Veiled Dreams (5 page)

She awoke with a start. The door had banged. She could tell there was someone else in the room. The light snapped on.

‘What on earth are you doing lying on my bed in my prayer
dress? Who are you anyway?’

Christina sat straight up in bed and rubbed her eyes. She looked at the speaker of the voice. It was like looking in a mirror. It was the girl from Pandora’s Potions and she was wearing the same green trousers and tunic, and the same green veils.

‘Well?’ said the mirror girl, lowering her veil. Christina now stared at her own face.

‘You must be Imigriana,’ she whispered.

The bus stopped on the corner of Apollolaan. Paul got off with a couple of the other students and walked the small distance to the Jan van Eijckstraat, not really noticing the others. He was grappling with a piece of maths course work. The IGCSEs were only a short while away now and he really wanted to do well.

He took out his key and let himself into the flat. There was a pile of mail in the letterbox. He sorted it quickly, one for himself – local post mark, several for Mum and Dad, but mainly junk mail by the looks of it, or perhaps bills, and a couple for Christina – one of them with the same writing as on his letter.

Christina! He’d been supposed to wait for her. Drat! Still, it was her own fault for having a detention in the first place. The bus driver would not have been too pleased if he’d held the bus up. Ah well, she would probably give him an earache when she came in.

Paul went into his bedroom and changed his T-shirt. It really was a bit stuffy today, he thought, but at least the high-ceilinged room was cool and fresh. It was always quite shady in the apartment. The sun never found its way into the little street. Not that there ever was that much sun in Holland, and when it did come, it was usually accompanied by sticky, moist weather. It was good then to sit out in the little patio garden.

Paul liked that area a lot, even though it wasn’t exactly private. The neighbours could see into the garden by just looking over the fence, not to mention those people in the apartments on the upper floor of the buildings opposite. But he didn’t mind that as he enjoyed watching the others too. Today it was quiet, though. There weren’t that many people with families living round here. Those with very young children were out and about,
taking advantage of the unusually warm weather. Nearly everyone else was at work. Paul poured himself a glass of orange juice, and unlocked the kitchen door, the letter still in his hand, and went outside. He settled himself down on the weatherbeaten old bench to read the letter.

He hadn’t recognised the writing, so he looked straight to the end to see who had written it,
Jan de Vries
. Aha! Christina and the men in her life! Well it would be interesting to see the sparks fly when she read her letter.

Mm. Pure gold. It was odd to think of anyone seeing Christina like that. Yes, she was very clever and she could make you laugh. But she was just so weird sometimes and she was ever so bossy. Not many of his friends liked her, but Paul was rather fond of her. They had always stuck up for each other when they were little.

Golden girl!
And
being looked after!
She was always so independent. On the other hand, not always sensible, so perhaps she did need to have someone keep an eye on her.

Well he was pretty sure she wouldn’t speak to Jan.
Wasting your time, Jan, mate
, he thought.

He did not know Jan very well. Christina had always whipped him out of the way pretty quickly. Mum and Dad had made one or two scathing remarks about him from time to time. It was odd that Paul had never thought of him doing anything ordinary like going to university. He was just a biker, who arrived on his motorbike and took his sister away on his motorbike, and then brought her back again on his motorbike. It had never occurred to them that Jan would have a daytime occupation.

He’d always been friendly, though. He waved cheerfully to Paul whenever he saw him. One day the bike had been playing up, and he stopped outside the flat to tinker with it after he had dropped Christina off. Paul had watched. Jan explained what he was doing and Paul ended up helping him, holding parts in place and passing bits and pieces to him. By the time the bike was working again, he’d learnt a lot. And he was covered in oil.

‘Oh, he’s got you roped into helping with that filthy machine has he? Well, don’t you go getting any ideas!’ was all Mum could say.

Oh give him a chance
, Paul had thought. ‘No,’ he’d said. ‘Don’t worry. Not my scene. But Jan’s all right.’

‘That’s a matter of opinion.’

And that was all the real contact he’d had with Jan up until
now.

