by E. A. Owell
‘It seems like whatever I do it decides on its own when to come. There were days when I was very busy and tired, there were days when I was happy and forgot about the nightmare, but… in the end it didn’t seem to matter,’ Eliza said. To her shame she felt her eyes start to prickle. Her vision became blurry.
‘Eliza, I promise you we will get to the bottom of this. We shall put an end to it,’ Mr Breakleg said confidently.
Eliza wiped her eyes with her sleeve, preventing tears from streaming down. Meanwhile, the Head Fixer took out a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his coat and wrote something on it.
‘I appreciate you talking with me today, Eliza. Thank you for your help. I know it’s not easy. You are a brave girl, you know that?’
Eliza shrugged and said nothing. She did not feel brave. She felt scared.
‘I’m going to let you go now, and I think Mr Wood should, too. But I’d ask you to pay a brief visit to Mrs Cornish.’
Eliza looked up. Mr Breakleg handed her the folded paper he had written on.
‘Give this to Mrs Cornish. We haven’t solved the mystery yet, but there is a way to help you. It’s not permanent but it should bring you relief, at least for some time. You only need to be mindful, and I don’t think it’s a problem for you.’
Eliza took the paper slowly. ‘So—’
‘You may go now. Perhaps it’ll be faster if you go through the Council of Human Affairs. Do you know the way?’
‘I do.’
‘Next door to the left of the Library. Don’t worry about Mr Wood, I’ll let him know, you won’t be in trouble.’
Eliza felt bad for not telling Mr Wood that she was leaving, but Mr Breakleg promised to take care of it and urged her to go. She did not fear him, but the authority of the man could hardly be denied by anyone.
She took leave of the Head Fixer and walked down the main aisle to the gigantic bookcase that blocked the way, turned left, walked on. A couple more turns later, she saw the wooden door that, she knew, led into the round hall with multiple staircases almost converging in the centre of it. She opened it and had to squint, dazzled by the light of the white-marbled room after the dimness of the Library of Broken Promises.
People were going back and forth in all directions and up and down the many staircases. Eliza descended to the bottom of the stairs, turned left and went up the neighbouring flight of stairs. The plaque on the door at the top said ‘Gallery of Forgotten Dreams’. She opened the door.
Chapter 9
Inside the Gallery looked different from what Eliza remembered.
First of all, it was broad daylight. Second of all, the place was full of people. Some stood on the ground, others climbed ladders, but they were all doing the same thing – painting.
They were painting pictures. To her surprise, Eliza saw that the canvases of the pictures that hung on the walls were blank. There were no moving images like the ones she had seen on her previous visit here. Instead, the people in the room, all dressed in light-blue waistcoats and white caps, were painting on those blank framed canvases.
Eliza had no idea what was going on. Since no one paid any attention to her, she simply stood there and watched.
Some of the painters were talking to each other, some walked from one picture to another looking at them carefully, making some gestures with the brushes in the air. They had an air of very busy people.
A couple of minutes later, Eliza realised she didn’t know her way around the Gallery and hadn’t the slightest idea of where to look for Mrs Cornish, for the old lday wasn’t in the room. Eliza decided to ask someone where she could find her.
But it was easier said than done. Not a single person in the room paid any attention to Eliza and they all looked so preoccupied that it made her feel uncomfortable to even think of distracting them.
However, there was nothing else she could do. If she went on to roam about the halls of the Gallery on her own, she was likely to get lost, and then the chances of finding Mrs Cornish were extremely slim.
Eliza looked around the room, trying to find a face she could call friendly. Finally, she was about to approach this lady with incredibly curly hair who stood and stared at the blank canvas in front of her, when she heard loud voices from the adjacent room. The next moment two people, a man and a woman, walked into the room.
‘So now you’re suspecting me? How very kind of you! After all the years that I’ve spent here working, creating, making masterpieces, you say such things to my face! Outrage! Splendid way to show your appreciation of my work,’ screamed rather than said the man.
