Dreamquake

by Elizabeth Knox

  “He was limping barefoot along the promenade,” Chorley said.

  “I’m all right,” Sandy said. “I only walked from the Awa Inlet to Sisters Beach.”

  “Forty-five miles,” said Grace. “Nothing for a dream-hunter.”

  “Are you all Contented?” Rose said.

  “A little. I feel much less serious than I know I should. I should feel like tearing off Secretary Doran’s head.”

  Chorley gave a gleeful laugh and pulled a telegram from his pocket. He gave it to Rose. It was from her uncle, Tziga. It said that Cas Doran was under arrest on charges of abduction.

  “That’s a start,” Rose said. She felt only grim relief. She knew that she’d have to carry this news to Mamie, and that Mamie might feel she should go back to Founderston at once, to stand by her mother. And Rose knew that sometime in the near future there would be a trial, and that her family would be called to give evidence against her friend’s father. Mamie already had difficulties with the world and its expectations, and this could only make it all worse. Remembering how she’d said to Mamie, proudly, that she would go to university to study “Law—for justice,” Rose thought that it was all right for her, she had committed herself to a struggle, had spied, plotted, carried a copy of the damning film. But Mamie hadn’t made any choices, yet she would have to suffer for those her father had made.

  Rose touched Sandy’s arm. “Laura is in bed,” she said. “You know where her bedroom is, don’t you?”

  “Um, yes,” Sandy said.

  Chorley poked Sandy in the arm with a stiff finger. He said, with a prod for every word, “She. Is. With. Child.”

  Sandy opened his mouth, swallowed, then shut it again.

  “Precisely,” said Chorley, and pointed to the stairs. “Go,” he said.

  Laura woke up, still tired, with the heavy, sickening feeling that comes when you know something terrible has happened. Then she remembered that the terrible things were still ahead of her—her whole future mapped out already in the story Lazarus had told her. She longed to speak to Nown. She badly wanted to tell him what it was like to know what would happen. To know, and to have to choose to be alone in knowing.

  She opened her eyes—and looked straight into Sandy’s. He had been lying with his head beside hers, waiting for her to wake up. He smiled and touched her cheek.

  And in that moment everything changed for Laura. The world became world-sized again, and full of surprise.

  Sandy said, “There’s a strange man in the upstairs bathroom. A strange man who looked at me strangely.”

  “Well, he would,” Laura said.

  “I wasn’t dead,” Sandy said. He gathered her in his arms.

  Laura took a deep breath of Sandy’s own odor—with its overlay of dust and sea salt. “It’s not true, then,” she said, through her tears. “Here you are, my baby’s father. I thought I was going to have to go through with it all—do all the lonely things. Say bon voyage to Uncle Chorley. Let Rose go away and live in another country. Nurse Father. Live quietly. Wait to die. I thought I had to do what fate dictates. Follow its laws as my poor Nown had to follow my orders.”

  “Shh, darling,” Sandy said, and stroked her hair. “It’s all right.”

  “Yes,” she cried. “It is all right. Here you are. That poor man out there must come from a different world than this one. God is merciful. God has given us a new world to live in—like The Gate. There is a first time for everything.”

  Sandy smiled at Laura, moved by how moved she was but completely bewildered. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, love.”

  She laughed, and her last two tears were squeezed out of her eyes by a smile. “I’ll tell you,” she said.

  When Lazarus came downstairs, wearing some of Chorley’s clothes, he found Grace, Chorley, and Rose waiting for him. He seemed unable to look at any of them for long. His gaze flitted away around the room and finally lighted on Tziga’s violin, sitting on its stand and covered in a peach fuzz of dust. Lazarus crossed the room—so thin in his borrowed clothes that he seemed to drift, bodiless. He picked up the violin and put it to one ear. He plucked at its strings with his scabbed thumb, then began adjusting it—plucking, listening, twisting its pegs. “This is mine,” he said, softly, lovingly. “The last time I saw it, it was ‘produced in evidence.’”

  “Excuse me?” Chorley said, outraged.

  Rose said to Lazarus, “I know this isn’t everybody, but I promise I’ll pass on faithfully anything you say if you don’t feel like saying it again.”

