Queen of the Night

by Leanne Hall

  I suck in air when I surface. The water is so cold it crushes my chest. Already the current is carrying me downstream. I see Paul, twenty metres ahead, clinging to a rock. I thrash out some freestyle until I reach him.

  ‘Paul!’ I say. ‘Paul, listen to me!’

  His eyes are closed, his mouth opening at all the wrong times, making him take in mouthfuls of water.

  ‘Paul, that wasn’t me or Ingrid making that happen back there. That was you, your mind. You know it’s over, you know it’s time to let her go.’

  ‘No,’ he says, opening one eye. ‘No way.’

  His fingers slip and he throws his arm over the rock with gargantuan effort.

  ‘Let go of the fucking rock, Paul!’ I bash his fingers, then latch on to him before he floats away.

  ‘Don’t struggle. I’m trying to help you.’

  Paul elbows me in the head.

  As my head snaps back, I catch a glimpse of the strangest thing: the rainbow-booted girl from the forest again, above us, torpedoing through the star-speckled sky like Astro Boy. A wavelet dumps on my face, blinding me. I blink away the water but she’s gone.

  A surge of water lifts me high, and then I hit solid land, hard.

  ‘Ow!’

  It’s no longer full night. I push my hair out of my face. There’s river grit in my mouth.

  I sit up and spit on the ground.

  This has to be a joke. I’m lying on a bed of moss. The river is clear and burbling. Behind me is a waving meadow. The sky is pastel-streaky. I’ve been beached in the most gorgeous fantasy place Paul could imagine. Pretty soon some dancing squirrels are going to sing a jaunty song about gathering acorns.

  Paul lies several metres away on the mossy beach. He’s drenched, like me, but seems unhurt.

  ‘Where are we?’ he asks.

  ‘I’ve got no idea.’

  Paul cranes to look behind us at the meadow.

  ‘The sun is rising,’ he says. It’s true. Paul’s face takes on a warm tint as the sun begins its ascent.

  It’s a fully formed circle before either of us will admit there’s something wrong.

  ‘Oh no,’ says Paul.

  The sun is rising, sure, but it’s a black sun in an orange sky. It rises faster than it should; a black circle luminous with dark fire.

  ‘No, no, no.’ Paul tosses his head from side to side. ‘I’m not ready to wake up.’ Tears gather and fall; I can’t tell if they’re tears of defeat or fear.

  ‘Paul.’ I crawl across to him, holding on to his hand. ‘You’re ready. Trust me.’

  He won’t look at me, but it doesn’t matter because the ground starts to disintegrate beneath us, the moss melts away, and we’re falling down towards the centre of the earth.

  thirty

  The twitching stops, and

  both Wildgirl and Paul lie still. Too still. The sudden peace bothers me. ‘It’s gone on too long,’ I say to Amelia. ‘I think we should wake them.’

  ‘Don’t even think about stepping over that line, Wolfboy.’

  I look down. I had no idea my feet had taken me to the edge of the circle. Blake sits on the periphery, looking cold and miserable. I pull Amelia away.

  ‘You admitted that you’ve never done this before.’ It’s difficult to keep my voice low. I think of Delilah’s book, the hidden histories of Shyness, and wonder how much Amelia might know that I don’t.

  Amelia is stubborn. ‘I’ve read accounts written in my own grandfather’s hand, and I followed the instructions to a T.’

  ‘The medicine could work differently with Nia, or—’

  Nia gasps loudly, as if she’s heard me say her name.

  ‘Meels—quick!’ Blake leans over the line.

  Nia arches and her eyes snap open. After a few seconds her body relaxes and she’s instantly soaked to the skin, as if she’s been water-bombed from above.

  It’s too much for Blake, who crawls away so fast she falls over. I jump across the line and kneel at Nia’s side. When she sees my face hovering over hers, she smiles radiantly.

  ‘Dark again.’

  A wave of euphoria pulses from her. She gulps a few times, as if she’s just swum to the surface from the ocean depths. I pull her rag-doll body to a sitting position. Her overalls are plastered to her body. Strands of wet hair latch onto me.

  ‘So trippy, Wolfie. Amazing.’

  ‘You’re back,’ I say inadequately. ‘Did it work? Are you okay? Are you hurt?’

