Dreamhunter

by Elizabeth Knox

  ‘No.’

  They walked along for a while without speaking. Laura kept licking her lips in order to keep them moist and flexible enough to speak. She couldn’t leave her servant alone. She had to worry at him. Again a sense of her own power came upon her, like a wave of heat, like faintness, like liquor. It was a new sensation to her, a physical sensation of force and weakness mixed together. Laura Hame asked her sandman whether he had to do anything she requested.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Anything I am able to.’

  ‘And what would stop you?’ Laura asked. ‘Scruples?’

  ‘Oceans, high walls, strong locks, swift rivers.’

  Laura stared at him. She asked him what he would do if he didn’t have to obey her.

  ‘That I can’t know,’ he said. He was quiet again, apart from the sound he made as he moved — almost the same sound Rose made when she was wearing her best silk pyjamas and walking briskly — a silky susurration. Laura supposed he had finished his reply, and was about to ask him another question, when he said, ‘I am not the one who need not obey you.’

  Laura went over this in her mind. I am not the one who need not obey you. ‘Who is the one?’ she said, baffled. She couldn’t understand what he was saying. Was he talking about some other person? Or some other monster she might be able to make? Then Nown further surprised and puzzled her by making a remark, rather than merely replying to her question. ‘Perhaps you will introduce me to him,’ he said. ‘The one who need not obey you.’

  Laura found herself squinting at Nown. ‘Did you just make a joke?’

  ‘I hope I made a prediction,’ Nown said.

  Laura said that since Nown was supposed to obey her she should at least be able to understand what he was saying. She was beginning to enjoy questioning him, as though it were a game they were playing. She was tired, but Nown was distracting her from her tiredness, and from the stinging rash under her trousers. She wished she had some Wakeful — but at least the conversation was keeping her going.

  Then, dizzy with vanity, Laura asked him — this creature compelled by his nature to be wholly honest to her, and who, in the absence of her father, owed its existence to her — ‘What do you make of me?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Are you considering my question?’

  ‘I am making sure that I am, truly, unable to answer you,’ Nown said.

  Laura, peering at him, could see that he was thinking. She could see thought in the busy swarming of the grains of sand in the sockets of his eyes. ‘I am thinking till I am sure that I cannot think of an answer,’ Nown added.

  ‘So — you don’t make anything of me?’

  ‘I might,’ he said. ‘I can’t say. It’s not my business to make. I have been made, Laura. It seems to me a great step from being made, to making.’

  ‘It’s just a figure of speech, Nown,’ Laura said, in exasperation. Then she thought that that was what he was, a figure of speech and sand. She tried again, this time saying, ‘I mean — what do you think of me?’

  ‘I think you are tired,’ he said. ‘I think you are keeping yourself alert with this game of questions.’

  Laura felt that he was an adult, and she was a child. She hated the feeling. Yet though she hated it she had to admit that it was probably true. For Nown was a being who had been made eight times, and could remember his earlier selves. He had appeared in time, in history, on eight occasions. He had lived with Laura’s distant ancestors. He must have experienced things, unimaginable things.

  ‘Like himself,’ Laura thought. ‘He’s an unimaginable thing.’ It was possible that the sandman might have only been made in emergencies and not kept. But, still, he must have seen a great deal — and so he could make Laura feel like a child.

  Laura’s thoughts went on for a while gnawing at this least of their differences. She yawned and scrubbed her face with both her hands. She sneezed — her feet and Nown’s were raising dust as they walked, a dust made of dry earth and of the grass that disintegrated when they stepped on it. Then Laura thought of another question. She was tired, and it was vague, lazy, general. It was the sort of question that infants ask their mothers when they want to be talked to, but have nothing to say in return. ‘What else do you think?’ she said, then added, ‘About me?’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘My mistress is walking beside me. I look at her and she burns before me in a world in which everything else has lost its working heat. I see Laura Hame, the daughter of my maker Tziga Hame. I see another Hame whom I must obey. I see another Hame, not so different from all of them.’

  ‘But a little different?’

