Dreamside

by Graham Joyce

  Honora belonged to the fire. She was enslaved by the ritual dance of the aromatic flame. Fire, first and most martial of all ele­ments, the hierarchical prince. She saw in the fire the tapered ban­ners of his glorious armies, the swallowtail pennants a-flutter, flags of crimson, ochre, sapphire, armies spilling into valleys and camped along the plains. They pinioned her and they held her. The flame engaged with her. She was fire. She was smoke. She was coming apart, like smoke.

  "Burning! What's burning?" Lee and Ella stood over her, shaking her.

  "Honora!" They were calling her as if from a great distance.

  Lee dragged her to her feet, shaking her violently, stripping off her outer clothes. Slowly she became aware of a thick, acrid smell, and realized that the room was fogged with dense, grey smoke.

  "Are you burned? Honora, are you burned?" Lee was franti­cally stroking her arms.

  "No."

  Miraculously she wasn't. At her feet she saw, still smouldering but not even charred, the skirt and pullover which Lee had torn from her. Wisps of smoke writhed from the clothes. Ella was run­ning around opening windows.

  "What happened?" Honora was still dazed.

  Lee and Ella just looked at each other. Ella folded Honora in her arms as the other woman wept.

  "It has to be tonight," said Ella. "It has to be tonight."

  T H I RT E E N

  If the doors of perception were cleansed everything

  would appear as it is, infinite

  —William Blake

  Surely tonight sleep will come. But sleep is choosy these days about the company she keeps. And those who may have been caught in the past with a stolen fistful of her soft plumage can't complain if now she makes them wait for favours. So the three lie on their mat­tresses in the dark, and wait.

  Lee shifts in a half-sleep, perspiring heavily, unable to find the elusive groove. Honora doses herself with another of her pills, frets, hugs her knees, stifling her own whimpers. But long after sleep has finally taken them, Ella lies awake. She curls stiffly in the darkness, disturbed by a stroboscopic flickering behind her closed eyes. Respon­sibility weighs on her. She feels accountable for them all, a burden which comes from being the strongest of the four dreamers. She sus­pects that in the end they might stand or fall by her efforts alone.

  "Make us a thread," Lee had pleaded. "A golden thread. Some­thing to take in with us that might lead us out."

  She dredges the limits of her memory. There had to be some­thing from which she could create Lee's golden thread. A special kind of thread. A thread which could span from outer world to inner mind like a glittering bridge, as light and fluid as dream itself.

  She swoops back over her encounter on the motorway. There is only a vague conversation, leaving here with nothing more than instructions to undo what was done.

  It's hopeless. There's nothing there. Nothing.

  Night marches on, and sleep eludes her. Occasionally, one of the others stirs under their blankets. Ella looks up briefly and sinks back on to her own bed of nails.

  She can see Burns with perfect clarity, offering her his unhelp­ful advice and wringing his hands in anguish. In her feverish vision he grows more and more impatient, more anguished, twisting his arthritic fingers together: Can't you see, Ella, it's you, it's you, I can't do it for you, can't you see that it's not in my—

  HANDS.

  Ella sits bolt upright.

  There's a moment of panic. She's terrified that the idea which just came to her might slip away, snuff out like a candle flame. She's trying to hold on to something. Hold the idea there, gently, care­fully; she looks at the other two sleepers for help. They don't stir. She leans back on the pillow.

  Yes Ella, its in your hands.

  That's what Burns was trying to tell you all the time.

  The dream exercise comes back to her. The hand manipulation game. It's a fragment of childhood, something taken from the bot­tomless toy chest of the mind at play. The dream exercise. The one they had created between them. The one that had formed the origi­nal bridge, the bridge between early lucid dreaming and true dream-side control.

  That's how it was, how it always was. Dreaming from the head through the hands, miraculously working to transform the external world . . . Slow down! thinks Ella. Slow down! Her mind is strug­gling against something which wants her to deviate from the track, stray off course, lose her fix.

