Dreamhunter

by Elizabeth Knox

  The road turned down towards the town. The sun was low, setting into a band of smoke from the burn-offs. In its light the sandstone of the town shone clear gold. The new bridge spanning the slow, green river looked like something built by spirits. The boy could see the builders, though, still at work, the mason presiding over his labourers who were busy on the bridge rail mortaring the mason’s strange, unlearned carvings into place.

  The boy searched for his father at the post office, the butchers and the general store. He told people about his find, bubbling out of childish shyness and his usual silence like a spring released from a seam of coal.

  He crossed the bridge, between the convict labourers and their guards, who lounged against the finished coping, their rifles pointed skyward. The guards were keeping a close eye on the men, whose chains had been removed so that they could clamber over the outside of the structure without risking falling into the river, and being dragged down and drowned by their leg irons.

  The setting sun made the smoke pall lovely, lit it up in layers of crimson, vermilion and tangerine. The light went pure orange, the orange of orange oil.

  The boy came to the church, whose sandstone glowed. The church was locked, so the boy wandered about the churchyard. He was no longer really looking for his father, but only turning around staring at everything, in awe of the light. The tombstones turned from rose to flame, as though each one were staring a bonfire full in its face. The air was close and reeked of wood smoke. All the birds had stopped singing.

  The boy reached a place where there was a tree stump among the tombstones. It was the stump of a giant eucalyptus, recently felled, brought down by saw and axe, and then its remnant chipped at and reduced in size. It was still huge, and still gave off the fiery perfume of its resin. The stump was like another tomb in that light, a mausoleum, scarcely redder than the stones, though its bleeding timber would be red in any light.

  The boy climbed up on to it. He got sap on his hands and feet. He stood on the stump and looked about. The sunset was so violent that it should have been making a noise. The light cast the shadows of the far hills upward across the sky, bristling rays of opaque blue in a huge, bright, slicing pane of orange light.

  There was a noise in the churchyard. It was not the sort of noise the sun might make, or a bird inspired by the sunset. It was a moan. It might have been a human sound, only there was no human consciousness, or intelligence or character in it. It sounded as though it came from a very dark place. It was a sound of absolute despair.

  The boy climbed down from the felled tree. He followed the moan, creeping softly among the tombstones.

  The sun went down. The billows in the sky seem to roll and swell as they filled with purple shadows. The light went blue.

  The boy stopped. He listened. He heard the sound again, a muffled rustling, then a terrible, raw-throat moaning.

  A little way off, between two tall headstones, the boy could see a pile of colour — colour still, even in the blue twilight. It was a heap of white, red, yellow and purple flowers. The boy crept closer. He saw a fresh grave, piled high with late summer flowers and wreaths, laurels painted black and gilt. Nothing stirred, but the ground moaned again, then shrieked, thumped, scraped and rustled.

  The boy stood staring, his hands spread as though he held his hazel rod, it wavering in his loose grip, and turning — turning down to what he had divined.

  Four

  On the day Rose had arranged to meet Laura she had some difficulties. It was still raining, and she had Mamie Doran in tow. Rose had been rather startled by her success in cultivating Mamie’s friendship. Mamie Doran was usually cool and offhand. She never showed any sign of needing to be liked, all her actions said: ‘You can take me or leave me.’ Rose had wooed Mamie, had recommended her for choice parts in play readings. She’d asked for Mamie’s help in sorting rags for one of the school’s church-related charity drives — had kept her good company and plied her with paprika chocolate cookies from one of Farry’s jumbo-sized biscuit barrels. When Mamie got chilblains, Rose bought her lavender-scented hand cream. When Mamie had a cold, Rose sat on the end of her bed and read to her. This was an unexpected pleasure. Rose didn’t really approve of Mamie’s manner, her sour talk about people, but Mamie was better read than Rose and had a more adventurous taste in books. Before the second term was halfway over other girls were speaking of Rose and Mamie as they had once spoken of Rose and Laura. So it was that Mamie naturally assumed that they would spend their free day together.