  ‘Younger. The first girl, who asks more questions. Who gives fewer orders. Who has not yet thought what I am good for.’

  Laura glowered, then yawned so hard that her jaw clicked. ‘So — what are you good for?’ she demanded.

  ‘I could carry you as well as the camera.’

  Laura actually flinched from him. Her heart began to hammer. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, that won’t be necessary.’

  Five

  Despite the fresh day and hard frost, the gymnasium at Founderston Girls’ Academy smelt as usual of sweat and sour dust. The gym was a big, echoing room with knotted ropes hanging from its high roof-beams, and all its walls lined with climbing frames. The windows were at the very top of the walls, transoms operated by dangling chains, several of which were fouled in their pulleys. The day’s earliest classes had stood in steaming huddles in their skimpy gym clothes till spurred into activity by their instructors and group leaders. No one had minded the jammed windows, but by midmorning the gym was airless. The sun was cutting right through the upper third of the huge room, and a ceiling of warm air had begun to drop down at least to head height.

  The girls were doing folk dancing, for exercise, rather than practising for a performance. The hockey field was deemed too dangerous for play — till its frost-stiffened grass and frozen puddles were fully thawed.

  Rose was in charge of one circle of dancers, and was trying to persuade one of her classmates to be nice. Patty and Anne had had a falling out. Patty had a ball of candle wax, and had moulded it into a sheaf sheath around her right index finger — the only part of her body she would allow Anne to touch. Rose normally had no trouble sorting out this kind of thing, but she was having trouble today. The easiest option would be to find Patty another partner — but no one must be permitted to reject even pinched, prim Anne. Founderston Girls’ Academy had a motto — ‘Fidelity, Equality, Justice’ — and Anne was going to bloody get all that from Rose.

  Rose coaxed Patty into handing over her wax finger-stool. Surely it was unhygienic for both of them, Rose argued. Rose took the wax to the rubbish bin and came back to find that Anne was being danced about, but that Patty had hauled down her sleeve to cover her hand. Rose held her breath and began to count.

  She was saved from temptation to violence by the gym teacher, who called her name.

  Rose went over to the woman, who was leaning on the piano, where Mamie — the most musical girl in the middle school now that Laura had gone — was playing a country air. The gym teacher said, ‘Rose, could you climb up there and see if you can open a few more of those windows?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Rose.

  ‘Sprightly, sprightly!’ Mamie said to Rose, obviously imitating the gym teacher’s remarks about her own piano playing.

  Rose smiled at Mamie, then edged her way through the spinning cogs of the two groups of dancers, reached the wall and began to climb. She went up the centre of a frame, where the varnish had been worn away from its timber rungs. She climbed into warm air, and then into the sunlight.

  The windows were rheumy, coated with dust and crusted with cobwebs. But Rose didn’t need an outlook. As soon as her face was in the sun, she was instantly happier. She perched on a windowsill covered in the corpses of flies and moths, and played with the window catch. She took her time, and did some thinking.

/>   Rose’s teachers relied on her to take the lead and show other girls what they ought to do. No problem was beneath Rose’s notice. She was patient and firm, she would always find time and ways to talk the other girls out of silliness, or to help them articulate real problems to those who could solve them. She had been an advocate, had stood up beside others, steadied them when they had to explain themselves to housemistresses or to the headmistress. ‘Rose will go with you,’ others would say. It had been a very great privilege — especially for a day pupil, a girl who hadn’t shared everything with those who offered her their trust. But Rose’s patience had run out. Why should she go on doing what everyone expected of her? Be nice to Patty, Anne, Jane and so forth, and be obliging to teachers? Why should she? It seemed that the less trouble Rose was to the school, and her parents, and her so-called friends, the more they seemed to feel that it was perfectly acceptable to leave her alone.

  Far below, the gym teacher called out, ‘Rose?’

  ‘This chain is badly caught,’ Rose called back, ‘but I am making some progress with it.’ She bent her head, turned away into the light. She rattled the catch. Then, to her surprise, the window came open with an awful squawk, and its top whacked Rose on her forehead.

