Dreamquake

by Elizabeth Knox

  Laura felt her way to the door and opened it on a square of dark blue twilight air. She fumbled around on the ledge above the door and found the other candle and a box of matches. She lit the candle, set it upright, and sat on the floor to wait.

  Later there was noise and vibration from the ladder, and one of the sisters reappeared, a basket on her back. Laura gave the sister a hand and helped her into the room.

  The nun unpacked food and drink. She said, “I’m here to feed you and prevent you from sleeping.” And, “Here,” she passed Laura a chamber pot and a bottle of water.

  “Thank you,” said Laura. “Where’s my aunt?”

  “I won’t answer questions. Would you like to make yourself comfortable now, then replace the lid, rinse your hands, and have something to eat.”

  Laura did as she was told. She emptied her bladder and washed her hands. The nun had found two seats under the table. She set food before one and watched as Laura ate. Then she lit several more candles, got out some darning, and passed Laura a Bible. She asked that Laura read to her as she plied her needle. Acts. Then the Gospel of St. Thomas. “His disciples said to him: On what day will the Kingdom come? Jesus said: It cometh not with observation. They will not say, Lo here! Or Lo, there! The kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.”

  Sometime during the night Laura picked up a blanket and wrapped it around herself. And sometime during the night the nun gave her a lesson with needle and yarn and darning egg. Laura hadn’t darned before—nor had she ever worn a darned stocking. She was clumsy; her hands were sore. The sister read to her while she worked.

  When they heard the bells in the bell tower ringing, the sister stopped reading. “Matins,” she said. “I’ll go now. I was told you could be safely left by morning. I suggest you push that chamber pot well under the table so that you won’t risk knocking it over with your foot.” She gathered her darning and the remains of the meal, leaving Laura several apples, a bottle of water, and the Bible.

  Laura left the door open. She reassembled her bedding, knotted the sleeves of her nightgown again, and lay down. She made no attempt to fight sleep. She’d managed perhaps five hours in all—five hours in five days. The nightmare didn’t let her stay asleep. She’d had it three times now—when she’d first caught it, then at the Rainbow Opera, then in the late afternoon of the day before. Each time she’d fought her way out, fought as the buried man strained to escape his coffin.

  This time her body’s need for sleep anchored her in the dream. Her struggle was horribly prolonged. When she was finally able to free herself, she could scarcely move. She lay in her twisted bedding and howled with shock and despair.

  Once her shuddering had subsided to shivers, Laura’s eyes kept trying to shut themselves again, so she got up and went to sit on the sill of the low doorway in the cold morning air. From there she watched the Isle come to life, its bridges fill with cars, carts, and pedestrians. She watched the men at work on telegraph poles, putting up wires for the new phone system that was slowly spreading its way around the city. She watched the smoke of trains passing across the two bridges that linked the west bank to the Isle, and the Isle to the east. This was a commuter line; it came in from Founderston’s western suburbs through villas and parks, then past Founderston Girls’ Academy. It passed through the district that held the museums, galleries, libraries, and government buildings, after which it crossed the river, went through a tunnel built under the wide plaza before the tower of the Regulatory Body, and left the Isle by a bridge to the east. The line then passed through the Old Town and terminated at Founderston Central Station, with its rail yards, warehouses, station hotels, circling cabs, and rail lines on to long-distance destinations. Laura watched all the traffic, and birds passing above and below her. The sun came out of the clouds and warmed her where she sat. She ate an apple.

  Midmorning she felt the vibrations on the ladder, and shortly afterward a head appeared over the horizon of the dome. It was Father Roy. He was followed by a man in a white robe, with a golden beard and a square, brimless white hat.

  5

  ATHER ROY REMAINED BY THE DOOR, AND THE GRAND PATRIARCH, ERASMUS TIEBOLD, ADVANCED AROUND THE CONCAVE table—the screen for his camera obscura—till he realized that the girl would continue to drift away from him, trailing her damaged fingertips around the rim of the tabletop like someone house-proud checking for dust. He came to a standstill and started to talk. He spoke softly. “I thought I would give you some time to reflect,” he said.

