Green Monkey Dreams (30 page)

‘My daughter is lost,' a man is saying to him. ‘My wife sent her to her grandmother's and she never arrived. She
was lost in the forest because she left the path.'

The man's mouth is such a moist red colour, it looks as
if he is bleeding.

‘I was lost when I was a boy,' Random says, plucking at his beard. ‘I wanted to find the green monkeys but they
hid themselves from me. I had no fear.'

‘Listen,' the grandmother whispers, pressing Jilia's arm.

Outside there is a whirring sound as if the air is full of
birds.

‘It is them,' the man with the lost daughter whispers, and Old Man Random puts his arm around a child in a stained nightshirt who has wandered over to warm its hands at the fire.

‘
Why
do they come?' Jilia asks, wishing she was that
child being cuddled in Random's arms. She remembers
when he used to hold her like that.

‘Does not the dream need the dreamer?' the old woman
asks sharply.

‘I do not believe they are dreams,' the red-mouthed man says. ‘I think they feed on dreams and must sow them
in us to harvest them.'

‘Let them in,' the child whispers, looking up into Jilia's eyes. She sees that it is fearless, and remembers, too, when
she was not afraid. The fearlessness of innocence.

There is a tapping and Jilia looks over to the window. She can only see her face reflected as a pale firelit blur against the night, as insubstantial as if she and the room are the night's dream, or the window's. the night's dream, or the window's.

Jilia closes her eyes for a moment . . .

She hears a tapping and opens her eyes. She has dreamed the green monkey dreams again, but the memories are already leaking out of her, for they are too slippery for her
waking mind to hold.

She looks across at the portion of window showing under the sly half-closed eyelid of the blind. Her bedroom, lit by the illuminated alarm clock, presses itself against the glass separating it from the dark night. Her Greenpeace poster of the Rainbow Warrior looms as a swirl of darkness against the lighter wall, and the handsome Balinese puppet has become a kind of bird. On the dressing table is a picture of Random, smiling forever.

She thinks how odd it is that she now dreams
his
green monkey dream, as if he left it to her as his most precious possession. In the dreams he is so real, she cannot believe he is dead. Sometimes she wishes she will not wake, but will go on dreaming so he will go on living, but the strange sequence of dreams is always the same.

She gets out of bed and walks softly to the window.

As she approaches the glass, a wizened face with grape eyes peers at her. There is a creamy smudge of movement behind it that might be a reflection of her nightgown, or of the creature's wings in constant motion.

She lifts her hand to the window, and at the same time, a small paw touches the glass tentatively on the other side. Their fingers are separated only by a thin invisible barrier.

With her spare hand, she reaches up for the tarnished key that keeps the window closed fast, and in one smooth gesture, turns it.

A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

M
y thanks to those editors whose requests prompted me to pen a number of the stories in this collection. The rest were written for this book, and I would like to thank the Australia Council Literature Unit for the grant and grace which gave me time and space to write them. Thanks also to my publisher, who agreed that it would be good to have all of my stories under my name; and especially and always to Erica Wagner, who edited and nurtured the
voice of these stories – my truest voice.

In particular, as well as friends and family, I would like to thank Rachelle Moore, of Indian Valley High School in Ohio, who told me about the green monkey dreams, and Kerry Greenwood for rummaging through her vast store of arcane knowledge to source and find the exact word
ing of the Chuangtse quote for me.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

I
sobelle Carmody is one of Australia's most loved fantasy
writers.

She is best known for her brilliant
Obernewtyn Chronicles
and for her novel
The Gathering
(joint winner of the 1993 Children's Literature Peace Prize and the 1994 CBC Book of the Year Award). She has written many short stories for both children and adults and was co-editor with Nan McNab of the Tales from the Tower fairytale anthologies
The Wilful Eye
and
The Wicked Wood
.

With her partner and daughter, Isobelle divides her time between Prague in the Czech Republic and her home on the Great Ocean Road in Australia.

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