Part 18 (2/2)

Chorley left University Square and turned onto the riverbank, heading toward home. It was a sunny day, and the cafes on the embankment were full. He found himself enchanted by these sultry, underpopulated squares. It was years since he'd spent any time in Founderston in summer. When he was young, his parents and sister, Verity, would always go to a hotel at Sisters Beach, and he and his friends would have the town house to themselves. They'd stay up all night and sleep all day and roam around looking for adventure.

Chorley was ambling along in a mild fever of nostalgia when he spotted his niece and Sandy Mason at a table outside a cafe. They had pulled their chairs together. Laura was leaning on Sandy.

Chorley veered off his path and stood over them.

Mason straightened and said, ”Good afternoon, Mr. Tiebold. Please join us.” He jumped up to get a chair from an adjacent table and placed it for Chorley. ”Will you have something?” He reached for his wallet.

Chorley placed his palm on Sandy's breast pocket and patted him firmly and discouragingly. He wasn't about to let this boy buy him anything.

”We're flush, Uncle Chorley,” Laura said.

”It's going well, then?” Chorley caught the eye of the waiter. He said to his niece and her friend, ”What will you have?”

Sandy went red.

Laura, oblivious, asked for a scone and another pot of tea, then excused herself and dashed off to the bathroom.

Sandy waited for the waiter to go away and said, ”Mr. Tiebold, please don't act as if you're paying for me to take care of Laura.”

Chorley gave the boy a look of wounded innocence. ”I don't mean to make you feel that,” he said.

”My money is as good as yours,” Sandy said. ”You can enjoy my hospitality, can't you?”

Chorley raised an eyebrow.

”Laura's father approves of me. Who are you to disapprove?” Sandy seemed furious.

”Laura's father is brain-damaged,” Chorley said.

When Laura returned to the table, she couldn't fail to notice that Sandy and her uncle were glaring at each other. ”What's the matter?”

”Apparently my money isn't good enough for your uncle,” Sandy said.

”Uncle Chorley always pays for everything,” Laura said. She sat down and nestled up to Sandy again. ”You'll just have to get used to it.”

”I think it's very good for old dogs to learn new tricks,” Sandy said.

Laura chuckled. ”He's calling you an old dog,” she said to her uncle.

”Woof,” said Chorley.

The waiter brought tea and Laura's scone. ”I'm still so hungry,” she said. ”My dressmaker keeps having to let out the seams of my ball gown-which is good, because it's quite close-fitting in places, and before I started filling out again there wasn't much difference between me and the cloth still on its bolt.”

”We're going In again in three days to get The Gate,” Sandy said. ”Laura's ready.” He put his arm around her waist.

”We have to go,” Laura said. ”It's not working out-performing together. We're just too big. I've been doing midnight at Pike Street, and Sandy's doing midday at St. Thomas's. We're booked at both places together and go along together, then I stay awake all day in my room next to his. They always supply separate rooms, did you know that?”

”No. And, good,” Chorley said.

”Sandy has to stay awake all night, which is hard on him. The only problem I have is making sure I hang on to consciousness when Sandy goes down. He's a bit of a Soporif now.”

Sandy said, ”Buried Alive did that to me. Once I'd gotten over the patch where I couldn't catch dreams at all.”

”That was emotional,” Laura said, and swayed against him, b.u.mp, b.u.mp, b.u.mp, till she got a faint, conceding smile. Then she looked back at her uncle. ”Anyway, the doctors at Pike Street, where I sleep, think they have two real talents, and a great bargain. St. Thomas's is happy enough to have two for the price of one, but one of the doctors said to Sandy, sadly, that while our Convalescent One is Hame quality-soothing and significant-even with Sandy helping me I seem to be getting only the sort of range that can be expected from any reasonably talented young dreamhunter.”

Sandy said, ”We can't go on with our ruse. Sooner or later the different hospitals will compare notes.”

