However, we found no sign of either of them; and what we did find was infinitely more disturbing. Scorched trees; burned grass. Mangled highways, trailing the residues of the life they channelled into puddles on the sodden, freezing ground; dead and broken-backed animals flung wantonly here and there as if by a massive hand. A rat, its hind legs trailing uselessly along the ground, made its painstaking, implacable way across the main road, on a beeline for its nest, as if the very action of reaching this familiar territory would heal its fatal wound.
‘Not even to a rat,’ Millie said below her breath. ‘This should not happen even to a rat.’
She took the thing cleanly between her jaws and carefully severed the vertebrae in its neck. Then she carried it, flopping out of either side of her mouth, and laid it in the ditch, where she covered it with moss. I watched all this, astonished, but said not a word. Between us, we despatched two badly injured squirrels and a buck rabbit; a crow and a bleeding badger cub, its head all caved in where it had been dashed against a tree. And then we ran and ran, as much to clear the stench of death from our heads as to cover the ground.
As last, heart pumping and lungs protesting, I found that I had to call a halt. Had I not, I think Millefleur would have run beside me without a word of reproach until her great heart gave out. I fell down on to my side, panting like a dog, and she joined me there, her breath steaming into the dark and freezing air.
‘Where are they, Millie?’ I managed at last through great heaving gasps. ‘Why is there no sign of them?’
She looked at me oddly then. ‘They?’
I realised my error and hastily covered my tracks as best I could. ‘Vita, I mean. Where can she be? How could any cat vanish so completely?’
The tabby-and-white held my gaze steadily, and I knew then that she could see right through my skull, into the selfish thoughts that lurked there, thoughts of a beautiful, arrogant, golden cat, not my own lost sister. ‘The highways have her,’ Millie said cryptically. ‘They have her now. We can do no more.’
I stared at her, aghast. ‘We can’t just give up on... her.’
Millefleur sighed. ‘I think we must, Orlando,’ she said quietly. ‘They have swallowed her down further than you or I can go: and if you keep on searching with such fervour, you’ll wear yourself to nothing, and what use will that be?’
*
Defeated, exhausted, we trailed back to the cottage. In through the cat-door we crept, into the dark and silent kitchen. And it was then I realised, with a terrible surprise and guilt, that I was ravenous: for there, where Anna always placed them, were the two food bowls on the floor beside the cupboards, and they had recently been refilled. Millie’s stomach growled like a bear’s. Her eyes gleamed, and then suddenly we were both applying ourselves with rapt attention, choking the dried pellets down as if they were caviar and we, beggars at a feast. We were just chasing the last few flavoursome morsels around the bottom of each bowl when Millie’s fur suddenly stood on end and she leapt away in shock. Still chewing, I looked up. I could see immediately why she’d reacted in the way she did, for there in the doorway was an apparition: a hunched, dark shape, moonlight reflecting from its single eye.
It was Hawkweed, my grandfather, Ashmore’s dreamcatcher – and a sorrier-looking cat I had never seen.
He faltered into the kitchen and now I could see the extent of the damage. One eye was swollen tight shut. His fur, customarily oily and unkempt, was bedraggled and disordered, streaked with dried blood. He favoured one hind leg; for the deep wound across the haunch on the other side still wept a noxious pale fluid. How he had even managed to get down the stairs, I could not imagine.
‘No luck, laddie?’
I shook my head. ‘She’s gone, Granfer. Vita’s gone.’
The old cat licked his teeth thoughtfully. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Thought so. Gone through the knot. Gone to ground.’ He took a pace towards me, saw Millefleur, and stopped dead.
‘Aha,’ he said, and his voice was hoarse and rasping, ‘my saviour, if I am not mistaken: the beautiful lynx?’ The grin he gave her was awful to behold, as if the muscles of his face were warring to express different emotions at once: mad fury; misery; a brave attempt at gallantry.
The sensible, competent Millie became strangely bashful and coy, and I began to perceive something of the sexual power my old grandfather had once wielded. I cannot say it pleased me much.
‘My father was a dreamcatcher, sir: it was my pleasure to help in whatever way I could.’
