, I was having fun.

“You’ll never believe it, but Jasper was standing right outside the gate and couldn’t get in.” That was Arthur, if my guess was right.

“It was locked.” The rather fretful voice of Shaving Fun Ken, who, to my delight, was wearing plaid flannel pajamas. At least I wasn’t the only one unsuitably dressed. I’d also seen the other boy, Arthur, in school that morning. He was the one with the blond curls who looked like an angel. Positively uncannily beautiful.

“I was going to climb the wall, but a night watchman with a dog came along, and there was barbed wire.…”

“This is a dream, Jasper!” said Henry impatiently. “You don’t have to come in through the gate. And you don’t have to be afraid of night watchmen, because everything you see while you’re alone is only a figment of your own imagination. How often do I have to explain that to you?” He looked around, and I quickly ducked my head. “I hope your night watchman won’t bother us here. We’ve just had to shake off other … er … distractions.”

I supposed that meant me. What a cheek!

“Don’t worry. We dealt with the man and his dog,” said Arthur.

“Yes, it was cool,” said Jasper. “Arthur made a fireball appear out of nowhere and—”

“We’d better hurry,” Henry interrupted. “We’ve already lost too much time, and for all we know Jasper will wake up again before we have our answer.”

“Not this time,” said Jasper, with some pride in his voice. “I took one of my mother’s migraine tablets. They always knock her out flat for two days.”

“All the same, let’s start,” said Grayson. “The fact is, I’m not sure whether I closed my bedroom door properly, and around three in the morning Spot is always scratching at the carpet like mad, wanting to go out … Did you see that?” He pointed into the mist. “What was it?”

“Only the wind,” said Henry. A gust of wind had indeed set the branches of the trees moving, but for a moment I felt as if I’d seen a scurrying figure in the drifting mist.

“I only thought…” Grayson stared into the darkness.

“There’s enough room here.” Arthur had gone a few steps farther, into the shade of an old cedar tree. The others followed him. Suddenly their mood seemed to be rather apprehensive. I was all agog, biting my lower lip. What was going to happen now? I very much hoped there wouldn’t be any skeletons or half-putrefied zombies in this dream, because that sort of thing always terrified me in movies. On the other hand, we were in a cemetery, so I supposed it was only to be expected. For a moment I wondered whether my dream was straying too far into the realm of cliché, but never mind. Just as long as it went on being exciting. (But if possible without any spiders.)