Paul finished his drink and folded the letter thoughtfully. He leant back on the wooden seat and stared up at the sky. There was a big dark cloud overhead. It looked as if there was going to be a storm. Five more minutes, and he would go in and make a start on his homework.

The first drops of rain fell. Paul made his way back indoors. He went to pour himself another drink, and then realised there was not much fruit juice left.

Better leave some for Christina
, he thought.
She’s late, though
. Then he remembered again. He should have made that school bus wait for her. She would be furious, would be more than furious. Jan would be out of luck now.

What a shame. Paul suspected that Jan was, if you gave him a chance, quite a decent sort of a bloke. And now he’d helped to blow his chances. Well there was nothing he could do now.

Paul made his way up to his room and was soon absorbed in his maths project. His desk was covered in papers. File after file was loaded on to his computer. He tinkered away at graphs and calculations.

‘Hi, how’s it going?’ his mum said suddenly.

Paul jumped. He hadn’t heard her come in nor come up the stairs. He hadn’t realised how late it was getting. Christina was still not home. He looked out of the window. Now the sky was black and it was raining really heavily.

‘Oh, quite well really. I’ve just got to print out these graphs and write an evaluation and it should be done.’

‘Do you know where Christina is?’

‘Er, no.’ Paul sensed that he should not own up about forgetting to make the bus wait. Mum would fuss.

‘Oh, well, probably enjoying her first day of freedom. I expect she’ll be back for dinner. Or let us know. She’ll probably be ringing any minute now and demanding a lift. I’ll just go and get changed.’

Paul sighed. What was it about parents? Usually she would go ballistic if one of them hadn’t left word of where they were – and the other one, the one who was there, would cop it for not knowing about the one who was missing. And they did always let their parents know what they were doing and if they changed arrangements. Christina had even done that when she was out with Jan. Jan made her! Mum was no doubt absolutely right and Christina was enjoying not being grounded anymore, and some time about now, knowing that Mum would be back from work, the phone would ring and Christina would be explaining her plans. Why couldn’t Mum always be so laid back?

On cue, the phone rang.

‘Can you answer it Paul?’ Mum shouted. ‘I’m half undressed.’

Paul sprinted down to the hallway.

‘Paul Grant,’ he said into the handset.

‘Is that the home of Christina Grant?’ The voice sounded rather official.

‘Yes,’ replied Paul. What had she done now? It sounded as if she was in some new sort of trouble.

‘Is there a parent or a guardian available?’

Mrs Grant was now standing behind Paul.

‘Who is it?’ she mouthed.

Paul handed her the phone.

‘Something to do with Christina.’

Paul watched the colour drain from his mother’s face as she listened to the speaker on the other end of the phone.

She mumbled several times, ‘Yes, I see. I understand.’ She twisted the cord nervously in her fingers, and flopped down on the chair next to the small telephone table. When she eventually put down the phone, she looked defeated.

‘There’s been an accident. Christina‘s in hospital.’ She didn’t move.

‘Shouldn’t we go there?’ asked Paul.

‘Yes, yes, of course. And we’d better let your dad know.’

‘He’ll probably be on his way home now. Call him on his mobile.’

‘Yes, yes. Now, where are my car keys?’

‘Should we get a taxi? It’ll be quicker, and we won’t have to worry about parking?’

Mrs Grant agreed, despite her panic. Paul phoned for the taxi. Within minutes, the doorbell rang. At the same time, the phone rang again. Mrs Grant wanted to ignore it, but Paul pointed out it might be the hospital again. He was nearest, so he answered, motioning to his mother that she should open the door for the taxi driver.

‘Hello, Paul,’ said the voice on the other end. ‘Jan de Vries here. Has Christina looked at my letter yet?’

Ah! Paul covered the mouthpiece. He shook his head.

‘It’s for me,’ he said. ‘You go on. I’ll be out in minute.’

‘Christina’s had an accident,’ he said. ‘We’re on the way to the hospital.’

‘I’ll be there.’ The receiver slammed down. Paul replaced his more carefully and hesitated a few seconds before he went to join his mother. Sparks were going to fly. Lots and lots of sparks. He dreaded that as much as finding out that something really terrible had happened to Christina.

