Dreamside

by Graham Joyce

  But the girl had gone. Ella looked up and down the street: noth­ing. She looked at the closed doors of the church and shrugged before climbing back into her car, shielding herself from the increas­ingly heavy rain.

  She settled back behind the steering wheel before realizing that something had been written in the condensation on the inside of the windscreen. Water droplets had collected and dripped from the crudely formed letters to the foot of the glass. The words said HELP ME.

  Prompted by a movement, Ella glanced from the words to her rear-view mirror. Then she turned to look across her shoulder. Now the girl stood by the doors of the church. She opened the door and looked back at Ella, as if inviting her to follow. When she entered the church, Ella got out of the car and went in after her.

  Lee, in the attic, lifted from the chest bundles of note books, ring-binders full of papers, photograph albums, a couple of half-com­pleted diaries. Then the smaller stuff like posters and tickets for college dances, academic year photographs and other university flot­sam, old poems that now made his skin crawl, theatre programs, a signed publicity shot of an unfamous female rock singer to Lee love from Carla Black, great fun XXX, letters from old friends. From the bottom of the tea chest he lifted a Perspex case.

  He hardly dared open it. Could things be said to have happened only so long as they agreed they had happened ? Perhaps all that had gone on between Ella and him was the grand performance—what had the professor called it? folic a deux—a teenage romance con­ducted against a blazing operatic backdrop erected just to give things stature. Maybe that was it: nothing more than an outlandish metaphor for adolescent love.

  He balanced the torch on the corner of the chest and broke open the Perspex case. It contained a girls black beret; a half-empty packet of Rizla liquorice cigarette papers, a brass incense-trinket, half a dozen colour-faded photographs of Ella or of himself with Ella, and three postcards from the Greek Islands. It was his shrine to Ella. Over the years he had preserved it in secret. There was one other thing. It was an Indian carved wooden box, about two inches square, which Ella had given him after an important event had taken place. He opened it and inside, its tiny white rays and yellow disc dried and withered, but preserved and perfectly recognizable, was a daisy head. He took it out and held it in the palm of his hand. Somewhere, unless she had lost it, Ella had the other one. He would have to ask her.

  Lee sat in the dark attic, with the weak light of the torch shining on the daisy head resting in the palm of his hand.

  Honora knelt in the peace of the empty church, hearing only the sounds of the hail on the roof and the creaking of the hassock on which the priest kneeled. She allowed her mind to range unfettered over vivid images of her dreamside experiences.

  The memories flooded her with a sweet intensity. She felt the anxiety and the sheer pleasure that came with the control of dream-side. She felt the body's dreamside ache, a lust more physically acute than anything felt in the material, waking world. But she also remembered the fear, the brooding undertow beneath the earth and water and waxy sun of dreamside.

  They were inseparable, this pleasure and this fear. Never before had she felt them so strongly. It was like a live thing inside her. She had called it from dreamside, the essence of dreamside, reforming, shape-shifting, soul-sucking, predatory, sloughing off one skin like a serpent, taking on new colours, all-devouring, breaking her down, covering her over with warm soil, reconstituting her, like a death without dying until buried over she became spice for the earth's pleasure. This was the thing the priest would take from her. This was the sin she could surrender to him.

  She wanted purification. The priest would take her confusion and sin and guilt and doubt, and dissolve it. She felt it slip from her to him, memories that melted as they transposed themselves, her mind drained of all thoughts of lucid dream incarnations.

  She opened her eyes. The priest had stopped praying and was looking at her. He was shocked. She knew instinctively that he'd had a taste of it, had peered over the edge and drawn back. He was unable to take it from her. What should have been dissolved between them had been arrested. Now bitterness hung on the air. His hands were trembling.

  "You felt it!" said Honora. The priest failed to answer.

