by Emma Newman
Callum also brought a gift for Miri one evening: a new earthenware dish to replace the one that Jay had mentioned as being broken. Zane grinned when he saw him present it to his mother and loitered nearby as they spoke quietly to each other. When he left, Zane sidled up to her.
“Mum, do you like Callum?”
She nodded. “He’s a nice man.”
“I think he is too,” he lingered. “I think he likes you too, Mum.”
She chuckled dismissively. “That’s nice.”
“I think he’d like to spend more time with you.”
Miri put the dish away and turned to face him with a quizzical look. “What are you heading towards, Zane?”
He put his hands up, feigning innocence. “Nothing. I just think he’s nice, that’s all. And that he’s kind to you. And I like that.”
Miri kissed him on the forehead and began to sort the day’s harvest. “He is nice, like I said. I just wish he’d wash more often.”
Zane frowned and wondered off, another idea beginning to blossom.
One morning when Zane woke, Titus wasn’t there and the window was unlocked. As he dressed hurriedly, he feared that Titus had gone for good until he returned with Luthor and Erin. Luthor looked particularly bad-tempered.
Zane pulled Titus to one side as Luthor went over to Miri, who was pruning a tree at the edge of the garden. “Did you have a dream?” he asked. Titus nodded and Zane’s brown eyes broadcasted his disappointment.
“How was she?”
“Fine. She asked how you were.”
Zane’s disappointment was usurped by joy. “She did?” Titus nodded patiently. “Why didn’t you say you were going? I would’ve come with you!”
Titus shook his head.
“Sorry, Zane … I can’t say why I didn’t take you.” He paused and then added, “But I might be able to tonight.”
Before Zane could respond, he was interrupted by his mother. “What!” she exclaimed, staring open-mouthed at Luthor. “She can’t! You can’t!”
“It’s for your protection,” Luthor said, louder than her. “I’ll choose one of the houses at the southeast corner. Besides, Erin will like it, I’m sure.”
“Jay won’t,” she said, shaking her head.
“The Red Lady cares little for what he thinks,” Luthor growled. He glanced at Zane and then back at Miri, leaning towards her slightly. “She would be very offended if you rejected this generous offer of help.” He looked more pointedly at Zane and back to her again. “And if she couldn’t ensure Titus and Zane’s safety here, she’d have no choice but to invite them to live in our territory and leave more of us in the square to look after you and the garden.”
Zane tensed, appalled at how he bullied her, and went to storm towards him in a burst of reckless courage, but Titus held him back, shaking his head quickly. “No,” he whispered. “Not this fight, Zane. There’s too much behind this–you’d make it worse.”
Zane watched his mother look at him, torn.
Luthor savoured her struggle. “I’m sure you’d agree that it’s better that Erin and I stay and keep the Gardners out.”
She lowered her head and nodded, defeated. Luthor straightened, a triumphant sneer twisting his mouth as he turned away from her. Titus held on to Zane’s shoulder tightly until he was out of sight and then let him rush to his mother.
“I’m sorry, Zane,” he whispered guiltily under his breath, knowing that the Red Lady was far too interested in them to leave their survival to chance.
Chapter 16
A REMARKABLE DREAM
Zane woke standing up, which confused him thoroughly. When he saw he was no longer in his bedroom, he rubbed his eyes fiercely, struggling to wake fully.
“It worked!” Titus cried and Zane opened his eyes again. He was in a room, not much bigger than his own bedroom but very different.
“What’s going on?” he asked Titus in a bewildered voice.
“I brought you here!” Titus dashed over to him and shook his hand energetically. It was the most animated Zane had ever seen him. “You’re really here! This is fantastic!” He even laughed out loud with delight as Zane watched him, bemused.
“Where is ‘here’?”
“It’s a dream. I knew it! I knew it was a special place.”
“A dream? But … this doesn’t feel like a dream. It feels too real.”
“It’s a special dream, a clever one,” Titus replied, calming down. “I didn’t tell you about it today because I wanted to test my theory. And it worked. I just had this feeling that I could bring you here. I have no idea why I felt that, but I did and here we are.”
“So we’re still asleep?”
“Yes!”
“Is this the dream you told the Red Lady about?”
“Yes,” Titus replied regretfully.
Zane scratched his head and examined the room more closely. Beneath his feet were polished wooden floorboards, swept clean and devoid of imperfections. A desk and chair sat in front of him, not dissimilar to those in a ship captain’s cabin from one of his favourite childhood books. The desk was large, with green leather inlaid into the top and four drawers with large brass handles down each side of the gap where the chair was pushed in. The chair looked comfortable, made of wood with arms and a leather cushion set into the seat. Above the desk were two long shelves running the width of the wall with a diverse collection of objects placed upon them.
To his right was a window, and outside was a night sky empty of stars. To his left was a plain plastered wall, clean and pale in colour, with a curious design painted on it. At its centre was a white circle, and radiating out from it were four evenly spaced spokes, each one ending in another circle, each a different colour. One was red, one green, one purple, and the fourth yellow.
Zane pointed at it. “This is a strange picture.”
