by Kerstin Gier
“It’s true!” Florence had sobbed with her face buried in her hands. “I had those strange dreams … and the soles of my feet were dirty the next morning. Does that mean I’m losing my mind? Scattering feathers—who’d think up a thing like that?”
I could have told her, of course, but it would only have confused her even more. And it would have scared her to death. As things were, she was absolutely shattered, and she’d let Lottie take her in her arms without resisting.
“Is this burnout or something? Have I been studying too hard?” she said between two sobs. “I don’t want to end up in a psychiatric hospital.”
“You won’t.” Lottie had stroked her hair comfortingly. “A lot of people walk in their sleep—maybe there’s a water vein under this house, or something. Remember the odd way Mia behaved in January. She nearly jumped out of the window of my room! And I assure you she’s not lost her mind, not a bit of it!”
In fact, Florence had cast Mia a glance suggesting that she wasn’t so sure of that, but at least she had stopped crying.
I envied her a little because believing you had burnout was a thousand times better than being confronted with the truth, as Henry, Grayson, and I had been. While you could deal with burnout by going for a nice healthy stay by the seaside, there was obviously no anti-Arthur treatment. He had fooled us as easily as if we’d been in elementary school, which made us feel furious and helpless at the same time. Grayson, in particular, was bitterly disappointed.
Yet his meeting with BloodySword66, a.k.a. Harry Triggs, had exceeded all his expectations. True, Grayson had had to sacrifice his life-size battle droid robot from Star Wars: Episode I (the way he talked about it, you’d have thought it was his own child), but in exchange he had the ultimate proof that Anabel’s demon didn’t exist: an old, rather dusty notebook, its pages scribbled all over in ballpoint pen, and bearing bloodred seals. It didn’t look exactly like Anabel’s alleged heirloom, the notebook that went up in flames in the cemetery, but it was extremely like it.
And as Grayson informed us, it came into the same category as the long Celtic knife (handmade carbon steel, with the blade riveted to a hardwood handle), and the drinking horn, real horn with a leather holder: they were only stage props. The book was one of several that were supposed to be collections of spells and incantations, laboriously handwritten by two unemployed nerds with bad breath and a peculiar hobby. Grayson had borne it bravely when BloodySword66 took accessory after accessory out of a chest of drawers, while he indulged in reminiscences of the old and evidently glorious role-playing days he had spent in Liverpool with his friend Timothy, the roofer and later demon-hunting guru of a sect.
Swordy wasn’t so keen to talk about the breakup of their friendship or how he had discovered from the newspapers that his former role-playing buddy had the deaths of several people on his conscience. But it was a fact that the two of them had thought up violent fantasy stories together and imagined playing them out. Then their ways parted. Harry Triggs began writing the stories down in the form of novels, but after his Night of the Bloody Something-or-other and three other pioneering works had been turned down by twenty-seven publishing firms, and then met with only a lukewarm response on the Internet, he abandoned his literary ambitions and had been working as an aide in a residential home ever since.
His friend the roofer, on the other hand, had started hearing voices and thinking he was one of the Elect. He’d hopelessly confused fantasy and reality, gathered some people around him, and then obviously presented one of those old notebooks based on role-playing as an ancient work of wisdom.
We didn’t know exactly how the guru’s notebook had ended up in Anabel’s hands. But it was certain that we could finally prove to Anabel that BloodySword66’s version, for which Grayson had sacrificed his droid (and the author had insisted on signing his book in return), was clear evidence that her notion of conjuring up demons was all smoke and mirrors, and she owed her childhood trauma to a crazy roofer.
The stupid thing was that we hadn’t yet been able to show Anabel the notebook and thus prove that she was deluded, because today of all days she wasn’t at home. Grayson had put the notebook through her door and had left her several messages by e-mail, but she hadn’t replied by the time he went to sleep. Now it was up to her to draw her own conclusions. If she was in any position to do so.
So far as the details went, we ourselves were groping in the dark. Even now, as I stared alternately at Florence’s door and Emily, ideas were going around and around in my head. Had Arthur staged the shower of feathers in our house just to make us think that Anabel’s demon really existed again? Or had he wanted to cast suspicion on Anabel herself with what he did?
The feathers had always turned up after we met Anabel in the corridor. Along with the darkness and the cold. Had Arthur been following Anabel in secret and providing special effects? It wouldn’t have been difficult for him to act the demon for Anabel in the corridor.
But why? Well, of course, so that Anabel would put her outstanding abilities in—well, let’s call it dream magic—at the disposal of the demon, in other words Arthur. There were a few loopholes in that theory, however. One was the snake. If it was Arthur who was acting as the demon for Anabel’s benefit, he would hardly have told her to leave a venomous snake in his own locker, would he?
“You horrible, wretched creature!” Emily’s voice brought me out of my thoughts. At first I thought she meant me, but it was just that she had lost patience with Frightful Freddy. “Tell me the whole mathematical problem now,” she demanded angrily. “Slowly and clearly, you great fat brute.”