  In despair she looked up at the plaster statue of the Virgin. The figure hanging over her swelled as she looked at it, and pulsed. This pulsing was the beating of her own heart. She desperately wanted release. It was all wrong. The priest couldn't help her. She looked at the figure of the plaster Virgin; at the flecks of skin-colour paint, faded with age to grey. Over how many failed confessions had this flaking plaster Virgin presided? How many prayers had dropped short?

  Honora wanted to cry for her childhood. She wanted to cry for every Sunday School and for every mass she had attended, in their own way like lucid dreams—the invocation of hopes and the for-fending of horrors. Her eyes were wet. As she looked up the Virgin stirred. There was a rustle of her blue robe and Honora was sure she heard her sigh. A whiff of decay hung on the air.

  She sobbed and closed her eyes. Her memory fanned out across her faith; it was like watching the fragments of a shattered mirror reassembling: light streaming through stained glass; pungent smells of incense; votive candles flickering out; Latin words; all competing for her attention. She opened her eyes again, and this time the Vir­gin moved. Her eyes flicked open, and she struggled to speak. She saw her shiver, saw that she was real flesh, that her tears were wet and flowed and were an agony to her.

  But her sobs turned to gasps as the figure began to change. She was appalled as it transformed, slowly, painfully, to the figure of the little girl. The girl swinging on the gate at home, the girl who would never leave her alone. The incarnation of Honora's sin. She felt dizzy, dislocated; a sick wave of fear rolled over her.

  She felt something inside herself fall away. The girl fixed her with an unbroken gaze as she descended, glimmering faintly in the shadows of the church, moving slowly towards her, arms out­stretched. The air turned cold: Honora could see her own breath icing over in front of her.

  She was paralyzed. The girl was moving towards her, about to touch her. A blast of cold air passed from her. Her hands seemed cracked with the bitter cold and Honora shrank back from the dis­eased touch. The girl mouthed silent words. HERE I AM LORD; HERE I AM. As the girl drew close, Honora's screams echoed around the vaults.

  The figure had changed again, had transformed back into the image of the Virgin, but this time more terrible, its body twisted and distorted with agony, wounds blistering and cracking on the painted flesh, open sores glistening and bleeding, its face contorted in a silent scream. The statue swayed, and came toppling down on top of her, the plaster Virgin shattering into fragments as it struck the hard floor of the church.

  Ella entered the church to find the priest trying to drag the sob­bing Honora away from the debris.

  F I V E

  "I'm afraid you are rather a careless dreamer,"

  said Bertie resentfully

  —Saki

  Ella closed the bedroom door quietly behind her. "She's sleep­ing," she whispered to Lee, and they went through to the lounge.

  "The priest helped me to get her to the car. Not exactly good in a crisis, that one. In fact he was in a terrible state. He seemed more concerned about his statue."

  "Honora had actually pulled it down on top of her?"

  "That's what it looked like, though she denies it."

  "It's crazy. What did she tell you?"

  "Very little. But whatever it was, the priest saw it too. He was in a state of shock. He couldn't—or wouldn't—tell me any­thing about it. He just wanted us out of there. But it was obvious to me that he was just as shaken up as she was." She sighed. "I don't say that I go along with it . . . but Honora is convinced that it's something from dreamside. A demon or a ghost or some­thing . . ."

  "Oh for Christ's sake Ella ..."

  "Lee, Honora thinks that her . . . child . . . has found a way
to come through from dreamside."

  "And you think it could be real."

  She didn't have to answer. Lee looked very tired. He thought about the box in his attic.

  A moan from Honora sent them scuttling along to the bedroom. She was sitting bolt upright. "Am I awake now?"

  "Have you been dreaming the repeater?" asked Ella.

  "Several times."

  "This is awake."

  "I wish I could believe you."

  "Lee; give her a book."

  Lee found a paperback. Honora turned the pages and read the opening lines:

  The flood had made, the wind was calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

  It read the same second time around.

  "Somehow I still don't trust that," said Honora.

  "Why don't you go back to sleep," coaxed Ella. "You look like you need it."

