The Tunnel of Dreams

by Bernard Beckett

  ‘After this it will be too dangerous to speak,’ she told them. ‘If you hear anything from me, it will be a single word, ‘Run!’ If you hear that, you must split up. Do not come back here to the boat. Run as fast and as hard as you can and then go to ground. If you are lucky and they do not find you, wait until tomorrow night and then make your way back to the camp. You’ll have to go around the harbour—they’ll be watching the water. Do you understand?’

  Arlo nodded. He understood, but he did not want to think about it. Whoever it was he would have to outrun he doubted he would manage it, not in these clumsy boots. And even if he did, there was no way he would be able to find the camp again. His only hope was that it would not come to that.

  ‘Follow me up through a narrow valley,’ Alice continued. ‘We’ll come out higher than the mine, and then make our way back along the ridge towards it. You will see guards patrolling the perimeter. Move when I move, even if you feel it isn’t safe. You have to trust me. There is a chute near the back of the tent, where rubbish is collected. We’ll climb up that and into a bin. Look up and you will see all you need to see. We’ll leave the same way. I lead. You follow. Is there anything you want to say? Otherwise we don’t speak again until we are back here. Understand?’

  Do you understand? Stefan messaged in his head.

  Kind of, Arlo silently replied. It was such an odd feeling, these messages passing between them, that he had to fight the urge to giggle.

  ‘And if you’re passing twin messages,’ Alice interrupted, ‘now would be a good time to stop. I’m pretty sure that’s how we got caught last time. I think the guards can hear them.’

  As they climbed their way up the valley, the sounds coming from within the huge tent grew louder. Here was the one place that didn’t close for the night. Alice had called it a mine, Arlo remembered, and so he imagined the clunks and whirs and whooshes to be coming from a huge steam-powered drill, augering its way into the earth below. But what would they be drilling for, and what did that have to do with Alice’s sister? Wondering took his mind from the tiredness of his legs and the emptiness of his stomach. Beside him Stefan moved with the same heavy footstep

  s. Alice remained light on her feet, watchful as a meerkat, crouching, signalling, moving again.

  Despite the intensity of the noise, it was still a surprise to see how close they were to the tent when they emerged from the bush. They lay flat on the ground, taking in the great scale of it. It was as large as a town hall, with hundreds of arm-thick ropes tethering it to the ground in a treacherous obstacle course of pegs and knots. It was made of a dirty white canvas that glowed yellow from the fires within. Stefan noticed movement to his left and buried his head in the cool grass, one eye warily watching the dark form of a sentry walking within a stone’s throw of their hiding place.

  The guard stopped suddenly and so did Stefan’s heart. He felt his brother’s hand on his, clawed in fear. Beside him, Alice watched intently, her lips moving silently as she counted out time. She moved without warning, without looking back, trusting them to follow. The boys stayed close, running crouched behind her to the exact point where the guard had disappeared from view.

  The chute was made of rough-cut timber and ran beneath a flap in the heavy canvas. It was as wide as their shoulders and smelt of the sludge that clung to every surface. They crawled on, Alice first, then Stefan, and Arlo last. Within the tent the sounds clarified into their separate parts, metal on metal, the grinding of rocks, the roaring of a furnace. A thick heat blasted over them and Arlo dropped his head, breathing deeply to steady his shaking. They moved more slowly, heads down, exposed.

  The chute ended inside the tent at a large bin the size of a dump truck, made of thick planks bound with rope. Alice climbed in and slipped down feet first, disappearing from view. The boys followed as quickly as they dared. Arlo shuddered with a wave of claustrophobia. If anybody saw them now, they were trapped. The bin was only a third full, its load a jumble of broken timber, crushed metal containers and filthy rags, and beneath it some kind of slurry. Alice pressed her finger to her lips, as if the boys needed reminding, and then pointed above them.

