Just Dreaming
Well, at least he’d grasped the idea of the plural now.
“What’s his idea? Does he think his spots don’t offend the common good? I disagree.” Persephone tossed her hair back. “How do I look?”
“Morally depraved but still stunning,” I said.
When we reached the rooftop, the sky was as gray as ever, still gloomy and overcast. I had never been up here before, and I looked suspiciously at the metal railings dividing the flat part of the roof from the sloping surface. They looked stable. But unfortunately they were no higher than a normal balustrade.
I automatically took a couple of steps toward the middle of the roof, where I thought it would be safer. Particularly as Grayson and Henry were there too. And so, a little farther away, was Arthur. Persephone strolled off without me to the east side of the roof, where Jasper was sitting on the railings dangling his legs. Mrs. Cook sternly told him off.
“Heavens, doesn’t he know that this is the day when faithless blood will flow?” I murmured, forgetting for a split second that Jasper had broken with “demons and dreams and all that childish stuff.” It was to be hoped that the demon had also broken with Jasper.
Henry smiled, pleased to see me. “I’m glad you’re up here too. We ought to share an epoch-making experience like this with the people we love. So that then we can tell our grandchildren there was absolutely nothing to be seen during this solar eclipse.”
Grayson was looking at his iPhone. “They have a spectacular view everywhere else. All of them beside themselves and tweeting cool pictures. While here we don’t even notice that it’s begun.”
“Yes, we do. I think it’s darker already,” I said, and I wasn’t lying.
“Everyone put your glasses on, please!” Mrs. Cook told us, and Mr. Osborne added, “Those who want to watch through the camera obscura, please put your black cloth over your head and shoulders. Keep a record of the eclipse in your exercise books.”
“Yes, if you wouldn’t mind telling us where the sun is supposed to be,” Grayson grumbled, but he put on his protective glasses.
“Are we really supposed to stand up here for two hours staring at a gray sky?”
I gave a start of alarm because that muted question was Arthur’s. And because he was standing right behind me.
He laughed quietly. “Why so jumpy, Liv? Did Anabel’s crazy talk maybe scare you? Do you think the demon will punish you today for being a bad girl?”
“No, I think he’ll set to work in alphabetical order and sort you out first,” I said, gratefully aware of Henry moving closer to me and putting his arm around me. But Arthur wasn’t to be deterred. As if naturally, he joined us and winked conspiratorially at us over the rim of his protective glasses.
“Faithless blood will flow when the sun moves into the shadow of the moon,” he whispered. “Spooky stuff. But seriously, guys, you don’t believe that nonsense, do you?” He looked around with exaggerated caution. “I for one don’t see either Anabel or her demon, so I’m assuming we’re safe here. Although of course a demon like that can fly.” He laughed, pleased with himself. “And can possess human beings. Don’t you think Emily, over there, looks possessed by the demon?”
“Strictly speaking, it isn’t really a demon, but a kind of deity,” Grayson began, but he fell silent when Henry gave him a warning glance. He was right: it might not be a great idea to let Arthur know about Grayson’s latest discoveries.
Grayson had gone back to phase one of his three-phase plan, in the firm conviction that knowledge is power and the basis of every sensible plan. His attempt to reason with Anabel herself hadn’t exactly been crowned by success (she had made the same cryptic threats as she did in the dream corridor, minus the hocus-pocus with the feathers and the stage effects with lighting and temperature), but she had been willing to talk about her childhood and among other things had told him the name of the sect with which it had all begun, when Anabel was still a baby.
The members of the sect called themselves “Wayfarers on the True Shadow Path” and had been a small group of about twenty-five who dedicated themselves to worshipping the deity of an ancient, long-forgotten religion. Grayson had found some disturbing websites about it on the Internet, because on New Year’s Eve 1999, the Wayfarers on the True Shadow Path had hit the headlines on account of what looked like a tragic mass suicide at the turn of the millennium. The remains of the leader of the sect and sixteen of its members, including three children, had been found in a barn burnt right down to its foundations.
