by David Ashby
“That… that horrible thing,” was all Anna could say.
“Yep. Pretty dizzy gusting, weren’t it? That’s our William Wynn’s other face.”
“No,” said Anna, shaking her head at Gribblebob. “Not that—not him—that other thing, the screaming thing.”
“Ah,” said the goblin, “that horrible thing.”
“It was a rip-rider,” William said quietly, still cradling the limp body of Ms Toureau in his arms. “It had taken her, was inside her. Making her do what Mara wanted. I should have guessed. Stupid of me. When I attacked her, when, when my… magic, if you can call it that, my… well, me, when I reached inside her, it panicked and fled, left her. Left her like… like this.” Anna could see that some blood was pooling by William’s knees where he was holding her.
“Got it!” They turned as Nils came rushing out of the office, a small, slim, slippery book falling from one hand to the other so that it looked like he was juggling with it. “I went in and this book seemed to flip towards me.” He reached William and handed him the book, but William didn’t take it.
“Hold it over her heart and open it,” he instructed Nils.
“But—”
William just looked up at Nils, and Nils did as he was told. He moved closer to the librarian, and held the book out over her chest, near where he thought her heart was.
“More to the middle,” said Anna, remembering her biology lessons.
“I know,” muttered Nils, and opened the book randomly, holding it open over the centre of her chest. As he did so, there was a rattling sound, like windchimes on a rainy day, and a sudden rush of breath from… somewhere, and then a wavering cascade of molten light seemed to pour from the pages of the book down into Ms Toureau. Her body shook, she took a huge gulp of air, and the blood pooling by William seemed to shrink back and vanish into the librarian. The ragged holes where tooth and claw had done their damage knitted together and after a second or three, her eyes fluttered open.
“Ow,” she said quietly.
“Don’t see that every day,” said the goblin. “Leastways, not in Uppington Down. And on a Wednesday too.”
CHAPTER 31
William continued cradling the wounded librarian, who was now leaning up against his shoulder. Her cuts had healed to thin, pale scratches, but she seemed to be very weak.
“I’m sorry,” said William softly. “I had no choice. There was nothing else to be done.”
Ms Toureau looked up into his eyes. “Did you know?… Did you know it was in me?”
“I…” William could not finish his sentence, and as his voice trailed off Bengt moved towards them. He had picked up Ms Toureau’s cardigan, which had been blown from the back of her chair, and now he laid it gently over her chest to help keep her warm. He’d seen on TV news stories that people in shock were often given blankets.
“There,” he said, and as he spoke, his eyes locked with William’s, and he felt it again: a connection, a sensation that he somehow knew this strange man. William nodded and turned back to Ms Toureau, who continued talking.
“It was making me say things, do things. Not forcing me, but more like guiding me, suggesting what to say, making me feel I needed to do what it wanted. It felt right. I couldn’t stop it. Any of it.”
William nodded. “That’s what they do. Once they’re in you, they make you feel that what you are doing is the right thing to do.”
“But all the time I was doing what it suggested, there was a part of me that was somewhere else, in a nightmare somewhere, falling, flying, screaming, taking me far from home… There were faces at windows, calling to me, faces that… Oh, I don’t even want to remember.” She became very still and quiet.
Bengt felt funny inside while she was talking about a part of her being somewhere else, about falling and flying. He knew those feelings.
“I need to ask you…” said William. “Someone came and spoke to you about The Book of All Tomorrow’s Dreams, didn’t they?”
The librarian shifted her position and grimaced at a shot of pain. “Yesterday. I was working late in the library; my books had been restless, so I knew something was going on. I was half expecting something, but not what actually happened.” She sighed deeply and closed her eyes.
“Please,” said William. “What happened?”
She opened her eyes again and looked directly into his. “So you really didn’t know I had that thing in me? You weren’t just trying to get it out of me?”
“Please,” William repeated, avoiding her question and what it meant—that he wasn’t trying to rescue her, but to stop her. Any way he could.