  "I'm not going back to sleep!" Honora shouted.

  "OK. Listen; I've got another idea."

  "Whatever it is," Lee said to Honora, "you say no, and I'll say no."

  "Agreed."

  Ella bristled. "Why the hell do you both think we're here? Why am I here? Why are you here? Are we just renewing old friendships or what? Do I have to remind you that we're in some kind of crisis? I don't know about you two, but I don't want to spend the rest of my fucking life frightened to go to sleep! I want to end it!" She walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  "She's right isn't she?" Honora muttered.

  "She's always right. One way or another."

  Lee found Ella outside in the garden. He had stocked it with tall flowering plants. In summer it would be a paint box of delphiniums, snapdragons, foxgloves and flags growing up beside the red-brick wall. Along the top of the wall ran an untidy row of blue coping stones which only habit kept in place. In one corner of the garden was a trellis overburdened by a rampant growth of honeysuckle. In another corner, staked against the wall, was an ornamental tree.

  She stood with her back to him, fingering the tiny pink match-heads of budding flowers. Lee came up softly behind her.

  "Cherry blossom," she said. "I didn't even know it was here. It's getting ready to flare."

  "I planted it years ago. To remind me of someone. But now it's pulling up the wall." He pointed at the base of the wall where the bricks, buckled by the tree's roots, pressed in towards the garden. "All it needs is a good push. Let's hear the plan."

  "You won't like it."

  "Can it be worse than the business in the church?"

  "It concerns Brad Cousins."

  "It's worse."

  "Hear me out."

  "I don't like it already. Neither will Honora."

  "We've got to do something."

  Ella stepped onto a brick protruding from the broken wall. She hoisted herself up and hooked her elbows over the row of coping stones. Lee stood behind her. "You'll have the wall down on us."

  Ella didn't reply. She was looking at something on the other side. In the waste ground stood the girl she'd seen that morning, and had followed into the church.

  She's bringing this on us, she thought.

  She looked up at Ella and mouthed painful, silent words. They were visible, as if painted on the air. The same words: help me help me help me.

  "What is it?" said Lee, sensing something.

  "Nothing. Lift me down."

  "Are you all right?" Lee lifted her down. He looked at her quizzically, before hoisting himself onto the wall, to see what had startled her.

  "There's nothing there!" he said.

  "No. Let's go indoors. I'm cold."

  "Lee," she said when they were inside, "you've seen something of Honora's condition. She's not insane, though you may think you are before this thing is through. And she's only the first, she's not going to be the only one. We're all in danger. Something has started."

  "What has started?"

  "I just feel it. And it's coming to us all. How is your dreaming lately?"

  "Every night a fight."

  "To stay away from there?"

  "To stay away. I'm afraid more than anything of going to sleep."

  "And the repeaters?"

  "Worse than ever."

  "Then you do know of the danger. All of those dreamside dan­gers, they're coming home to roost. Only here, while we're awake. We can't hold out for ever. It's got to be resolved."

  "But how?"

  "I don't know. All I've got is ideas. But I'm not going to hide and pretend it's not happening. And you've got to be strong." She held on to his sleeves. "If you fall, we all will."

  "What?" said Lee. "Why me?"

  "It's true. You're the solid one."

  But he knew she meant stolid. He also knew that it was she who was the strongest one. She was going to have to carry three others. She was just trying to give him some of her strength. He looked at her and knew that if she commanded, he would try to realign the planets.

  "Let's hear the plan."

  "It's not going to be easy. We've got to take another walk on dreamside, but this time with Brad and Honora. Together we have to bury whatever it is that's out there."

  "Or whatever it is that's in there. I'd say you've got about a fifty percent resistance to that dreamside walk taking place."

  "So long as it's no more than fifty per cent."

  "I said I'll do it, and I meant it."

