by Leanne Hall
‘I’ve been wondering about Night Sickness,’ I say.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s this.’ I point to myself. ‘It’s being different.’
The Gentleman baulks. ‘This isn’t an illness, Jethro. It’s a gift, a privilege. Who called it a sickness?’
‘Something I read.’
‘Something you read in Doctor Gregory’s pamphlets? I already told you he’s a quack. D’you know when I first set up this place, when I first started the fights, he came calling? He pretended he was talking to me man-to-man, but he made it very clear that he was doing me a favour by considering me an equal. He wanted to do a deal. He offered me money for access to my fighters.’
‘What did he want with them?’
‘That was never on the table.’ The Gentleman puts the whisky bottle on the ground next to his feet. ‘One reason to distrust him. Second reason, the way he talked, he thought we needed tempering, controlling. He talked of a cure, of all things.’
The Gentleman’s smile is devilishly white. ‘Every one of those ordinary yokel Locals that come to my fights on a Sunday night, who throw their hard-earned cash at my fighters, they want to be us. They envy us. We are part of the night. More than they are, and they know it. The night makes us. I don’t need Doctor Gregory’s money, and I don’t want a cure.’
I blink, freeing myself of the Gentleman’s considerable charisma. I like him, but I don’t want to be like him. So where does that leave me? My confusion must be evident, because the Gentleman leans over and grabs my left bicep. I do my best not to wince.
‘This here is your anger, Jethro.’ He switches to my right arm. ‘And this is your sadness. This is your strength; this is what makes you different.’ He releases me. ‘I know you’re not looking for advice, but I will give it regardless. Don’t try to control it, don’t hold it in, let it be what it is. You’re fine as you are, Jethro.’
I don’t run on the way home, I walk. I cross over the creek and skirt Orphanville. I desperately want to drop in on Diana and Ortie, to sit with them while they eat dinner on the big studio table, but I can’t let them see my tenderised face. And I’m not sure I’d be able to stop myself from telling Ortolan what Doctor Gregory said about Diana. I know he’s all hot air, but Ortolan doesn’t.
I settle for calling their landline, as I flirt with the edges of Shyness and Panwood all the way along Grey Street. There’s no answer so I peel away from the main road, heading for home.
23
I’ve barely exited the school
gates when my phone rings. A private number.
‘Hola?’ I say. I had Spanish sixth period and I’m still in the zone.
‘Wildgirl, is that you? It’s Blake.’
Blake talks as if she’s scared of the phone.
‘Hi, honey, how are you going?’
There’s a pause. I keep walking towards the main road. Blake’s next words gush forth in a rush.
‘Wolfboy won’t answer his phone and I don’t know where he is and I didn’t know who else to call.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s Paul. He’s home. Or I found him. I need you to come.’
I’m silent, wondering how Blake can’t figure out I’m probably the last person Paul wants to see.
‘Wildgirl, he won’t wake up.’
Blake’s face floats pale and worried at the front door. She cracks it open a bare inch, until she sees it’s me. I’m shivering after the abrupt transformation from day to night. Even with a jumper on, my summer school dress is too flimsy. ‘Where is he?’
‘In here.’ Blake pulls me into the front room. ‘The power’s out and I need to find candles, but I don’t want to leave him.’
Paul lies on the floor next to the couch, covered in a tartan blanket. The dark room could be a funeral parlour, and Paul could be a corpse laid out for viewing. His eyes are closed, his face blank.
‘He’s warm, and his pulse seems fine.’ Blake kneels beside him and holds his hand. She’s calmer than I was expecting her to be.
I put my hand on Paul’s scrawny chest, feeling it rise and fall. His resemblance to a corpse diminishes when I touch him.
‘Tell me what happened.’
‘I don’t know. I was asleep and when I woke up, no one was home. I made myself cornflakes and listened to some music. I could smell smoke, so I went outside to check. Paul was lying on the doorstep. I don’t know how long he’d been there for. He could have been there for hours.’
Blake tucks her hair behind her ears. Her face is tight. I feel sorry for her finding Paul on her own.
‘I dragged him in here. At first I tried to carry him, but he was too heavy. That’s how I know he won’t wake up. It took me ages, and I accidentally banged him into the door and he still didn’t wake up.’