  Lazarus nodded. Then he said, “My name is Lazarus Hame.”

  Chorley narrowed his eyes. “Explain,” he said.

  “Give me a moment,” said Lazarus.

  And it was amazing what Lazarus could do, given a moment.

  9

  HE CITY WAS BIGGER, AND SO WERE ALL THE OTHER SETTLEMENTS. THERE WERE MORE ROADS, BETTER ROADS, WITH MANY MORE CARS ON THEM.

  But Nown kept away from the roads. He traveled cross-country, and often by night. He walked so far that his feet turned as white as old ice.

  Laura had been his compass—she was North, South, East, and West to him. He couldn’t find her, but he kept on looking in all the places he’d found her before.

  His pilgrimage finally took him along So Long Spit. He walked on past the lighthouse, then farther, beyond where he’d been that day with Laura.

  At the end of the Spit, a sandbar pointing out into a thousand miles of empty ocean, Nown found the gannet colony. He stopped at the edge of the throng of black-and-white birds and gazed at the pattern they made, a glow going away into nothing. He thought, “Laura,” her name like a prayer. “Laura, I am not in the same world as you.”

  He started forward and moved delicately in among the roosting gannets. The birds weren’t at all afraid of him. They shuffled aside, clucking peevishly.

  Eventually Nown stopped and stood surrounded by the warmth of the colony. He looked out over the sea, gazed into nothingness, and waited. He began his waiting.

  The setting sun shone though his glass body and showed up the dark matter at its heart—his heart, a rust-stained rock from the railbed.

  Epilogue

  (1912)

  IT WAS THREE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, AND THE FAMILY WAS AT SUMMERFORT. CHORLEY HAD JUST FINISHED SHOOTING A FILM, HIS FIRST TWO-REELER, AND WAS SHUT UP IN HIS DARKROOM, EDITING IT. HIS THREE JACKS-OF-ALL-TRADES—SANDY, SANDY’S BROTHER THE ENGINEER, AND LAZARUS—WERE KNEELING ON THE LAWN AROUND A NEWSPAPER, ON WHICH RESTED A DISMANTLED CAMERA. THE CAMERA HAD BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR SOME EDGE FOG ON THE FILM, AND THEY WERE TRYING TO WORK OUT WHERE THE LIGHT HAD LEAKED IN.

  The newspaper, disregarded by the men, carried a headline that, three days before, had made everyone in the family very happy: PRISON REFORM BILL PASSES—HARD LABOR abolished.

  Grace was upstairs, getting her granddaughter off to sleep so that her daughter could study.

  The afternoon was still and humid, the air filled with the abrasive music of hundreds of cicadas, and one violin. The violin belonged to a four-year-old boy, who stood, shoulders back, his instrument tucked under his chin, playing. He was practicing legato, his bow moving smoothly and never leaving the strings. His performance was watched by his grandfather, who sat on a stone seat at the edge of the lawn, back to the hazy, hot blue of the bay.

  The cousins, Laura Mason and Rose Hame, were on the veranda. Between them was a table covered in books and papers.

  Laura was using her cousin to test the wording of title cards for the finished film. Chorley liked to have as few title cards as possible. That morning he and she had watched a rough cut and worked out where it was absolutely necessary to add those six or so seconds of darkness and white words.

  Laura hunched, chewing on the end of her big, flat builder’s pencil. Then she pounced, scrawled for a moment, and raised the sheet of paper to flash it at her cousin.

  Rose read: “Pat Slocum—General of the Heroes of Dog Alley.”

  “Tha
t’s not bad. But is it worth interrupting the action for?” Rose said.

  “He’s a dumpy little dandy who swaggers, so we know ‘General’ and ‘Heroes’ are ironic,” Laura said. She frowned at what she’d written, chewed her pencil some more, then had another inspiration. She scrawled more words and held them up.

  Rose read: “The Commander in Chief of the mighty forces of Dog Alley—General Pat Slocum.”

  “Change his name to Pat Potts or something,” Rose said. “Unless Da’s done the cast credits already.”

  Laura was about to answer when Rose lifted her book and flashed its title— Southland Constitutional Law. She said, “I’m having enough trouble with this without the Dog Alley Gang.”