  Undo what was done, Burns's phantom had said to her. But what was done? And how was it done? Let's take it slow. Very slow. And with all the power of childlike lucidity. For this is how it was.

  Here is the church.

  She sees two women talking in the ruins of a bombed-out cathe­dral. They are disputing, or perhaps testing out, the reality of a dreamside birth. A child, a thing—no, a child—was conceived and delivered on dreamside. The church, that's the womb, the woman, thinks Ella, her eyes raking the darkened ceiling. And the tower, the steeple tall and erect, that's the man. It's so clear. Here is the church, here is the steeple. A woman and a man.

  Open the door. Yes, that's lovemaking all right. Open the door, call it by another name, sex, or here a violation where love is absent, but open the door. And here are the people. There it is, the birth, the propagation of the people, born to start the cycle of life all over again.

  But where does all this lead? It's just a child's game, isn't it? A shadow play, a sleight of hand. A little story with a twist and noth­ing else. Or is there more? Another strand to the thread? Like the words changing in the books on dreamside, can the thread change to give more?

  Try again.

  Here is the church. Why yes, that's our belief, our faith in brave dreaming. Here is the steeple. There is our aspiration, the wish to dream, the soaring desire to make it happen. Open the door, the door of sleep, the door to the place of dreaming. And here are the people. Who are the people? We are the people. Born out of faith and desire, we are the dreamers, the dreamers of dreams.

  It's easy. The golden thread has as many strands as you care to make, as many as there are interpretations. Ella is feverish. She can see a golden thread spinning out to a point beyond her vision. Sparks of pure golden light shimmer and dart from it as it spins in rapid style from the turning of her mind. This is the thread they will transport to dreamside, as light and as fluid as dream itself. But there is one essential strand to the thread which must be strong enough to lead them out again afterwards.

  She knows she's on to something. If it can be found, it will be found here. Only now tiredness closes her in. It folds down on her. She feels the edges of consciousness retreat like the outposts of an empire. Now she has to fight sleep.

  Perhaps it's just a question of viewing the thread in reverse. Like examining the stitching on the reverse side of an embroidery. The question is, does the key fit the lock from both sides of the door? And can the thread pay out a third time?

  Church. And if the church was our faith in dreaming, then mis­trust must be its opposite. What if that mistrust itself has become the instrument of oppression? A church which has become a prison, wasn't that the measure of their dreaming now?

  Steeple. We made a Babel of vanity and an arrogance out of out desire to dream, to climb as high as God. Indifference is the opposite of desire, and the worst crime of all. And we fell asleep. We made a crisis of faith out of mistrust and indifference. Will we ever find our way back ?

  Door. How do we open the doorway back? How do we recover our faith and our desire?

  But Ella can go no further. She is too drained to think it through; too tired to spin the thread any longer; too exhausted to finish weaving the strand. The last flickering candle has burned down to a gob of wax. Her mind closes down like a square of paper neatly folded in on itself, and then once again, and then again.

  FOURTEEN

  "If that there King was to wake"

  added Tweedledum, "you’d go out—bang!—

  just like a candle!"

  —Lewis Carroll
r />   Ella only knew that sleep had finally taken her when she became aware she was on dreamside. Lee was standing close by. He was look­ing at her strangely.—I've been waiting—he thoughtspoke.— You're here. It feels cold—

  He touched her, and brought her to him. In the embrace they rediscovered that shivering intensity, the tremulousness beneath the surface of things, but with something else, something extra.

  A colourless, tasteless, odourless sense, oppressive and insistent. It grabbed like a hand inside the stomach, itching at the very mem­brane of dreamside. It was the claw of a dread anxiety. Something predatory hung watchful on the air.

  —Is anyone else here?—Before Ella had even completed the thought, she saw Honora standing under the oak, looking out over the frozen snow-covered lake. She seemed carved from ivory. The scene was encompassed in still mists.

  Everywhere was ice; mist-bound and ice-locked. Dreamside was precisely as Honora knew it, and exactly as Ella and Lee had glimpsed it on their single fleeting return visit. It was a mockery of the place it had once been, and a snowbound shadow of the polluted lake as it was now.

