The Dream Thief (Horatio Lyle)

by Catherine Webb

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Greybags.’

  ‘I thought he only ate the dreams of children, was only interested in the children.’

  ‘He made us part of the circus. He knew what we were scared of an’ he said “drink this” and I drank it, do you see? I drank it and . . . and then he . . . he . . .’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘I drank it and then it was all better, all all right I look after the circus that’s what I do I’m the ringmaster have to look after the circus so I drank it and then he . . . he said he would . . . that he would . . .’

  ‘What did Greybags do?’

  Mr Majestic looked into Lyle’s eyes, and for a moment, just a moment, a little fat man in his fifties with receding hair and a ridiculous moustache was looking out through a face full of pain. ‘He gave my children cake!’

  Lyle stepped back.

  Mr Majestic dropped to the floor, hugging his knees, shaking like a feather in a gale, now weeping uncontrollably. ‘He gave them cake and made them sleep. My two children. He said their dreams were so bright and beautiful just like the circus and I did nothing I did nothing because the circus is all that matters all that matters just part of the circus so I did nothing for my children don’t have any children no mother no father no mother no father no mother no . . .’

  Lyle sank to his knees by the man, held him unevenly by the shoulder as he shook and cried. ‘Greybags made your children sleep,’ he said softly. ‘And drugged you. And did this to you, whatever it is, however it was done. Did this to the whole circus. That’s what you wouldn’t tell me before. Where is he? Where is Greybags?’

  Mr Majestic unfurled one shaking finger, pointed behind Lyle’s shoulder to the door of the tent and whimpered, ‘There.’

  Lyle spun round.

  Standing in the door was a boy. His hair was grey, his shirt covered in flour, his skin so white as to be almost translucent, like a field of reflective snow seen at first light, his eyes were bright green, his long twitchy fingers little more than bone. He couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old, and in his eyes, bright green eyes, and that smile, was the glee of a boy who has pulled the wings off flies for many, many years. His clothes were too big for him, and when he spoke, it was in the little voice of a child.

  He said, ‘Hello. You must be Mister Lyle.’

  Lyle stood slowly, looking down at the creature in front of him. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘How do you feel about magnetic materials, little boy?’

  The creature giggled. ‘Would you like me to tell you your dreams, Mister Lyle?’ he asked. ‘Would you like me to tell you your nightmares? I think, the bigger you get, the more nightmares you have and the fewer dreams. I don’t think you have many exciting dreams. I think your mind is full of scary things. Spiders crawling down the insides of the walls.’

  Lyle smiled, looked down at the ground, looked up at the roof of the tent, looked back at the boy. ‘Eats their dreams,’ he murmured. ‘And what was the next part - never grew old? How old are you, little boy? You don’t mind if I call you a little boy, do you? You don’t find it too patronising?’

  The boy giggled. ‘You’re funny.’

  ‘My best jokes are all about pi,’ replied Lyle with a sigh. ‘Tell me, child - do you want your mother?’

  The boy’s face darkened, and for a moment, there was something old and cracked in those bright green eyes. ‘I know your nightmares, Mister Lyle,’ he said softly. ‘I seen your dreams. If they were brighter, I’d eat them so as how I’d never get old. But you already dream of borin’ adult thin’s. No good.’

  ‘That’s a “no” on the desire for matriarchal affection, then? Not sure what Mrs Bontoft’s Practical Advice has to say on that. I’m sorry - I feel I ought to be somehow afraid of you, child, considering what cruelties you’ve unleashed on this circus. You are Greybags, aren’t you? Who poisons children? Who corrupts grown men, who sends killers in the night? Who “eats dreams” whatever that means and sends the children to sleep, who hands out poisoned cake and is generally, I mean, clearly, of an other-worldly disposition. This is you, isn’t it? Old Greybags the grey, who feasts on children’s dreams. I’m sorry, I find it hard to be afraid of a child. Even one as old as you.’