‘You did well to get him this far. Let’s lift him onto the couch.’
Blake takes Paul’s feet and I grab under his shoulders. Together we get him onto the couch. Paul’s breathing doesn’t alter, and he doesn’t flinch when we move him. He really is fast asleep.
‘What do you think is wrong with him? Why won’t he wake up?’ Blake asks.
‘I don’t know.’ Paul’s expression is so peaceful compared to the last time I saw him. Only his eyes move, flicking from side to side beneath the lids. I point them out to Blake.
‘That’s what happens when you dream.’ I dredge up what we learned in Psychology last year, glad to have something concrete to grab on to. ‘It’s called rapid eye movement. REM. It’s the phase of sleep where you’re most likely to dream.’
We watch Paul’s eyeballs slide for a moment.
‘Do you think he overdosed on dreaming drugs?’
‘Possibly. It’s the likeliest explanation.’ I wonder how long he’s been in this state. I try to calculate the logistics of getting him to a hospital. Other than not waking up, though, he seems okay. ‘Maybe this is normal. Maybe when the blue people dream they get in a really deep sleep.’
Maybe I’m talking out of my arse. Blake looks as dubious as I feel.
I try to think logically. ‘Okay, this is the plan. We keep calling Wolfboy until he picks up. We watch Paul. Every half an hour we check his pulse and temperature.’
‘There’s a first aid kit under the kitchen sink, with a thermometer,’ says Blake. ‘That’s where the candles are as well.’
I fetch the candles from the kitchen, sparking one before I head back. The front door clicks as I reach the top of the hallway. I don’t even have enough time to tense up before the door opens.
‘You look like a ghost,’ Wolfboy says. He rushes towards me and sweeps me up in a big bear hug.
‘Candle! Candle!’ I try to keep the flame from singeing my hair. The first aid kit falls to the floor. He releases me and kisses me gently on the lips. I get a closer look at him; there’s a definite sunset-coloured bruise on the side of his face.
‘Are you okay?’ I pat my fingers over his cheekbone. ‘What happened? Did you get into a fight? Was it Doctor Gregory?’
‘Stop asking questions for a second, Nia, and I might be able to answer. I’m fine. I’m so glad you’re here.’
‘Where have you been? Blake’s been calling you.’
He kisses me again, everything about him big and warm and strong. ‘I went to boxing practice,’ he says incongruously, in between bombing my cheek and neck with light kisses. ‘What are you doing here so soon? I thought you were going to call me after school.’
‘Don’t panic.’
I lead him into the front room, in time to see Blake prising Paul’s eyelids open.
‘What’s going on in there?’ she asks loudly.
I’d laugh at her unscientific methods if I didn’t see Wolfboy’s face pale. He joins Blake at Paul’s side, searches Paul’s pockets, then pinches the inside of his arm, hard. I spill wax on the coffee table and stand the candle up. Blake fills Wolfboy in.
‘This could be what happens when you take those pills
,’ she finishes. ‘He could be fine in an hour.’
She doesn’t look as if she really believes that. I didn’t even believe it when I said almost the same thing to her.
‘If he’s so fine, then why would someone dump him anonymously on the doorstep?’ Wolfboy looks down at Paul, his expression odd. I lean against the sideboard, keeping my distance. I’m out of my depth. This is so much worse than holding a friend’s hair back while they puke up half a bottle of vodka. I would know what to do if this happened at home. The choices would be obvious. But this is Shyness. There’s been no talk of doctors or police.
Wolfboy rubs his eyes. ‘I don’t know if I can be bothered getting him out of this mess.’
‘You don’t mean that,’ I say. Blake looks quietly outraged.
‘You’re right. I should have chased him the other night,’ Wolfboy says. ‘I should have kept him in the house and not let him out of my sight.’
He looks at Blake. ‘Can your friend help us? The Queen? Is this the sort of thing she can fix?’
Blake squirms, scuffs her sneaker. ‘When I found him, I wanted to call her right away. But I didn’t want to make you mad.’
‘Who’s this?’ I ask.
‘Why would I be mad? I’ve been trying to—’ Wolfboy catches himself, clearly exasperated. ‘We don’t have time for this. So, the Queen is a nurse, or is she…?’
