On their arrival the tired children had been escorted into inner chambers at the base of the tower, where they bathed and were given something to eat. Once they were clean and fed they would get into night clothes. Shortly the examiners would take their places, two to each child, in the dream-testing rooms, cabins that lay in the park around the tower like seed dropped from a tall flower. Indeed, at the moment when the sun vanished the doors in the walls of the antechamber opened and messengers appeared to summon the examiners into the core of the tower. A stair spiralled down to the ground floor and the doors out to the garden and its carefully spaced, isolated cabins. The messengers seemed to want the examiners to hurry. There was an air of urgency in their gestures as they gathered the examiners towards the doors from the room. They kept glancing back towards the elevator. Apparently they were expecting someone. Their glances were surreptitious, and they checked as often on each other as on the examiners they were herding. The perky examiner guessed that they had been asked to get themselves out of the way too. She refused to be hurried. She feigned some trouble with the heel of her shoe. She stopped and fussed with it. A messenger came forward and took her arm, helped her to her feet and hustled her towards the door. She heard the elevator open. She and the messenger hesitated, and looked. They saw three men. Two were dark-suited Regulatory Body officials — men from records, or registry. The third was still wearing his topcoat and hat, so had come from outside the building.
As she was pushed through the inner doors and out of his line of sight, the examiner recognised the man. It was the Secretary of the Interior, Cas Doran.
‘Now why —,’ thought the examiner, as the door swung to between her and the Secretary, ‘— should these functionaries be in such a hurry to clear everyone out of Secretary Doran’s way?’ Doran was responsible for the Regulatory Body. It was in his portfolio. He had every right to be in the Body’s offices. ‘Is he coming now to lie in on one of these candidates’ examinations?’ thought the examiner. ‘Even so,’ she thought, ‘why should his interest be a matter of any secrecy?’
SEVERAL HOURS later the examiner emerged, feeling rather deflated, from a ghostly, muffled experience of Wild River. She decided to take a walk around the garden to clear her head.
She strode swiftly away from the cabin she’d been in, careful to avoid meeting the eyes of her fellow examiners — though she was sure they’d agree with her about the poor quality of the dream. As she walked she thought about how she would word her unenthusiastic report on the feeble dreamhunter whom she would pass — but whom she should, in all justice, discourage from taking up the life.
The examiner ducked through a grove of dripping golden ash trees. She caught sight of some dark-suited figures hurrying ahead of her towards the tower. She was sure that one of them was Secretary Doran.
She stopped under the trees and waited till the group was out of sight, then went on cautiously towards a hubbub she could hear through a hedge of hydrangeas.
A crowd was milling around the open doors of a cabin, their shoes making dents in the damp lawn. The examiner saw two of her colleagues sitting on the cabin’s veranda with their heads on their knees. And she saw the dreamhunter Grace Tiebold leaning on a veranda post, pale, her hand held over her mouth.
The examiner thought better of her walk. She retraced her steps through the garden, and took her usual route into the tower.
GRACE HAD SENT a wire to Chorley from Doorhandle. In it she had said only that she and Laura were back and she’d be lying in on Laura’s examination. Going by the wire, Chorley thought he could expect them both back home the following day.
That day arrived, and Grace and Laura didn’t. For that matter, neither did Tziga, who’d been gone for two weeks now, long enough to have exhausted even his most enduring dream. Chorley had expected Tziga to appear about the time Laura set off on her first overnighter. They had all hoped he’d be back before she left and would be able to take Grace’s place as Laura’s guide. He hadn’t arrived in time and Grace had accompanied Laura. Tziga was still absent — and Chorley hadn’t had word from him.
The next day Chorley had another telegram:
LAURA MUST GO BACK IN STOP PROBLEM
WITH EXAMINATIONS STOP WILL GO TOO
STOP SORRY BUT IT IS ME OR SOME
STRANGER STOP WILL TELEGRAPH ON
REEMERGENCE GRACE.
Chorley was concerned. He took himself to the head offices of the Regulatory Body to make his own enquiries.
