“LOVE!” I shouted. “I mean LIEBE!”
Freddy shook his head. Henry looked inquiringly at me.
“It’s a word made up of the letters on a calculator,” I hastily explained.
“Er—Liv, calculators are those things with numbers on them,” said Emily. “You’re more likely to find letters in books.”
“Oh, shut up and push off!” I hissed at her, flinging a few more random words at Freddy. “SEE! SILL! LIES.”
“What on earth?” murmured Emily, but when we both looked angrily at her, she finally went off down the corridor, holding her notepad, and disappeared around the corner, where we heard her door latch. I had no time to call, “See you soon—I don’t hope!” after her, I was feverishly trying to make words out of numbers that look a bit like letters if you turn them upside down. But Freddy kept shaking his head at all my suggestions. “Oh, hell, I forgot G—that looks a bit like a nine upside down. Sigil … and I left out O entirely, igloo…”
“Soul,” said Henry. “Seele in German.”
And as I stared at him in surprise, Freddy solemnly squeaked, “You may both enter.”
I turned the doorknob left. This time it worked. I gave Henry an admiring look. “Fantastic! How did you jump to it so quickly?”
“Because of you will find what you have lost,” he said, quoting Frightful Freddy.
“You’re a genius, never mind what Emily—”
“Shh.” Henry put a finger to his lips. He had cautiously opened the door a little wider, but now he hesitated. “Do we have an actual plan?” he whispered.
No, we didn’t. But now it simply had to work without one. I straightened my shoulders and stood tall. To give us courage, I picked the first proverb from Mr. Wu’s large collection that came to mind. “Even the darkest cloud has a silver lining,” I said firmly. It suited the situation rather well—I hoped.
We stole through the doorway as quietly as possible and cautiously closed the door behind us.
I saw at once that we had landed in the school library, between two bookcases in the Natural Sciences section. That was typical of Grayson—he often dreamed of school, usually only too realistically. We found him farther away, at one of the tables, where he had a whole pile of books stacked up in front of him and was leafing through one of them. Miss Cooper, the friendly little librarian, was busy right beside us sorting books on a trolley full of them and putting them back on the shelves. The peaceful, contemplative silence that I liked so much in libraries reigned, and I imagined that I could even pick up the smell of books. The only thing to show that this was a dream was the parrot in a cage standing beside Grayson, and looking very like the parrot in Mrs. Honeycutt’s room.
There weren’t many other people using the library, but one of them was—Mia. She was sitting cross-legged at the next table, with a little silver princess coronet on her head, and seemed to be watching Grayson as he read.
Henry and I exchanged a quick glance. “Do you think that’s Arthur?” asked Henry in an undertone, and I nodded. Arthur liked to shelter behind someone familiar—and somehow the coronet fitted, too, from a symbolic viewpoint.
“Shh! Whispering makes a noise too,” Miss Cooper told us, just as she always did in real life. “If you want to talk, go somewhere else. People come here to study.” She put a copy of The Molecular Basis of Genetics back on its shelf, looked past us to the door that we had just come through, and a smile briefly crossed her face.
“We must do away with that, of course,” she said, waving her hand and making a bookshelf in front of the door disappear. “Remember, the first rule of fully functioning BPID is the dream door must not be in the dreamer’s field of vision.” Her smile was wider. “Not that it would make any difference now—I fixed it some time back. You’re too late!”
And then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t dark-haired little Miss Cooper standing in front of us, but Arthur, tall and blond and in a horrible way extremely handsome. I felt my heart sink. Arthur. As usual, it was Arthur.
“So what’s BPID?” asked Henry. I could hear the frustration in his voice.
“Behavioral Programming in Dreams, Arthur Hamilton’s patent method,” Arthur willingly replied. “At least until I can think of a better name for it.” He followed my glance over to Grayson and Mia, and grinned. “Don’t worry, he can’t hear us. I installed an energy field over there to be on the safe side. So you can shout at me if you feel like it.”
