Dreamquake: Book Two of the Dreamhunter Duet (24 page)

“He has vigorous suspicion,” Chorley said. “He acts on his suspicions. He hides dreamhunters who come to him for help.”

“And how many of those ‘disappearing’ dreamhunters that you and Rose have been talking about have been disappeared by the Church rather than the Regulatory Body?” Grace said. “After all, the Church didn’t tell us where Tziga was.”

“They weren’t sure I’d recover,” Tziga said. “And the Body didn’t tell you what had happened to me either.”

“True,” said Grace. “And the Church did help you. I understand that you feel you owe the Grand Patriarch. And I know you’re a churchgoer—a believer. It
is
different for you, Tziga. But Chorley thinks he’s doing research for the Grand Patriarch. He’s taking it all very seriously. When really it’s just another one of his bloody hobbies!”

There was a moment of silence; then Chorley dropped his teacup into its saucer, got up, and walked out.

“Ma!” Rose said.

Grace’s eyes glazed over with tears. “Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me?”

“Please don’t cry, Ma,” Rose said, distressed.

“You’re going to start trespassing on properties in Founderston looking for clues,” Grace said to Rose, and began to sob. “Your father has got you thinking that it’s all right to break the law if it’s for a good cause.”

Rose went to her mother and hugged her. “Well, I won’t, Ma. I’ll let Da do it.”

“You all act as though you’ve been appointed to save the world,” Grace said, still sobbing.

“I was only trying to mend my mistakes—mistakenly,” Tziga said, sadly.

Laura just sat, wearing a dazzled, radiant expression.

“There, there,” Rose said to her mother.

“What’s so wrong with our lives anyway?” Grace said, querulous. “Why do you all have to be such damn rebels?”

“I’m not,” said Rose.

“It does,” said Laura. “The world does need saving. Or, at least, I
think
it’s the world.”

Everyone looked at her. Then Chorley came back into the room, and everyone looked at him instead. He was carrying one of his notebooks and a pen, so vigorously dipped in ink that the fingers of his right hand were tipped brilliant scarlet. He gave the notebook to Grace and said, “If you will, dear, could you please read aloud the passages I have underlined?”

Grace gave him a look of dread but did as she was told. She spoke softly, stammered once or twice, but read: “Rise up! Rise up! I said to rise! Crush them! Rise up and overturn
everything! Find your feet and get up! Shake them all off! I said, Get up! I said, Rise up now!”

Chorley said, “I found those within only seventy pages of bad messages from the abandoned Founderston-to-Sisters-Beach telegraph line. Sometimes there’s just the odd, plaintive ‘crush’ or ‘rise’ or ‘shake.’ ‘Plaintive’ is the right word. These are complaints, angry complaints.”

“What about the poetry?” Rose said.

“It seems there are two voices,” Chorley said. “One complains, the other seems to be in an ecstasy of anticipation.”

Grace held the notebook out, and her husband took it. “Dear,” he said, “I do feel that I’m blundering around in the dark. I do feel like a dim-witted dilettante. But I don’t think I’m wasting my time.”

Tziga added, hesitantly, “What Laura did to you, Grace, and to the rest of the Rainbow Opera’s patrons, she did because I told her to when I wasn’t in my right mind. I don’t trust my judgment anymore, but I do trust Chorley’s.”

“It may all really matter, Ma,” Rose said. “What we choose to do might make a big difference.”

Chorley kept his eyes on his wife’s face. “I promised the Grand Patriarch my time in exchange for his telling me where Tziga was. I’m honoring a promise.”

“Marta knew too, and she chose not to tell you,” Tziga said. “They thought I might not live. And they thought I knew more about the Body and Doran than I did, that I was in deeper with the Body than I was. And they supposed I knew more about the Place, as though it was a deity and I was its prophet. An evil deity, with an evil prophet,” Tziga added, then put a hand over his face.

Chorley started and hurried to him.

“It’s all right, Da,” Laura said.

Chorley said, “You should be resting, Tziga.” They helped him up and walked him slowly from the room. For a time they could be heard making soothing sounds as they helped him up the stairs.

Rose and Grace looked at each other.

“You do know I’m not siding with Da against you,” Rose said. “Ma, you’re determined we stop snooping only because you’re afraid we’ll get into trouble. You’re just as sure as we are that the Body is up to no good.”

“But why does it have to be our problem?” Grace asked.

“Because we know about it.”

5

UST THREE DAYS LATER GRACE FOUND HERSELF PRESIDING OVER A VERY DIFFERENT HOUSEHOLD.

Chorley came in with an armload of parcels while the girls were having their breakfast. He turned back the cloth at one end of the table and put the parcels down, and Grace laughed as Rose practically climbed over Mamie to grab one and tear it open. Dress patterns and samples of cloth spilled out onto the tabletop, some of the swatches of silk crepe so light that they seemed to skate on cushions of air, speeding across the polished table and onto the floor. Mamie and Rose snatched and tussled. Laura gathered up the dropped swatches and started to hand over the pearls, and pure whites, and oysters, and creams.