  There, suspended in mid-air off the end of what looked like a medieval crane, was a metal cage. It was so small that its occupant was forced to sit with her knees to her chest. Her eyes stared blankly ahead, her long hair was lank with sweat, and her exposed arms were terrifyingly thin. Had he not already been told, Arlo might have missed the fact that she was the identical twin of the fierce girl beside him. He looked at Alice and read the pain in her face, imagined it rushing through her like a darkening storm, gritting up the ridges of her angry soul. A single tear formed at the corner of Alice’s eye and she did not brush it away. Arlo saw the muscles pulsing on her jawline, and the resolve harden in her heart. She turned quickly, just once, to check the boys had seen her sister, trapped and lonely, broken. If an animal had been held that way, people would have protested about the cruelty. Arlo’s heart ached for the prisoner and he knew in that moment the very thing Alice had brought them here to understand: that he could not rest until the girl was rescued. Whatever this world was, whatever the magic that had brought them here, this was his job, and his brother’s job too. This was what they had to do.

  Again Alice counted silently, her lips shaping each second. Then she leapt, as quick and graceful as a cat, up the side of the bin and head first down the chute. Stefan followed, with none of her elegance but all of her speed. Arlo propelled himself close after, relieved to leave the heat and noise and confusion behind.

  Alice crouched at the bottom of the chute, looking to check she still had both boys with her, then nodded and ran back towards the bush. Stefan ran hunched, his shoulders tight, waiting the whole time for the cry that never came: ‘Guards! Guards! Twins at the eastern wall!’

  BY THE TIME they returned to their camp Stefan and Arlo were so exhausted they barely noticed they had only ferns for a mattress and rolled-up hoodies for pillows. They slept long and deep until the sun was over the ridge and had painted the forest in warming splashes of light.

  Arlo woke with the familiar sense of dream fragments floating through his consciousness, something about a tunnel and a cage, and flying horses. It took him a full confused minute of looking about the weird bedroom to piece together the strange truth. Stefan stirred beside him, opening one eye and grunting before rolling over and then giving a small yelp of complaint as a twig pushed at his cheek. He sat up suddenly, his face a mixture of outrage and confusion. He stared accusingly at Arlo, as if all of this was his doing.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Hiding out. Inside a tree. This is Alice’s camp. We came through the tunnel. Remember?’

  It was clear that he did, for with every new detail his shoulders slumped a little further and his frown deepened.

  ‘I thought it was dream,’ Stefan said.

  ‘Yeah, me too. It isn’t.’

  There was no sign of Alice. Apart from the sleeping bag, rolled up neatly beside them, it might have been possible to believe she had never been there.

  She arrived on cue, slipping back through the gap, carrying all three of their water bottles. ‘Morning, boys. Who’s ready for a little competition?’

  Stefan remembered a promise he had made himself, on the long walk back to camp, and shook his head in protest. ‘No. Not yet. First you tell us what is going on here. What was happening inside the tent, and why they’re holding your sister there, and how you plan to rescue her. Tell us everything, or we won’t help you.’

  Alice shrugged. ‘Okay, come outside then, the sun’s up and it’s warmer there.’

  They sat on a log beside the stream, watching the water dance itself into a froth as it rushed between two large rocks. Alice told them what she could. The tent hadn’t been there when she and Jackie had first arrived, and although the tunnel had started in exactly the same place, behind the ‘For Sale’ sign, when she’d passed through with Jackie it had come out at the h
eadland, exactly where the tent now was.

  ‘I think what they’re doing up there has something to do with the tunnel. I think, if Mr Williams was right and there are no identical twins in this world, then when they saw us, they knew we’d come through a tunnel. So maybe they’re trying to find the tunnel, or close the tunnel, or…I don’t know. But I think it’s got something to do with that.’

  ‘Who are they, though, that they’d do something like that to your sister?’ Arlo asked. He wasn’t sure if it was all right to bring that up, whether it might upset Alice thinking about it, but he knew if it was him he’d already be thinking about it. It’d be the only thing he’d be thinking about.

  Alice’s answer was short and direct. ‘I don’t know who they are, but if I ever have the chance, I’m going to make them pay.’

  They had not known Alice long, but already both boys believed that she meant it.