When we didn’t, he went on, in high good humor, “Like I said, the exciting part of this dream is over. When I arrived, Mr. Fourley was just telling Grayson that he’d failed his chemistry exam—isn’t it funny that he’s always failing in his dreams? Anyway, I’ve programmed something nice into him, which will make him—well, I’d rather not tell you yet. Let’s keep it as a surprise for you too.” He looked at me with his head to one side. “Although for you, Liv, it will be a short and rather painful surprise.”
Something flashed in Henry’s eyes. His hands clenched into fists, and for a moment I imagined I saw the air between us flickering. Then, however, he only asked wearily, and sounding as resigned as I felt, “Why, Arthur? Why?”
“Why?” Arthur repeated. The good humor left his face like a mask slipping off. Sheer fury took its place. “Are you seriously asking that? After all these weeks when you had nothing but hatred and contempt for me, all these weeks when I was positively begging you to think of our old friendship! Weeks when I was sparing you all out of pure sentimentality … it took me far too long to realize that you’re just not worth it. But when I nearly died, when I was lying in the hospital pumped full of snake venom and the serum of the antidote, the scales finally fell from my eyes.” They were certainly looking daggers at us.
“But the snake wasn’t our doing,” I said.
“I know that,” he snapped. “All the same, I could have died, and neither Henry nor Grayson was interested. They didn’t even send a message to ask how I was doing.”
“And they’d have been dancing on your grave if that snake had done a better job,” said Henry.
Arthur’s nostrils distended. He was about to say something, but at that moment Mrs. Honeycutt’s parrot screeched, “Nothing is for free, not even death.”
“Oh, you’ve done away with my energy field.” Arthur turned to Grayson and Mia, who hadn’t moved from the spot. Only the parrot seemed to be rather restless. It was beating its wings and squawking “Death! Death!” as if Grayson’s subconscious mind was trying to say something to him, to deliver a message. It almost broke my heart.
“Grayson!” I pushed past Arthur, expecting to come up against a new energy field at any moment. Henry followed me.
“It’s sweet that you’re so full of concern for Liv’s future murderer,” was all Arthur said. “I already told you, you’re too late. So far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to tell Grayson that he’s dreaming, and he’s a victim of BPID. Wake him and tell him everything—it won’t make any difference. I can activate him anytime I like.”
“Not if I kill you first,” growled Henry, but it sounded desperate rather than really threatening.
Reluctantly, Grayson looked up from his book. “You lot—this is a library! And I have to study. I’ve already failed chemistry, so at least I must get a good grade in biology.”
“Yes,” Mia agreed. “Or he can say good-bye to studying medicine at Oxford.”
And the parrot squawked, “Without hard work you’re just a jerk!”
“Exactly. And life won’t reward you if you can’t keep up.” Arthur leaned back against a bookcase, making a volume fall out on the floor. “Sweet dreams, eh? Very laudable, like Grayson himself. How astonished everyone will be to hear that he’s killed his own stepsister. And in such a monstrous way at that.” He gurgled with amusement, while the book that had dropped from the shelf, in defiance of all the laws of gravity, slid slowly over the floor until it came to rest in front of the toes of my shoes.
I dropped on the chair beside Grays
on, feeling more helpless than ever before in my life. Henry was still standing beside the table, staring indecisively at Arthur. A kind of globe of light was flickering back and forth between the palms of his hands, made of the same material as he used to install glittering energy fields in the corridor. But what use would it be to fire off energy light at Arthur? However much Henry drew on the power of his imagination, it was too late.
Arthur had won long ago.
“Like I said—you can’t do anything now,” he confirmed, as if he had read my thoughts. “BPID can’t be reversed. Grayson can be prevented from becoming a murderer only if—well, if he kills himself first. It would still make him a suicide, a murderer of himself.” He favored Grayson with an almost affectionate smile. “It would be just like him to do a thing like that.”
Oh God, yes. It really would. “You … you…,” I stammered, and then fell silent again. There wasn’t even a term of abuse bad enough for Arthur.
“Brilliant bastard?” he prompted me, with a broad grin.
“Keep quiet,” said Grayson, annoyed. “Can’t you quarrel somewhere else?”
