P.N.E. (The Wolfblood Prophecies Book 4) (26 page)

‘Why don’t you tell Alithea about your dream?’ suggested Matthew gently. ‘It is very possible she can hear your voice. If she can, hearing you talk might comfort her.’

‘Could it bring her back?’ asked Jo, her voice shaky as, suddenly and unexpected, tears threatened.

Mary spoke gravely. ‘If you assume no, you won’t be disappointed, Jo.’

‘’How about if we give you some privacy to be with your mother,’ suggested Matthew. ‘I could do with stretching my legs, and the cafeteria does a delicious range of Danish pastries…’

‘My favourite,’ said Jo. ‘And I’ve had no breakfast…’

‘We’ll bring one back for you,’ promised Matthew.

After they’d gone, Jo sat down on the bed and took Ali’s limp hand. ‘In my dreams I travelled back in time and saw you when you were a girl,’ she began.

Jo described the visit to Stigmurus Enterprises, trying to paint a vivid picture of the amazing events of 1957. She looked for humour where she could. ‘Aunt Lethe was an absolute nightmare,’ she laughed. ‘Ungracious, bad-tempered and spiteful. You just ignored her and kept right on reading your book – until she nicked it. The book was
The Whale
-
Moby Dick
… she threw it away, and I picked it up…’ Jo hesitated, debating whether to explain how and why she had failed to return the book.

Just for a fraction of a second Jo thought she felt Ali’s hand move in hers. She gasped, and stopped talking, staring intently, but her mother seemed as still as ever.

With a sigh, Jo picked up her story, wondering if this was really such a good idea. After all, the ending was tragic.

Jo chattered on about Silver Lightning and his anger at the effect of the nuclear industry on his tribe. She glowed with pride as she described her grandparents’ rigorous challenges to Titus’s smooth-talking snake-oil salesman.

‘Matthew was there as well; oh, and Sebastian, in a way…’ She explained about the test-tube. ‘I think Aunt Lethe believes she’s the reason Sebastian looks so strange. I think she feels she has to make it up to him. Anyway, Matthew was just about to help me to get out of the dream, when there was a terrible explosion. Your father – my grandfather – tried to save you.’

This time Jo was sure Ali’s hand moved slightly.

He died. That’s why Lethe hates me.

Mum?
Jo was electrified. At last! She had missed her mother so much. She hardly dared hope.
Mum?

There was no further response from Ali, however, so Jo started to tell her about her dream of Bayne. She glossed over her time in Madame Mirabel’s brothel but that made her description of the Barabbas Ball rather sketchy.

‘Anyway, you and I were facing the firing squad, when Matthew came and saved the day.’ Jo omitted to mention that Matthew’s rescue only involved her. It seemed awful to say,
And you died
.

Was that the ghost of a smile on Ali’s face? Or just a trick of the light? Or was Jo just so desperate for her mother to come out of the coma that she imagined signs of life where there were none?
She emped me,
thought Jo fiercely.
Hold on to that.

‘After Bayne, Matthew and I ended up back at the
Lost Funfair of Forgotten Dreams.
This was in the Sixties, when you were all at college, and hey! I saw you when you were hippies! Well, Aunt Lethe wasn’t a hippie – but you and Dad, and Quinn were – all long-haired and psychedelic. You were wearing that cheesecloth dress. Mum, it’s time to let it go!’

‘Your mum knows I love that dress.’ Jo had not noticed Paul come in. Her mind raced. She felt she needed to tread carefully. She had said this was all a dream, but in her heart of hearts she knew what she had seen was true. Knowing the exact nature of how Lethe had betrayed Paul, Ali and Quinn made Jo feel very uncomfortable. She felt reluctant to go into such intimate and private matters, so she contented herself with saying, ‘Aunt Lethe was up to her usual tricks – trying to cause trouble between you two. She was also really catty about your clothes, Mum, and your patchouli oil.’

‘The dress still has a faint smell of patchouli,’ said Paul. ‘One sniff and it’s like time travel. One of the reasons I love it. So what did you think of your old dad when he was a cool young dude?’

Jo laughed. This felt easier. ‘The moustache was amazing, Dad!’

‘Ah yes – inspired by Emiliano Zapata. He was a key figure in the Mexican revolution … so what was I wearing?’

‘Oh, you had a blue tie-dye T-shirt with a rainbow explosion, and purple sunglasses…’

‘I loved those sunglasses,’ smiled Paul. ‘I used to say I looked at the world through a purple haze. I was three years ahead of my time!’ He paused. ‘You look puzzled, Jo. It’s just that three years later Jimi Hendrix brought out a rather wonderful record called
Purple Haze
.’

‘I know that, Dad,’ said Jo, still looking mystified. ‘It’s just that I got it the wrong way round. It was the T-shirt that was purple, and the glasses were blue.’

‘You’re absolutely right! I used to say they were my Blue Dazer Gazers… after the Miles Davis album,
Blue Daze
. Oh man, I thought I was so cool!’

Jo was completely stumped. What was going on? It was as if whatever she said to Paul about the past became real to him. She tried another tack. ‘And you had a great bass guitar…’

‘I loved that bass! It was an Airline Pocket. Ice-Tea sunburst. Wish I still had it. It would be worth a fortune.’

‘… or was it a twelve-string acoustic?’

‘Yes! Of course! Mind you, I would have sold my mother to get my hands on an electric Rickenbacker twelve-string… but that acoustic guitar was great for some of the early Dylan stuff I used to like…’

Jo threw down a reckless wild card. ‘Come to think of it, it wasn’t a guitar at all. You had a saxophone.’