  ‘No,’ sighed the boy, ‘you ain’t afraid of me, Mister Lyle. You’re scared of the little girl bein’ dead, of the boy’s blood on your hands, and it’s your fault, all alone, all runnin’ through the night alone, because you couldn’t stop it, even though it weren’t your fault. But you should have stopped it, should’ve kept them safe, all of them safe because someone has to.’ He stuck his tongue out. ‘What a borin’ nightmare. What an adult nightmare. So grown-up to be scared of thin’s as how it ain’t your fault. Children don’t get scared of these thin’s, see? They don’t understand as how it’s possible. I don’t want to be scared neither, Mister Lyle, which is why I ain’t goin’ to eat your dreams; they are too old for me. I want glory an’ colour an’ you ain’t got that no more. So you see, I know you ain’t scared of me. But you might be scared of my friends a little bit.’

  The child, whose name was Greybags, looked behind him. The lion tamer, all muscle and bulging skin, stepped round the side of the tent. Alone, that would have been a bad start, but looking down to his side, Lyle couldn’t help but notice that the lion tamer had brought a lion.

  ‘Yep,’ he sighed, ‘you may just be on to something there.’

  Tess said, ‘Oh look. A lion.’

  Thomas said, ‘What?’

  ‘A lion. There. Going into the tent.’

  Thomas tried not to look panic-stricken. In his current partnership with Tess and Tate, he knew that he was both the Man and the Elder. Consequently it was his Duty to demonstrate Leadership even if, as now, he wasn’t entirely sure what to do.

  ‘That’s where Mister Lyle is!’ he cried.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘What’s that child doing?’

  ‘The little snotty one?’

  ‘The one with grey hair.’

  ‘Dunno. Hey! Look! There’s Mister Lyle!’

  ‘He’s being dragged around by the lion tamer! He hit him! That man hit Mister Lyle! Ignobly! I say! That was not fair play!’

  ‘If I were goin’ to be beat by anyone, I’d probably want it to be someone with a pet lion. I mean, you ain’t goin’ to lose no station down the street after if you say, “Yep, I were beat up by this bloke, but he had this pet lion, so it’s fine, see!” In fact, you’ll probably get respect from the floor.’

  ‘We have to help him.’

  ‘I’ve just got one last thin’ to finish eatin’.’

  ‘They’re dragging him away!’

  ‘Everyone drags Mister Lyle away sooner or later; he’s used to it.’

  ‘But we’re his rescue!’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ huffed Tess. ‘You’ve got this third cousin Sir Bigwig Bottoms the Third or summat wha’ has killed many lions in his time an’ told you a few pointers—’

  ‘As a matter of fact, my sister’s sister-in-law’s husband’s nephew is in the colonial office and did give some excellent pointers on how to handle lion problems, which he picked up during one of his campaigns against the native sorts.’

  ‘An’ wha’ advice did he have?’

  ‘Um . . . use a very big gun.’

  There was the long slow sucking sound of Teresa downing another fish-smelling sugar sweet.

  ‘Look,’ Thomas said at last, ‘we can’t just stand here and let uncouth sorts cannibalise Mister Lyle. Who, now who, Miss Teresa, would be quite so amenable to your continual demands for food?!’

  Tess’s eyes narrowed. ‘Bigwig! You just tried to play me there!’

  ‘I did not!’

  ‘You did!’

  ‘I did not! I would never stoop to such base tactics as to—’

  ‘You tried to make me a mark with your bigwig words an’ all. An’ ’sides I ain’t never said as how we weren’t savin’ Mister Lyle, I were just a bit
thrown by the huge bloody lion what is gonna be a basta—’

  There was a polite cough.

  Tess and Thomas looked round.

  A woman in tasteless purple silk was standing behind them.

  Her hair was black, her skin was deep almond.

  Her eyes were bright, emerald green.

  Tess pointed. She said, ‘You! I know you! Mister Lyle said to keep an eye out for you!’

  The lady raised a pair of delicate thin dark eyebrows. ‘Did he indeed? Did he add anything to this instruction?’