  ‘Wolfie, I’m fine.’ Nia swallows. ‘It worked. Go to Paul.’

  Paul has woken too, though far less dramatically. He lies on his side without making a sound. His face is a river of tears. I look at Nia, and I’m torn.

  ‘Go to him,’ she says again, and I obey.

  Paul is also sopping wet, his long-sleeved t-shirt clinging to his scrawny chest.

  ‘Buddy,’ I say, touching his shoulder. ‘It’s Jethro. You’re safe.’

  He blinks. I also offer him help to sit up, but I don’t hug him.

  ‘Hurts,’ he says through chattering teeth.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Everywhere.’ He puts his fist to his chest and wheezes. Something in that gesture reminds me of the weeks after Gram passed away, and the pain I felt deep in my chest, real physical pain in my body.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘My whole body hurts,’ he says, ‘I think I’m going to die.’

  I rub his back, trying to warm him. ‘Paul, you’re not going to die. Do you remember what happened?’

  His brow furrows. ‘Hellcats and Rambo, and…’

  ‘No, I mean you’ve been asleep. For a while.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Paul looks sceptical, and then he remembers something that makes him wince. ‘Oh, fuck.’

  ‘Wolfboy,’ Amelia calls out. ‘Let’s get them inside. Hot showers all round.’

  I let Paul lean into my side, and Blake and Amelia cross their arms to make a seat for Nia.

  ‘For god’s sake, I can walk. I’m not an invalid,’ she says, just as her legs buckle underneath her.

  Paul and I sprawl on the floor in the drying room, the warmest room in the house. Above our heads hangs an upside-down forest of leaves and branches, tied into bundles and pegged to washing lines.

  Paul has stopped shivering. He was so uncharacteristically silent in those first few minutes I wondered if dreaming for too long could damage a person’s brain. But the shower seems to have brought him back to life.

  ‘So, you and Wildgirl are together now?’

  I was planning on keeping that under wraps for a while, avoid rubbing it in his face, but it must be obvious.

  ‘Yeah. I guess so. I don’t know how it’s going to work.’ I trace patterns over the dusty floor. It smells of eucalyptus and burning wood in here. ‘She’s still at school, and we live so far apart.’

  ‘Nah, you’ll find a way,’ he says. ‘That’s good. I’m happy for you.’

  There’s more to it than that, but I don’t want to bother Paul with my complete range of doubts. Nia might find me interesting now, but after high school it might be different. The more she learns at university, the more she’ll realise how little I know.

  ‘She was at our house, right?’ Paul asks. ‘I mean your house. She, uh, came into my bedroom and talked to me. That wasn’t part of a dream, was it?’

  He’s having trouble meeting my eyes.

  ‘No, that bit was real,’ I say.

  ‘Oh crap.’ He hits his leg. ‘Crap, crap, crap.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I can’t believe I hit a girl. Why would she help me after I was such a prick to her?’

  ‘Just apologise to her. It’s no big deal.’

  Paul tucks some stray damp bits of hair behind his ears. ‘I did bad things, Jethro. If I tell you, you’ll hate me.’

  His default expression is still one of abject misery.

  ‘What did you tell Doctor Gregory about me?’

  Paul is shocked, freezing with his legs stretched out in f
ront of him. I realise he has no idea how much I’ve figured out about what’s been going on.

  ‘I’m a shit friend. Oh man, I am the shittiest friend.’

  He wipes his eyes with the back of his hands, trying to hide what he’s doing. The only other time I’ve seen Paul cry was when he got hit in the teeth with a cricket bat when he was fourteen. And that time Diana made us watch Bambi.

  ‘I didn’t mean for that to happen. I thought I could go to the institute and stay away from Doctor Gregory. I knew you didn’t like him. The last thing I meant to do was go behind your back. I didn’t expect I would need it so much.’

  ‘Why did you even go there in the first place? You hate Dreamers.’

  ‘I’d run out of ways to make myself feel better.’ Paul sniffles, wipes his nose on the hem of his t-shirt. ‘I liked it there. You could relax and read and drink as much coke as you wanted and play video games. The place is totally sci-fi inside. There are these pretty Psych students that work there, come and ask you questions and monitor you.’