Anabel had been three years old at the time. Why, and how long, her mother had been a Wayfarer, and what position she had held in the outfit we didn’t know. Nor did we know how she and her daughter had escaped the mass suicide. Grayson thought that Anabel herself didn’t know much about it, because she had never been able to discuss the subject with her mother. Once Anabel’s father had won custody of her, he naturally enough kept her away from her mother, who herself didn’t make any attempt to stay in touch. She had been diagnosed with schizophrenic psychosis and committed to various hospitals; she killed herself in the last of them a few years later. The notebook that had been burnt in the Hamiltons’ family vault in Highgate Cemetery last year had been in the box of her personal possessions that Anabel had inherited, and it had contained assorted handwritten formulas and instructions for performing rituals intended to revive the demon—sorry, the dark deity. Anabel hadn’t touched the box of souvenirs for years, but when she finally did and opened the notebook, something had happened to her. At least, that was how Grayson told the story. She had suddenly decided that she was intended to reawaken the deity—better known to us as the Lord of Shadows and Darkness—and take up the inheritance of the Wayfarers on the True Shadow Path herself. We knew the rest of the story—after all, we had been part of it.
“A deity? You mean an actual god?” Arthur looked attentively at Grayson. “Well, well, you have been busy investigating Anabel’s fantasies. Interesting. I wonder what you expect to get out of it?”
Grayson didn’t reply. The facts he had discovered and put together were sad, and they had shaken him, but he had doggedly stuck to the idea of proving to Anabel that her demon didn’t exist.
“Maybe you hope Anabel will tell you a few of her tricks so that you can use them against me,” Arthur went on, getting quite close to the bull’s-eye. We did need Anabel on our side, as an ally, if we were to be a match for Arthur. He shrugged his shoulders. “A clever idea. She hates me. If she wasn’t so busy with her schizoid delusions, she probably would help you—look at it that way, and maybe I ought to be glad to have a raving lunatic as my ex-girlfriend. On the other hand, I’m not as easy a victim as Senator Tod.” He paused for a moment, to make sure that he still had our full attention. Then he said, “Okay, so Anabel is good—but I’m better.”
In other words, even with Anabel we wouldn’t stand a chance against him.
“Oh, shut your trap,” said Grayson, loud enough to make the teachers turn and look at us. Mrs. Cook, the headmistress, came closer to see what was going on.
“Yes, and then get lost,” said Henry, taking his arm off my shoulders and adjusting his protective glasses just before Mrs. Cook reached us.
We all raised our heads and stared at the gray sky, trying to appear fascinated.
“You’re looking the wrong way,” said Mrs. Cook in passing. “The east is over there.”
Arthur waited until she was out of earshot and then said, “To think of us all standing up here on the roof, forced to pretend we’re watching something interesting. It’s about as likely that the sky will suddenly clear as that Anabel’s demon will turn up to shed our blood.”
“Suppose he’s been here all along?” said Henry, looking keenly at Arthur over the cardboard rim of his protective glasses.
Arthur raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“You said it yourself: Anabel could be dangerous to you if she wasn’t so busy with her demon,” said Henry. “So you’d have more int
erest than anyone in convincing her of his existence.”
Arthur laughed incredulously, earning himself a disapproving glance from Mrs. Cook. Then, lowering his voice, he asked, “Are you joking?”
I’d have asked that question myself, if he hadn’t. I stared at Henry in confusion. Grayson seemed to feel the same. At least, he was frowning heavily.
Henry shrugged. “It really isn’t such an absurd idea, Arthur. As long as Anabel was in the hospital and concentrating on her own problems, she wasn’t any threat to you. But it’s different now. You saw what she did to Senator Tod, and maybe you were afraid she still had scores to settle with you. So you had to give her something else to think about in a hurry.” Had Henry only just come to these conclusions, or had he reached them some time ago? If so, why hadn’t he told us? But the longer I thought about it, the less weird his ideas seemed to me.