She paused and looked away from him. “Hobley Brown came. I glanced up from my desk and there he was, silent and smiling. With a package under his arm.”
“Hobley Brown? That old retro crate,” said Gribblebob. “I thought his toes had curled many a moon ago.”
“Go on,” urged William.
“I asked him what he was doing this side of the veil. I told him I wanted nothing to do with whatever sour-faced plan he was hatching.”
“Hoo-hoo, bet he liked that,” sniggered the goblin. Ms Toureau ignored him and continued.
“He told me he’d come into rather a treasure, and he needed my help. He took the package from under his arm, tore open the wax paper wrapping and I saw what he had. He told me he couldn’t open the book, that the binding spell was too strong, that he needed a book-keeper’s help. I told him I would never help him, and then, the next thing I know, a rip-rider appeared from behind him and… and… and then it was inside me and I had no choice, there was nothing I could do.
“I helped him to open the book. I wanted to help him open it. It felt so good when I managed to find the right pattern, the easy sequence, the golden turn, and the heavy front cover opened for the first time in hundreds of years. Oh, I’m so sorry!” She started to cry.
“Bit late for all that malarkey now,” said Gribblebob.
“Hush,” William whispered, to both Ms Toureau and the goblin. “Hush, now.”
“But where’s the book now, then?” asked Anna, who’d been listening intently.
“Hobley Brown said he had to take it to Mara, but there was one more thing to be done before the spell could be truly broken and the Rider could feast on dreams and let the nightmares flow again. The book, as it is now? It’s like an unexploded firework.”
“A firework? A book like an unexploded firework,” exclaimed Gribblebob. “I think you gone and dug your claws in a little too deep, William Wynn. She’s done gone doolapittydappity.”
“You do go on, you know,” Nils said crossly.
“It’s a hobby,” said the little man, shrugging.
“What I’ve done,” carried on Ms Toureau, “is to prepare it. Like when you have a firework, or a rocket, and first you have to remove the safety cap and prepare the fuse—that’s what I’ve done. I’ve got the firework ready, but now it needs the flame set to the fuse, so the rocket can explode…”
“And so, where’s the flame?” asked William. “What does Hobley Brown need to break the spell properly and open the book fully?”
“He needs to wash the book in the tears of a pure-hearted warrior,” she explained. “But those tears must have been shed in honest sorrow and found on this side of the veil, or else the spell won’t be broken everywhere.”
“The tears of a pure-hearted warrior, shed in sorrow. Here?” murmured William.
“Ten-a-penny, them,” said Gribblebob.
But those words, pure-hearted warrior, had stirred something within Bengt. It felt as if something else—or maybe somebody else—was coming to life inside him.
CHAPTER 32
Elsewhere, under a familiar tree in the Darkwood, another pure-hearted warrior lay, spat-out and exhausted.
Jack Broadsword propped himself up on one elbow, his head spinning and woozy. He had a feeling of having been pulled out of himself, of being sent back, of having done enough. It was such a strange sensation—
of being pulled and thrown and tumbled and torn through the veil in the places where it was weakest. He also felt that he’d left… what? Something of himself behind. No, wait, that wasn’t quite right—he hadn’t lost anything, it was more like he’d shared something of himself, that he’d opened his heart and someone had dipped their hands in and touched the essence of who he was.
He couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, a heavy tiredness spread slowly over him, like honey off a spoon, and he fell back on the soft grass into a long and gentle sleep.
CHAPTER 33
Bengt had no real idea what was going on, what the time was or what was up with the very tall stranger and the equally short stranger—and could he smell a dog in here? People were using his secret, made-up names, he had somehow got from his tree to the library—which was in a state guaranteed to give Mr Cobbister the caretaker a red-faced fit—without knowing how, there were bat-like bird-foxes crashing in through the window and changing into fashion-model-men who he seemed to know from somewhere, he had the oddest sensation that somehow he knew exactly what a pure-hearted warrior was, and, most annoying of all, he seemed to have lost his best pen.