‘Harry, you know perfectly well it’s not what I meant. Don’t twist my words. All I asked you was to paint something more cheerful, that’s it,’ replied the woman whose voice Eliza recognised – it belonged to Mrs Cornish.
‘Oh, come off it, it’s not what you say, it’s what you mean by what you say. Now you suspect me. Never thought it’d come down to this. Don’t know if I want to stay here any longer if I’m treated like that,’ the man kept on ranting.
Weirdly enough, the people in the room barely paid any attention to this argument.
‘You are not suspected of anything, Harry, stop dramatising. I asked you only what I asked you. Nothing more, nothing less. And if I get any more of your rants, I just might start treating you the way that would make you seriously consider retirement.’ Eliza had not yet seen Mrs Cornish be this stern.
However, this seemed to have worked, for the man addressed to as Harry glared at Mrs Cornish but said nothing. After fifteen seconds of the most intense stare Eliza had seen a human being give another human being, the man departed, muttering something indignantly under his breath.
Mrs Cornish followed him with her eyes, shaking her head somewhat in the similar way Eliza’s mum would shake her head at Danny. Eliza timidly called out for Mrs Cornish.
‘Eliza! What a surprise to see you here!’ said the old lady, caught off her guard.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude. Mr Breakleg’s sent me.’
‘Mr Breakleg? Sent you? Here?’
‘Yes, he wanted me to give you this.’ Eliza gave Mrs Cornish the folded piece of paper from the Head Fixer.
Mrs Cornish opened the note and read it. Then she gave Eliza a sad and apologetic look.
‘Is it that bad?’ she asked quietly.
Eliza didn’t understand straight away what the old lady was talking about, but she did not wait for Eliza’s reply anyway.
‘Come. Mr Breakleg demonstrates good thinking, as usual.’
Eliza followed Mrs Cornish from room to room, and from all of those rooms the moving paintings were missing. All the canvases were blank, except for those that had already been painted on by the artists that were present in most of the rooms, but even those were static. Some rooms were deserted altogether.
Eliza tried to remember her way about the Gallery but quite soon she realised it was no use. How on earth Mrs Cornish knew her way around the place with its numerous rooms and halls and corridors, she could only guess. But then it wasn’t Mrs Cornish’s second visit here, like it was for Eliza, and not even third. Ten thousand and third, more likely.
After some time they walked into a rather small room that, by the looks of it, served as an office.
‘Have a seat, dear,’ said Mrs Cornish, pointing at the chair near a neat small desk.
Eliza sat down while the old lady took a small key off one of the chains round her neck and unlocked the lowest drawer of the desk. She fished out a light-green piece of cloth that looked like a neckerchief.
‘This is a No-Dreamer. If you wear it round your neck while you’re asleep, you will not see any dreams, neither good, nor bad.’ She gave the cloth to Eliza. ‘I hope it brings you some rest. I can’t believe I’ve forgotten about this thing. All this havoc that’s going on has completely driven it out of my mind. It’s good Mr Breakleg thought of it.’
Eliza looked at the s
oft silky piece of fabric in her hands. ‘This will protect me from nightmares?’
‘It will. But it will preclude you from seeing good dreams, too, I’m afraid.’
‘That’s OK. I don’t mind. At least, for now.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ Mrs Cornish gave Eliza a long studying look. ‘I hope Mr Breakleg fixes it. Fast.’
‘I hope so, too. Thank you.’ Eliza regarded the No-Dreamer with relief and hope. Plain sleep and the knowledge that it would not turn into anything horrible was everything Eliza could ask for.
‘Well, welcome to the Gallery of Forgotten Dreams, Eliza. Sorry, you’ve come to discover it under such circumstances,’ said Mrs Cornish with an apologetic smile.
‘It’s all right. It’s not your fault,’ replied Eliza, trying to be supportive.
‘You are very kind, dear, but the worst thing is that it actually is my fault. I am responsible for this establishment, and now we are having major problems and I’ve got no idea how or why this is happening. I’m failing miserably as the Head Curator. What would Patrick say?’