“As soon as Anabel stopped taking her pills, you took to haunting the corridor yourself,” he went on quietly. “You know Anabel pretty well, so presumably it was easy for you. You projected winged shapes on the walls, made a shower of feathers fall, and whispered exactly what she expected to hear: the demon is still around and needs her services … and voilà—Anabel has her hands full, and no spare time to thwart you one way or another.”
“You’re crazy yourself.” For a moment Arthur looked honestly annoyed. Then he pushed an angelic golden curl back from his forehead and said, “Here I am showing my cards at last, and you still insinuate that I’m deceiving you. Honestly, guys, I’m the one who wears the T-shirt with The Bad Guy printed on it in large letters, and I stand by what I’ve done. Or may yet do,” he added with a little laugh. “But please don’t make me responsible for my deranged ex-girlfriend’s wild fantasies about demons into the bargain.”
His voice sounded as if he genuinely meant it. Difficult to know whether he was being honest for once, or simply a good actor …
Persephone appeared. “What are you all doing here?” she asked. We were probably an odd sight, standing there staring at each other in silence through our silly cardboard glasses.
“Waiting,” I said.
“For something to happen at last,” added Arthur.
Persephone sighed. “I guess you’ll have a long wait. I hate living in London! Seems like they’re having supercool eclipse parties all over the rest of Europe. Here, your turn!” She held our camera obscura under my nose. “This thing is terrific—you see nothing at all! I wonder when Mr. Osborne will finally realize that the last solar eclipse of his life was a total flop. But I do think it’s a little darker now, don’t you?”
“At this very moment we would be seeing maximum coverage of the sun, with only a crescent still visible at its lower rim,” announced Mr. Osborne promptly from under the black cloth that he had put over his head and his observation device. He still sounded hopeful. It was slowly getting rather cold up here as well.
“May I take a look?” Arthur was about to take our shoe box out of Persephone’s hands, but he flinched. Cursing quietly, he looked at his thumb.
“You’ve cut yourself,” said Persephone in surprise. She was right: blood was coming from a cut on Arthur’s thumb. “And I thought we’d covered any sharp edges with sticky tape. I’m terribly sorry. Do you want a tissue?”
“That’s all right.” Arthur was staring at the wound in surprise. Henry, Grayson, and I also watched, fascinated, as a drop of blood collected on the cut in the skin, flowed down to his thumbnail, and dripped to the roof below our feet.
“Blood will flow,” I murmured, and I didn’t know whether to shiver or laugh.
Arthur for one burst out laughing. “You have to hand it to Anabel’s demon,” he said. “Turns up on the dot. But to be honest, for the sake of drama there should have been more in it. Doesn’t it strike you as a little like this solar eclipse? Talked up in advance, and then it turns out to be a disappointment.” Still laughing, he walked away, and we simultaneously heaved a sigh of relief.
Persephone sighed too, but not with relief. She was looking through the camera obscura at Jasper, who was talking to a girl from his own class.
“I think I left my exercise book over there by mistake,” said Persephone. “I’ll be right back, and then you must tell me what Arthur meant by Anabel’s demon.”
“Er, yes.” I wondered whether to credit Anabel spontaneously with a new dog called Demon. But maybe Persephone would have forgotten her question by the time she came back.
As soon as she had gone away, Grayson leaned forward. “Do you really think Arthur is behind the revival of Anabel’s demon, Henry?”
Henry shrugged his shoulders again. “Could be,” he replied. “I mean, there are only three possibilities. First, Arthur leads Anabel to believe in a demon to keep her under his control, without her knowledge. Second, even without any help from Arthur, Anabel is still suffering from delusions. And third … well, the third is unlikely.”
“The third possibility is that the demon really does exist.” It burst out of me—well, someone had to say it. “It’s odd that Arthur cuts himself today of all days, don’t you think? Just in time for the complete solar eclipse. And then … the dreams, the black feathers, and…” I turned aside and pointed down. Yes, it was still there. Or it was there again. “See that crow? It’s been perching in that copper beech all day, staring at me.”
“It’s an acacia, really,” said Grayson, and Henry looked at me, shaking his head.
“What’s the matter with you, cheese girl? You were always the one who could laugh at demons.”