“That’s right. The chandelier is beginning to clink with all your noise,” said Mia, pointing to the ceiling. The real school library had only plain neon tube lighting, but here there was an opulent chandelier that looked somehow familiar to me. Mia uncrossed her legs and let them dangle. “I think your hair looks great,” she told Arthur.
“Thanks, princess.” He made that gurgling sound again. Another book came off the shelf close to his head. This time it didn’t drop to the floor but turned in the air to show us its cover. The title stood out, in huge letters, against a black background. It said Don’t Worry, which in view of the situation I thought especially cynical.
Arthur took no notice of the way the bookshelf behind him had come to life. He had dug his hands into his jeans pockets in a relaxed way and was watching a flock of blue butterflies that had emerged from nowhere and were disappearing into the Historical Novels section again, leaving no trace behind. “Then I’ll leave you alone in your misery,” he said with satisfaction. “You don’t have much time left to spend together, and I have a date with my ex-girlfriend. I wouldn’t like to keep her waiting. Unlike you, she’s still an important part of my plans.”
“Arthur, please! Let’s talk.” Henry took a step forward. “Surely you can’t really want—”
“My former best friend Grayson to kill the girl my former best friend Henry loves?” Arthur interrupted him. The book beside his head changed the color of its cover, and the title also changed. It now said Let Him Go.
“Do I want to ruin your lives forever?” asked Arthur again, looking Henry’s way. “Yes, I do, old friend. That’s exactly what I want. So spare yourself begging and pleading. We could have conquered the world together, but you declared war on me, and now you must live with the consequences.”
There was more clinking up in the chandelier, and when I looked, I saw a monkey swinging from it. It was playing with a pearl necklace and put its tongue out at me. I was getting irritated. And suddenly I knew why that chandelier seemed so familiar to me. Its exact counterpart hung in Great-Aunt Gertrude’s living room. But minus the monkey. What in heaven’s name…?
“If we promise—” Henry began, but Arthur didn’t let him say any more.
“You want to negotiate?” he asked coldly. “Too bad. No luck. You have nothing left to offer me—because now I know what your friendship is worth. Absolutely nothing. So sorry, but I’ll be conquering the world without you.” He took his hands out of his pockets and strolled over to the bookshelf behind which the door to the corridor was hidden.
“Don’t hold up a traveler,” screeched the parrot, but neither Henry nor Arthur took any notice of it. Grayson was staring at his book as if hypnotized, anyway.
“I’ll kill you first,” said Henry.
“You’re repeating yourself, old friend.” Arthur yawned. “Go on, then, kill me. Run me down in a car, burn the roof over my head, slit my throat. That won’t change anything, except of course that you’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars.” He waved the bookshelf away, and Grayson’s door came into view behind it. “It’s like this: the phrase I’ve programmed to activate Grayson isn’t the most unusual one in the world. To be precise, it’s very common indeed. Sooner or later—and my bet is that it will be sooner—someone will say it in front of Grayson, whether I’m still alive or not, and then…” He spread his arms regretfully, and the next moment he disappeared through the doorway without another word to us.
25
“OH GOD, I thought he was never going to leave!” Mia snatched the coronet off her head and jumped up from the table.
Grayson groaned. “And I thought he was going to notice something any moment. There aren’t normally any butterflies flying around in my dreams, and no monkeys either.”
“But the parrot needed a bit of company.” Mia was grinning. Then she looked at Henry and me, shaking her head. “All that everlasting talking! Didn’t you understand our messages?”
Henry and I were staring at each other, and for once Henry seemed as slow to catch on as I was. “What messages?” he asked, while I took Grayson’s arm and shook it hard.
“Are you by any chance awake?”
“No, Liv, I’m not awake, I’m dreaming,” he replied, sounding annoyed. “But I’m well aware that I’m dreaming, if that’s what you meant.”