He was starting to get rather ticked off.
“Can I just ask,” he piped up, when the conversation had stopped for a moment, “what the flip is going on?”
“Language,” murmured Gribblebob, but everyone ignored him.
William had noticed the boy earlier, and he had seen something in his eyes when he had laid the cardigan over the librarian, but with everything that had been going on, this was the first time he really looked at him. And when he looked at him, the first thought that came into William’s mind was Jack. He glanced around the library looking for Jack, but he couldn’t see him, only his abandoned broadsword resting on the floor by the far wall.
“Where’s Jack?” he asked.
“There was, like, an explosion or something,” answered Anna. “Then he was just… gone.”
“And Bengt was here instead,” went on Nils.
“You’re Bengt?” William asked the other boy, who nodded. William took another long, deep look at him, so that Bengt started to feel a little uncomfortable. “And are you too one of the True Dreamers?” he finally asked.
Bengt felt flustered at having been so deeply looked at. He didn’t think anyone had ever really seen him in quite the way William had just then. And why did he feel that he had heard the phrase “True Dreamers” before?
“I-I haven’t a clue what you’re on about,” he stuttered, looking at William.
“No,” said William, standing up carefully and at the same time helping Ms Toureau over to a chair. “I can see that, but I think you need to pick up that sword lying on the floor over there and bring it with us.”
Bengt looked over to where the huge, grey, silver-handled sword was resting on the dark wood floor.
“That? I’ll never be able to lift that,” he spluttered.
“Oh, I think you’ll find you can. Try. You’ll surprise yourself.”
“Bring it with us?” Anna repeated. “Where is it we’re going?” As she spoke to William, her eyes followed Bengt, who was hesitantly walking over to the broadsword.
“I think we should go and visit the Grey Lady,” he replied, easing the librarian into the chair and making her comfortable. “Will you be okay for a while on your own?” he asked her, and she nodded.
Bengt had knelt down and taken hold of the sword hilt with both hands. He expected it to be much too heavy to lift, but to his amazement it felt no heavier than a cricket bat or hockey stick—well, maybe a little heavier, but it didn’t feel impossible or wrong. It actually felt quite right.
“Not the Grey Lady,” said Gribblebob, looking over at Bengt, who was now standing straight, holding the sword upright with both hands and admiring it. “She’s absolutely twoboggleswoggle crazy. She’s got more hats in her bell tree than I’ve had soft dinners.”
“Is she from your side of the veil too?” asked Nils.
“Yep. She’s one of our lot,” answered the goblin, nodding.
“You know,” said Nils, “considering that you say it’s forbidden to break the veil, quite a lot of people seem to have come from your side to our side. It seems to me that the Court of Naughtiness isn’t doing a very good job.”
“Wills and ways,” said the goblin, “wills and ways.”
“How is it the other way round?” Nils asked. “Are there many of us living there?”
“Not so’s you’d note it. I know of maybe two. And one of them simply got lost on the way to the dumplegrounds with his pre-titled cardboard, so really only one who chose to.”
“Got lost?” said Nils. “Can’t they find their way back?”
“The dumplegrounds is a big place. Not so squeezy to find your way back from there.”
“When you say ‘pre-titled cardboard’ and the ‘dumplegrounds’, do you mean the municipal tip and recycling centre on Halfberry Road?” clarified Nils.
“I means the dumplegrounds,” said the goblin, “on Fullberry Avenue.”
“I think it would be very interesting to visit your side of the veil one day,” said Nils.
“Not the dumplegrounds,” sniffed Gribblebob. “Not very interesting at all. Besides, stinks like the back of an old man’s ear.”
Anna had walked over to Bengt, who was turning the sword around in his hands to take in the different angles. “You don’t seem to have too much trouble lifting it after all,” she said.
“It’s weird, you know,” he replied. “It’s not at all as heavy as I thought. It actually feels really good, even if…”
“Even if it’s almost as big as you,” finished Anna.
“Weird,” he repeated.