  It does sound like Paul’s idea of heaven. He continues, his voice calmer. ‘Remember when you were little and you got sick and your mum would come and read to you in bed and feed you soup and stuff? And you knew you were the most important person in the world?’

  I nod.

  ‘Or if you went to a party with your folks and you’d fall asleep on the couch? And when it was time to leave, your dad would carry you out to the car, and then from the car to your bed when you got home. That was the feeling I got at the institute. Like someone was looking after me. I knew it was fake, but I didn’t care.’

  ‘It sounds nice,’ I say. It’s not the nightmare vision of the place I’ve been forming. I wouldn’t have gone near the institute myself, but I understand why Paul did. He’s always liked having people around him more than I do. ‘I’ve been talking to some of the people in the program, though, and they say that their dreams get taken. Recorded somehow. Is that true?’

  ‘That’s what they tell you. There’s a machine that records brainwaves and things, but I don’t know if that’s what they’re really doing.’ Paul turns red. ‘I haven’t answered your question, have I?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Doctor Gregory singled me out on my second visit, took me into a private consultation room. He said I could help him with his research. The first few sessions were about me, my family, school, what I did in my spare time. Then he started asking about you.’

  ‘What did he ask?’

  Paul blows out a thin stream of breath. ‘Everything. Nothing. Stupid things. What you were like in kinder and primary school. Did you get along with your parents. Your brother. What you ate for breakfast, were you good at sports, did you ever live near electrical towers, did you like girls. Did you ever play violent computer games, did we ever pretend to be superheroes. Did you grow faster than the other kids. He didn’t seem to have a plan at all. He went over the same things, again and again. It didn’t seem very scientific.’

  I’m silent for a few seconds, mulling this over. There’s a rustle near the door. Nia trails her fingers through the canopy of leaves.

  ‘There you are,’ she says, crawling over to where we sit, managing to bring a mug with her and not spill what’s inside. I put my hand on her leg when she gets to me. She’s wearing her school PE outfit. She looks a bit pale, but maybe that’s due to lack of sleep.

  Nia hands the mug to Paul. ‘From Amelia,’ she says. ‘Some kind of recovery drink. I had mine. I highly recommend it.’

  I touch the end of her nose. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I feel fantastic, actually. How about you, Paul?’

  ‘Okay, I suppose.’ His voice is strangled.

  ‘What have you boys been talking about then? Has Paul told you about the wild dream yet?’

  ‘Nia,’ Paul breaks in. ‘I just want to tell you how sorry I am, really sorry that I—’

  Nia pats him on the back. ‘I know, Paul. But thank you for your apology. And seriously, chug that drink.’

  ‘We’ve been talking about what a creep Doctor Gregory is,’ I say, looking at Nia doubtfully. She’s having trouble keeping still. Her fingers drum against mine.

  ‘Good, good,’ she says. Her eyes are mirror-bright. ‘Because I’ve got to tell you, I woke up in a vengeful mood.’

  thirty-one

  ‘I think it’s, yeah it’s—here.’

  Paul drags the clinking, rustling plastic bag out of the tree hollow. He pulls out a spray can and tests its nozzle on the gravel. ‘We’ve only got black and red, but that will do, right?’

  ‘Perfect.’ Nia claps her hands.

  ‘Can’t believe you’re still caught up in your life of petty crime,’ I say.

  ‘Hey,’ Paul protests, ‘Graffiti is self-expression of the highest form. Let’s go before anyone figures out my secret hiding place. I want to keep using this tree.’

  His hair is still damp and his clothes borrowed, but he looks like the old Paul returned. Not just pre-dream Paul, but pre-Ingrid Paul. We cross the vacant lot and return to Grey Street.

  The Shyness side of the road is a dark ribbon, but the other side glows with the soft burn of late afternoon. I watch a Panwood mum herd her three children into a four-wheel drive, looking fearfully at us like we’re going to mug them. I wave at her. She slams the car door and rushes to the driver’s side.

  Nia skips ahead of us, skips backwards, talking and waving her hands about, conducting the air. She wears every part of her school uniform at once, plus Amelia’s winter coat.

  ‘I think I remember where it is. It’s this way. Who’s going to do it? Should we all do a bit?’

  She leaps up and tries to slap a broken shop sign that hangs over the footpath. It pleases her so much, she takes a running stab at the next sign. The Shyness footpaths are riddled with cracks and holes. I hope she doesn’t trip and break her leg. At least she gets the left turn onto Saturnalia Avenue right.