Laura said, ”Sandy's very pleased that we've been able to work these day and night bookings, because we're earning twice what we would otherwise.”

Chorley smirked at Sandy. ”That must have been very gratifying for you,” he said, and watched the young man suppressing objections.

”So, it's time for us to go and get The Gate,” Laura said.

Chorley looked across the Sva at the dome of the Temple, perfect in actuality, wrinkled in its reflection on the river. He thought about The Gate, a dream Tziga had had twelve years before and claimed not to be able to find again, a dream other dreamhunters had looked for in vain.

Tziga had caught The Gate when his wife, Chorley's sister, Verity, was dying. Tziga had carried the dream back for her, only to find she had died while he was away, and without his, or its, help. Tziga had fought sleep for two days after the funeral. He'd gone down fighting, as thought he'd meant to die with the dream and take it to Verity. Tziga was a religious man and may well have been able to imagine meeting his wife in the afterlife. But he'd succ.u.mbed to exhaustion-and to his brother-in-law's tender determination to comfort him. He'd slept and dreamed, and a good portion of his neighbors had shared his dream.

Chorley remembered the dream as one of the most wonderful experiences of his life. He understood why Tziga had kept it hidden all these years. No matter how anyone else who shared it experienced The Gate, to the bereaved Tziga the dream might have seemed only a beautiful lie, not an answered prayer.

Looking back on his memory of The Gate, with much more life behind him, Chorley could see now that the dream wasn't a lie-or not exactly. It didn't matter whether you believed in an afterlife (and Chorley didn't), or even whether the dream believed in one, because The Gate wasn't a true vision. For a start it was different from every other dream. All the Place's other dreams were based on natural laws, and possible facts. No one flew in a dream, or breathed underwater, or met a minotaur. The Gate, however, was mystical, transcendent, and unreal. It promised an afterlife.

”But it isn't either true or false,” Chorley thought. ”Because what it is, is a wish. And wishes aren't either true or false.”

”I'm looking forward to this dream,” Laura said. ”I remember the feelings it gave me when I had it when I was little. It'll help Da.” She rested her head on Sandy Mason's broad shoulder. ”Besides, I want to fall asleep with Sandy. It's perverse to keep resisting it.”

Chorley knew she meant that it was hard to keep herself awake and reading a book while Sandy dreamed Convalescent One, but, when he glanced at Sandy, Chorley could see the young man feeling the effects of her unintended double meaning. Sandy flushed, clenched his jaw, and crossed his legs. Laura had picked up his hand and was playing with the soft flesh between his thumb and finger-childish and intimate. Sandy was having trouble with this, and Chorley saw, at last, that the young man was in love with Laura, not just drawn and possessive. Sandy was trying to control his desire, and having difficulty doing so. Chorley could see that the young man too thought Laura wasn't ready for things to go any further between them. She was in danger of getting in too deep too young, not because Sandy was older and infatuated with her but because of her own behavior. Something-Chorley could not imagine what-seemed to have stripped away all the normal caution she should have about just touching another person, any other person. The attention she was lavis.h.i.+ng on Sandy's hand was playful but intense. She stroked and pressed his hand as if in search of a secret mechanism that would make it open up, or turn into something other than a hand.

Chorley said, ”If you don't mind, Sandy, I'd like a word in private with my niece.”

Sandy retrieved his hand, nodded curtly, and got up. ”I'll be in that bookshop on the corner,” he said, and took off.

Laura dropped her hands into her lap and a.s.sumed a blank, wooden look.

Chorley cleared his throat. ”Judging by your expression, I think perhaps you know what I'm about to say. You must be careful with that boy.”

”I'll try not to lose him, Uncle Chorley, if that's what you mean.”

”You know that isn't what I mean. He must be several years your senior.”

”Three years. Which is nothing,” Laura said. She sounded dry-not exactly impatient.

”At your age, that's a big difference.”

Laura laughed.

”What?”

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