  Laura Hame had reached a point equidistant between Father Roy and himself. She stopped and looked at him. “Where’s Aunt Marta?”

  “She is at home with Downright and the estimable Mr. and Mrs. Bridges.”

  “So, she left me to you.”

  “Yes. You do know that we are kin, Laura. Your Tiebold grandfather was my cousin.”

  The girl nodded.

  “And when you sent me a letter, you gave me a certain amount of responsibility for you.” The Grand Patriarch produced the letter and laid it on the tabletop. Then he told Father Roy to close the door. Laura stumbled against the wall away from them, but once the door was sealed and the image from the twenty-four-inch lens and forty-inch mirror of the camera obscura flowed in full, brilliant color, the girl came back and stood staring at him, her face lit from below. The Grand Patriarch pointed at the camera housing. “Can you reach that handle above your head?” he said.

  She put her hand on it.

  “Give it a turn.”

  She had to use both hands and hang her weight on the handle to bring it down. The camera moved with a hollow, rolling noise. The image swam, and the east bank of the Sva swung into the light as the bridges to the west slid away into darkness. Laura stopped winding and looked down on a slightly different slice of the city.

  “Does it make you feel godlike?” the Grand Patriarch asked. “Like a hidden and disembodied witness?”

  “No,” said the girl.

  The Grand Patriarch touched the image on the tabletop. “Why did you write to me?”

  “I wrote to the Director of the Regulatory Body and the editor of the Founderston Herald as well.”

  “And none of the letters were signed with your name?”

  “No. They are all signed ‘Lazarus,’ and I had someone else copy them out for me.”

  “Why disown what you chose to do?”

  “I did what my father asked me to do. It was his idea. There wasn’t any other way.”

  The Grand Patriarch made a gesture—putting that aside for now. “I can’t question your father about his motives, but perhaps you can answer for him.”

  “I want to go!” Laura said, plaintive. “I need to go In and overwrite this nightmare. I’m so tired my heart won’t slow down. What will happen when I can’t make myself wake up? I don’t know what happens in the end. But the man in the coffin never gets out. He dies in there. He takes a long time to die. I don’t want to go on and dream that.”

  “So—is that what you caught? A man trapped in a coffin until he dies?”

  Laura blinked at him. She looked surprised and momentarily relieved. “No. I didn’t catch the nightmare to its end. I woke up before I got there.”

  “Then I don’t see how you can dream a death you didn’t catch,” the Grand Patriarch said, practical. “Laura, I want to talk to you about what you’ve done.”

  The girl sighed and shrugged. “My letter explains it.”

  “Well then, according to your letter, you wanted to gain support for people who were being terrorized?”

  Laura nodded.

  “And in order to do that you chose to terrorize people?”

  She stared at him, sullen. “What other way was there to show them? How else could I prove it? I didn’t have any evidence. I couldn’t take photographs of what was happening.”

  The Grand Patriarch paced back and forth for a moment, thinking. He ran his hand along the table through rooftops and courtyards, street
s, flights of steps, waterways, hurrying people. “In my grandparents’ day, no one was taking photographs. Do you think that the people back then believed that testimony—to any crime—needed photographic evidence to support it? Are people now any less inclined to listen to testimony? To listen in good faith?”

  “You would say ‘faith,’ ” the girl said, insolent but without any great energy.

  “Faith doesn’t just mean faith in God, Laura. It means faith in people, in the truth, in truth-telling. Faith in your own ability to make yourself heard. Faith that people will understand what you take the time to explain to them. Faith that people don’t need to be tricked, or sold the truth.”

  “I wanted to do what Da told me to. He left me a letter asking me to do what I did. I followed his wishes. I kept faith with him.”