  "Firstly there's Honora. You've got the influence. I know it. She's always harboured a lot of feeling for you. You'll have to per­suade her. She'll do it. She's got a much more acute sense than you of the danger, and she's running out of energy. She's been fighting it for longer. Make it clear she either does this thing once and for all or she lives with it for ever. Tell her. Hold her hand. You might even have to sleep with her."

  "I hope you're joking, Ella."

  "Push her hard. You can bring her to it, whereas I know I can't. I know she'll come. You'll have room to manoeuvre. I'll be away working on Brad."

  "Will you be sleeping with him?"

  "Only with my space suit on, after what you told me. You worry about your own score. You can't bring Brad along; Honora certainly wouldn't want to try; that leaves me. I'm going to have to bring him, across my shoulder if necessary. I'm calculating on him being in the same condition as Honora. If he is, I'll throw him a line and he'll grab it. I'll go tomorrow, early. I figure we don't have a lot of time before something bad happens to one of us, and I want to be gone before Honora wakes up. I'll have Brad with me in under forty-eight hours or not at all. I'll phone to let you know. And you know where to meet us."

  "Yes. I know where to meet you."

  "I'll also need to take some things of yours with me."

  "Take anything, Ella. You led me into this. You might as well lead me out."

  "I led you in?"

  "I never told you. All those years ago. I only ever went to that first dream meeting because of you. I stood behind you in a shadowy corridor, feeling horny, and I overheard you say you were going to the meeting. So I went. I never expected the rest."

  "None of us expected the rest. Now let me tell you something about that first meeting. If you hadn't stood next to me in that corri­dor, and I hadn't spoken so loudly to make sure that you'd hear…That's made you look serious! Now kiss me; because it helps."

  S I X

  "I am real" said Alice, and began to cry —Lewis Carroll

  The next morning Ella was far away before Lee woke up for the third time, with a frightened start. Each false awakening was like breaking through a thin shell which would fragment and fall away only to reveal another one. This time it occurred to him to get out of bed and pick up a book. He let it fall open, read a paragraph twice and was relieved to find that it didn't change.

  Honora found him in the kitchen. He was muttering over bro­ken eggs. "You're awake," he said. "Any repeaters?" By now it was almost like saying good morning. You heard the sentiment but not the words.
>
  "Lots. Where's Ella?" Honora looked better. She had colour in her cheeks and her hair tumbled free over her shoulders.

  "Gone to collect something." He would have to tell her later. Ella had told him to win her confidence, to get her to take that dreamside walk. How he was supposed to do that was anybody's guess.

  He was still thinking about the episode in the church, and of his Perspex shrine lying in a box in the attic. He could no longer pre­tend that Honora's problems didn't concern him, or that he was in any way outside of events. His rational objections had already dissolved, and he had been forced to recognize the seriousness of Ella's mission.

  "Where did you say Ella had gone?" Honora said over breakfast.

  "She had to go out to get something."

  "What, exactly?"

  This time he looked her deep in the eye before lying through his teeth. "She didn't say."

  Being alone in the house with Honora made Lee feel on edge. He wasn't entirely certain what was creating the tension, but she clouded the air. It disturbed him. He cleared the dishes and busied himself at the sink. Honora hovered uncomfortably behind him for a moment before going through to the lounge. Then some move­ment outside the kitchen window caught Lee's eye.

  "Wonder what she wants here?" he said aloud. He went out­side, leaving the kitchen door open. Cold air fanned the house. Honora, who had also seen the girl, waited breathlessly in the lounge.

  Lee wandered back. "Gone," he said, shutting the door behind him. "A kid. Sad little mouse, blue with cold. She looked at me as though she wanted something."

  Honora said nothing.

  Lee returned to the sink. Persuading Honora was not going to be easy. She would rather be lowered into a pit of snakes than meet up with Brad Cousins again, on dreamside or anywhere else. As for winning her confidence, Lee was out of practice at getting close to people. Nevertheless, at some point he would have to steer the discussion around to Brad.