He was shown to the Director’s office. Chorley simply asked what the problem was with Laura’s examination. ‘And do you — by any chance — have news of Tziga Hame? We did expect him back several days ago, before Laura’s examination.’
The Director summoned underlings and sent them off to find answers to Chorley’s questions. The Director had his secretary bring in a pot of tea. He poured and chatted and — Chorley thought — acted oddly nonchalant.
Chorley had thought it strange that, when he had first appeared in the Director’s office, he had got the feeling that the man had been expecting his visit, and had even known what it was about. The man was — Chorley thought — now walling himself up behind this bricks and mortar of chatter. The Director had acted helpful, and sent people running, but all his showy activity seemed to Chorley to conceal something.
By the time Chorley’s second cup was cool the underlings had returned with answers — and with documents.
The Director read them while Chorley waited. The Director made a neat stack of the pages and rested his folded hands upon them. He looked up at Chorley.
‘Apparently your niece caught a nightmare. However, she didn’t describe it as such to the rangers who escorted the season’s candidates back from the test site. No one for a moment imagines Miss Hame was being dishonest, just a little shy, and backward. She did manage to let the rangers know that she’d caught something different, and unexpected. Her examiners were chosen very carefully, and there were more than the usual number. Your wife insisted on lying in with the girl too — so, unfortunately, the effect of the nightmare was rather amplified.’ The Director paused and smoothed the pages with his fingertips. He cleared his throat and continued. ‘It was decided that it was imperative that Laura overwrite her nightmare. There were no dreamhunters in Founderston with any dream suitable, or sufficiently strong, to do the job. The child had to be taken back In. Your wife went with her. Mrs Tiebold can steer her niece into calmer waters, I’m sure. I’m sure they will both be back directly.’
The Director smiled. ‘As to Mr Hame. According to our records he went back In seven days ago, after registering his intentions at the ranger’s post at Doorhandle.’ The Director paused, then asked, ‘Did Mr Hame not go home first?’
‘No,’ Chorley said. ‘And, since he wasn’t there for his daughter’s Try, we expected him to turn up as soon as he was able. Why would he go back In?’
The Director frowned. ‘I have no idea,’ he said. It seemed to Chorley that the Director looked expectant, as though waiting for him to begin making excuses for Tziga. As though by hearing what Chorley would say the Director would supply himself with explanations for Tziga Hame’s behaviour. Not — Chorley suspected — because the Director was disturbed and needed Tziga’s behaviour explained, but perhaps because the Director wanted an answer to offer other people.
Chorley leant forward, he put his hand out for the papers and asked, ‘What were Tziga’s recorded intentions?’
The Director sorted one sheet from the pile and passed it to Chorley. He said, ‘That’s a carbon.’
Chorley looked at the paper then, sharply, up at the Director. The form wasn’t written in Tziga’s handwriting.
The Director seemed already aware of this. ‘The ranger on duty filled in the form,’ he said, and waved a hand, as if to wave away any suspicions Chorley might have. ‘Mr Hame only signed it. That’s not unusual, especially for the great dreamhunters. They are often helpless about anything practical.’
&nb
sp; The space on the form where the dreamhunter was meant to write his planned destination had only one word in it. The ranger who’d supposedly filled in the form for Tziga had written: ‘Across’.
Chorley saw that the paper in his hand was trembling. He put it back on the Director’s desk, but kept his hand upon it. Chorley’s ears were ringing. He was in shock — a shock that was several parts rage. He wanted to lean across the desk and take the Director by his collar and shake him. But Chorley knew that showing what he was feeling wasn’t wise till he’d got away from the office and had a chance to think. Chorley had a suspicion that the document was forged, not ‘filled in’ for Tziga. He was sure that something was being covered up, hastily and messily, just ahead of his enquiries. He was sure, too, that if he didn’t pursue the matter at once the cover-up would sort itself out and tidy itself up and form a solid front.