  The Grand Patriarch studied the girl before him. “Do you think you did the right thing?”

  “I was asked. And it wasn’t just Da. I kept catching dreams about convicts. Why would I dream about convicts unless the Place wanted me to help them too?”

  “You caught dreams about convicts?”

  “I found convicts in dreams. Sometimes it seemed they found me. I did what I could. I could only think to do what Da asked me to.” Laura sounded quite desperate. She pressed her forearms into her stomach so hard that she stooped. She seemed to be trying to hold herself together. Then she took a deep, shuddering breath, straightened up, and said, “Besides, if you could do something that no one else could, wouldn’t you have to find your own way of acting in the world?”

  “I can’t think what you might mean,” said the Grand Patriarch. “Unless you’re boasting—as dreamhunters do—about the size of your penumbra.” He shook his head and saw that she was echoing his gesture. “Tell me, how does finding a new way match up with just doing what your father asked you to do?”

  “Maybe I found a new father,” she said, and gave a little, wild laugh.

  The Grand Patriarch’s assessing stare was so prolonged and intent that Laura dropped her gaze. Then she heard Father Roy shuffling his feet. When the Grand Patriarch resumed his questions, his tone was careful, almost gentle. “Your aunt says that the letter you sent me was not in your own hand. Did you therefore mean to get away with it?”

  Laura nodded.

  “And you involved someone else in your plans.”

  “Someone copied the letters for me.”

  “Your cousin?”

  “No!” Laura was horrified. “I wouldn’t do that to Rose! This was my responsibility. But I’ve done enough now, and I don’t want to do any more. Everyone knows now. Someone else can figure out what to do next.” She stamped her foot, in petulance and frustration and weary misery.

  The Grand Patriarch told her to calm herself. Father Roy approached and handed her a handkerchief. She took it, spread it open, and held it against her face. The wounds on her lips had reopened, and they printed the white cotton with bright red blotches.

  “There are dreamhunters who get on the wrong side of the Regulatory Body,” the Grand Patriarch told her. “And I’ve tried to help them. They’ve confided in me—misgivings, fears, rumors.”

  Laura removed the handkerchief and licked her bleeding lips.

  The Grand Patriarch said, “Have you ever heard of a dream named Contentment?”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t sound like a nightmare.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Have you heard of the Depot?”

  “That’s a funny name for a dream,” she said. “Dream names tend to be descriptive.”

  “I don’t know that it is a dream.” The man regarded her steadily. Laura could see he was weighing something in his mind. He said, “Do you know what a master dream is?”

  “No, not really.”

  “You may have ‘done enough,’ Laura, but you don’t know enough.” The Grand Patriarch shook his head. “The Regulatory Body sends you off into the Place with signal whistles but without a full education!”

  The Grand Patriarch watched the Hame girl, feeling vexed and sad. He found her lack of shame deeply offensive. The sullen set of her battered mouth, the stubborn ego looking out of her eyes.

  But when she answered back, he was less offended than surprised by her coldness. “This isn’t about what I know,” she said. “What I did at the Opera will open a public discussion. We will all soon know more.” She spoke as though she were an angel guarding the gates to Eden.

  The Grand Patriarch took a deep breath and began to rethink his approach. He wanted to help this girl more than he wanted simply to ease her misery. She had been left—orphaned and formidably gifted—to find her own way. She had gone off the rails—as the saying went—but in her own peculiar way. She might have gone looking for love and ended up in some unsuitable entanglement. She might have gone looking to forget and drugged herself with dreams or drink. Instead she’d found refuge in this hard, self-righteous autonomy. Though she was clearly suffering, in a way her heart had stopped. To Erasmus Tiebold it was clear that he must find some way to start her heart up again. And he must do it before he sent her to her father. Hame could help his daughter just by turning out to be alive. Finding her father should restore the girl’s faith in the general shape of her life. But right now, looking at Laura, Erasmus felt that he was watching water set into ice. There were forces at work, altering her soul—the nightmare itself, the act of sharing it, and her obvious terrible loneliness.

