Page 10 of A Theory of Dreaming
For some unnamable reason, this frightened him. Preston stumbled backward.
His boots scrabbled against the floor, and he barely managed not to fall. All over, there were puddles of clear water, sparkling likebits of quartz. They held the light that came drifting through the windows, one between each niche.
With a bracing inhale, Preston approached the window beside the statue of the scholar. He expected to see clouds, cirrus and white, and scattered patches of sun. Instead he saw only water.
The water rippled very faintly, shifting only just enough to make him aware of how still it was within the castle.The palace.Something had snuck the words into his mind. He would not have thought to call it that on his own. Spidery green seaweed drifted by. A jellyfish, white and diaphanous as a bridal veil, brushed against the window glass. The shadow of something larger—the flank of a fish?—shivered past, briefly casting the hall in darkness.
As Preston watched, transfixed, silence reigned. And then came the sound: impossible, unignorable, and unmistakable. The bells.
They gonged so richly and deeply that Preston felt them in his chest, like a second, shuddering heartbeat.I have to follow them, he thought, and again, it was like the words had been cunningly smuggled into his mind.I have to find them.
He turned away from the window and walked farther down the hall. He passed more niches, and more statues within them. There was a mermaid perched on a rock, surf crashing behind her. The foam-tipped waves were carved in such immaculate detail that it seemed as though they had been frozen in time, magicked to stone by the flick of a sorcerer’s finger. There was an ancient king who sat slumped in his throne. There was a maiden with seashells and kelp braided through her hair. There was a knight in armor, knelt penitently, holding a single rose.
Preston came to an archway of more water-streaked stone. He crossed beneath it, the gonging of the bells growing louder and closer with each step.
In this second hall there were no niches, and no windows. Instead, fixed on the walls were rows and rows of torches, and each one burned with bright green flame.
He would have stopped, taken note of their strangeness, perhaps examined them more closely, if not for what lay ahead. In the very center of the room, set upon an enormous plinth, there was another statue, twice as large as the largest one in the first chamber, so tall its head nearly scraped the ceiling.
No—herhead. Standing on the plinth, in a gauzy, fluttering gown, hair unbound and floating as if caught by the wind, hands clasped at her breast, was Effy. Her features, sculpted in white marble, were so perfect, so utterly recognizable—solovely—that Preston dropped to his knees. He didn’t even feel the pain of the hard stone floor. He was overcome by her majesty. It was almost divinity. He knelt there before her as if she were a saint and he a supplicant.
He stared at her so long, and so intently, that even the gonging of the bells faded from his awareness. The air was still, and so was she. This house—this castle—was infinitely beautiful, and so was she. Whatever passed outside this place, and beyond this moment, was so unimportant that it began to feel unreal.
And then—acrack. Preston’s gaze snapped up. At the very top of Effy’s head, the finest of fractures appeared, lacing across her nose, down her cheek. The gonging of the bells reasserted itself, sonorous and so very close.
He tried to get to his feet, to stammer out a noise of protest. But instantly the edges of his vision darkened. The floor lurched up at him, but before he could fall, he woke.
He surfaced from this dream in a cold sweat, teeth chattering. Beside him, Effy stirred, giving a mewling little yawn and propping herself up on her elbows. Golden hair, mussed with sleep, tumbled over her bare shoulder, and in the thin, early dawn light that filtered through the windows, she looked almost like a dream herself, her skin as pale as marble.
As pale as marble.Preston blinked, and the vision of her statue’s face—the cracked facade—flashed through his mind. He blinked again, his vision blurring in its familiar way, turning everything fuzzy around the edges. He felt for his glasses on the nightstand and put them on, exhaling in relief as the world came into focus again.
“Did you sleep well?” Effy asked.
“Oh.” Preston blinked again. “Yes. I slept fine.”
In the back of his mind, the bells were still ringing.
“I wish I could stay here forever,” Effy said with a sigh. She flopped back down on the pillow and rolled over until her back was pressed against his chest. “Don’t you?”
“That would be nice,” Preston said. His voice sounded odd, even to his own ears. Stiff and distant, like an echo from below the water.
He braced his arm around her waist, holding her to him. His heartbeat returned to a steady rhythm; his breathing slowed.Outside, the weather was sharp with its coldness, the ice was slippery and treacherous, the men in their black wool coats brusque and indifferent at best—but here, with him, she was safe. Preston lowered his mouth to place a kiss on the top of her head—
Crack.The image of her stone face, with those hairline fractures, flashed up at him again. He recoiled, heart pattering.
“Effy,” he said urgently, “when you go out, be careful, all right? You could slip and fall. You could crack”—he could barely cough out the word—“your head on the ice.”
Effy looked over her shoulder at him, frowning. “Don’t you think we have more urgent things to worry about?”
“We can’t publish a thesis or defend ourselves against a government inquiry if you’re dead,” Preston said. In his mind, it had sounded darkly funny, but when he spoke it aloud, his tone was strained and bleak.
“Maybe the Sleeper Museum will let me borrow a helmet and a suit of armor,” Effy replied. The corner of her mouth quivered as she tried not to smile.
Preston couldn’t make himself pretend that the thought wasn’t appealing. His whole body felt tense; he was aware of each one of his muscles straining, each tendon pulled taut. He thought of how thin a person’s skin really was, slender protection against the malice and perils of the world.
Finally—reluctantly—he and Effy dragged each other out of bed, Preston only spurred on by the promise of coffee and a morning cigarette. He reassumed his shirt, the dragon still pinned to its lapel. He watched Effy comb her hair and pull on stockings, thenthe uniform he had brought her. When he recalled Master Gosse’s words—You may need to let it out in the bust—he felt a low, grinding sort of anger that roiled like hunger in his gut.
Effy picked up her bag and slipped Ardor’s book inside. She didn’t seem to notice anything amiss about it. Preston slid his own satchel over his shoulder. The rote mechanics of it all made him calmer.