  I ask Paul. ‘Are you feeling as good as she is after that drink?’

  Paul swings the bag as he walks. ‘I don’t think anyone in the world is feeling as good as she is right now.’

  ‘You got that right.’

  I’m hoping that at least a small part of her hyper mood might have something to do with me. With us.

  ‘I still feel bad about what I did,’ Paul says.

  ‘You have to stop torturing yourself,’ I say, turning when I realise we’ve already passed the old milk bar. ‘We all have to stop torturing ourselves. Nia. Nia, you’ve gone too far. It’s here.’

  Doctor Gregory’s ‘Dream a Little Dream’ billboard is still unblemished. I feel less than ever now when I see his big orange head, but this time I notice the tiny datura flowers and a toll-free phone number in the bottom corner of the poster.

  ‘Hey, new poster,’ says Nia, looking up. ‘Still Doctor Knobhead, but different.’

  ‘Right, you’re up,’ says Paul, dropping the bag on the ground and handing me a red spray can.

  ‘Me?’ I try to hand the can back. ‘Why me?’

  Nia joins us. ‘Because vengeance is yours. Well, vengeance should be yours. If anyone should give Doctor Gregory a big old symbolic bitch-slap, it’s you.’

  ‘Also,’ says Paul, ‘I don’t think either Nia or I are going to be able to reach.’

  I look down at the can. ‘This is stupid.’

  Nia grabs the can out of my hand and shakes it, before handing it back. ‘Sometimes stupid is all we’ve got.’

  I climb the ladder all the way to the bottom edge of the poster, and then inch along the narrow metal gangway. I begin drawing. The paint sprays in fits and starts at first, but after a few shakes it comes good.

  I concentrate on getting the lines right but it’s difficult to tell from this close up.

  ‘What is that?’ yells Nia. ‘What are you drawing?’

  ‘Try and shade it a bit on the right,’ Paul says. He understands my vision.

  ‘Oh. Oh.’ Nia l
aughs when she gets it.

  When I’ve finished I climb down. I put my arm across Nia’s shoulders as the three of us look at my artwork.

  ‘Beautiful,’ pronounces Paul. ‘And anatomically correct.’

  ‘That felt surprisingly good,’ I say. ‘If my parents could see this, they’d be so proud.’

  ‘Do you think?’ says Paul, missing my point.

  I give him an incredulous look. ‘Dude, you know my dad almost as well as I do. He doesn’t do proud. At least not where I’m concerned.’

  Paul tilts his head. ‘Oh. Yeah, I was just thinking. The whole time I was at the institute, I never saw anyone who looked like you, Jethro. But there was this one time, I saw a young guy, younger than us, who looked really similar to you. He had the hair and the grrrr. Doctor Gregory was ushering him into the back offices. When I asked the other patients who he was, one said the kid was Doctor Gregory’s son.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. I gaze at the billboard. ‘So, you’re saying this kid had the…what I’ve got, the night sickness?’

  Paul nods.

  ‘You’re not sick, Wolfie,’ says Nia.

  ‘Uh, I think I might be a bit sick.’ I look at the billboard and Doctor Gregory’s oversized head in a new light. ‘This guy is trying to do something for his son, and what do I do? I draw a giant body part pointing at his mouth.’

  ‘I should have realised,’ says Paul. ‘After all those questions about you, I should have put the two things together. But I was dreaming so often, and I only saw the kid once. It makes you think, though, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t feel sorry for Doctor Gregory,’ says Nia. ‘I don’t care who his son is. I want to do a billboard too. Is there another one that’s easier to get to? I could stand on your shoulders, Wolfie.’

  I look at Paul. He shrugs. The new colour that was flushing his cheeks has faded a bit.

  ‘There’s the one near Dreamer’s Row.’ I say. I find I don’t feel that sorry for Doctor Gregory after all. ‘It’s not far.’

  As we continue along deserted Grey Street I feel unfamiliarly content. What Paul has told us is a weapon I can use should Doctor Gregory hassle me again. But after hearing it I don’t feel like fighting him anymore. I don’t need revenge on Doctor Gregory. If daylight is really coming to Shyness, his days are already numbered.