‘I beg your pardon, but who is Patrick?’ asked Eliza, although immediately she thought she knew the answer to her question, but the words were already out.
‘Ah, never mind. It has no relevance to what we’re dealing with,’ Mrs Cornish sighed, brushing the matter away. ‘Shall we go on a brief tour around the place?’
‘With pleasure!’ Eliza deemed it was unwise to tell Mrs Cornish about her previous visit to the Gallery with Mr Wood. Not now.
They went out into the halls where artists were painting pictures on blank canvases.
‘What you see, dear, is the place where all the dreams people in this town see come from. These painters are the Artists. They draw these paintings that at night become dreams.
‘Every picture is assigned to a certain person in the town. The Gallery itself is divided into several sections where they create dreams either for kids, or for young people, middle-aged people, old people, and so forth. This place is mesmerising to watch at night – the paintings come to life and you can literally see a dream unravel before your very eyes. During the day they remain still, like regular pictures.’
‘But why so many of them are blank?’
‘Once the dream has played itself out, it vanishes from the canvas, leaving it blank to be painted on again. It happens when people forget their dreams, which is most of the times. That’s why this place is called the Gallery of Forgotten Dreams. We forget almost everything we dream.
‘And a lot of canvases are blank simply because there aren’t enough Artists to paint every canvas every night. Of course their special brushes allow them to paint pictures much faster than one would normally do, but that is still not enough for everybody to see dreams regularly. That’s why you don’t see dreams every night.’
As they walked through the halls, Eliza watched the process with her own eyes.
The Artists stood in front of blank canvases, pondering something, then they would raise their brush and when it touched the canvas it did not just leave a spot or a line, it would send colours flowing across the picture, taking shapes of figures, objects, whole landscapes. As the Artists moved their brushes across the canvases, more and more details would spring up on the pictures, overlapping in a strange dance of merging and twisting.
It was pure magic. And it was quick too – a whole painting could be finished within a couple of minutes.
‘What happens to the dreams that you remember?’
‘If you remember your dream, it remains on the canvas as a regular still picture. In such cases we have to install a new blank canvas in the frame. We take the remembered dream to exhibit it in the New Collection room in the public gallery, or what everyone calls “the Cornish Gallery”.’
Eliza gasped. ‘There was my dream, too! The picture I loved! It was just like my dream with the beach and the sea!’
Mrs Cornish smiled, ‘Yes, indeed, we had your picture there for a while. Didn’t you recognise the name?’
‘The name? What name? I only remember that it was by someone called Leazi Dire but I don’t know who–’ Eliza fell silent, her mind bumping into a suddenly obvious fact. Mrs Cornish watched Eliza with curiosity.
‘Leazi Dire is… Eliza Reid! The letters are scrambled!’ exclaimed Eliza.
‘That’s what we do,’ smiled Mrs Cornish, as they continued walking. ‘We allow ourselves this harmless bit of fun. For someone it may become a wonderful discovery and they would think it a miraculous coincidence, even though now you know that it is no coincidence at all.’
Finally, Eliza found an explanation for the magical appeal of the painting which was just like her dream – it actually was her dream that she remembered.
‘And now we have this bizarre thing happening where more and more people start seeing nightmares. It’s never happened before on such a scale. Of course, the Artists may get moody from time to time and draw something disturbing – they are emotional, sensitive creatures, after all, and their mood changes a lot. But there has never been such a tendency for nightmares to occur repeatedly in such numbers. I can vouch for every one of the Artists that they have nothing to do with it. Even Harry. You’ve probably seen me and him arguing earlier.’
Eliza didn’t want to admit she had witnessed that awkward scene but Mrs Cornish wasn’t abashed by it at all.
‘He gets moody and has some temper, it’s true, and I have to have a word with him every now and then about what he paints, but he’d never do anything like this.’
Mrs Cornish’s face looked lined, thoughtful and subdued. She stopped and looked at one of the walls of the hall they were in. Eliza recognised it – it was a hall that she and Mr Wood had visited. She was sure because of the gigantic picture that sprawled across the whole of the wall they were looking at.