Freddy politely lowered his beak. I didn’t understand why Grayson hadn’t at least made him look a little more ferocious. “Add the year of Prince William’s birth to five thousand and thirty-nine, and the root of zero point six two five, the root of three million nine hundred and twelve thousand, four hundred and eighty-four, plus the root of one hundred and eleven thousand five hundred and fifty-six, and multiply the result by four. Reverse it, and you will find what you have lost.”
“Prince William’s birthday.” Emily scribbled something on her notepad. “I expect Grayson thinks I won’t know that because I’m not interested in all that royalty stuff, but as it happens I have a memory like a…”
“Horse?” I suggested.
Emily looked up but didn’t seem particularly surprised. “You again” was all she said, groaning.
Well, if anyone had a right to be here, it was me.
“Having a nice dream?” I asked.
“Push off, and maybe I will,” said Emily. “And for your information, horses have an excellent memory. I bet my horse, Conquest of Paradise, has a higher IQ than you.” She bent over her notepad again. “I bet you couldn’t work out the root of one hundred and eleven thousand five hundred and fifty-five in your head.”
“Why doesn’t your horse use a calculator?”
“Because calculators don’t work here,” said Emily without looking up. “Or at least, only as well as I can work things out for myself. Because this labyrinth of doors is in my head! Everything you see here, everything that goes on here is part of my subconscious mind.”
Well, an interesting theory, anyway. “So right now we are in your head?”
Emily nodded. “In my dream, to be more precise.” Now she looked at me again. “You’re a projection of my subconscious.”
“Right. Okay,” I said. “Then ask your subconscious if you’re going to sit around here much longer.”
Emily shrugged. “Anyway, what does time mean here?”
“Has anyone gone in there, or come out?” I pointed to Florence’s door.
“There? No,” said Emily.
That was all right, then. “And the door didn’t just open of its own accord?” I asked, to be on the safe side.
“Not that I know of,” said Emily. “Now, be quiet. I have to work out this sum.”
“I don’t—” I cleared my throat. “I mean, your subconsc
ious doesn’t see why you keep trying to get into Grayson’s dream if all this is just going on inside your head.”
“Because I want to know what my subconscious has to tell me about Grayson and myself.… Oh, you can’t follow that, it’s on a high level of psychology. Now do go away and leave me to do my calculations in peace. We get eight thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine plus three hundred and thirty-four plus zero point seven five … times four…”
“If you want to know something about yourself and Grayson, why not just ask me?” I said. “First, the two of you aren’t meant for each other. Second, he’s delighted to be rid of you. Third—”
“Shut up!” said Emily.
I wasn’t to be deterred. “But hey, your subconscious would like to tell you a few difficult truths. For instance, third, you need to put in some hard work on your own character if you—”
“I said shut up!” Obviously she didn’t seem to think much of the advice of her own subconscious. She tried to concentrate on her arithmetic again.
Okay, then she could have it straight.
“Your horrible little brother is Secrecy,” I said.
“What?” Emily lowered her pencil and looked at me, frowning. “Sam is Secrecy?”
“Didn’t you know?”
Emily shook her head. “No. Of course not. Or well … somehow I did, or you wouldn’t be able to say so to me now.”
“Exactly! Seeing that we’re here in your head, and you subconsciously realized ages ago that it was your brother writing all those nasty comments, not stopping short even at you.” Here I quoted from memory. “Reflexx! The school magazine that should really be called Reflux, because it’s so boring and toffee-nosed, like the girl who’s its editor in chief.”
Emily looked genuinely shocked. Or more precisely, totally shattered. “Sam is Secrecy?” she repeated quietly. “My little Sam? But he would never say I was … I wish you hadn’t told me that.”
“And I wish you’d stop poking around in your subconscious,” I retorted. I couldn’t stop it now, even if I did feel sorry for Emily. I wanted her to leave this corridor once and for all. “Or I’ll be revealing more unedifying truths every day. Truths from which your subconscious would really like to protect you, but that’s not going to work if you go rooting about so mercilessly in your own depths, bringing stuff to the light of day when it was meant to be forgotten in the darkness.” Hmm, I didn’t think much of my own metaphors. I hoped Emily’s inner editor in chief would let them pass. “Why do you think there are all these doors? Only to keep you from seeing what might endanger your physical and psychological well-being.” I was laying it on quite thick now. “You should never have come into this corridor … into the labyrinth of your brain. And deep down inside, you know that.”
Emily looked a little unsure of herself. “But the truth never hurt anyone,” she murmured.
“Oh, didn’t it, though!” I tried to lend my words a little more emphasis by sending a strong gust of wind blowing down the corridor and sweeping the hair back from Emily’s forehead. Now I had her full attention.
“All the truths you’re going to dig up here will not only make you unhappy and lonely, they will slowly but surely drive you to madness,” I said firmly. Leaning a little way forward, I whispered in a confidential tone, “Admit it—right now you feel you’re on the verge of a nervous breakdown, because everything here is more than you can grasp. You’re starting to doubt your own reason, and that’s only the beginning. The end will be a psychiatric hospital,” I added in a sepulchral voice.