  Rose had tried to discourage Mamie by making her plans sound as dull as possible. Her attempt to do this was complicated by another girl from the dormitory, a girl Rose rather liked, who tried to invite herself along too. ‘We could take a tram to Kirks,’ the girl said. (Kirks was a big department store with a cavernous, overheated tea room.)

  ‘We could go to a matinee,’ Mamie suggested, speaking only to Rose.

  Rose didn’t know whether Mamie meant a play or a dream. She was so distracted by wondering she nearly asked which — then remembered she didn’t want anyone to go anywhere with her.

  ‘I’d like to do that too,’ said the other girl.

  Mamie had her back to the girl, and didn’t look at her when she spoke.

  Rose was uncomfortable. She nearly said, ‘Of course you can come!’ But then she’d be committed to company. Instead she said only that she was determined to go to the museum. She tapped her sketchbook with her gloved hand. Let them think she was a swot and trying to get ahead of everyone else in their art class.

  ‘We can do your thing, Rose, and then do mine,’ Mamie said. She was still giving the other girl her cold shoulder.

  The other girl gave up and drifted off to sit in the bay window of the common room.

  ‘Only if you’re sure you’ll not be bored,’ Rose said to Mamie.

  ‘Of course I won’t. So we agree — the museum, then a matinee? And we could have lunch at Kirks — to honour certain people in their absence.’ Mamie glanced at the girl she’d driven off and gave one of her sly smiles.

  WHEN ROSE AND Mamie came out of a street on to the west embankment’s wide pavement they saw that the Sva River was the colour of over-brewed coffee and only a few feet from the bottom of the arches of the nearest bridge. It was an alarming sight and they were relieved to turn away from the river to climb the zigzag steps that led to the plaza before the National Museum.

  They left their coats and umbrellas in the museum’s cloakroom, showed their school passes and went in.

  Rose checked her watch. It was half an hour to her rendezvous with Laura. She should just take Mamie to the sculpture hall and start sketching something.

  The sculpture hall was in a covered courtyard in the centre of the building. It had been roofed only recently, by the same architect who designed the glass dome at the Rainbow Opera. It was a lovely, light-filled room that mainly displayed copies of classical statues. When Mamie and Rose arrived they found the roof was leaking, and that several curators were marking the spots of the leaks — one standing, her head thrown back to regard the failed lead seal far above her, while her toe tapped, keeping time with the drips that fell into the puddle by her foot.

  Two guards appeared with buckets. Rose and Mamie hesitated in the entrance and were told, ‘Just mind the puddles. It’s quite dry everywhere else.’

  Mamie said to Rose, ‘Are we quite sure this is a nice thing to do?’

  Rose only pointed with her pencil. She set a course between the statues in search of something she could sketch. The splish-splish behind them changed into a tock-tock of drops hitting the bottom of zinc buckets.

  ‘I wonder if the Opera is leaking,’ Rose said, then, ‘What kind of matinee did you mean, Mamie? A play or a dream?’

  ‘Rose, you forget that some of us aren’t allowed to go to dreams yet. My mother says all but a very few dreams are too strong for girls.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Rose. ‘Do you believe her, Mamie?’

  ‘It isn�
�t a question of whether I believe her. I’m obedient to my parents’ wishes. Aren’t you?’

  ‘Um,’ said Rose. Then she stopped dead.

  Laura was standing at the other end of the hall, with her back to them. Laura had her hands on the naked back of a male statue and was caressing its contours, thoughtfully, down from the shoulders to the buttocks.

  Mamie sniggered.

  Rose hurried towards her cousin — before the museum guards could notice what she was doing. As Rose approached, Laura removed her hands. She turned and smiled, then lost her smile when she spotted Mamie.

  Mamie was smirking, looking from Laura to the statue. ‘I suppose you had a previous arrangement to meet your cousin here, Rose,’ Mamie said, ‘but why didn’t you just say?’

  ‘I wasn’t sure she’d show up,’ Rose said. She widened her eyes at Laura, trying to tell her cousin that she was lying — to convey the necessity of lying to Mamie. Then she asked Laura, ‘What were you doing?’

  ‘Waiting,’ Laura said. ‘I came in out of the rain when the museum opened.’

