That night, in bed with Vanity (do I need to mention that our room was cold again, and we had no fire lit, because the conversation where Boggin had agreed that we could have a fire was one of the things erased from the "present" story-continuity?), I told her about my ability to walk on top of the ice.
She must have known from Colin where he wrote his love letters, because she said, "East, the sea, is Colin's direction. Yours is South. The other two boundaries are the graveyard and the rocky, lifeless hills.
Well, it's obvious who goes where. How come I don't have a direction?"
Of course, she did not recall that she was not one of us chaoticists at all. I could not remember if I had told her at the powwow; maybe I had and she'd forgotten.
Or maybe she knew I was putting on an act for the benefit of unseen listeners. Vanity is insightful, and I am not the world's best actress.
To let the unseen listeners believe that we girls were on the wrong track, I said, "You're thinking three-dimensionally. What if the other boundary is in time? At the moment this estate is sold to a new owner, will be your time."
I did not tell her (or the listeners) about the four versions I saw.
As I lay, slowly falling asleep, I kept thinking about the four versions.
At some point, I must have truly been asleep, because it was Lord Morpheus, robed in starless midnight skies, his hair dark like moon-smothering clouds tinged silvery at the edges, who sat on my windowsill, a hooded black owl in jesses on his wrist, and said, "The first you saw was my son's version. In dream, any object can be made to perform any task. The second belonged to the Graeae boy, the son of Proteus; his people see dryads. The third was Telchine, a world of blind and careless atoms. Why do you think your people developed the senses you did? Of course your world was the bright version, daughter of Helion; your name means 'radiance.'"
"Why are you here?" I said, or seemed to say.
"I have come to warn you that the Psychopompos, the son of Maia, is your enemy; he has appeared at my house and urged my vassals to disobey me, to raise the comet-streaming banners of Chaos and Old Night to war, and press the infinite armies of phantasy and dream into attack. My son would die, he said, but high honors would bury him, and he be treated as worthily as any of the fallen in war. The Father of Lies spread the rumor that secretly I wished for my son to be sacrificed in our noble cause, I, who have, across many wasted eons, commemorated the undying enmity with cosmos with the death rites of many brave knights fallen in my service.
"I have kept my wife in an enchanted sleep since the day young Phobetor was kidnapped, that she would not weary out her eyes with weeping, which, in our world, is the only cause of death. Will you tell him we still love him so?"
I said, "I cannot speak while enemy ears hear. As soon as I may, I will tell him."
"The Emperor of Dreams grants you a boon. Of what would you care to dream this night? I can make phantasms of Boreas or Damnameneus to wait upon the secret and voluptuous desires burning in your loins. I should warn you, however, that it will be my son Phantasmos whom your arms will clasp and your lips caress, should you choose this form of boon."
"I want to dream about escaping."
"Then dream of flight. The walls and windows of the Great Hall are set with spells and wires of cunning make, to set alarms to blow should any forbidden hand intrude. Only the heavy door through which you first entered is unwatched. I grant you shall recall this when you wake."
7.
That Sunday we had chapel.
At breakfast, I began sniffing and snuffling and wiping my nose with a handkerchief. Mrs. Wren made a comment that I should not have been out yesterday so lightly dressed, and handed me a packet of paper tissues.
Mrs. Wren was hungover, the first time (so far as I could tell) this week. Was this a sign that they were relaxing their guard?
They did not know I knew they were watching me, and so this might be a slip-up on Mrs. Wren's part.
Unless, on the other hand, this was deliberate, not a slip-up at all, in which case her comment was meant to tell me that they knew I knew they were watching, and now they wanted me to know that they knew I knew.
In the first case, I should continue to act as if I did not know I was being watched, because she might not realize that she just let slip that they were watching. But if the other case were the case, I should either act like I knew they knew, but did not know that they knew I knew, or else just act like I knew and I knew that they knew.
Of course, on the third hand, I had been running over snowy lawns where anyone looking out a window could see, and left footprints that would last till the next snowfall. Maybe Mrs. Wren was just making the comment any adult would make talking to a child with the sniffles.
Comedy is easy. Intrigue is hard.
As we were queued up outside the chapel to go in, I put my hankie in my pocket, which still held my many little notes. Certain of them suddenly grew brighter in the utility aspect, and I was able to snatch them with my fingertips and fold them into the hankie.
I drew the hankie out again, sniffed, and dropped it at Quentin's feet Quentin stooped, gentleman-like, and made a show of returning my hankie to me. When I got it back, the slips of paper were gone.
I said, "I am ever so grateful when a kind gentleman returns something I have dropped."
He said, bowing, "Always at your service."
The ones I had passed him read, in no particular order, "Behind," "this building," "CD," "Bushes," "6,"
"feet," "stairs."
It is possible that Quentin would look for six stairs or six bushes, rather than in the bushes six feet away from the stairs behind this building. He might not know what I meant.
But I submit that it was impossible for anyone reading the notes in my pocket to know what I meant until I stood in front of the chapel and passed the note. The same words would have had a different meaning ten minutes ago, while I was in front of the main Manor House.
And he could not know, Quentin had no need to know, the CD contained Miss Daw's Fourth Dimensional music, which had been used, while I was imprisoned, to nullify my powers. It was useless to him.
I do not know what sign Quentin passed to Colin, but Colin gave one of the most memorable performances of his career, and probably got in as much trouble as a kid can get in without being sent to reform school.
In the middle of the service, Colin leaped atop the back of the pew, flung out his arms, and shouted, " I'm converted! I've seen the light! Jesus save me! Amen, brothers!"
And as Boggin and Fell rose up to get their hands on him, Colin skipped and jumped from pew to pew, shouting and carrying on, " Servants of dot ol' Debbil, youse betta jus'b'ware! Judgment Day is a-coming! The Great
Star Wormwood falleth from the Heavens, and one third of the seas shall be as blood! And, lo, I beheldeth a great serpent with seven heads, probably the same one Hercules killed earlier, and I wonderedeth if he woreth seven hats when it raineth! "
He jumped from the altar to the font, to the rail, kissed the statue of the Madonna, slapped the baby she held, and made a break for the front door.
He went out the door, Boggin and Fell went out after him, Miss Daw rose to her feet, her pretty face scarlet with indignation, Mrs. Wren got out her hip flask and sneaked a drink while no one was looking, and Mr. Drinkwater also walked out the front door, covering his smile with his unwounded hand. Dr.
Foster, at the lectern, sighed, turned the page, and continued reading from Ec-clesiastes, mumbling slightly, too dignified, really, to notice the interruption.
Quentin and Vanity got up and walked outside to watch the chase scene. I stayed dutifully at my prayers, while Victor leaned over and looked at the workbook where Dr. Fell had been doing sums.