  They waited, scraping their boots on the frozen grass at their feet. Even those small movements seemed ready to burst the dream as they waited for the one who was missing.

  —Must we have him here Ella?—

  —We all have to be present—Ella was firm, authoritative. Per­haps she knew more than she was saying. She seemed certain in the knowledge that the fourth member of the group would appear. They waited; and they waited.

  Brad came from nowhere. He came wide-eyed, and in a dan­gerously befuddled state. He stopped short of them, like a nervous animal, staring at the ground. They all watched him, but were afraid of him. They didn't dare to speak to him, and even sought to disguise their thoughts. They stood rigidly, like figurines carved from a single piece of horn.

  Brad seemed confused, lost. He looked from one to the other as if he was about to speak. Then he looked wildly over his shoulder. He moved closer to Ella, mouthing words that failed to come. Then:—Help me—

  —What is it Brad?—

  —Can't awaken. Can't wake up. Help me Ella!—

  Brad was stricken with panic. His eyes were all black pupil and they leaked frosty tears. He stood close enough for Ella to feel his cold breath on her face. She put out a hand to touch him and was shocked to find him stiff with frost. He snatched at her hand and gripped it fiercely. The cold from his fingers burned, and her skin seemed to sear and stick fast to his. Their eyes locked as he dared her to snatch her hand away.

  At last he relaxed his hold. Ella felt a blistering pain as she with­drew her hand: she felt a fine layer of skin ripping from the back of her wrist where he had gripped her.

  —The dream won't break Ella, the dream won't break—

  —We're all here Brad. We're not going to desert you—

  —You can't do anything. The dream won't break. I'm tired from staying awake. So tired. And we have to stay awake. Awake. They're waiting for me to sleep. The ice. The frost. The cold. They wait for you to sleep. And then they take you—

  Ella saw it clearly. She didn't need to be reminded of the predatory nature of the elementals. She could recall their attacks with vivid horror. How they waited for the moment before sleep within the wheel of the dream. How they silently infiltrated invisi­ble tendrils into the blood and fibre and flesh of your dreaming body. Transforming you, until you were lost to earth or water or fire or ice. But now she saw for the first time that the elementals were not a group of entities at all, not a colony of predatory beings. They were all a single expression of the same force, the life-creat­ing and life-devouring, birth-giving and soul-sucking power of dreamside.

  And now the toughened membrane of the dream wouldn't break. Brad had been trapped, to walk in terror of the sleep within sleep, of being imprisoned for ever in the ice-sleep. No one could stay awake indefinitely, here as within the waking world. Brad was merely postponing the inevitable. Even now the frost was squeezing him, congealing his blood. This was the fate of those who stayed too long on dreamside.

  —This is how it will be for all of us—It was Honora. She seemed strangely resigned.—This is how it will be—

  —None of us will wake! There is no waking!—A tear welled at the corner of Brad's eye. In a moment his anguish gave way to laughter echoing eerily across the mist-shrouded lake, jagged laughter which ricocheted back at them, and sliced through the air. Ella shot a panicked look at Lee.

  But Lee was pointing at something on the edge of the lake. The other three turned, their eyes following the direction of his finger. Brad's laughter stopped.

  —It's her—He swayed unsteadily.

  —I knew it—Ella breathed.

  —She's the one!—Brad shouted.—She's the one who is keeping me here. She's the one who will keep us all here!—

  But they already knew. She stood twenty feet away from them, in her ill-cut dress, her skin the colour of milk and her eyes like black holes. Only here she looked stronger, stronger than them. They all knew her, and they were all afraid of her. They gazed at her stu­pidly. Her eyes blazed back at them. An aching loneliness blew from her like an icy wind.

  —Speak to us—Honora approached timidly.—Please speak to us—

  But the girl tossed her hair and set foot on the frozen lake, glancing over her shoulder as if daring them to follow. Honora took a few steps towards her.

  —Honora, don't!—It was Lee calling her back.