To my relief, Emily had stopped contradicting me. “I really do sometimes feel afraid of losing my mind. Because I know for a fact that I’m only dreaming this, but all the same it feels so real … that’s to say, it can all be logically explained, but never mind how much I read about it and think about it, new puzzles are always coming up, if you see what I mean.”
Oh yes, I saw what she meant very well. She had no idea how well. “The brain is a complex organ,” I said. “And if you want to save yours from collapsing because you’d like to take your final exams, study at university, and start a family, instead of moldering away in a nuthouse, go back through your door and never come here again.”
“People don’t use terms like nuthouse anymore,” Emily primly put me right.
I shrugged. “Sorry, I’m only a part of your subconscious.”
“I know, I know,” said Emily. “And I’m afraid you’re right.” She stood up. “I’d better not come here anymore. I never liked it much, anyway. My brain has kept presenting me with people and animals here that I can’t stand in real life. Apart from Grayson, that is. I hate leopards, I hate you, and I hate bats. I can’t abide your know-it-all little sister, and Arthur Hamilton is the greatest show-off in the world. Closely followed by Henry Harper, who’s shockingly lazy but always gets top grades because the teachers think he’s some kind of genius, and they fall for the unfortunate-childhood line.”
Looking past me, she made a face and added, “I could puke when I see him strolling along like that, so casually, with a pseudo-cool grin, and his hands in his pockets.”
I turned abruptly.
“Always nice to see you, Emily,” said Henry. For he was indeed strolling along, hands in his jeans pockets, and so casually that it made my heart beat a little faster. Not that his grin was pseudo-cool; it looked rather strained.
“Weren’t you going to keep watch on Florence’s door?” he asked me.
“I have been. While Emily and I had a little conversation,” I said, entirely forgetting that Emily had said something that I wanted to ask about. Something to do with bats.
“I was just going.” Emily put her pencil behind her ear.
“Forever,” I said. And because Henry frowned instead of congratulating me on getting Emily out of our corridor, I added quickly, “Florence is okay, don’t worry. She’ll probably have a sleepless night. And Arthur himself may have better things to do than—”
“Stop!” Henry put a finger to his lips. “Look, before you tell me anything at all here that isn’t meant for all and sundry, you’d better check that I’m the person I say I am.”
“The person you say you … Oh, I get it. You mean Arthur could be up to his shape-changing tricks again.” It was true, I hadn’t thought of that. “Then maybe this isn’t Emily after all.… Oh, no, she is. Even Arthur couldn’t have imitated her so well.” I grinned, while Emily looked at us disapprovingly. Her unconscious was obviously giving her a hard time.
“That’s not very funny, Liv,” said Henry, unusually serious. “I thought you saw how serious this situation is.”
Yes, I did. But it wasn’t going to help us against Arthur if we all panicked.
“Ask me something that only Henry can know,” Henry told me.
“Okay.” I sighed. “What was the name of the dog—not the chow, the other one—that I used to take for walks in South Africa?”
“Sir Barksalot.” Reluctantly, Henry shook his head. “But Arthur could know that, too, if he’d been eavesdropping on us last night.”
“Right … but if you think of it, then he could have eavesdropped on just about anything.… So kiss me! Then I’ll know at once if it’s you.”
“Hmm,” said Henry, and his features relaxed a little. “That really is a clever method. And at the same time I can check if you’re really you.”
But before we could start finding out, Emily put her oar in, obviously feeling neglected. “I hope you’re not about to start kissing here! What’s my subconscious going to say about that?” She went on fretfully, “And what was all that about Arthur and Florence? I mean, what do all these characters stand for? I see them walking around, but I don’t get the point. Is there some symbolic significance for that damn vulture letting Arthur into Grayson’s dream, for instance, but keeping me out? And can’t you explain it simply? I’m much more sensitive to words than images.”
What had she just said? My mouth was suddenly dry as dust.
Emily shrugged again and shook off Henry’s hand. “Not long ago,” she said. “Before you two turned up. And he didn’t wait for that stupid stone vulture to ask his mathematical question, he just whispered the answer straight into its ear. Giving me a dirty grin. Whatever that means—from the symbolic viewpoint.”
She was going on, but Henry and I had stopped listening. We were staring at each other, horrified.
“So it’s begun,” whispered Henry.
24
OKAY. DON’T PANIC, I thought. Right now the most important thing was to keep calm and …
“We have to get in there!” I shouted at Henry.
He seemed to be in as much of a panic as I was. “You could wake, and then wake Grayson … but maybe it’s too late already, and he … Did you lock your door as I suggested?”
“Yes.” I was near tears. “What are we going to do now?”
Henry was rattling Grayson’s door. “Do you have some personal item of Grayson’s with you? Because today, of all days, it so happens that I don’t.”
“Add the year of Prince William’s birth to five thousand and thirty-nine, and the root of zero point six two five…,” Freddy began reciting.
“I’m wearing one of his old T-shirts,” I shouted. “But damn it, I can’t do this sort of mental arithmetic in my head!”
“Too bad,” said Emily with a touch of malice. “If you’d only left me alone, I might be able to tell you the answer now.”
“… and multiply the result by four. Reverse it, and you will find what you have lost,” Freddy finished.