‘Not exactly,’ says Blake.
I clap my hands to my face. ‘Are we taking Paul to a witch doctor?’
In Shyness, I only have half a grasp on where everything is located. But I know for a fact that I haven’t been anywhere near this place before.
The flat silhouettes of trees gather close before us. Or wannabe trees. An entire forest of them, cutout trees that look like they’ve been steamrolled flat. Uniform black and plain wood, large and small. Some with saw-toothed outlines, others with exaggerated bubbleheads. The forest looks like an unfinished film set, or a fledgling dream.
I’m so busy gawking Blake and Wolfboy almost slip from sight. Wolfboy hunches over, pushing Paul in a rusty wheelbarrow. Blake walks ahead, sure-footed, picking her path through the trees. My feet kick up a flurry of wood shavings. As enchanting as it is, I wouldn’t want to be alone in this labyrinth.
‘Can I get this straight,’ I say when I catch them. ‘There’s a queen of Shyness that no one thought to tell me about? And she’s also a witch doctor?’
This makes Blake and even Wolfboy smile, despite the seriousness of our situation. Sometimes they’re so annoyingly oblivious to how strange their suburb is.
‘The Queen of the Night is an expert,’ Blake says. ‘If anyone will know what to do with Paul, she will.’
‘What qualifications does she have?’
‘That’s not really the point,’ says Blake.
I cross my arms over my chest, a hair’s breadth away from petulance. ‘These woods are full of eyes,’ I say, instead of defending my right to ask normal, rational questions. ‘I feel like someone is watching us.’
‘Don’t worry. We’re nearly there.’
Beyond the edge of the forest is a strip of vacant land, a ditch, and then another normal residential street. I scan the footpaths for pedestrians. No one. The eyes haven’t followed us. Paul’s arms and legs dangle over the sides of the wheelbarrow, barely clearing the road. Surely what we’re doing is weird, even by Shyness standards.
Blake stops on the next corner, outside an old-fashioned apartment building with curved balconies.
‘This is it.’
The building is in pretty good nick, but it definitely isn’t a palace fit for a queen. It’s not even a falling-down gothic mansion. I glance up. Three storeys of red brick. Elegant metal letters sit above the ground floor windows: WOOKEY & SALAMON. A smudge of black flits across a balcony and out of sight, sending a skittery shiver travelling up my spine.
Blake opens a wrought-iron door that leads to a chilly vestibule. The steps are too much of a challenge for the rickety wheelbarrow. Wolfboy is forced to heave Paul over his shoulder, fireman-style.
We move forward into the dark building. ‘What’s that smell?’ Wolfboy’s voice echoes. We must be in a large space. I sniff but I can’t smell anything.
‘Keep moving forward,’ calls out Blake, ‘and stay close to the sides.’
When my eyes adjust I realise that the entire ground floor is an open space. There are no lights or lamps or candles in here, but despite that the ground is glowing green.
‘Dirt,’ says Wolfboy. ‘That’s what I smelt. It’s a room full of dirt.’
I crouch where the glow is strongest. A peaty smell fills my nostrils. Hazy green shapes become miniature umbrellas and round buttons.
‘This is strange,’ I say to Wolfboy in a low voice. ‘Is this what you were expecting?’
‘I don’t know what to expect.’ Wolfboy shifts Paul on his shoulder with a grunt. Paul’s arms hang limply.
‘We’re late.’ Blake sounds impatient, already on the other side of the room. I can see now that there are narrow concrete edges around the pit of dirt. ‘I said we’d be here ten minutes ago. She hates it when people are late.’
‘You try carrying a dead weight on your own,’ says Wolfboy, but Blake has already disappeared up a flight of stairs lit with candles.
‘Do you want some help?’
‘He’s not that heavy. There are a few advantages to being an animal,’ Wolfboy grunts, climbing the stairs.
I whack him one. ‘You’re not an animal any more than I’m a fairy. Stop being so angsty.’
At the top of the staircase is a door with a frosted window engraved with a W&S. Blake waits for us on the landing.
‘What’s growing down there?’ I ask her.