Hawkweed’s ears twitched. ‘Your father, you say?’
‘Fingal Whitethorn, sir.’
‘From up past Westley?’
She nodded.
‘Old Thorny!’ The visible eye went misty. ‘Fingal Whitethorn’s daughter, well I never. A fine dreamcatcher, your father was, my dear: light on his feet and fast as a viper’s tongue, and such a one for the ladies—’ here he caught himself in a most uncharacteristically sensitive fashion ‘—before he met your mother, of course.’
Millie grinned. ‘And for a long time afterwards, I fear, but she always knew it about him; he made no secret of his appetites.’
‘Saved by the father, and then again by the daughter,’ Hawkweed mused. ‘Now that must be some kind of record.’ He regarded Millie steadily, then brought the weight of that single-eyed stare to bear on me. ‘She’s a rare baggage, Orlando: she’ll do you well. Very well indeed.’
Millie flushed and looked away.
‘And there I was,’ he guffawed, ‘thinking you was some numpty lad mooning around after that little bit of golden fluff down at the canal: that girlie down on the boat where I gets my sardines. She’s no better than an alleycat, that one, for all her fine airs and graces. Even had the gall to give me the wink once. Lucky for her, I had other things on my mind.’ He licked his mangled lips.
Shocked to the bone at this horrible perspicacity, I opened my mouth to deny all, defend my beloved, challenge my grandfather’s lack of chivalry: then thought better of it, for had I risen to his bait I am sure he would happily have turned upon me and demonstrated his vicious temper. In his current condition, that was not wise.
Without missing a beat, the old dreamcatcher went on: ‘Now this fair maiden’s daddy, he wouldn’t have hesitated: he’d have been all over her like a vet’s fingers! Had a few scraps in our time, he and I, over the ladies, till he moved over to Westley. Damn good job for me he came back into Ashmore when he did, though, or I’d have been a goner.’
And he went on to tell us of his first, and almost fatal encounter with the Dream, many years before. ‘Thought I knew it all, I did. I’d been dreamcatching for the best part of a year, and nary a surprise or a problem. Then the nightmares started: little things at first – funny-looking monsters dreamt up by the kiddies; a few dead relatives and sucking pits. I welcomed the challenge at the time: bit of fun, I thought, at last. Then they began to get a bit stronger, a bit more frequent. Certainly kept me busy for a while. But nothing I couldn’t handle: I was pretty fit in those days.’ He grimaced at Millie. ‘Then this great fiery black thing appeared; led me a proper dance it did – all over Ashmore: aye, and further. Those highways that run from round the manor house to down near the common, they’re as tangled as a rat’s nest: follow one for any distance and you find yourself in Timbuktu – and not even this Tuesday! Some of ’em’ll take you right back to the days of Queen Bess, and beyond: witch-hunts and cat-burnings, not pretty at all...’
Now I had no idea what he was talking about. He must have received quite a blow to the head, I thought, from this latest episode, and I glanced anxiously at Millefleur, concerned that she was a witness to my grandfather’s obvious senility, but her attention was unwavering. Indeed, she watched my grandfather as if he were some kind of hero.
‘Ugly bastard it was, and stinking to high heaven. Finally ran it to ground out to the west of the village, in amongst the roots of that big old ash tree that came down in the last storm. Had the beggar cornered, but the
n it turned on me, kept multiplying all over the place: just didn’t have enough feet or mouths to keep it down, and it growing all the time. That was where your dad came in: he’d felt the vibrations all the way past Westley and knew it was trouble. Leapt on it, he did: a great big leopard with a fearsome jaw on him; but the thing saw him coming...’
Memory hazed the dark yellow eye.
‘Went straight down his throat, growing and growing. Choked him to death, and not a thing I could do to stop it. Then up it came again, spewing out of his face like streamers of black vomit; it gathered itself, knocked me stupid and hurled itself off down the roads again before I could come to.
‘Poor old Fingal. Knew he was dead as soon as I saw him – not a leopard any more, you see: just plain old Finn, that scruffy black and white lad.
‘And now it’s back. And you and I, laddie, have to go out there and face it.’