  Tess thought about it. She said, ‘He said to say “hello”.’ A wan smile spread over her bewildered features. ‘So I s’pose . . . Hello, Miss Lin. You ain’t knowin’ nothin’ ’bout lions, is you?’

  The woman smiled. She said, ‘I have a few ideas.’

  CHAPTER 14

  Unravelling

  Lyle opened his eyes.

  Later, when considering the tally of his failures and triumphs in this particular case, he’d chalk this one up as an error.

  The lion purred.

  Lyle had never heard a lion purr - mainly, he reasoned, because it wasn’t a creature commonly found between Cheapside and the Royal Academy. He had an idea that it made sense for a lion to purr - cats purred, and this was just a very big - a very big - cat. The sound rolled over him like a great mothy carpet being turned out to air. A pair of bright amber eyes set in a golden-yellow head stared unblinking into Lyle’s own. He thought, What an unlikely way to die, and felt almost relieved that, of the many ways in which he had imagined his own death, this would at least be something improbable. He felt a certain pride that, when his body was dissected for medical science and a bit of highbrow public entertainment, the novel manner of his death would attract a decent audience.

  Lyle risked looking round. He was in a tent. With a lion. Very much with a lion.

  What else was going on here? There were makeshift shelves laden with toy soldiers, toy horses, little wooden trains, brightly coloured toy shields and little wooden swords, with clown hats and comic wigs, with grinning masks, miniature castles and carved roaring dragons. There was a rocking horse in one corner, a tiny delicate theatre in the other in which puppets on thin pieces of thread could be persuaded to dance, the limp performers now lying in a pile beside the stage. There were stitched animals stuffed with cotton and hay, fabric blooms stitched together by the flower-makers of Covent Garden, recorders and tin pipes, ceramic flying ducks and, suspended from the ceiling, a spinning mobile of dancing princes and princesses turning slowly in the draught from the burning oil lamps. The tent was a child’s paradise, a huge playroom, and it was entirely empty except for Lyle and, oh yes, of course, oh yes, the lion.

  Lyle got on his hands and knees, one agonised limb at a time. The lion leant forward, sniffing at him with a huge pair of brown nostrils; a great flat tongue rolled across the wide space of his bottom jaw.

  ‘Nice moggy,’ whispered Lyle, slipping his hands towards his pockets. ‘Nice moggy.’

  He heard the sound of a teaspoon rattling against glass. He looked round. The child - or not child, or half child, or whatever it was that he - it - was, was stirring something in a glass. He grinned at Lyle. ‘Pretty dreams,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Beautiful, pretty dreams.’ Next to him, the lion tamer stood with his arms folded. In one corner of the room, Mr Majestic was hunched, arms wrapped round his knees, head hanging, make-up streaked with tears.

  Make-up streaked . . .

  . . . though Billy the Button’s hadn’t come off at all.

  Lyle said, ‘Just so you know, there’s a daring and exothermic rescue headed in my direction any second now.’

  The child shrugged. ‘Big words don’t make you less scared, grown-up man. All grown-ups think cos they talk big, their hearts ain’t smaller than ours.’

  ‘You’re not a child,’ snapped Lyle.

  ‘I got children’s dreams.’

  ‘And you’re not a child. You’re something else. It’s fine. I’ve been attacked by living statues, assaulted by enchanting demons with an allergy for iron and helped blow up enough capacitor banks to light a city for a year. I can accept that you look like a child, you talk like a child, you giggle irritatingly like a child, but you are not a child. What are you, Greybags? May I call you Greybags? That is your name, isn’t it? Old Greybags who’ll come for you. But you don’t look that old, do you?’

  Greybags - if that could even be called a name - sighed, put the teaspoon down, walked over to where Mr Majestic sat huddled on the floor and said, ‘You must drink your medicine, Mr Majestic. Then everythin’ will be all right.’