Titus agreed. “It reminds me of the first dream I told the Red Lady about. The balls in the birdbath were the same colour as three of those ones on the wall.”
They both stared at it for a few moments, then Zane turned to see a door set into the wall behind him, a large wooden door that looked sturdy, with a bolt and chain and a brass door knob. Just like the other, the rest of the wall was plain plaster. Above him, hanging from the middle of the ceiling, was a light bulb, but what shocked Zane was how it shone so brightly that he couldn’t look at it for long. He had seen so many of them, several in his own house, but had had no idea that they could glow like that.
Aside from the desk, chair, and shelves with their objects, nothing else was in the room apart from Titus, who was still very excited.
“Is this a real room?” Zane asked.
“As real as it needs to be I suppose.”
Zane didn’t feel satisfied with that answer and drifted to the window. His stomach lurched when he saw that it wasn’t a night sky, but instead a big Nothing: no sense of ground or sky, just void. To the right was a large oak tree, floating in the inky blackness, as if in the height of summer with lots of deep green leaves and a thick, healthy trunk. He could see it as easily as if it were illuminated by sunshine, even though there was no light from any external source. But what disturbed Zane most of all was how all of the roots were also visible, simply hanging in the air with the rest of the tree as if it had remained after all of the soil and sky had been blown away. Frightened, he turned his back on it all and focused instead on the room, which was much less disturbing.
The objects on the shelves drew his attention, his eyes skipping from one to the next, some that he recognised, others that meant nothing to him.
Amongst the objects that he could understand was a crystal bowl, cut to catch the light and large enough to hold several pieces of fruit, though it was empty on the shelf. There was also a gold ring with a fine gold chain tangled around it and looped through a pendant of a glittering red stone shaped like a drop of blood. A small book bound in worn leather sat underneath a length of dark brown beads. There was a knife with an ornate handle
and some kind of coat of arms set into the hilt. A large iron key with an elaborately decorated grip lay near to a small, white porcelain figurine of a dancing woman.
It took him a few moments to recognise a tube-shaped object as a telescope, but the purpose of several other objects eluded him. He pointed at one.
“What’s this?”
Titus came and stood next to him. “It’s a sextant,” he replied, and continued when he saw that Zane didn’t seem any the wiser. “It’s a measuring device, used to calculate the angle of elevation of a celestial body, such as the sun, above the horizon. From that reading and a note of the time it was taken, a sailor could calculate their position on a sea chart.”
Zane blinked at him. “You sound like a book.”
“That’s because it was from a book,” Titus replied matter-of-factly.
“You remember what it said exactly?” Zane asked, amazed.
Titus merely shrugged. “I find it easy to remember things I read.”
Zane wished he did too. He went on to ask Titus to identify a square and drawing compasses and a standard navigational compass that was a rather fine specimen made of brass resting in a smart wooden box.
“Why are all of these things here?” Zane asked.
“I don’t know, but they’re interesting, aren’t they?”
Zane nodded in response, feeling very much out of his depth. “They were all here last night,” Titus continued, “the first time I dreamt about this room, in exactly the same places as they are now.”
Zane looked at the door. “Does that go anywhere?”
Titus shrugged again. “I haven’t tried to open it … things look very odd out of the window, so I haven’t dared to yet.”
Zane agreed with his caution. “This doesn’t feel like a dream because we’re talking like we do when we’re awake,” he commented, fathoming out why it all felt so strange.
Titus nodded. “I think it’s called a lucid dream. They’re supposed to be rare. I’m going to find a book about them and learn some more.”
Zane was about to respond when a sound interrupted his train of thought. It was distant and somehow familiar. “Is that you, Mum?” was all he had time to say before the room disappeared around him as he woke up to the sound of his mother calling him for breakfast.
He looked up and across to Titus, who sat up quickly and then groaned at the twinge from his ribs. He looked down at Zane and grinned. “Do you remember?” he asked.
Zane nodded eagerly and Titus looked pleased. “Good. Tomorrow night, I’m bringing Erin in too.”
Miri and Jay were both bad-tempered that day, and for the same reason. After training, Luthor explored the houses just off the square to the southeast to find one suitable for him and Erin.
The children made sure that they discussed the situation out of adult earshot. Erin was pleased to be close to her new friends, but told them that Luthor was very unhappy about it as he liked to be near the Red Lady. Zane explained how carefully Miri had broken the news to Jay, and how much strain it was putting on the delicate balance between the gangs. Titus stayed very quiet when they speculated about the reason why the order had been given, concluding that it was Erin’s description of the Gardner event to her father that must have brought it to the Red Lady’s attention.
That night Zane was pulled into the dream room again. All was as it had been the night before, but this time Erin was there too. She was just as disoriented as Zane had been, but she had two guides to show her the different objects and discuss the curious nature of the room.
She also was interested in the strange picture on the wall and Titus told her about his other dream. She nodded when he said that he thought the spheres represented something else. “Well, that’s obvious isn’t it?” she said. “They’re us.”
Titus blinked at her and then urged, “Go on.”
“Well, that birdbath dream was in the garden, where we all spend time together. And there were three balls, and there are three of us. And they were moving together, like we do.”