  ‘Not that!’ Rose snapped. She gestured at the statue. She was furious with Laura for embarrassing her in front of Mamie Doran — for being so peculiar, doing something so dirty, then being vague about it.

  Laura seemed baffled, so Rose pointed at the statue.

  ‘Oh,’ said Laura. ‘Um.’

  ‘Oh? Um?’ Rose fumed.

  ‘I was thinking of making a sculpture.’

  ‘You could have taken an interest in the little bronze ballet dancer over there,’ Rose said.

  ‘I studied her too, before you arrived,’ Laura said. She now sounded smooth. She had assumed a polite, public face again.

  Mamie was showing some tact now too. She had moved a little way off and was studying another nude — a saint clothed in her long hair.

  Rose took Laura’s arm and walked her a little way away. ‘Are you well?’ she asked. ‘We haven’t much time. I promised to spend the day with Mamie.’

  ‘Why on earth?’

  ‘Shhh!’

  Laura sighed. She said she was fine. She’d spent a few days In, where it was warm, catching dreams to ‘open’ herself. ‘Me and Sandy Mason — the boy from the infants’ beach. I went to catch Starry Beach but managed to get something else with convicts. The last one was a bad dream that ended well. This was a rather lovely dream that ended horribly — though not for the convicts. Honestly, Rose, I’m sick of those bloody convicts. Anyway, I erased it myself, overwrote it with Convalescent Two. I have a few nights’ work boosting one of the resident dreamers on the medical ward at Pike Street. I got the job through Sandy’s uncle.’

  Mamie joined them. ‘Perhaps we should all just go to Kirks? The air is clammy in here.’

  Rose looked around the room, at the light from the overcast skies shining coldly on the frozen figures, on dark bronze and pale marble. ‘All right. Lead on, Mamie,’ she said. She tried to sound friendly.

  Mamie took Rose’s arm and looked across her at Laura, who Rose already had hold of. ‘Isn’t this nice, Rose?’ Mamie said, ‘Your old friend on one arm, and your new on the other.’

  ROSE GOT LUCKY at Kirks, where Mamie ran into her mother and some other society ladies. Rose had to endure a few uncomfortable minutes when Mamie not only introduced her to Mrs Doran, but delivered a speech in praise of Rose’s achievements.

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Doran, when Mamie finally finished, ‘cream rises to the top.’ She looked around her circle. ‘Don’t I always say that? Cream rises to the top.’ To Rose she said, ‘I’m hoping that one day Mamie will be made prefect too.’

  ‘I’m sure she will,’ said Rose.

  ‘And this is Laura, Rose’s cousin,’ Mamie added.

  The ladies smiled nervously at Laura.

  ‘We won’t join you,’ Mamie said to her mother.

  ‘But you must! Rose dear, take your cousin and Mamie up to look at the selection. Choose whatever you like. It’ll be my treat.’

  Mamie went red. She glared at her mother. Rose saw her chance to have a moment alone with Laura. She took her cousin by the arm and led her away to the cake counter, where the glistening creams and glazed fruits shone up through the glass into their faces.

  ‘You’ve sure hooked and landed Mamie,’ Laura said.

  ‘I know. Now I only have to scale her, bone her, cook her, and eat her.’

  Laura pulled a face. Then she said, ‘I can’t wait for your next free day to talk to you properly. Have aunt and uncle relaxed at all?’

  ‘Not to the extent of having me live at home again. But my board is only paid for this term. I doubt they’ll send me back after St Lazarus’s Day. I don’t feel they’re scheming any more. Perhaps they gave that up once you got your licence. They’re indecisive and depressed and soggy now. Ma is working much harder than she needs to. Escaping into dreams, really. Da is still tussling with your Aunt Marta about the memorial service.’

  Laura said, ‘People in Doorhandle — rangers and villagers — keep being friendly and helpful, and it turns out that they are all doing Aunt Grace favours.’

  ‘Yes — they are keeping tabs on us. The headmistress stopped me in the corridor yesterday and said, “I’ve just had such a nice chat with your father.” I waited to hear about the chat — but that was all she had to say. Da had called in and been terribly charming to her, and she just couldn’t resist sharing her good luck.’