  The teacher called up to her, ‘Oh, good, you finally managed it! You can come down now. You’ve only ten minutes to change.’

  Rose wondered what they’d all do if she refused to come down. But now wasn’t the time to make experiments in rebellion. She wanted to find a mirror and look at her forehead to see if the window had left a mark.

  She clambered down the frame and sprinted across the now-empty gym into the noisy fug of the changing rooms. She pushed through the pink and pale bodies. Then she came to a baffled stop before her spot. There was a junior sitting on the bench under her clothes on their hook. The junior was holding Rose’s laundry bag on her lap.

  ‘Are you waiting for me?’ Rose asked.

  ‘For ages,’ said the child. ‘Miss wouldn’t let me into the class. She wasn’t listening to me. I’m late. Your father is waiting for you in the head’s office.’ The child was peering at Rose with an expression of keen curiosity. ‘He’s wearing driving goggles on top of his head and kind of stomping his feet,’ the child added.

  Rose stood still and frowned at the junior. The school encouraged parents to make appointments. Of course in an emergency any parent could appear at the school and ask for their child to be pulled out of class. But normally Rose’s father and mother would observe the school’s protocols. Was there a family emergency?

  Rose dismissed the messenger, stamped her bare feet into her shoes, stuffed the rest of her clothes into the laundry bag and pulled her blazer on over her wool shirt and shorts. Then she sprinted out of the gym and through the school to the administrative building.

  Rose’s father wasn’t in the head’s office. He had clearly already spoken to the head and had permission to see Rose. He was standing in the open arch under the gatehouse. The porter was holding the gate open, and her father’s car was parked by it. The sun had just looked over the roofs but had not got past the eaves of the building opposite. Rose’s father was in shade still, and his head was haloed with a cloud of his breath. Rose reached him and touched his arm. She was worried to see how tense he looked.

  He didn’t acknowledge her touch, but only walked through the gate, tipping the porter. He held the car door open for Rose. She got in and he walked around and climbed in beside her.

  ‘What is it?’ Rose said.

  ‘Where is Laura?’

  Rose considered telling her father that she didn’t know where Laura was. She did stall. She said, ‘Why?’

  ‘Rose!’ He was angry, and very anxious. ‘We’ve had her landlady at Doorhandle let us know when she comes and goes. A week ago Laura was with us. But when she left Founderston she didn’t go back to Doorhandle. A week, Rose!’

  Rose swallowed. Her father took this as further reluctance to report what she knew and leant towards her, gripped her shoulder and gave her a quick, hard shake.

  ‘Ow!’ said Rose. ‘Let go! Laura has gone to Sisters Beach, to go In at Whynew Falls and recover your camera.’

  Chorley removed his hand from Rose’s shoulder and sat back in his seat, staring through the windshield with the expression of a man confronted with a frightening obstacle.

  ‘Is Laura in danger?’ Rose asked.

  He didn’t answer. He just reached across her and opened her door so that she could get out.

  ‘She’s probably out again by now, Da — resting at Summerfort. She told me she’d send me a wire. She made sure someone knew where she was. Me. I hope you don’t think I should have told her not to go?’

  Chorley gave Rose a cold, bleak look.

  ‘Look,’ Rose said, ‘someone had to get the film out of the camera.’

  ‘Your mother was going to do that.’

  ‘When? It might hold clues, you know.’

  ‘Yes, we know.’

  ‘Well, why take so long about going In to get it?’

  Rose’s father didn’t reply. He shut his eyes and shook his head.

  ‘I wish you would tell me why you’re so worried about Laura,’ Rose said.

  ‘Tziga disappeared.’

  ‘It doesn’t follow that you should be worried about Laura.’

  Chorley muttered something about Laura’s ‘state of mind’. It sounded pretty feeble, Rose thought.

  She closed her door again. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’m going with you. I’m sure I can be of some use.’

  Chorley opened his eyes again. He nodded to the porter, who was waiting to crank the car. The man stooped behind the bonnet, cranked the motor and the car rocked — he cranked again and it caught and ran. The porter stretched his back and gave them the thumbs up.