  Stefan coughed, the way he always did when he had something to say but wasn’t sure how to say it. ‘Um, what if it’s a trap? What if they expect you to try to rescue her? It would explain why they’re keeping her somewhere where it’s so easy for you to see her. What if they have some reason for wanting the two of you together?’

  Alice nodded and, to Stefan’s relief, didn’t seem angry he’d suggested it. ‘I thought about that, and maybe it’s true, but it doesn’t matter. I have to try to rescue her. She’s my sister.’

  ‘And we will help you,’ Arlo said, in the strongest voice he could manage. He hadn’t thought that they might be walking into a trap, and the truth was it frightened him, but he’d seen the prisoner himself now, and had made her his own silent promise.

  ‘Thank you. I haven’t found out much about this world, but I do know that there is magic here, and the magic is strongest in the young. The guards who captured me were all my age. There is an elite force, called the Royal Guard, and they are made up of a small group of children who have exhibited the greatest control of their magic. It’s how they caught us, I think, by intercepting the messages we were sending each other. And they are up at the tent now, guarding the old tunnel entrance. I think Jackie might be there so they can watch the tunnel and the prisoner at the same time. And actually, that’s kind of how my plan works.’

  Her eyes darted quickly away. There was no way her nervousness was a good sign. Alice stood up and walked away from the boys. She scuffed her foot in the dirt, then kicked a stone into the water. She turned back to them, but kept her distance, as if the gap between them might dilute the message, make it easier for them to swallow.

  ‘Each year there is a competition, held at the Academy, to find the most promising prospects to join the Royal Guard. I’ve overheard people talking about it in the streets. At this time of year, it’s just about the only thing they talk about. It is a battle of elimination, held over three weeks. They start with fifty specially selected kids, and by the end only five remain... And the competition starts today.’

  Alice stopped, as if the rest was obvious. What’s she on about? Arlo silently asked. I don’t think we want to know, Stefan thought back.

  ‘Early this afternoon carriages from the Academy will move throughout the land picking up the contenders. There is a boy called Will who lives in the next valley. I have seen him training. His father is a bully who shouts and screams at him and tells him he isn’t trying. I’ve seen the look in that boy’s eyes. I recognise it. He will not be waiting for his carriage at the side of the road. I am sure of it. He intends to run away, and that means one of you can take his place.’

  Alice stopped and looked at the boys. Arlo saw in her eyes how desperately she needed to believe there was a way forward.

  ‘That’s your plan?’ Stefan asked.

  ‘Yes, for now.’ It was the first time Arlo had seen Alice look even the slightest bit uncertain.

  ‘One of us takes the boy’s place,’ Stefan repeated slowly. ‘Enters the competition, is one of the successful five, joins the Royal Guard, and then—’

  ‘Frees Jackie.’ Alice hesitated. ‘Yes.’

  Arlo could see the effect on Alice of hearing her plan spoken back to her. He had noticed it himself, the way things that felt perfect inside his head so often turned foolish and inadequate when spoken.

  ‘But, we…’ Stefan struggled to find which problem to explain first. ‘But…well, we’re not magic.’

  ‘Okay, well, I don’t think that’s true,’ Alice said, quickly finding her confidence again. ‘You can already talk to each other, inside your heads, right? And I think it’s how you got through the tunnel actually. I think you made the tunnel open. I think the thing about identical twins is that in this world, we’re powerfully magic.’

  ‘So you’re magic too, then,’ Stefan countered. ‘You should do it.’

  ‘I would, but Will’s a boy, and also, ever since Jackie’s been captured, I’ve lost whatever magic I had,’ Alice explained. ‘I’ve tried sending her messages and there’s nothing. And, when we first arrived, I discovered I could lift things, just by thinking them into the air. It was hard. I couldn’t lift much, just small stones or a twig, but I could do it. And now I can’t.’

  ‘Well maybe we can’t either,’ Arlo said.

  ‘Perhaps you can’t,’ Alice agreed. ‘So that’s why we need to test you.’