Chorley Tiebold was a man who’d got his own way almost all his life. His whole life experience, and his forceful nature, told him to challenge these lies and whatever lay behind them. His character and knowledge shrieked at him to attack — now, decisively. But something else — an instinct deeper than experience — was telling him to let it go, and not let this man know how suspicious he was. For, as he sat there in the office of the Director, Chorley was at last being forced to face a fear he’d had but kept secret from himself. Worries that he’d shaken out of his head whenever they intruded. The fear was this — that Tziga, his sad, secretive friend, had been involved in dangerous things. Dangerous things possibly sanctioned by the Regulatory Body, but things that Tziga was ashamed of and wanted to keep from his family.
Something had gone wrong. The danger had overwhelmed Tziga.
And, until Chorley discovered exactly what that danger was, and that it only threatened Tziga and not his family too, Chorley decided that he had better keep his new understanding from anyone who had anything to do with the Dream Regulatory Body.
The Director cleared his throat again. ‘We can’t know how Mr Hame was in himself. If he was joking, for instance. Perhaps he wrote what he did only to imply that he didn’t like to be asked where he was going. I mean — the great ones in their exploratory phases are often secretive about their sites.’
‘Yes,’ Chorley said. He looked at the paper again, at that word ‘Across’. He didn’t imagine for a second that Tziga had intended to make a crossing.
The Director said, ‘I’m sorry that, at this point, I can’t be of more assistance. But if you have further cause to feel concerned — that is, if Mr Hame doesn’t appear within the next few days at Doorhandle, as usual …’
Chorley said, ‘Thank you,’ and put the paper back on the Director’s table and got up.
‘I’ll have the post at Doorhandle send a wire as soon as Mrs Tiebold and Miss Hame emerge,’ the Director said. He stood too. They shook hands and Chorley left.
LAURA AND GRACE were back within three days. A car dropped them at the front steps of the family’s house in Founderston. The driver carried their hats and coats and knapsacks into the hall, then Grace closed the front door on him in a definite but not ill-tempered way. Rose ran down the stairs and hugged her mother and cousin, crushing them together in her embrace.
‘Sorry for being away so long,’ Grace said to Rose. ‘Laura needs a bath.’ She pushed Rose and Laura towards the stairs. ‘Please see to it, Rose. I’ll organise a meal.’
Chorley had already organised a meal and baths, but didn’t like to talk over the top of Grace, who clearly had urgent things to say to him. She was more tired than he’d seen her for years. She was pale and had shiny concavities of dry skin on her lower lip.
‘Go on,’ said Chorley to Rose and Laura.
‘Where is Da?’ Laura said.
‘I told you not to expect him,’ Grace said, testily.
‘Why shouldn’t I expect him? He should be here,’ Laura said.
‘He’s not here, Laura,’ Chorley said. ‘We’ll discuss it later.’
Laura looked from uncle to aunt. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Once you’ve got your stories straight.’
‘Sweetheart, we’ll tell you everything we know, once we’ve had a talk and between us — yes — sorted out fact from — from other stuff,’ Chorley said.
Laura glared at them, but let her cousin lead her away.
LAURA LAY IN her bath, peeling a mandarin. Several other mandarins floated around her, bumping against her body and the sides of the bath.
Rose was sitting on the floor, her back against the full-length mirror, her hair clinging to its misty surface.
Laura had just come to the end of her account of her first dream.
‘More convicts,’ said Rose.
‘Yes. That’s three dreams we know about. Two of them mine and one that Da made a point of mentioning.’
Rose looked puzzled, then said, ‘Oh! You’re right! The labourers at the end of Convalescent One are convicts.’
‘Convicts mending the railway line, convicts building a wall, one convict with a letter in his mouth —’
‘From a real person, the real Secretary of the Interior.’
‘And convicts on the run after a mass prison break,’ Laura finished. She dropped peel on the tiled floor and began to feed herself a mandarin, segment by segment. She grimaced. ‘I have mouth ulcers.’
‘Ma and Uncle Tziga always get mouth ulcers,’ said Rose. ‘And so it begins for you too. The stereotypical silent and secretive dreamhunter just has a sore mouth.’ Rose gave a barking laugh then said, ‘The things I know — I should write my memoirs.’