  As Chorley pulled away from the school gate he said to his daughter, ‘What did you do to your head?’

  He had noticed. Rose felt a little less neglected. ‘There was a stuck window. I got whacked by the frame.’

  ‘Doesn’t the Academy employ a caretaker?’

  ‘Certainly. And since I’m not going to be a dreamhunter I’ve apprenticed myself to him.’ Rose waited for her father to glance at her and gave him a ‘you deserved that’ look.

  Six

  In the small hours Summerfort was dark and still, glittering under a seal of frost. Laura let herself and her servant into the house. She lit a lamp and led Nown to the kitchen. As he followed her down the hallway, Laura looked back to see if he had trailed sand indoors, as Grace was always telling her and Rose not to. Laura saw that his feet left no mark on the floor, that the prints of her feet, damp from the icy grass, were the only ones visible, as if she was alone. It seemed that Nown’s sandy soles were thirsty and had mopped up any moisture. He left nothing of himself behind.

  In the kitchen Laura showed Nown the wood box. She opened the iron door of the range, made balls of paper with the yellowing pages of last summer’s Summertime Weekly. She struck a match and put a flame to the paper, then sprinkled wood shavings on the first thin flames. Laura told Nown to keep the fire going. The wood range was a wet-back stove and Laura hoped that, in an hour or two, the fire would have heated enough water for a bath.

  Nown squatted by the hearth. Laura stood behind him, swaying with tiredness. ‘What am I going to do with you?’ she said.

  ‘You could send me to fight your enemies,’ he said. Prompting her, she thought.

  ‘I don’t have any.’ Her head was swimming. She imagined enemies, in silhouette, like shadow-puppets. She imagined her sandman tossing them left and right. She had a little glimpse of what her life might be like if she asked Nown to throw his weight around.

  ‘I think, for now, I should keep you secret,’ she said. She was too tired to think. And that was what her father, aunt, uncle and teachers had always instructed her to do — ‘Use your head’, ‘Be responsible’.

  Laura left the kitchen, found a blanket, wrapped it
around herself and went back to doze by the stove. She wasn’t disturbed by Nown’s movements as he went back and forth between the wood box and the range. After an hour, the moon cleared the steep hill at the eastern end of Sisters Beach and shone through the kitchen’s latticed windows.

  Laura was hungry, but unwilling to stir. She wondered whether she might be able to ask Nown to find something for her to eat. She imagined him buttering slices of bread, and presenting her with a sandy sandwich. She laughed and opened her eyes.

  Nown had the range door open and was using his hand as fire tongs, rearranging embers in order to put in more wood. The flame strained up through his fingers, didn’t wrap them — it was as though the fire knew that there was nothing in him to satisfy its appetite. Nown stayed squatting by the open range peering in at the flames.

  Laura asked him what he saw. Was that fire at all like the ‘soft fire’ of trees and people?

  ‘It is brighter than creature fire,’ Nown said.

  Laura asked Nown what else he saw — for instance, how did he make his way around obstacles that had no heat that he could see?

  ‘I see spaces and shapes. Objects like myself manufactured by people, and objects nature has made.’ He touched one of the roughly hewn blocks of the hearth. ‘This stone is made of many things lying quietly together. But inside each thing, everything is in motion. Nothing is wholly solid.’

  Nown could see things that Laura could not. He could see inside the stone. Laura questioned him further and discovered that he couldn’t see colours, and that he had no idea what colours were. She tried testing him by pulling faces and asking him what he could see. She tried a smile, and what she hoped was a sceptical expression, she tried a frown, and a look of fear. He was able to guess most of her expressions. But Laura was determined to sort out, if not their differences, at least the things that she felt made her superior to him. She said to him, ‘A frown means what? A smile means what?’

  Nown’s impassive face changed — there was a perceptible upward flow in the smoky grains of sand. ‘A frown means you’re frowning. A smile means you’re smiling,’ Nown said.