  The test Alice proposed seemed ridiculous, but Arlo and Stefan agreed to go along with it. Hopefully she would see they had no magic and quietly drop her plan.

  Alice used the rocks in the stream as stepping stones and crossed to the other side. She took two dead branches, each about the length of her forearm, and placed them side by side at her feet.

  ‘Now, all you have to do is concentrate on your own stick, Arlo this one’—she pointed to her left—‘and Stefan, this is yours. Use your mind to lift it into the air and bring it back to you. The first person to hold his stick in his hand without moving his feet is the winner. Go!’

  Arlo wondered how long it would take Alice to realise neither stick would move. Stefan wondered whether the pressure of having lost her sister had made Alice go a little mad. Arlo, just for the fun of it, concentrated for a moment on his stick and thought, as directly and clearly as he could, Come on then, move. It was funny really—until the stick twitched. Alice yelped and gave a little skip of joy. Stefan, hardly able to believe his eyes, was determined not to be outdone. His little brother, younger by fifteen minutes, would not defeat him.

  Stefan concentrated. Arlo grimaced. Stefan clenched his fists and swore at his stick under his breath. His stick twitched, as if it had been electrocuted. Stefan tried a new angle, silently pleading with his stick as if it were a reluctant child: Come on. You can do it. For me. There’s a good stick. Up, that’s right. Up!

  The stick hovered off the ground, holding its position.

  Now come to me. That’s right. Come to me.

  But it wasn’t the stick doing the moving, he realised. What was lifting the stick was him imagining it was lifting. And so he closed his eyes and pictured, with all the force and detail he could muster, the stick rising up and moving towards him. He imagined the motion into being and held his hand out with the full expectation that the stick would arrive. And that is exactly what it did. It took him a moment to work out what this meant—he was too busy feeling pleased with himself for winning.

  It was Arlo, grinning from ear to ear, who broke his bubble. ‘Guess you’re it.’ Arlo slapped him on the back. ‘So when does this carriage come?’

  Another three hours, was the answer, enough time to pack a small canvas duffle bag Alice had stolen with a set of spare clothes (also stolen), and a selection of energy bars, removed from their wrappers so as to appear less otherworldly.

  ‘Remember, you will all be trying to outperform one another,’ Alice offered as her last piece of advice. ‘You don’t have to be polite in there. Politeness will get you into trouble. If you choose to keep to yourself and not engage with their questions, they will just think that is your strategy. No
w come on, we have a runaway to intercept.’

  They crouched in the bushes and watched the smoke curl up from the chimney of the cottage. A door slammed and a boy, about Stefan and Arlo’s age and size, emerged into the sunlight, a duffle bag slung across his shoulder. He waited a moment and was joined by a man who must have been his father, a large broad man with short cropped hair and a full beard.

  ‘Right then,’ the man’s deep voice carried along the valley. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to walk with you?’

  ‘If they see me with my father, they will think me weak,’ the boy replied. ‘I don’t want to start off that way.’

  The father nodded and slapped the boy hard on his back. ‘Okay.’ He crouched, staring straight into his son’s eyes, hands on either shoulder. ‘And you will not be weak, boy? Do you understand me? You will not be weak.’

  It was not an encouragement, but a threat, and the boy turned away, as if expecting the demand to be finished with a blow.

  ‘All right then, get out of my sight.’ The father straightened and sent the boy sloping on his way.

  While the boy took the narrow path through the trees, Alice, Arlo and Stefan tracked him silently. Once he stopped and froze, as if aware he was being followed, but after looking around he put his head down and hurried on. When he reached a point where the pathway forked in two, he stopped again.

  ‘The left path takes him to the road, the right over to the next valley and away,’ Alice whispered. ‘Now watch.’

  It was clear the boy had not yet decided which path to take. He breathed in deep, swept his toe in a slow arc in the dirt, looked to the sky, closed his eyes then nodded to himself and took the path to the right.

  ‘Okay, let’s go!’ Alice waved them on, and they broke cover together, rushing towards the path before the boy could run.

  ‘Hello!’ Alice called out. ‘Hello, Will!’