  The Grand Patriarch had an inspiration then. He said, “Laura, you haven’t injured me. But I’d like you to explain to someone you have injured why you felt you had to do what you did.”

  “I’m sure I couldn’t do any worse than I already have,” Laura said, brisk and unfeeling.

  The Grand Patriarch retrieved the letter. He turned away, touched Father Roy’s arm, and conducted him out through the small door at the base of the dome. Once they were down the stairwell, Erasmus Tiebold said to his secretary, “She’ll need clothes for her journey. Let’s have her cousin deliver them to her.”

  6

  HE DREAMHUNTERS WERE HUDDLED IN A DISPIRITED GROUP AT ONE CORNER of the porch of the rangers’ station at DOORHANDLE. NO ONE WAS STANDING ANYWHERE NEAR THEM. AROUND THEIR FEET WERE THEIR DUST-COVERED PACKS AND BEDROLLS. THEY HAD BEEN IN TO GET BEAUTIFUL HORSE. BUT NONE OF THEM HAD BEEN ABLE TO CATCH IT.

  Buried Alive was—it turned out—a master dream and could not be overwritten. It had to be endured for six to eight nights at least. The dreamhunters were waiting to be escorted out to the Regulatory Body’s dream retreats—cabins on the near slopes of the Rifleman Mountains. They were “guests of the Body,” detained and guarded by rangers.

  The Chief Ranger appeared to explain the delay. He was having trouble finding volunteers. Rangers were not normally so skittish, but the combination of newspaper reports on the riot and the sight of these dreamhunters emerging from the Place with freshly bleeding mouths had proved a little too much for some. “They’re behaving like novice dreamhunters with superstitious tales of fatally indelible dreams.” He spread his hands, made a gesture of helplessness. “I’m sure you’d rather not be escorted by men I had to force.”

  Grace asked if she’d have time to send another wire.

  “Certainly, Mrs. Tiebold.”

  Sandy asked if he could go with Grace to the telegraph office, then said, as he fell into step with her, “I want a word with you in private.”

  Grace pulled a paper from the pocket of her long silk coat and handed it to him. It was a message she’d received earlier. Sandy smoothed the paper out against his chest. He read, LAURA IN MARTAS CARE STOP SHE DID NOT SLEEP STOP ONLY FRIGHTENED STOP ROSE.

  Sandy read the telegram twice, then hurried to catch up with Grace. “Where is Mr. Tiebold?”

  “I don’t know,” Grace said. “And Rose didn’t bother to tell me where she is—though I’m told she’s back at school. Still, that is what you wanted to know, isn’t it? Where Laura is?”

  “When I found Rose outside the
Opera, I could see she hadn’t slept. She said Laura hadn’t either. I guess they were talking.”

  The telegraph office was brightly lit. There was one key man and two clerks in the booth. Grace stood at a counter in the center of the room and wrote her message. “Do you have any money on you?” she asked Sandy.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you wired your parents? They might be worried. They’ll have seen your uncle George’s name in the papers.”

  Sandy shrugged. He said, “I’m reluctant to wire my parents. My father’s attitude will be that, since I’ve decided to take up a ‘frivolous and unproductive’ life, I deserve any difficulties my decision brings me.”

  “He’d really say that?”

  “Probably.”

  “We’ll be detained for a week,” Grace said. “Or, at least, you will.” She went up to the cage and pushed her message and money under the bars. Then she and Sandy trailed back to the others.

  Maze Plasir’s apprentice was sitting on the steps, rocking back and forth, his face wet with tears. George Mason leaned toward Grace and said, “If I was Plasir, I’d be on my way here already to protect my investment.” He nodded at the weeping boy.

  “Plasir seems to go through apprentices pretty quickly.”

  “Do you think he will come?” said Mason.

  “I’ve offered him a lot of money,” said Grace.