‘This is the Dream Map. It shows how much good and how much bad dreams people see.’
Eliza didn’t need the explanation of how this worked. It was enough to have a look at the enormous painting: most of it depicted idyllic scenery of emerald fields and green forests under a piercingly blue cloudless sky. But in the upper right-hand corner there was a dark smudge of heavy storm clouds and wastelands. It occupied about a quarter of the whole painting, creating a terrible contrast.
‘It’s never been that big, never,’ said Mrs Cornish.
‘I’m sure the Fixing Department will fix it,’ said Eliza reassuringly.
‘I sincerely hope they will,’ Mrs Cornish replied with a grave face. Her eyes were intently focused on the storm clouds. Presently she spoke again, ‘Well, I’m afraid I must get back to my duties, Eliza, dear. I’m sorry if I haven’t been too much fun.’
‘Oh, no, I’ve had a wonderful time with you. The Gallery is fascinating!’
‘You are a lovely girl, Eliza. Thank you for your kindness. Well, your room is right to the left. Hope to see you again.’
‘I’ll be happy to come.’
As Eliza walked back from the Gallery, she tightly clutched the green silky cloth in her hands.
Chapter 10
Eliza’s mood had improved significantly over the past week. All this thanks to Mrs Cornish’s gift, the No-Dreamer.
Eliza made sure to tie it round her neck every night before sleep and it worked! She did not see any nightmares anymore. She did not see any dreams at all, for that matter, but it was a small sacrifice to make for not having to suffer the horror of facing the red-eyed black creature again.
She had gained back some of her confidence and energy, although, not all of it because she realised that should she not use the magic neckerchief she would become vulnerable to the nightmare again. That thought was hanging over her brightened-up mood like a heavy cloud from the Dream Map in the Gallery.
Work at the Library of Broken Promises was going well and steadily. Eliza finally managed to catch up with Tom and Rachael whom she had not seen in what seemed like ages. By
now, they also were aware of the situation with the Gallery of Forgotten Dreams but, fortunately, neither of them had been affected by it.
On one of these days, Eliza came to the Library, as usual, and found Mr Breakleg there, again. He and Mr Wood were discussing something between each other when Eliza walked in.
‘Good evening, Mr Wood. Good evening, Mr Breakleg.’
‘Good evening to you, Eliza. How have you been?’ asked Mr Wood.
‘Much better, actually. Thanks to you, Mr Breakleg, and Mrs Cornish.’
‘So you’ve got the No-Dreamer. Good. You can see the change,’ said Mr Breakleg, giving Eliza a brief smile.
‘I feel much better, thank you.’
‘I’m afraid, Eliza, today you’ll be off your Library duties once again,’ said Mr Wood.
‘I will?’
‘I’m afraid we need your help yet again, Eliza. We need to get the description of the nightmare that had visited you,’ said the Head Fixer.
Eliza looked at him blankly.
‘Do you think you could help us one more time?’ Mr Breakleg said.
‘Er, sure, of course,’ replied Eliza, although her voice obviously lacked confidence.
Meanwhile, a paper plane glided smoothly past Eliza and landed on Mr Breakleg’s hat that lay on the desk. The Head Fixer took the plane and unfolded it.
‘Just in time. Everything’s ready. We may go, Eliza.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘The Fixing Department. You’ll see. Don’t be nervous, it’ll be fine. Mrs Cornish is already there waiting for us,’ said Mr Breakleg, seeing that Eliza was beginning to feel agitated.
‘Don’t worry, Eliza, we’ve been there before, remember? You’re coming with Mr Breakleg, and Mrs Cornish will be there with you. It’ll be all right,’ smiled Mr Wood, trying to help Eliza cope with her nerves.
She felt as if she were in one of those situations where she had to go to a sudden medical examination of some sort at school that they hadn’t bothered to notify the students about in advance. Eliza never appreciated the occasion.