He went out to the taxi.

‘And who are you?’

Christina climbed out of the bed and stood up.

Imigriana’s eyes opened wider. ‘Aagh!’

‘Yes.’ Christina went up to Imigriana. ‘We could be twins, couldn’t we?’

‘No doubt! But how…and why?’

‘Ah, well that’s a long story. Do you really want to hear it?’

‘I think I have to, don’t you?’

‘Well, yes. So…’

Christina told as best she could how she had somehow been snatched out of her own world and had found herself in Ixeria. She also told her about her encounter with Mona, But not about Mona’s strange way of communicating, nor about the prediction about the twins. Neither did she say about what had happened in Pandora’s Potions. That would come later if she found she could trust Imigriana. She finished by describing how she had been caught with the Queen’s Chalice.

‘You’ve got it? That’s what caused all the trouble in the first place.’

‘Trouble?’

‘Yes. Lydia told Her Majesty that I had it. She came rushing here, demanding things. I hadn’t taken it. And lovely Lydia just stood there smirking. She’s always been jealous of me. She was my mother’s maid since before I was born, and Her Majesty used to treat her like a daughter. Of course, I’ve pushed her out. I expect she was glad when I disappeared. I thought she’d taken it and hidden it.’

‘But where did you go?’

‘I went to check out my cousin, Leonis. He was always such
good fun when we were little. And since I shall be marrying him in five years’ time…’

‘Marrying him?’

‘Oh yes! My parents have chosen him for me. They say it’s best to keep royalty in the family…’

‘Your parents have chosen him for you?’

‘Of course. Who else should find my husband?’

‘Well, don’t you find him yourself?’

‘Good Heavens, no. I know nothing about men! Goodness, I would make a mess of that.’ She paused. ‘You mean you choose your own man?’

‘Well yes…or even several.’

Imigriana’s eyes opened wide as Christina told her all about Greg and Jan.

‘And your parents don’t like them…and these relationships won’t lead to marriage?’

‘No, of course not! Well, they didn’t mind Greg. But Jan. You see, he rides a motorbike. And he has long hair. He wears leather trousers all the time and he’s older than me. And in my world, no one my age would ever think about marriage.’
Not even me to Jan!
she thought.

Imigriana giggled. ‘Leonis has long hair, wears leather trousers, is older than me, rides the electric dragon, and my parents wouldn’t let me look at another man!’

‘The electric dragon?’

‘Oh, a type of machine. You sit on it as if it were a horse. It goes very fast – driven by an engine and it spits fire out – the fuel it is burning, I think. Not many people can ride them. But you could get from here to High Town in about two hours on one.’ Imigriana demonstrated how she would ride a dragon.

It looked so familiar to Christina. ‘It sounds just like a motorbike. Have you ever ridden one of these dragons?’

‘Well, how do you think I got back here so quickly? I sat behind Leonis on his dragon.’ Imigriana was grinning now.

‘Did his parents mind you being there?’

‘No they were honoured. But I did persuade them that Their Majesties had sent me there. We did manage to undo the distant speaker so that they could not contact us.’

‘The distant speaker?’ It was getting more and more bizarre here.

‘Oh. I don’t know how it works, but you speak into a little shell, and people can hear you miles away.’

‘It sounds a bit like our telephone. So why did they send a messenger here to report that they had found me…er…you?’ It certainly was strange here, Christina couldn’t help thinking, yet really they had pretty much everything she had back at home, but it was all just a little bit different.

‘Well, probably because of what Leonis did. He broke the distant speaker in such a way that none of them will work for several days.’

‘And if you have such thing as electric dragons, why did I have to come all the way here by carriage?’

‘Oh, it wouldn’t do to have royalty travel by the new-fangled machines. Much too dangerous!’

‘But you and Leonis…’

‘Ah! Only you, I, and he, know that…’

Christina had the feeling that the two of them could be good friends as they began to tell each other about their worlds. Not only did they look alike, but they had so many similar ideas.