  Mr Majestic took the glass in trembling hands, raised it to his lips, swallowed. The glass was passed back to Greybags, who, looking satisfied, went to refill it. Mr Majestic didn’t move for a long while. His head lolled. He started to snore. Lyle watched, fascinated. Finally he said, ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘You all right, sir?’ asked Greybags, head on one side, barely glancing at Mr Majestic.

  Mr Majestic jerked awake with a shock. ‘All right?’ replied the ringmaster cheerfully. ‘Of course I’m all right! Absolutely fine! I . . . uh . . . there was something that I . . . I . . .’

  ‘Your children,’ breathed Lyle.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your children.’

  ‘The children! Of course! I must go and entertain the children! ’ He turned towards the door.

  ‘Wait! Your children, the children that you had!’ Lyle started to get to his feet, but was swatted back down by the lion tamer. ‘What about your children?’

  ‘What a funny man,’ said Mr Majestic. ‘You should be careful of the stories you tell.’

  And so he left.

  ‘Interesting,’ said Lyle at last, ‘and a little bit disturbing.’

  The sound of the teaspoon rattling on the glass again snapped his attention back to Greybags. More liquid was being stirred in the same cup. Lyle could guess who the cup was for. He could feel the lion’s breath tickling the back of his neck. ‘So, I’m next? A little drink, a little sleep, and then - oblivion? No. More than oblivion. Um . . . part of the circus? What will that drink do to me, Greybags?’

  ‘Take away your dreams, Mister Lyle. Take away your nightmares. ’

  ‘Oh.’ Lyle sighed. ‘I see.’

  Greybags hesitated. ‘An’?’

  ‘And . . . what?’

  ‘You’re ’posed to do silly stuff now! You’re ’posed to say you don’t understand an’ you’re scared, you’re ’posed to cry like a little girl an’ . . .’ Greybags giggled. ‘ ’Ave you noticed how all the big people cry like little girls when stuff happens as how they don’t like? They just start cryin’. Like being grown-up ain’t being grown-up at all. It’s just bein’ used to thin’s bein’ the way they are.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lyle slowly, one suck of breath at a time. ‘Yes, that’s what being grown-up is - that, and the ability to spell “psychotic” in a hurry.’ He eyed up the lion again. The lion seemed no more impressed by Lyle than it had been a few minutes ago. Glass tinkled. Greybags chuckled merrily at the pretty little sound. Lyle licked his lips. To his discomfort, the lion did the same, mimicking his actions with a tongue the size of an outstretched hand, over teeth longer than the distance between the knuckle and joint of Lyle’s thumb. ‘Well,’ said Lyle carefully, ‘let’s see if I’ve got this straight. You, Greybags, poison people. You poison the children and it sends them to sleep, an endless, deep, endless sleep. Haven’t quite put my finger on the methodology there, but I’m basically right. I know I’m basically right. You poison the adults and they become part of your dream. The ringmaster’s nightmare - his children. You poisoned his children and took them away. You take away our dreams, our nightmares - more than that - you take away our hopes and our fears. Make us . . . what’s the word? Functional? An organ grinder who just grinds and grinds for ever. Oh my God,’ he sat up straight. ‘I’m going to be serving fry-ups to Tess for the rest of my life, ar
en’t I? That or perpetually trying to determine whether light is a wave or a particle, which, while a fascinating debate in and of itself, is one I feel the evidence of which is . . . is . . .’ His voice trailed away.

  Greybags put the spoon down, took a step towards Lyle. Lyle crawled back, bumped into the nose of the lion, cringed away. ‘Now,’ he stammered, ‘I really feel I ought to warn you, when I said exothermic, what I meant in little words was very, very, very hot. I mean a very hot explosion, that’s what’s going to happen if you hurt me.’

  ‘No one comes for you, Mister Lyle. You gotta save everyone else, that’s what you think. Borin’! Your thoughts is borin’! All this oughta do an shoulda do an’ all these things what you don’t wanna do! You ain’t good for nothin’, Mister Lyle, ’cept borin’ stories an’ dead dreams.’