Part 12 (1/2)
”Manners are off today, I'm afraid,” the waiter said.
The cousins giggled. Laura asked the waiter to bring them some lemonade.
Rose looked sly. She asked Laura, ”Do you think Sandy Mason notices your figure?”
Laura said, ”I wrote to Sandy, and he didn't write back.” She sighed. ”I hoped at least he'd get angry at me about the nightmare. I'm sure he must have known it was me. Your ma hasn't said anything yet either.”
”Perhaps you should say something.”
”I can't say sorry without making excuses.”
”Yes, I know, you were only doing what your father told you to do.”
”Yes.” Laura laced and unlaced her fingers. ”That's my excuse. I followed my father's instructions. But I wanted what came with his instructions. The spell. I wanted to make myself a sandman.”
Rose touched her brow. She could feel it coming-the dizziness, chills, a clench of disgust. It was as if her whole body wanted to shrink away from the altered reality of the world she found herself living in.
Laura studied Rose's face, then turned her eyes down to the tabletop. ”I don't have a figure,” she said, reverting to their earlier subject. ”I think Sandy liked me only because I come from a famous family.”
”No, Laura, he really liked you.” Rose remembered Sandy Mason's fiery blush, the intensity of his attention when he looked at her cousin. ”You should write to him again. You could ask him to visit us at Summerfort. You need all your friends, Laura.”
Laura studied her cousin, then said, ”I need people.” Cool and bland.
”Yes,” Rose said, innocent of her own meaning, and of the fact that Laura had understood her meaning-that she needed people rather than her monster.
The lemonade arrived, and they drank it and went back to their traditional summertime occupation of watching the world go by Farry's big bay windows.
That evening Grace surprised her family by announcing over tea that it was time they all heard what she had to say. Chorley was possibly the most startled of all of them. He stared at his wife with the white-eyed look of a shying horse but kept his seat.
”Pa.s.s your father the sugar bowl,” Grace said to Rose.
Rose handed the sugar to Chorley, who helped himself to five lumps and sat back, stirring his cup. The sugar lumps thunked, and the spoon rattled sharply.
Laura got up, went to sit on the footstool beside her father. She took his hand and faced her aunt.
”All right,” said Grace. Then she set her cup down and stood up.
”Are you making a public announcement?” Rose said.
”Hush,” Grace said to Rose. She looked at her brother-in-law. ”Tziga, now that you're not catching those horrible, distorting nightmares, you must be thinking more clearly.”
”Yes,” Tziga said. ”Though sometimes I forget what it is I've thought clearly.”
”I know that. But my point is, you must be able to see now that your plan, such as it was, wasn't a very good one.”
”The papers didn't publish Lazarus's letters,” Chorley said, defending Tziga.
Grace stamped her foot. ”I don't want to hear any of you refer to 'Lazarus' ever again. I might have to maintain that silly fiction in public, but I refuse to do so in my own home!”
Laura said, ”I'm sorry I overdreamed you. It's not Da's fault.”
Tziga squeezed Laura's hand. ”It is my fault. I wasn't thinking straight.”
”But it's also wrong to give a nightmare like Buried Alive to convicts to make them behave, and slave away in the Westport mine,” Laura said.
”Yes, Laura, but is giving the St. Lazarus's Eve patrons a nightmare about being buried alive any way to change that?” Grace said.
”I think you're being naive, Ma,” Rose said.
Grace flushed. She glared at her daughter.
”Think of Doran's map,” Rose said. ”Think of what he's planning to do.”
”What is he planning to do?” Grace set her hands on her hips.
”Use your imagination.”
Grace rounded on Chorley. ”Are you going to let your daughter talk to me like that?”
”Rose, please be more polite to your mother.”
”And you-” Grace went on, speaking to her husband now. ”You could ask your good friend the Grand Patriarch what he's planning to do about Doran and the Regulatory Body. Except, of course, it isn't the Body the Grand Patriarch dislikes, it's dreamhunters.”
”That's not true,” Tziga said, softly.
”The Regulatory Body has been around for a little over ten years,” Chorley said. ”Have you ever heard of any inst.i.tution becoming as powerful as the Body has within such a short time? Even Christianity didn't manage it.”
”Napoleon?” said Rose, as though she were doing a quiz. She was ignored.
”That's beside the point,” Grace said. ”You seem to think Doran has a plan. And you also think-rather trustingly-that the Grand Patriarch has a plan.”
”He has vigorous suspicion,” Chorley said. ”He acts on his suspicions. He hides dreamhunters who come to him for help.”
”And how many of those 'disappearing' dreamhunters that you and Rose have been talking about have been disappeared by the Church rather than the Regulatory Body?” Grace said. ”After all, the Church didn't tell us where Tziga was.”
”They weren't sure I'd recover,” Tziga said. ”And the Body didn't tell you what had happened to me either.”
”True,” said Grace. ”And the Church did help you. I understand that you feel you owe the Grand Patriarch. And I know you're a churchgoer-a believer. It is different for you, Tziga. But Chorley thinks he's doing research for the Grand Patriarch. He's taking it all very seriously. When really it's just another one of his b.l.o.o.d.y hobbies!”
There was a moment of silence; then Chorley dropped his teacup into its saucer, got up, and walked out.
”Ma!” Rose said.
Grace's eyes glazed over with tears. ”Why doesn't anyone ever listen to me?”
”Please don't cry, Ma,” Rose said, distressed.