  —Wait! Wait and watch!—This time it was Ella, unsure whether to trust the girl; unsure whether their roadside encounter had been a snare set with treacherous clues.

  The girl paced farther out on to the ice. Honora hesitated at the edge of the frozen water.

  —Don't go!—Lee commanded.

  —It's a trap! She wants you to go out on the ice!—Brad was hysterical.—It's a trick! You mustn't trust her! Don't trust her! I know who she is!—

  The girl stopped and turned to them, as if she was waiting. She mouthed something incomprehensible. As she saw Honora set a tentative foot on to the ice, she turned and proceeded out into the middle of the lake. Honora looked back at Ella, who nodded almost imperceptibly. She began to walk across the ice. Ella left the others and followed her.

  Lee's protests strangled in his throat. He found himself follow­ing the two women out on to the lake, with Brad staying close behind him. It was if the four of them were roped together. When the girl came to a halt, they all stopped short.

  She looked back at them again. Then she scuffed at the ice with the edge of her shoe. She scraped away a layer of snow and scratched at the ice, never averting her gaze from them. She looked away only to stoop and to rub at the tiny clearing she had scratched in the snow. Then she moved away from the clearing she had made and stood at a distance.

  Honora was the first to approach. She looked through the cleared patch to the gluey grey formations of ice beneath. What did it mean? Honora and Ella looked to the girl for an answer, but she had turned defiantly towards the shore.

  Brad had reached the cleared space and was on his knees, rub­bing at the surface of the ice with an outstretched hand and peering at the geometric shapes below.

  —There's something there—he said.

  The others turned slowly.

  —There's something there. I can see it. Under the ice—

  —What? What is it?—Lee kneeled beside him.

  —It's under the ice. It's trying to get out—

  —What can you see there?—

  —It's trying to get out! IT WANTS TO GET OUT FROM UNDER THE ICE!—

  —Tell us what you see!—Ella commanded.

  But Brad was half-crazed. He seemed to detect a new move­ment.—It's moving! It's trapped. Look! It's trying to get out of there! It wants to get out!—

  Suddenly his body went rigid, his breath coming in short gulps.

  Lee bundled him aside and began pawing at the ice himself, clearing away the snow
on the surface. In mounting horror he saw what Brad had seen. It was an image of Brad beneath the ice, hoary and encrusted, bruised and blackened and floating like a corpse— but it wasn't dead. It was waving rigidly, pressing against the under surface, mouthing silent words that distorted the face, trying to find a way out.

  The image of Brad was not alone. Three other figures floated there. Images of Lee, Ella and Honora, all pressing against the ice and mouthing unheard cries. They were all prisoners.

  Now they all saw it. They were hypnotized by the revelation. They were fixed, locked into the images of themselves, gazing down in horror at this shivering incarnation of their enjoined destinies. They felt the elemental cold slowly beginning to transfer itself to them, to still the flow of their blood.

  —We're trapped—whispered Honora.—It's the dream within the dream—

  Lee looked to Ella, but her eyes were on the little girl. The girl was kneeling on the frozen lake, hands clasped in anguish beneath her chin like someone at prayer, eyes streaming with tears as she sobbed uncontrollably. Ella was mesmerized. Lee saw in Ella's eyes a glitter, like sunlight on frost, of the mad priestess. He realized with shock and admiration that she was about to take charge. Her confidence fluttered around her like a protective cloak.

  —Keep moving! Don't stand still! We have to undo what was done!—Ella's words eclipsed everything. She had remembered the golden thread she had been spinning before falling asleep. It came out like a formula, like a spell.

  —Church and steeple! Door and people!—She was yelling at them, without shifting her eyes from the kneeling, weeping girl.— Faith and desire! We have to end our mistrust! No more indiffer­ence! Honora, take your curse from Brad's head! Do it now!—

  —How can I ?—

  —Just lift it! Lift the curse!—

  —But it's only words! Words are not real things!—

  —Just! Lift! It!—

  —I unmake it I unmake it I unmake it!—Honora was screaming. She was hysterical. She wanted to run to the girl but Ella held her back.