“Yes, I know.” I watched, feeling slightly ashamed, as the crow flew away. It was stupid to go worrying about a demon that very probably didn’t exist, when we had plenty to worry about with Arthur. Because Arthur existed, for sure, and it was only a question of time before he struck again. I hadn’t forgotten his threats of murder, and I expected I ought to be glad that he’d resisted the temptation to make someone throw me over the roof railing.
He let slip that he had at least thought of it later in the day, when we had been told to leave the roof and go back to classes and I met him in the hallway.
“Did you know that if you fall twenty-five meters through the air, you can reach a speed of eighty kilometers per hour?” Arthur was obviously enjoying the way I jumped at the sound of his voice—for the second time today. I had noticed, too late, that he was only a few steps away from his own locker. My thoughts had been elsewhere, in fact with Theo Ellis, who had passed me in the hall only a minute earlier.
Like everyone else, I’d only been able to stare at him. But it was real: Theo Ellis! Of course it was Friday, so he had his Ancient Greek class, but no one had expected to see Theo here again, me least of all. I’d thought he was either in prison or in a psychiatric hospital, and to see him striding through school as upright and self-confident as ever made me feel happy and hopeful. Theo Ellis didn’t just look like a wardrobe made of solid oak; he obviously had a mental constitution to match. And a good attorney.
Unfortunately my brief hopeful mood went away at the sight of Arthur. I was on my own, so for a moment I considered coming back later, but I didn’t want to let Arthur feel triumphant because he had put me to flight simply by being there.
So I tried a scornful glance in Sam’s manner and wondered whether to add a You should be ashamed of yourself.
“Eighty kilometers an hour! Imagine what it would look like when you hit the ground!” Arthur went on with relish.
“Yes, anyone can easily imagine it if that’s their idea of fun,” I said, repelled.
“I only mean—well, in terms of generating blood, anyway, it would have produced more than this silly cut.” Laughing, Arthur held his wounded thumb out to me. I hated the way he was always in such an outrageously good mood. “But sad to say, I didn’t know that your physics class would be up on the roof with ours, or I might have planned something nice,” he said, laughing even more. I wondered whether to hit him, which might not be the cleverest
option, but would certainly make me feel better.
“But right now I have more important things on my mind, and I’d really miss the cute way you always jump at the sight of me.” While Arthur tapped the numerical code into his own locker, he winked at me. “A solar eclipse is so exciting, don’t you think? I’m sure Anabel—sorry, her demon—will soon come up with a substitute date for bloodshed. Demons have such a wide choice. Full moon, new moon, witches’ Sabbaths, the solstice, lunar eclipses…” He pulled his locker open and reached into it. Something brown shot out of the locker—something that looked like a snake’s flat head.
Arthur screamed.
I held my breath and stared, incredulously. A snake had dug its fangs into Arthur’s hand. It withdrew its head again just as quickly as it had shot out.
Arthur slammed the locker door. “Did you … did you see that?” he gasped. The draft had swirled up a small black feather that now sank slowly to the floor.
“Yes,” I said, feeling breathless myself. “It looked like a snake. And a feather.”
Arthur’s scream had attracted more students, who crowded around us curiously, so I couldn’t see the feather any longer.
“It was a snake,” said Arthur, more to himself than me. It was almost as if he had to explain it to himself, because otherwise he wouldn’t believe it. He was clutching his hand, and I tried feverishly to remember what I’d learned about first aid for snakebites.
“There’s a damn snake in my locker!” I heard a touch of hysteria in Arthur’s voice now. “And it bit me.”
Snake! The whispered word went around, was passed on down the corridor louder and louder, and set off a little panic. Some people began screeching and stamping their feet. I couldn’t see the feather anywhere in all the confusion. I’d probably only imagined it, anyway.
“Calm down,” I said. “The snake is shut up in Arthur’s locker. It can’t hurt you. And we don’t know if it’s really dangerous. Maybe it’s…” I fell silent, because at that moment Arthur staggered and then slowly slid down the smooth locker door to the floor.