“Oh my God.” I burst into tears. Only now did I realize that I’d been wanting to do that very thing all the time. “Arthur has programmed you, Grayson. He’s—”
“No, he hasn’t,” Grayson interrupted me. “I mean, yes, he tried, but when he came in, I was already on my way out to the corridor. It was quite a strain making him think he’d landed in one of my dreams. But Mia helped.” He smiled at her. “You were terrific. Thanks!”
“You’re welcome,” said Mia, smiling back. “It was pure luck that I know my way around the school library so well. And that tonight I just happened to … er, have borrowed your watch by chance. That way I could follow Arthur inconspicuously when I saw him disappear into your dream.”
“But…” I didn’t understand any of this.
“Are you sure Arthur’s programming didn’t work?” Henry was shaking Grayson’s other arm. “He said it couldn’t be reversed.”
“I’m fine.” Grayson shook off our hands and stood up. “Arthur’s patent method of ruining people’s lives works only in the genuine REM phase, when his victim has no idea what’s going on. But try it if you like, and see what happens when you say what’s supposed to set my programming off. The phrase is: Have you had your hair cut?” He snorted scornfully.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. It was true—sooner or later someone was bound to ask Grayson that. “And then what would have happened?”
He exchanged a quick look with Henry. “Believe me, Liv, you don’t want to know.”
“He’s right,” said Mia, shuddering. “Arthur has a really evil imagination.” She turned to me. “Livvy, stop crying.” She handed me a tissue, and I blew my nose, although that’s not really necessary in a dream. But it felt kind of comforting.
The monkey was swinging back and forth from the chandelier overhead, squealing excitedly.
“Is that Shiva?” I asked. That was the name we’d given the monkey that we used to feed on our terrace in Hyderabad.
“Of course it’s Shiva!” Mia looked reproachfully at me. “And you haven’t even noticed that he’s wearing the pearl necklace Mom lost in South Africa. There’s a photo of Papa on the book at your feet, and the title of the book is All’s Well. How much clearer did I have to be? Great-Aunt Gertrude’s chandelier, the Californian butterflies, the picture of our old Nissan Pathfinder … how could Grayson be dreaming of things he’s never seen?”
My head was in confusion. “Mia—how come you know about all this? Who told you about this place, and everything? I always thought…”
Mia was looking
almost insulted. “Oh, honestly—as if I hadn’t noticed something fishy about your story of my sleepwalking!” She shook her head. “And that night in the kitchen, after I nearly jumped through the open window, and Lottie baked vanilla crescents—even a deaf person would have overheard what you were whispering. So I knew Arthur was behind it, and from then on it was pure research work.”
Henry dropped a kiss on Mia’s cheek. “I was in favor of telling you,” he said, “but Grayson and Livvy wanted to protect you. Seems like you have a natural talent.”
Mia tried to look modest and failed miserably. “Well, yes! It did take me a little time to catch on to the bit about personal items but then…” She lightly punched my arm. “Where do you think I found all those clues to the identity of Secrecy? The e-mail addresses, the passwords—did you think I’d joined the ranks of computer hackers, Livvy?”
For once, I was left speechless.
“You know who Secrecy is?” asked Henry, taken aback, and it occurred to me that in all the excitement about Florence and the feathers, I’d forgotten to tell Grayson and Henry about the Secrecy developments. But maybe it would be better for Florence to do that herself. After all, there’d been equally intimate comments on Grayson and Henry in the Tittle-Tattle blog—she certainly had some explaining to do.
“I know a good deal,” said Mia evasively. “But there are still a few gaps I have to fill in. For instance, what exactly was going on between you, Arthur, Anabel, and her demon? And was Arthur behind what Theo Ellis did? And why is Emily always hanging around outside Grayson’s door in the corridor, as if the whole place belongs to her? Sometimes she’d only let me go past if I sent a flock of bats to pester her.…”
Henry and I laughed, and so did Mia. Even the parrot joined in.
“Listen, everyone!” Grayson, who had been wandering up and down between the library tables, looked at us, frowning. Our laughter died away. “To hear you, anyone would think it was all behind us. This isn’t a victory celebration! Next time we may not be so lucky, don’t you realize that? Arthur’s not about to let go, and we now know that he won’t shrink from anything.”