‘Luminescent fungi. Foxfire and Jack O’Lanterns mostly.’
I file that info under Strange Trivia. Blake knocks on the door, turning to give us an excited smile. Personally I wish I were meeting the Queen in something a little more glamorous than my school dress.
‘Come in,’ I hear a female voice say.
24
We follow Blake into a room
that looks like a cross between an office and someone’s house.
‘Put him down here,’ says the Queen to Wolfboy, patting a desk. Wolfboy lays Paul carefully down on the flat surface, and the Queen fetches a cushion to lay under his head.
The Queen of the Night is not at all what I expected.
She’s my age, plump, with dyed black hair, blue eyes, red lipstick and a pretty freckled face.
‘You can call me Amelia,’ she says to me and Wolfboy. ‘Take a seat where you can find it.’
Amelia’s apartment is large and, though clean, it’s filled with enough furniture for four families. There are framed pictures on the walls, and wooden cabinets with hundreds of tiny drawers, and an entire six-person dining setting pushed into a corner. Wolfboy sits in a leather armchair with burst seams, and I perch on the armrest. He rests his arm across my leg, and trails his fingers up and down my calf. I try to think serious thoughts.
Amelia leans over Paul and checks most of the things we’ve already covered. Blake must have told her a lot on the phone, because she seems unsurprised by his condition. Paul’s eyes are still now, and his face is smooth and pale. He has a wide mouth and eyelashes long enough to cast feathery shadows on his cheeks. He’s actually quite pretty, the perfect halfway point between Anglo and Korean.
Blake peers around Amelia’s shoulder. ‘He looks like Sleeping Beauty.’
‘Don’t ever say that to his face,’ says Wolfboy. ‘Actually, do. If he wakes up, promise me you’ll say that to his face.’
Blake scowls. ‘I’m not going to say that. And it’s not if he wakes up, it’s when. Right, Meels?’
Amelia takes off Paul’s shoes and socks and tickles his feet. He doesn’t move. She lifts his arm into the air, and lets it drop. Her manner is unhurried and her movements practised. From where I’m sitting it’s clear she’s a profession
al. Even if I don’t know exactly what sort of professional.
‘So, uh, Amelia, are you Wookey or Salamon?’ asks Wolfboy.
I grab his hand and hold it still. I want to concentrate.
‘Neither. My grandfather on my mother’s side was a Wookey.’ While Amelia talks she goes to a cupboard and selects a small bottle from the dozens inside. She uncorks it and waves it under Paul’s nostrils. Blake follows her every move, watching and learning. I’m surprised she doesn’t have her notebook out.
‘Grandpa used to own this building. After he died, my parents divided it up into apartments. We lived in this one and leased the rest out. When the renters and my parents left Shyness, I ripped down the dividers on the bottom floor, fixed up the rooftop and turned it back into the family business. I had to make adjustments because of the Darkness, but I did it in the end.’
Amelia corks the bottle.
‘So what is the family business?’
Amelia fixes Wolfboy with a no-nonsense look. ‘It’s the business of helping you, I presume.’
I squash my smile. I can already see why Amelia is nicknamed the Queen. She turns to Blake. ‘B, did you bring the pills with you?’
Blake fishes the ziplock bag out of her pocket.
‘Standard sleep program medication.’ Amelia points to the pale blue pill. ‘This puts the patient in an extremely deep dream state. The orange pill enables them to dream lucidly.’
‘What does that mean?’ I ask.
‘It means you know that you’re dreaming while you’re doing it, and you can remember your dreams when you wake up. But it’s also rumoured this second pill makes it possible for a third party to observe, possibly even extract or record the dream.’
‘And you believe that?’ Wolfboy sounds about as incredulous as I feel. Then again, what Amelia said correlates with Sanjay’s babble.
‘It’s theoretically feasible. I think Doctor Gregory has the tools to observe dreams, and possibly influence them in minor ways. I don’t imagine he can do more than that. The rest is spin.’ Amelia frowns. She seems troubled by the contents of the bag. Her voice trails off as she wanders over to a filing cabinet and fetches some digital scales. The scales beep when they’re turned on. She places the bag on the tray. ‘I’d be interested in analysing these in detail, but we need them, and we don’t have time.’