  Laura gathered up her sheets of paper. She went in search of another victim. She stood behind her son and flashed title cards at her father.

  “I’ve forgotten the film’s plot, darling,” Tziga said, “so I’m not much use. But I like ‘mighty forces.’”

  And, at that moment, the ground began to shake.

  Laura dropped into a crouch and put her arms around her son. She watched her father’s slow realization that this violent noise and vertigo wasn’t the beginning of one of his fits but was external to him. Tziga didn’t try to stand up. He clamped one hand on the edge of the stone seat and rode it as it rocked and shuddered.

  Laura could hear glass breaking. She looked back at the house.

  The panes in the dining room windows were exploding, one by one. The windows had jammed in their warped frames and were bent and bowed. Laura saw that Rose was trying to crawl to the front entrance. Trying to get into the house and upstairs to her baby. But Laura could see Grace already had the baby. Grace was sheltering in an open door on the upstairs balcony, her back against the doorframe, her head and shoulders curved protectively over the lace-swathed bundle of her granddaughter.

  Chorley staggered out the front door and pulled Rose back in under its solid frame.

  The ground between Laura and the house cracked, the fissures only inches wide but showing stretched fibers of grass roots. The gravel on the new driveway jumped like popcorn in a hot pan.

  And then the shaking stopped. Sound seemed to ebb all the way out of the world. The silence that followed the quake was like a presence—some vast, demonstrative, living thing.

  In the Sisters Beach firehouse, a siren wound up into a long, wobbling shriek.

  Laura saw that her father had held on to his seat with only one hand; he still had the book he’d been reading in the other, his finger shut into it as a place marker.

  Sandy ran up to her. They both took a good look at their boy, Sandy squeezing his arms as if to check for injuries, she brushing his fine, red hair back from his face and peering into his black eyes.

  Rose was already up on the balcony. Grace gave her the baby, who was howling louder than the fire siren.

  Lazarus called, “Is she all right?”

  “She’s fine,” Grace shouted down. “She was fast asleep. She’s only angry because I woke her.” Then, “Where’s Chorley?”

  Lazarus and Sandy’s brother pointed at Chorley, who came out where his wife could see him and waved to her. “I’m going to go down into town and take a look around,” he said.

  “Take your camera,” Grace and Rose said together.

  Laura’s son was trembling. She rubbed his arms. “Wasn’t that strange?” she said in a bright voice, hoping to reassure him.

  “It’s all over now, son,” said Sandy.

  The boy looked from one parent to the other, his eyes round and bright. He said, “Was the ground angry? Was it trying to get up?”

  GLOSSARY

  claim Whenever a DREAMHUNTER finds a new dream, he or she must register it with the DREAM REGULATORY BODY and stake a claim on it. A claim will give a dreamhunter one-year exclusive rights to perform the dream. However, any dream that the Dream Regulatory Body chooses to classify as a DREAM FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD cannot be claimed.

  Colorist A Colorist is a secret persuader who will insert into another DREAMHUNTER’s performance some impressions at the dream’s beginning or end, when the audience is less fully absorbed in the performance. The audience absorbs the Colorist’s impressions and thinks these are their own thoughts or feelings. A Colorist’s dream is usually a print of a dream taken from a GIFTER, who has altered it to deliver a desired message. Coloring is illegal.

  dream for the public good A dream deemed too valuable for commercial use alone, usually a healing dream, will be classified as a dream for the public good by the DREAM REGULATORY BODY. The Department of Corrections also classes THINK AGAIN DREAMs as dreams for the public good. Any DREAMHUNTER may catch a dream for the public good and can perform it in a DREAM PARLOR or a DREAM PALACE. But each time the dream is caught, the dreamhunter’s contract with the Dream Regulatory Body rules that the dreamer must spend several nights dreaming it in a hospital. Exceptions to this are dreams such as Convalescent One and Starry Beach, discovered before the formation of the Dream Regulatory Body; anyone can catch them and negotiate their sale at market prices.

