Dreamside

Everywhere was ice; mist-bound and ice-locked. Dreamside was precisely as Honora knew it, and exactly as Ella and Lee had glimpsed it on their single fleeting return visit. It was a mockery of the place it had once been, and a snowbound shadow of the polluted lake as it was now.

They waited, scraping their boots on the frozen grass at their feet. Even those small movements seemed ready to burst the dream as they waited for the one who was missing.

—Must we have him here Ella?—

—We all have to be present—Ella was firm, authoritative. Perhaps she knew more than she was saying. She seemed certain in the knowledge that the fourth member of the group would appear. They waited; and they waited.

Brad came from nowhere. He came wide-eyed, and in a dangerously befuddled state. He stopped short of them, like a nervous animal, staring at the ground. They all watched him, but were afraid of him. They didn’t dare to speak to him, and even sought to disguise their thoughts. They stood rigidly, like figurines carved from a single piece of horn.

Brad seemed confused, lost. He looked from one to the other as if he was about to speak. Then he looked wildly over his shoulder. He moved closer to Ella, mouthing words that failed to come. Then:—Help me—

—What is it Brad?—

—Can’t awaken. Can’t wake up. Help me Ella!—

Brad was stricken with panic. His eyes were all black pupil and they leaked frosty tears. He stood close enough for Ella to feel his cold breath on her face. She put out a hand to touch him and was shocked to find him stiff with frost. He snatched at her hand and gripped it fiercely. The cold from his fingers burned, and her skin seemed to sear and stick fast to his. Their eyes locked as he dared her to snatch her hand away.

At last he relaxed his hold. Ella felt a blistering pain as she withdrew her hand: she felt a fine layer of skin ripping from the back of her wrist where he had gripped her.

—The dream won’t break Ella, the dream won’t break—

—We’re all here Brad. We’re not going to desert you—

—You can’t do anything. The dream won’t break. I’m tired from staying awake. So tired. And we have to stay awake. Awake. They’re waiting for me to sleep. The ice. The frost. The cold. They wait for you to sleep. And then they take you—

Ella saw it clearly. She didn’t need to be reminded of the predatory nature of the elementals. She could recall their attacks with vivid horror. How they waited for the moment before sleep within the wheel of the dream. How they silently infiltrated invisible tendrils into the blood and fibre and flesh of your dreaming body. Transforming you, until you were lost to earth or water or fire or ice. But now she saw for the first time that the elementals were not a group of entities at all, not a colony of predatory beings. They were all a single expression of the same force, the life-creating and life-devouring, birth-giving and soul-sucking power of dreamside.

And now the toughened membrane of the dream wouldn’t break. Brad had been trapped, to walk in terror of the sleep within sleep, of being imprisoned for ever in the ice-sleep. No one could stay awake indefinitely, here as within the waking world. Brad was merely postponing the inevitable. Even now the frost was squeezing him, congealing his blood. This was the fate of those who stayed too long on dreamside.

—This is how it will be for all of us—It was Honora. She seemed strangely resigned.—This is how it will be—

—None of us will wake! There is no waking!—A tear welled at the corner of Brad’s eye. In a moment his anguish gave way to laughter echoing eerily across the mist-shrouded lake, jagged laughter which ricocheted back at them, and sliced through the air. Ella shot a panicked look at Lee.

But Lee was pointing at something on the edge of the lake. The other three turned, their eyes following the direction of his finger. Brad’s laughter stopped.

—It’s her—He swayed unsteadily.

—I knew it—Ella breathed.

—She’s the one!—Brad shouted.—She’s the one who is keeping me here. She’s the one who will keep us all here!—

But they already knew. She stood twenty feet away from them, in her ill-cut dress, her skin the colour of milk and her eyes like black holes. Only here she looked stronger, stronger than them. They all knew her, and they were all afraid of her. They gazed at her stupidly. Her eyes blazed back at them. An aching loneliness blew from her like an icy wind.

—Speak to us—Honora approached timidly.—Please speak to us—

But the girl tossed her hair and set foot on the frozen lake, glancing over her shoulder as if daring them to follow. Honora took a few steps towards her.

—Honora, don’t!—It was Lee calling her back.

—Wait! Wait and watch!—This time it was Ella, unsure whether to trust the girl; unsure whether their roadside encounter had been a snare set with treacherous clues.

The girl paced farther out on to the ice. Honora hesitated at the edge of the frozen water.

—Don’t go!—Lee commanded.

—It’s a trap! She wants you to go out on the ice!—Brad was hysterical.—It’s a trick! You mustn’t trust her! Don’t trust her! I know who she is!—

The girl stopped and turned to them, as if she was waiting. She mouthed something incomprehensible. As she saw Honora set a tentative foot on to the ice, she turned and proceeded out into the middle of the lake. Honora looked back at Ella, who nodded almost imperceptibly. She began to walk across the ice. Ella left the others and followed her.

Lee’s protests strangled in his throat. He found himself following the two women out on to the lake, with Brad staying close behind him. It was if the four of them were roped together. When the girl came to a halt, they all stopped short.

She looked back at them again. Then she scuffed at the ice with the edge of her shoe. She scraped away a layer of snow and scratched at the ice, never averting her gaze from them. She looked away only to stoop and to rub at the tiny clearing she had scratched in the snow. Then she moved away from the clearing she had made and stood at a distance.

Honora was the first to approach. She looked through the cleared patch to the gluey grey formations of ice beneath. What did it mean? Honora and Ella looked to the girl for an answer, but she had turned defiantly towards the shore.

Brad had reached the cleared space and was on his knees, rubbing at the surface of the ice with an outstretched hand and peering at the geometric shapes below.

—There’s something there—he said.

The others turned slowly.

—There’s something there. I can see it. Under the ice—

—What? What is it?—Lee kneeled beside him.

—It’s under the ice. It’s trying to get out—

—What can you see there?—

—It’s trying to get out! IT WANTS TO GET OUT FROM UNDER THE ICE!—

—Tell us what you see!—Ella commanded.

But Brad was half-crazed. He seemed to detect a new movement.—It’s moving! It’s trapped. Look! It’s trying to get out of there! It wants to get out!—

Suddenly his body went rigid, his breath coming in short gulps.

Lee bundled him aside and began pawing at the ice himself, clearing away the snow on the surface. In mounting horror he saw what Brad had seen. It was an image of Brad beneath the ice, hoary and encrusted, bruised and blackened and floating like a corpse— but it wasn’t dead. It was waving rigidly, pressing against the under surface, mouthing silent words that distorted the face, trying to find a way out.

The image of Brad was not alone. Three other figures floated there. Images of Lee, Ella and Honora, all pressing against the ice and mouthing unheard cries. They were all prisoners.

Now they all saw it. They were hypnotized by the revelation. They were fixed, locked into the images of themselves, gazing down in horror at this shivering incarnation of their enjoined destinies. They felt the elemental cold slowly beginning to transfer itself to them, to still the flow of their blood.