‘It’s so strange here,’ said Christina. ‘You have some of the things that we have and we have some things that you don’t.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you have electricity but not cars.’

‘Cars? What are they?’

‘They’re like electric carriages. How come you have electric dragons but no electric carriages?’

Imigriana tossed her head to one side. ‘Why would we need those? Our scientists are developing a system where we can
travel from one place to another instantly. That should be ready soon.’

‘Oh, like on Star Trek?’

‘Star Trek?’

‘A television programme.’

‘What’s television?’

Christina had to think for a moment. How could she explain that? ‘Hmm. A sort of distance seer. Like your distance speaker but with pictures.’

Imigriana jumped up and down. ‘Oh that would be so good. I wish I could come to your world.’

‘Do you have computers or the Internet?’ asked Christina.

‘What?’

Christina tried to explain about email and surfing the net. Imigriana’s face remained blank. Then suddenly it brightened.

‘We do have the distance writer and we can hire a magician to bring his tubes that show us what is happening miles away as if it is the room in front of us. You see, our worlds are very similar. Tell me, what is your favourite way of spending your time?’

That was easy. ‘I like to go shopping.’

‘Shopping?’ Imigriana frowned.

‘You know. Go to the mall and look round the big shops. Buy things.’

‘Buy things. Yes,’ cried Imigriana. ‘But the merchants come to us with their wares. Yes you are right. It’s good buying new things.’

‘I did see some little shops in the city,’ said Christina.

Imigriana shuddered. ‘You mean those dirty little workshops where the merchants make their goods. I wouldn’t ever want to go to one of those.’

That was disappointing. There would be no going to the mall, then. ‘What’s the worst thing about living here?’ asked Christina.

‘Lessons.’

‘You mean school?’

‘What’s school?’

‘A big building where you go with lots of other people your own age to have lessons?’

Imigriana pulled a face. ‘How vulgar. No, a tutor comes to the palace to give me lessons. Only rich people learn.’

‘That seems funny. You’d think poorer people would need to learn so that they could get a job.’

Imigriana frowned. ‘But they have jobs. They learn them from their parents. We future queens and other noble women have to learn how to rule the world. It’s natural.’

Christina didn’t get that at all. Perhaps she ought to move on to something else. ’So, what’s your favourite pastime?’

Imigriana’s eyes lit up. ‘Kissing Leonis, of course.’

‘So tell me then,’ said Christina. ‘Will he do then, Leonis?’

‘Oh yes, oh yes! He’s just as much fun as when we were younger. But he is tall and good-looking. And very strong! He knows a lot about business affairs.’

Imigriana looked towards the window.

‘My goodness, look! The sun is coming up! It will soon be breakfast time. I shall have to think what to tell Their Majesties.’

‘Oh, and what about me?’ asked Christina, suddenly panicking.

Imigriana bit her lip and frowned. Then her face brightened.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘My memory has come back. You are someone I met when I didn’t know who I was. You recognised me when I was at the Magis Counsel. And you came here to see if I had got back safely. When I realised how much you looked like me, I decided to hire you to be my companion. Would you like to be my companion?’

It sounded reasonable. In fact, it could be quite fun if she really did have to stay in this place.

‘Yes, we’ll do that then. Oh, but what about Leonis’s parents? Won’t they spill the beans?’

‘What? Why should they spill any beans? They don’t
normally deal with the cooking. What do you mean?’

‘You know! Tell your parents where you really were?’

Imigriana was still looking puzzled.

‘Spill the beans. It’s just an expression we have. It means to sort of let the truth out…accidentally.’

‘I see,’ said Imigriana. ‘I think not! Leonis is away on business for seven weeks and his parents are holidaying by the Izaran Sea. And the whole point of a holiday there is that no one contacts you. They will stay a month, and by that time, Their Majesties will be used to you.’

A great gong sounded.

‘Oh no!’ Imigriana stamped her foot. ‘It’s a wretched prayer day.’ She turned to look at Christina who was frowning.

‘Oh well, at least you are dressed for the part! I’ll have to find my other prayer dress.’