Paul didn’t miss a beat. ‘You bet. I wanted to be John Coltrane. I played my
Impressions
LP so much it was practically smooth!’

How deep does this go?
Jo wondered. Aloud she said, ‘How old were you when you started to learn the saxophone, Dad?’

‘I must have been about thirteen. My uncle died, and I inherited his Selmer sax. It came in a tan coloured case with a red velvet lining. I thought I’d pick it up easily, but I found it really difficult to learn, and I was not keen on practising. But little by little I began to improve. As soon as I heard Coltrane I just wanted to get as good as I could. He blew me away!’

Jo wondered what on earth was happening. It seemed that whatever conversational ball she lobbed, her father picked it up and ran with it. Dozens of questions crowded into her mind. Would this work with anyone else? Was it permanent? Did she just plant a seed, and the person’s imagination made the plant grow? Was there anyone else who could plant false memories? If enough memories were altered would history be changed?

Jo had an idea. ‘Hey, Dad! You had these really cool sunglasses – but I can’t remember what colour they were.’

Paul’s answer was immediate. ‘They were blue.’

‘And you were carrying a musical instrument…’

His face lit up. ‘My old acoustic twelve-string! I really loved that guitar. The tone was wonderful.’

He was lost in thought for a moment. Jo made a mental note that if she didn’t intervene, the truth seemed to return. If this newfound ability was a special talent with a short shelf-life, what on earth was it for?

Paul interrupted her train of thought. ‘Hey, Jo, that was one heck of a dream you had! Usually dreams are all mixed up, but it’s all so real, as if you were back there with us.’

‘It’s all right, Dad,’ she teased. ‘Your secrets are safe with me.’

Paul went pale for a moment, then laughed. ‘Just as well it was only a dream…’

‘It was vivid,’ said Jo, wondering how much to reveal. ‘At first it seemed like you were all really close friends, but…’

Paul sighed. ‘I wish it had stayed that way, Jo. I really do. But it all went wrong. Mistakes were made. People got hurt. It makes me sad to remember.’

Drop it, love.

Her mother’s message was crystal clear. Yet still she lay there, immobile and expressionless.

Mum?!

No response.
Jo sent back the only message that seemed worth sending.

I love you, Mum.

Jo could have sworn Ali gently squeezed her hand for a moment, but it was impossible to be sure. A half-remembered news item about a stroke victim came to her.

Hey, Mum – once for Yes, twice for No… Does Dad know you know about Aunt Lethe pretending to be you?

Was that one squeeze? It was so hard to tell. As she had tried so often in the past, Jo tried to deep-read Ali, but all she sensed was extreme tiredness. Jo herself was suddenly so weary she could hardly tell where her exhaustion ended and her mother’s began. It seemed as if she really had lived through the events in her dream-travelling.

‘I need a coffee,’ she announced. ‘I’ll go and see where Matthew and Mary have got to with my Danish pastry. See you both later.’

Jo found her old friends in the cafeteria, engrossed in an absorbing discussion about the role of philosophy in the modern world. She sat down quietly as they bounced ideas back and forth, until Mary broke off, admonishing Matthew. ‘This poor child! She must be famished! You promised her a Danish pastry then forgot all about her!’

Jo saw a chance to test her new power. ‘Actually, it was you who promised, Mary!’

Mary fixed her with a gimlet eye. ‘Actually,’ she parodied, ‘it assuredly was not.’

Interesting,
thought Jo.
It doesn’t work on Mary.

What doesn’t work on Mary, young lady?

Jo smiled slightly as she replied. ‘Something’s happened to me. I’ve developed this new ability.’

Mary and Matthew listened attentively as Jo explained. When she was finished Mary spoke sternly to her. ‘Now Jo, you can’t just go planting false memories in people’s heads for a pastime! Trying to catch me out with a Danish pastry, for heaven’s sake!’

Jo had the grace to blush. Matthew was following a trail of his own. ‘Confabulation!’ he announced, pausing only a second before, inevitably, offering a definition. ‘The production of fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world.’

‘Do you mean lies?’ asked Jo.

‘Ah no. With confabulation there is no conscious intention to deceive.’

‘A Russian
neuropsychiatrist
called
Sergei Korsakoff
discovered the syndrome during the late 19th century,’ added Mary. ‘And before Matthew was ill we met two chaps from California who were working on the same thing… what were their names, Midge?’

‘Don Norman and Tim Shallice,’ came the prompt reply.

Jo felt rather deflated. ‘So anyone can do it?’ she asked.

‘Advertisers try to plant ideas in our heads all the time,’ said Matthew wryly. ‘And politicians. And priests. And parents.’

‘Not to mention professors,’ said Mary fondly as she smiled at her husband.

‘That’s not the same,’ objected Jo.’ I told Dad he’d been carrying a saxophone and he gave me a whole detailed story about inheriting one from his uncle. But how could he remember something that didn’t happen?’

‘Perhaps he did have an uncle with a saxophone, and he fantasied about inheriting it,’ suggested Matthew. ‘Then in the end the fantasy took on a life of its own!’

‘How come it worked on Dad but not on you? Jo asked Mary.

‘How come I never get influenza and Matthew does every year, regular as clockwork?’ countered Mary. ‘Some people are more susceptible than others. This new power of yours probably won’t work on Matthew either.’

‘When we were dream-travelling in 1964, Matthew told me he’d just got over the flu,’ improvised Jo. ‘I remember he said he was taken to hospital.’

Mary caught on at once. Both of them waited expectantly for his reply.

‘I felt like death warmed up,’ said Matthew. ‘Worst bout of influenza I have ever had. My temperature was a hundred and four. The matron on Coleridge ward said it’s a miracle I survived.’