  ‘They’re avoiding us because they’re so bad at being secretive,’ Laura said. ‘If they saw more of us they might just blurt out their fears.’ Then Laura told Rose what they had found on the film in Chorley’s camera.

  Rose said, ‘Why did your Da film the view back the way he had come? Was he leaving directions?’

  Laura shrugged.

  Rose stared at her suspiciously. ‘Directions for you?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t have the stamina yet for a journey like that.’

  ‘Good,’ Rose said. Then she asked if Laura could stomach Mrs Doran and her friends. ‘Can you sit and be a friendly nonentity?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you, Laura? Can you remember I’m cultivating Mamie, and just eat cake and keep your mouth shut?’

  ‘No, I can’t eat cake if I have to keep my mouth shut.’

  ‘Ha ha.’

  ‘What I can’t do, Rose, is wait for your next free day. There’s someone I have to go and see. Someone creepy. I’d rather you went with me.’

  ‘I’ll cut class. I’ll climb the wall, if I have to. Who is it you have to see?’

  ‘Never mind that now, just meet me on the steps of the Temple. Two o’clock, Friday.’

  Rose reached for Laura’s hand and held it. Her heart turned over. If she could only get Laura alone for a few hours she knew she could fully unthaw her cousin. ‘I’ll be there,’ Rose said. ‘So — are you ready to brave the ladies?’

  Laura nodded.

  ‘You be bland and I’ll be duplicitous. Lovely word that — duplicitous. Sounds like a prehistoric animal. The lame duplicitous was pursued by the ravening erroneous.’

  Laura folded into her funny, panting giggle. And Rose felt tears come into her own eyes because she had made her cousin laugh. Happiness had never been like this before. Now it came like sun showers, the sun and the rain together. Happiness was happier than it had been, sharp, piercing and snatched, like a breath while swimming in surf.

  Five

  The Isle of the Temple was a lovely mirage of stone domes and spires standing in the stream of the Sva River. The Isle’s temple, St Lazarus, was a site of pilgrimage. All the hotels, guesthouses and convents on the Isle had, for over a century, accommodated pilgrims. But by the time Laura’s father fell from the Sisters Beach coach, business wasn’t what it had been. Faith wasn’t what it had been, and there were fewer pilgrims than in former times. The hotels had needed custom, and welcomed dreamhunters as guests. It was an ideal arrangement. Over the years the streets, and alleys, and winding staircases of th
e Isle had filled with dream parlours and their customers. Of course there were rumbles of disapproval from the Temple and the throne of the Grand Patriarch. The church preached against the ‘houses of unholy worship’ and ‘strangers sleeping together’. But it had made sense, for safety reasons, for dream parlours to be set up with the broad, swift waters of the Sva between the dreamers and the overcrowded buildings of the Old Town on the east bank, and the promenades before the white houses along the west.

  By the time Tziga Hame’s daughter had become a dreamhunter the Isle was as full of the commerce of dreamhunting as it was of the business of the Orthodox Church. The offices of the Dream Regulatory Body stood at one end of the Isle, and the temple, St Lazarus, stood at the other. Between them, as well as several charity homes and hospitals and church libraries, there were countless shops that outfitted dreamhunters, in work clothes and their opulent nightclothes. There were sleepwear emporiums for dream palace patrons. There were saunas with steam rooms (dreamhunters and rangers all suffering as much from sinus complaints as mouth ulcers, due to the arid air of the Place). There were small, specialist dream parlours, and larger salons, with shuttered windows and high, boasting, perimeter fences. (The dreamers who performed in salons didn’t have dangerous projection zones, but they put up fences to imply that they did — it was a form of advertising.) And, finally, there was the Rainbow Opera, looming above its high fence, its perimeter patrolled by guards who regularly cleared away loitering, hopeful dream-pilferers.

  Maze Plasir’s dream parlour wasn’t easy to find. Rose and Laura wandered about looking for forty minutes before Rose thought to buy a newspaper and look for his listing. The girls put their heads together and searched the three columns devoted to advertisements for salons and parlours on the Isle. They found it — ‘Maze Plasir: Adventure, Satisfaction, Solace. Dreaming Feast after Fasting tonight, 9 p.m.’ Below the description was a street address.