  dream palace A larger building, often purpose-built, in which dreams are performed is a dream palace. According to DREAM REGULATORY BODY regulations, to qualify as a dream palace the building must have over fifty beds. Dream palaces are often round or ovoid and consist of several tiers, balconies with bedrooms opening off them. In the center of the palace auditorium is the dais, where the dreamer sleeps. Only DREAMHUNTERs with large PENUMBRAs perform in dream palaces. Dream palaces are a vital part of the life of Southland; attendance of dreams is a social occasion, and most fashionable people own formal nightwear. The Rainbow Opera is Southland’s largest and most magnificent dream palace. It was built for Grace Tiebold.

  dream parlor Any place with fewer than fifty beds dedicated to the performance of dreams is a dream parlor. Many of the hotels and hostels on Founderston’s Isle of the Temple became dream parlors during the early years of the industry. Dream parlors can have as few as five beds. Tickets to attend general exhibition dream parlors are much less expensive than those to DREAM PALACE performances, though there are specialist dream parlors with prices dependent on the market for their dreams. Maze Plasir, a GIFTER, is the proprietor of an expensive and exclusive dream parlor on the Isle of the Temple.

  Dream Regulatory Body Established in 1896 under the Intangible Resources Act, the Dream Regulatory Body (also known as the Regulatory Body or just the Body) is a department of the Secretariat of the Interior, and the responsibility of the Secretary of the Interior, Cas Doran, who was the main author of the Intangible Resources Act. The Regulatory Body employs RANGERS to patrol THE PLACE. The Regulatory Body also holds Tries to identify new DREAMHUNTERS and undertakes the testing and training of successful candidates of each TRY. All dreamhunters, DREAM PALACES, and DREAM PARLORS must be licensed by the Body. The Body also has contracts with other government entities to supply dreams for health care and for programs of education and rehabilitation in Southland’s prisons.

  dream sites Dreams are sometimes found in general areas in THE PLACE and can be caught by a group of people. This is the case with Wild River and is one of the reasons that it is used to test the successful candidates of each TRY. But some dream sites are very confined; their dreams are hard to discover, and can often be caught by only a particular kind of DREAMHUNTER. Maze Plasir’s Secret Room is a confined-site dream. So is Tziga Hame’s The Gate. That dream’s site was so confined that Hame could claim never to be able to find it again.

  dream trails Roads, paths, and scratchy routes in THE PLACE, dream trails usually lead to popular, tried and tested dreams.

  dreamhunter Anyone able to enter THE PLACE, catch one of the dreams to be found there, carry it back into the world,and share it with others is a dreamhunter. Dreamhunting has been an industry in Southland for twenty years and is a major form of entertainment and therapy.

  Gifter (or Grafter) A Gifter is a DREAMHUNTER who can take his own m
emories of a real person’s face and manners and graft them onto the characters in the dreams he catches. Gifters are usually employed by people who want what they can’t have, or who have lost someone they love.

  healer Any DREAMHUNTER who can catch and convey vividly the great healing dreams is a healer.

  Hame Any DREAMHUNTER with a big PENUMBRA is known as a Hame. The name comes from Tziga Hame, possibly the greatest dreamhunter.

  loaded A DREAMHUNTER with a freshly caught dream is sometimes said to be loaded. Each dream is like a charge, discharged over a number of sleeps.

  map references in the Place On maps of THE PLACE, the main references are bands and sections. Because the Place is vast, and its interior unexplored, it is mapped in bands from either end. Each band represents a three- to five-hour journey on foot, depending on the terrain. From Doorhandle the Place has been mapped from bands A to I. The Tricksie Bend end is less thoroughly explored, and has been mapped only from Z to U. From the Doorhandle border one enters Band A; from Tricksie Bend one enters Band Z. Each band is divided perpendicularly into sections. The sections are a kind of longitude to the latitude of the bands. The sections begin with 1 to the west of Doorhandle and minus 1 to the east, and the same at the Tricksie Bend end, so that the map will work if its references were ever to join in the as yet unpenetrated interior. Grace Tiebold’s first dream, Pursuit, is at A minus 1, In and a little east of Doorhandle.

  master dream A dream that can erase other dreams, a master dream is particularly powerful and vivid. Examples are Buried Alive, Secret Room, and Contentment.

  mounter Any DREAMHUNTER who can OVERDREAM another and erase the dream he or she is carrying is a mounter.