‘We should probably keep Cas Doran under our hats,’ said Laura, as if she thought Rose was serious about her memoirs. ‘When we were on our way back to Doorhandle your Ma told me that Secretary Doran lay in on my examination.’
‘Well, you are a Hame.’
‘I don’t like it,’ Laura said. ‘It gives me the creeps. That letter — the real letter — was really in a dead ranger’s mouth.’
Rose wondered aloud whether their classmate Mamie Doran, Cas Doran’s daughter, had any opinions on convicts.
‘Mamie has an opinion on everything.’
‘Except hair ribbons and other stuff she’s above thinking about,’ Rose said.
‘Poor Mamie’s just making the best of being a girl — the best of a bad lot.’
Rose said, determined, ‘I’m not going to be like that. I’m not going to start telling myself I’m settling for anything.’
Laura batted a mandarin away from her chin and sank down in the bath. ‘Why do I dream about convicts?’ she said.
‘The Place is trying to tell you something. Remember how Da said to us that perhaps the dreams are true stories? If they’re true then some of them matter.’
Laura looked very worried.
Rose sat up straight. Her damp hair detached from the mirror and dropped on to her shoulders. ‘The real question is this: Who is using dreams to tell stories?’
‘Da would say “God”,’ said Laura.
‘And my Da would say “Nonsense!”’
GRACE AND CHORLEY were shut in his workshop. She had just finished a detailed account of Laura’s first dream and was attempting to eat something. She had trouble with a bit of scone she was trying to swallow and spat it out into her hand. She dropped the chewed mess on to Chorley’s workbench and put her face in her hands. ‘I’m so tired,’ she said. ‘I feel as though I’m nowhere.’
Chorley ran the tea towel that had wrapped the scones under a tap and handed it to his wife. He said, ‘The convict in Laura’s nightmare remembered being a boy on So Long Spit. Her dream was set in our world.’
Grace was nodding. Then she knuckled a tear out from under her eye.
Chorley went to Grace. He sat beside her on the workshop’s lumpy, developer-stained sofa. He stroked her hair. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry to have to worry you any more, but Tziga has disappeared. The Body says he went back In to hunt another dream. The Director showed me a carbon of his page
from the intentions book.’
‘I saw it when I was signing myself,’ Grace said. ‘I think the signature is a forgery — I’ve seen the real thing often enough over the years in intentions books. I think the Body is keeping things from us. We have to decide what to do, love. We have to think about what it means that we’re being encouraged to think Tziga did something as crazy as attempting a crossing. And we have to think of Laura.’
Chorley drew a deep shuddering breath. Then he said, ‘Do you have any idea what it was Tziga was up to?’
Grace let go of him and drew back. ‘No,’ she said. Then, ‘Yes. Maybe. Not exactly.’
‘Which is it?’ Chorley’s voice was stern. ‘Yes, no, or maybe?’
‘Dear, I know there are things about dreamhunting that you disapprove of. You think some of it is a bit distasteful. Tziga and I never discussed certain things in front of you. Things we felt you might find offensive.’
Chorley gestured for her to go on. He was too angry to speak. Grace was blaming his attitude for her secrecy.
‘You know that there are different types of dreams — different classifications. There are healing dreams, and adventure, romance, achievement, enlightenment, indulgence — the dreams where you find yourself sitting down to eight-course feasts …’
‘Yes,’ said Chorley.
‘There’s a type of dream the Body classifies as a “think again” dream. Tziga catches them to take to prisons. “Think again” dreams are a tool in reform programs.’
‘And how would this get him into trouble?’
Grace’s eyes wandered. She looked down as if she was ashamed. Ashamed of what she knew, or suspected, Chorley thought. She said, ‘I can’t see how Tziga might have got into trouble with the Body. He’s always trusted their judgment. But, Chorley, those dreams were bad for him.’ Grace bit her lip, then went on. ‘I thought about it a lot this summer, because he seemed more sad and shut into himself than ever. “Think again” dreams may well do wonders for hardened murderers, but Tziga performs them over and over, and so he’s the one learning again and again that he’s a sinner, a bad person.’