William, who had been making sure Ms Toureau would be okay on her own, now clapped his hands loudly so that everyone jumped, stopped talking and turned to him.
“Now, my friends,” he said, “we have a place to go and a person to see.”
“Yeah, a twoboggleswoggle crazy person,” muttered the goblin under his breath, and Dimple barked.
CHAPTER 34
It seemed that the Grey Lady lived out at the back of Henchurch Farmhouse, which wasn’t actually a farmhouse any more, but was now a community centre. They had salsa dancing there on a Saturday, bingo on a Tuesday. There was a small brick bungalow standing on its own at the end of a higgledy-piggledy lane behind Henchurch Farmhouse, which Anna, Bengt and Nils had never noticed before. Gribblebob knew exactly where to go, so he and Dimple led the way. All the Uppington Down streetlights had come on now, but there weren’t any along the lane, so it was fairly dark.
As they walked, Bengt and the other two children talked.
“What’s going on though, Anna? This is all just mad, isn’t it?”
“You’re the one carrying a sword along Uppington Down high street.” Anna smiled.
“Okay, yes, but what’s up with Neil’s hand?”
“Nils,” said Nils. “’Kay? Nils, not Neil.”
“Kill a snot eel?” said Gribblebob. “Yuck! Sounds dizzy gusting.”
“Sorry,” said Bengt, ignoring the goblin, which generally appeared to be the most sensible thing to do. “Nils. But?…”
“I got a magic book caught in my hand. But it’s because I’ve got a good heart and kind thoughts, so that’s all good.”
“Ohhhkay,” said Bengt, giving Nils a look before continuing. “Earlier, everyone was talking about a Jack. Jack”—and here he paused briefly, as it felt a bit odd to be using this name with other people—“Broadsword. What—I mean, who… who’s he?”
“He’s William’s friend,” Anna explained, “from the other side of the veil.”
“Yes, people keep talking about that too. But what does it mean?”
“Long story short,” said the goblin, who’d been listening again, “so’s it’s squeezy to thunderstand. World of magic. Exists here, exists there. There’s a… well, think of it as a magic curtain that cuts tha
t world, world of magic, from this world, world of motoring cars and selling phones. Called the veil. Worlds are connected in lots of odd ways. Here, Uppington Down, there, Downington Upp. Here, Robert Gribble, there, Gribblebob. Clear?”
“Um.”
“Good. I likes a quick learner. Hurry up, Dimple!” he called, and he chivvied up his almost-there dog.
“I also have questions about that dog with bits missing,” said Bengt, “but I think they can wait.”
“Probably for the best,” agreed Anna wisely. She knew Bengt a little: they were in the same year, but not the same form group. He had always seemed very shy, and it seemed as though Mandy Musgrave and her band of unmentionables picked on him all the time. Sometimes Anna felt like she wanted to step in and say something, or do something, but then she was a bit afraid that she would be in Mandy’s firing line instead. Sometimes Bengt had said clever, funny things that made her smile, but often he kept quiet. Anna thought he had a nice, kind face, but a bit of a sad face.
“But, Jack Broadsword…” he continued.
“Yes?” She smiled. “Sounds like a made-up name, doesn’t it?”
“Exactly!” he exclaimed. “It sounds just like a made-up name, just like Oscar Oakheart or Will Summersky or…”
“Bertie Beetroot,” said Nils.
“Yes, Bertie—well, no, actually, not like Bertie Beetroot.” Bengt shook his head. “But the other names. Oscar, Will, Jack—those are all names I made up. Jack Broadsword is a made-up name and I made it up.”
“Well, no,” said Nils, “because Jack is real and we’ve both met him, and… you’re carrying his sword.”
“So where is he now then?” asked Bengt.
“He just disappeared,” said Anna. “And you appeared.”
“But that’s all crazy.”
“It’s been that sort of a day,” said Anna, shrugging.
“And on a Wednesday,” said Nils, who’d been listening too much to Gribblebob. “Imagine.”