I stared at him in disbelief. ‘You must be out of your mind.’ The words came tumbling out before I could call a halt to them.
Hawkweed drew himself up, his undamaged eye crackling with fury. I thought that he really would strike me then – even in his invalid state – as he had when I was a recalcitrant kitten who crossed his will; and I am sure the same thought had occurred to him, for I saw one forepaw give a twitch of intent. But he just stood there, swaying just a little – the old warrior, survivor of a thousand highway skirmishes, battered and damaged by his latest encounter – and a mad battle-light shone fiery in his eye.
‘You coward!’ he roared. ‘You boneless, weak-kneed, shrinking puppy!’ Saliva shot out of his mouth, between the twisted teeth, and spattered on me: a tangible shower of invective. He trembled in his rage.
It took all of my resolution to square my shoulders to him and not cower away as he expected. ‘You are injured, Granfer. You are not fit to go out.’
‘There is no choice in this, Orlando,’ he growled. ‘I will go out there to find it, with or without you.’ He clenched his ruined jaw, took a staggering pace forward.
‘If you go alone, you will die!’ I cried, furious at his wilfulness.
He laughed. ‘With Delly gone, what’s left to me?’
I was horrified. ‘You knew?’ This latest piece of tragedy I had been hoping to keep from him until he was stronger.
‘You must think me stupid, laddie!’ He gave me a look of deepest contempt. ‘I felt her pass: yet you could not, standing barely ten feet away! I wonder, Orlando, will you ever really make a dreamcatcher? I think you do not have it in you.’
Then he pushed me firmly to one side and shambled past, his hind leg dragging, his tail kinked like a broken pennant. A few seconds later, the cat-flap clattered and he was gone.
Millie and I looked at one another helplessly.
‘I can’t let him do this alone.’
Millie nodded slowly. ‘If you go, I will come with you.’ It sounded almost like a threat.
‘No!’ This came out more forcefully than I had meant, but I was full of anger. I amended my tone. ‘Millie, you cannot even see the dreams – you will only be a hindrance to us—’
Now it was her turn to be angry. ‘A hindrance? Had it not been for me, that old reprobate would be dead by now!’
‘I know that, I do. But, Millie, if my grandfather and I pursue the Dream, who will look for Vita?’
She bowed her head, then her chin came up and she gave me a direct look that made me squirm. ‘That’s a cruel shot, Orlando. I feel responsible for your sister, and you know it. But you heard your granfer: Gone through the knot. Gone to ground. Vita’s gone. And with any luck so has that stuck-up tart from the canal you’re so worried about. And since you clearly don’t want me around, you lads – you dreamcatchers – may as well go and pursue your death or glory without me.’ And with that, she turned her back on me and marched outside, her tail defiantly high.
*
Out there, I found my grandfather clawing pathetically at the beech hedge. He had pushed one shoulder into the sparse branches and was now stuck, his strength failing. I crammed in behind him and flattened a way through until we were out into the next garden, our breath steaming like rivers into the freezing air.
A small orange cat, alarmed at the noise of our bulldozing efforts, watched our progress from the top of a shed. It was Ginge. Our eyes met, and I saw in his a shock of recognition, then his gaze slid away and he sloped off the roof and out of sight.
And so it was a few minutes later, that my grandfather and I were once more out on the roads of Ashmore Village, the dreamcatcher with his reluctant apprentice in tow. On the green in front of the pond, a long-legged tabby-and-white cat sat stony-faced and watched us go without a word. I knew from her slope-shouldered, ear-flattened demeanour that Millie did not expect to see either one of us again.
*
It was the coldest night I can ever recall. The moon sailed negligent and aloof behind high cloud, beaming her white light down upon the glacial chill of the ground, which pressed freezing upon our feet. Frost-blasted plants lay limp and blackened where we passed; and the night hours had made an arctic waste of the Ashmore pond, which had frozen over from shore to shore, all save one small pool where the scarlet tips of willow branches brushed a still-liquid surface. This area had been colonised by a sparse population of ducks and moorhens who clustered there in sullen silence, as if offended at having to share their own meagre body-heat with barely tolerated neighbours.