“I’ll look awful in all of these,” Mamie said, with no hint of her usual aloof sarcasm.

“Oh no, let’s see, there must be something suitable.” Grace got up to join them.

“I’m going to choose a plain design.” Rose was sorting through the patterns. “Something only I can wear.” She drew herself up to her full five foot ten. “And I am
not
going to show off my bosom.”

“At least you have a choice about that,” said Mamie, and
crossed her arms over her large breasts, as though hoping to push them back into her body.

Rose shuffled patterns. “I’m sure we can find something pretty and becoming for you.”

“But am I becoming?” Mamie raised an eyebrow.

Grace and Rose nodded earnestly.

Mamie looked away. “I’m becoming bored.”

Laura, who had been standing stock-still and staring out the glass doors of the dining room, spun around and said, “Excuse me, Mamie. Could I borrow Rose for a moment?”

“She’s not mine to lend,” Mamie said.

Laura grabbed her cousin’s hand and opened the doors.

“Come into the garden, Maud,” muttered Mamie as the other two went out.

“What is it?” said Rose, then found herself performing a little hop to avoid tripping over some stones—five of them—that had been laid, in a neat row, on the bottom step of the veranda.

Laura let go of Rose to push the stones under the step.

“What?”
Rose demanded.

“I’m sure that’s a sign,” Laura said. She took hold of Rose, led her to the edge of the lawn, and began stooping to peer under bushes.

“What are we looking for?” Rose said, and began to search too—pausing once to dive into a bush and retrieve a croquet ball.

Laura continued to work her way around the house. Then she started down the track to the lagoon. She said, over her shoulder, “He won’t be too near the water.”

A moment later Laura had to double back for Rose, who had stopped following.

Her cousin pulled at her, but Rose stood firm.

“Don’t be scared,” said Laura. “He won’t hurt you.”

“No. No. No,” Rose said, and wriggled to shake off Laura’s grip. But she didn’t make any move to go back up to the house.

Laura let go and faced Rose. “You wanted to know. This is the only way you are ever going to come near to knowing.”

Rose said, “I’ve seen it. I can believe my eyes.”

“You should
meet
him.”

Rose could feel the blood in her head—indignation, fear, and fury. She told her cousin, “People don’t meet monsters. No one offers introductions to monsters.”

“Aren’t you even curious?”

Rose was quiet, thinking about that. Laura waited, looking so anxious for approval that Rose wanted to smack her. Rose began down the path again. Laura gave a little gasp of relief and darted on ahead, searching the trees. Rose felt she was out walking a silly young dog.

Laura’s monster was hiding in the filmy gloom under a tall weeping willow. At first it was hard to see, utterly still, and of a dun shade similar to the tree trunk. But when Laura flung the willow fronds aside, it stirred, and the light scintillated on its sandy skin. Rose saw Laura take one of its hands, her fist closing around a big thumb. She drew the monster out.

Rose backed away as it approached. Laura was between them, her face glowing with love, but the monster was so huge, so competent in its movements, so uncanny, that Rose could not hold her ground.

“This is Rose,” Laura said to her monster, who continued
to look down on the top of Laura’s head, then into her face as she turned back and
glowed
up at it.

“She looks so proud of me you’d think she’d made me too,” Rose said. She heard how steady her voice was and felt a little braver.

Laura laughed. She said to her monster, “Were the rivers and streams a problem on your way back?”

“It hasn’t rained, and they are smaller,” the monster replied.

Rose thought that no one could ever mistake that voice for human. It was too dry. There was no moisture, no
flesh
, involved in it. The sound wasn’t even animal—yet those were words. Rose shivered but continued to stand her ground.

“Let your cousin go back to the house,” the monster said. “You must have things you need to tell me, Laura.”

Laura looked disappointed, as if she’d hoped they would all sit down together and have a conversation. She looked at Rose, then back up at her monster. “But the things I have to tell you are about discoveries
Rose
has made. We think that the Regulatory Body has built a rail line into the Place. We thought that you and I should go look at it, and see where it goes.”

The monster did not move its eyes. It didn’t glance up at Rose for confirmation, as any person would have. It hadn’t looked at her at all, she was sure. The only indication she had that it knew she was there was that it had spoken to Laura about her. It wasn’t as though the monster was being rude; Rose didn’t feel snubbed, as she would have if a person had treated her this way. She just felt that she wasn’t the monster’s business—that she was
so
not its business that her existence was minimal to it. “Laura,” she said, “you talk. You make plans.”

“Am I to set out somewhere?” the monster said, to Laura.
“Tonight will be safer than today. Where shall we meet?”

Laura clutched the monster’s arm and pulled. It didn’t lean into her. It was immovable. Her feet slid on the gritty ground till she was pressed against its side. “Don’t go right away,” she said. “You just came.”

“I said tonight, not today.”

“You must be tired.”

“Now you are being silly, Laura.”

Laura laughed again. She sounded very happy.

Rose said to her cousin, “I will leave you to give your—sandman—directions.” Then, “He does follow orders, doesn’t he?”