She said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, but it was clear that the insight hadn’t occurred to Titus.
“Of course,” he murmured. “Why didn’t I think of that?” Zane smiled. “You think too hard.”
Erin agreed. “I think you thought it was more difficult than it was.”
Titus pondered over this as Erin went to the window and said “Wow!” as she looked out at the tree suspended in the void. “Weird …”
“But what about the sound of the other ball that I couldn’t see?” he wondered out loud. “Does that mean that there are other people that are with us that we can’t see?”
Zane shrugged and Erin remained quiet, staring out at the tree. After a few moments she moved to the shelves.
Zane watched her inspect the objects, picking several of them up, clearly not feeling as he had that it was wrong to do so. When Erin examined the necklace he said, “That reminds me of the Red Lady,” and she nodded in agreement.
She picked up the dagger next and looked at the coat of arms. She frowned slightly as she tested its grip but put it down again quickly.
“I like this room,” she announced once its features were fully taken in. “It feels safe and private.”
Titus nodded. “It means we can talk together without anyone listening in. I think there’s quite a lot that we need to talk about.”
His companions agreed. He was about to elaborate when once again a distraction from the waking world tore them from the dream.
“Damn!” Zane exclaimed as he opened his eyes. “I hate it when that happens!”
“Shhh,” Titus urged and Zane listened carefully.
The light at the curtains suggested it was barely dawn, but they could hear the sound of someone banging on their front door. It was a familiar rhythm, one of the Bloomsbury Boys’ codes. Zane began to put on his dressing gown as he heard Jay groan and answer the door.
“Watchya, Tim,” he said sleepily. “Better be good … it’s too early for any … stop hopping up and down like that and tell me what’s up.”
“Jay!” the Boy said as Zane emerged, leaving the bedroom door open so that Titus could listen in. “Someone’s signed in our patch! ’Ent never seen it before, don’t recognise the gang that done it. Whadda we do?”
“What the hell?” Jay exclaimed, the news being tantamount to a rival gang claiming part of his territory from under his nose. “Where? Show me.”
Gangs marked their territory in many different ways, but the most common was to draw some kind of symbol, commonly called a “sign,” onto a building at the edge of the territory to indicate to anyone approaching that they were about to enter a held area. Jay’s sign, two crossed knives, marked the Blooms-bury Boys’ territory, whilst the Red Lady favoured her chosen colour more than an actual shape. Her signs resembled daubs of blood more than anything else, something that Jay suspected was deliberate. The Gardners never bothered with signs. He knew that they liked keeping their borders as vague as possible. He’d heard of several witless idiots that had just kept walking south, thinking they were safe, when they were already deep in the area the Gardners patrolled.
Zane helped Jay put on a shirt and trousers, slung low on the hip to avoid the dressing over his wound. “Can I come and see too?” he asked and Jay nodded.
He hurriedly dressed and ran to catch them up after Titus had urged him to tell him everything upon his return.
Tim took them up into Guildford Street and west, towards Jay’s square, crossing to the other side of the road. Barely metres away from where they had entered the road, Tim stopped and pointed up to a spot on the edge of the huge red-stoned building that was the impressively run-down Russell Hotel, a place of luxury before It happened.
At a level about twice the height of Jay was a softly coloured pattern. It wasn’t clear what it had been painted on with. The colours were fresh and there was no dripping; in fact, it was pristine and appeared almost mathematical i
n its precision.
Jay swore when he saw it, personally offended and furious at the unknown perpetrator, whilst Zane gawked in disbelief. His large eyes traced it out several times, but sure enough it really was there: a perfect replica of the four coloured spheres in their familiar design, exactly the same as the one from the dream.
Chapter 17
REPARATIONS
By the end of the day, all of the Bloomsbury Boys and also Titus and Erin (closely escorted by Jay) had been to look at the strange marking. No-one really knew what to make of it. Jay posted extra Boys on the territory perimeter and tried to return to his square, but Miri stopped him, having been tipped off by Titus. All evening he lay on the sofa, grumbling that his patch was going to be taken away from him whilst he lay around doing nothing. He didn’t notice all the times that Titus smiled to himself smugly.
That night, Titus drew them into the dream room once more.
“This is so great!” Erin exclaimed when she realised where she was. “How do you do this, Titus?”
He shrugged. “I just stand still and think of you both very hard and then wish that you were here with me. And then you appear.”
Zane scratched his head. “It would be good if I could do that for your ribs, just wish that they were better and then have it happen. All the other times it just happened by itself. I don’t have any control over it.”
“Why don’t you try?” Titus suggested.
Erin snorted. “Wishes don’t come true in the really real world!”
“Are you sure?” Titus asked so seriously that she actually paused to think about it. She threw her hands in the air. “Whatever, try it–nothing will happen. This is a dream, so weird stuff is bound to happen here.”
“But people don’t normally share dreams,” Zane said quietly. “At least, I never have and no-one I know has ever said anything about it.”
Titus nodded. “I think this is very rare. In fact, I know it is.” He leant against the windowsill as Erin drifted back to the shelves to fiddle with the objects. Zane pulled the chair out and sat in it before Titus continued. “I think we’re different from everyone else.”