We walked for some time, on the surface of Ashmore: or rather, my grandfather hobbled and shuffled painfully along, spurning all my attempts to aid him, while I trudged unenthusiastically behind him with the cold setting deep into the bones of my face and legs.
It was, strangely enough, a relief to get into the wild roads. From hobbling invalid to great cat, I watched him transform as the energy of the highway entered him, coaxing out the jaguar within. The broken face filled out: the jaw grew long and heavy; the damaged eye sprung open to gleam as bright as any car’s headlamp. The only clue to his true injuries showed in a slight stiffness of the hind legs as he ran.
In addition, it appeared to be just a little warmer inside the highways than it was outside. It was usually bitingly cold on the wild roads, the winds bearing a bitter edge that would penetrate even the thickest of coats, but on this occasion, I remember noting that the temperature seemed less savage than normal, especially around those roads that bisected the common. However, I imputed no more sinister reason to this observation than to think it must mean my body was calibrating itself to the change between the outside world and the highways. Perhaps if I had paid more attention to what my senses were trying to tell me, we might have avoided disaster.
But disaster was pressed from my mind by the sheer difficulty of keeping up with my grandfather. Restored in body and spirit to his rightful quest, Hawkweed roared and leapt down the spiralling vistas of the village’s highways with all the awful vigour I remembered from those first days. We ran so fast, I could hardly believe he had time to take notice of any clue to the whereabouts of our quarry, but he galloped along, impervious to my existence, his paws thundering, muscles bunching and stretching, and hesitated not once as we reached confused junctions and confluences of roads. Even in their new configurations, where the Dream had tossed them about, or they had twisted to avoid it, he appeared to have no doubts, though by now I was entirely lost.
This disorientation was compounded by the fact that the highway winds, usually so consistent in their force and bearing, were blowing in all directions at once so that at one moment my mane flew into my eyes, then was blasted flat against my skull. It was an exhausting experience, this persistent battering of the senses; and made all the more frustrating by the complete absence of our quarry.
By now, it was dead of night, the worst time for nightmares, they say: the time, I shuddered to myself, when the Dream would be gathering more power to itself from the dreams attracted on to the highways from the sleeping village. It was unnerving, to say the least; bu
t my grandfather, charging headlong down gloomy tunnels and tenebrous passages, seemed not one whit concerned for his own safety. Or mine.
At last, of all places, in the highway behind the church, he stopped.
He sniffed the air. Even I could tell, with my less tutored senses, that it had a faintly sulphurous taint; but Hawkweed was the master in such matters. He curled his black lip and gathered the odour high into the roof of his mouth where lies in cats a powerful olfactory organ. There, he trapped it with his great tongue, pressing it hard, as if to squeeze from it every iota of information. I saw him taste the air, if such a thing can be accomplished.
His pupils flared darkly, as if with sudden passion.
‘I knew it!’ he declared triumphantly. ‘It is her Dream again: it is the one. Ah,’ – he inhaled deeply – ‘the bitterness, the jealousy: oh, the anguish of it all!’
And then he was off again, with me at his heels, running now like a hound, his nose to the floor of the highway, tracking his prey, and all around us, the air grew warmer.
Then, suddenly, it was before us. At first, I could tell only by the way Hawkweed’s fur ruffled and then stood in spikes down his backbone; by the set of his head and the line of drool that fell slowly from his eager mouth. Then a deep rumble began in his chest, and before I knew it, my fur had also crested in its own primeval display of fear and challenge. I paced forward to stand beside my grandfather, and saw, for the first time, the Dream.
For now, it lay, pacific enough, curled into a twist in the highways as if resting. It was like no other dream I had seen: for it was black, and a dark red glowed at its heart like an ember in the middle of a sleeping fire. Where other dreams were gold and smooth as lozenges, this one was a tatterdemalion thing: a jagged, unruly mass of excrescences and tentacles. Even resting, it radiated a powerful heat, and at last I realised our error. This Dream was too terrible for any cat to defy: it had permeated the highways in a five-mile radius with its uncanny heat; it had broken many wild roads apart and diverted the course of others; it had smashed aside anything in its way with random violence, and now it lay before us.