THIS TIME MOM abandoned Hansel and Gretel (otherwise known as Mia and me) not in the forest, as I dreamed our first night in London, but in the corridor of Ernest’s house before she disappeared through a doorway with the words “It’s for your own good.”
“Did you hear that?” Mia asked. “There are quails cackling somewhere around here.”
“Right you are!” The door of the broom cupboard opened, creaking, and out came … Lottie. She was waving a hatchet about. “I could do with a bit of help. Someone has to stretch their necks out so that I can slaughter them.”
“And if you don’t do it right, Nanny, Dad will throw you out and get Mrs. Dimbleby back.” Florence was skating gracefully along the corridor in a glittery black tutu. She performed a pirouette in front of the coat and hat stand, and gave us a nice smile. “Looking for the gingerbread house, were you? The witch will be so pleased to see you. Grayson, show these two the way, will you?”
Grayson, who was leaning on the wall beside the coat stand, looked up from his iPhone for a moment and pointed to the door behind which Mom had disappeared. Its handle was a gigantic vanilla crescent. “Along there, mousies,” he said, and Mia set off at once.
I wanted to call “Don’t be so stupid, Hansel!” after her, but something seemed to be sticking in my throat, and before I knew it, Mia had taken hold of the vanilla crescent, whereupon a claw appeared out of nowhere, then grabbed her by her collar, and she disappeared.
“And now I have to share my bathroom with only one little quail,” said Florence, laughing. “Be a good little girl, Liv. Just follow your sister.”
“No, don’t,” whispered Lottie behind me. “It’s only the first of September, far too soon for Christmas baking.” She pointed to a door beside the broom cupboard. It was painted green. “You’ll be safe in there.”
“Don’t you dare!” screeched Florence. She skated straight toward me. I flung myself on the green door, tore it open, and slipped through, and it latched behind me a tenth of a second before Florence began thundering on it from the other side. Only at that moment did I realize that it was all just a dream, and a silly dream at that. (Besides being easy to interpret, except maybe for the skates. What was my unconscious mind trying to tell me about those skates?) All the same, my heart was still thudding rather fast with agitation.
Hesitantly, I looked around me. I was in another corridor, one that seemed to go on forever, with countless doors to the right and left. The door I’d come through was painted deep green and had dark, old-fashioned metal fittings, a letter box in the same material, and a pretty brass doorknob in the shape of a lizard. I decided to go back, because now that I knew I was only dreaming, I wasn’t afraid of Florence anymore. I felt extremely keen to show her how good I was at kung fu. In a dream, of course, I’d be even better at it than in reality. But just as I was turning the lizard knob, I caught sight of a movement in the corner of my eye. Another door, next to this one, had opened, and someone had come out into the corridor. It was Grayson. Although he was only a few feet away, he didn’t seem to have noticed me. He carefully closed the door behind him and muttered something that I couldn’t make out. Then he took a deep breath, opened the door once more, and disappeared again. I let go of my door in order to take a closer look at Grayson’s. It was just like the white-painted front door to the Spencers’ house, including the steps outside and the heavyweight stone statue that was half eagle, half lion. When I came closer, the statue blinked its eyes, raised one clawed foot, and said in a surprisingly squeaky, high voice, “No one can come in unless they say my name three times backward.”
Aha, a riddle. I loved riddles. Although this one could have been a little harder to crack. “You’re Frightful Freddy,” I said.
The statue lowered its beak majestically. “Just Freddy, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, but that’s too simple,” I said, disappointed, and almost annoyed by the failure of my dream mind to think up anything better. “Ydderf, Ydderf, Ydderf.”
“That’s right,” squeaked Freddy. “You can come in.”
“Okay.” I pushed the door open. When I stepped through the doorway, I wasn’t in the front hall of the Spencers’ house, as I’d expected, but in a meadow. Although it was night, and quite dark, I could make out trees and rocks sticking up above the ground. A little way ahead of me, Grayson was sweeping the beam of his flashlight over the ground.
This version of the dream was definitely cooler than my Hansel and Gretel variation just now.
“Is this a cemetery?” I asked.
Grayson swung around, shone the flashlight on my face, and let out a small sound of alarm.
I smiled at him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” He rubbed his forehead with his free hand. “Go away again, would you?”
“Yes, it is a cemetery,” I said, answering my own question. Because a little way off I could see the outlines of assorted stone crosses, columns, and statues. My power of vision was sensational in this dream, and improving by the second. “We’re in Highgate Cemetery, aren’t we?”
Grayson ignored me. He lowered the beam of the flashlight to a gravestone on the ground.
“How cool. I know it only from photos, but I’ve always thought I’d just love to see it,” I said. “Except not by night.”
Grayson grunted in annoyance. “Me neither. This is a totally crazy meeting place,” he said, although more to himself than me. “As if the whole thing wasn’t weird enough anyway. What’s more, no one can see more than a meter ahead.”
“I can.” I had to stop myself jumping up and down in my enthusiasm. “I can see in the dark like a cat. Only in this dream, I’ll admit, but it’s great. In the normal way I’m blind as a bat without my glasses or contact lenses. So what are we looking for?”
“We are not looking for anything.” Grayson sounded distinctly annoyed. He was shining his flashlight on the inscriptions on the gravestones beside the path, whether they were vertical or lying flat. They seemed to be ancient. Many of them were cracked or covered with ivy. Mist drifted, true to form, over the ground, and the wind made the leaves of the trees rustle. There were sure to be rats here too. And spiders. “I am looking for the tomb of Christina Rossetti,” he added.
“Girlfriend of yours?”
Grayson snorted, but at least he answered this time. He sounded resigned, as if he’d decided to make the best of my presence. “Christina Rossetti was a Victorian woman poet. Haven’t you ever had to analyze one of her poems? Where sunless rivers weep their waves into the deep … blah, blah, blah, something about a star and shadows and a nightingale.”
“She sleeps a charmed sleep: Awake her not.” A figure emerged from the shadows of a weeping willow and came toward us, declaiming poetry. It was the boy who’d jumped for the grapefruit in school today, only I’d been quicker off the mark and caught it first—the character with tousled hair from our flight. Nice of him to turn up in this dream, because in the meantime I’d entirely forgotten him. “Led by a single star, she came from very far to seek where shadows are her pleasant lot.”
Hmm, not bad—so at least in dreams there were boys who could recite poetry.
“Henry,” said Grayson, addressing the newcomer with relief.
“Where on earth have you been? The Rossetti grave is back there.” Henry pointed to somewhere behind him. “I told you to take your bearings by the creepy angel with a cowl on.”
“They all look creepy in the dark.” Grayson and the new arrival performed a kind of kindergarten finger game by way of saying hello, a mixture of high fives, hooking their fingers together. Sweet. “Thank God you’re here, or I’d have been wandering around the place forever.”
“That’s what I thought. Jasper didn’t find it either. Arthur’s looking for him. Who’s that with you?” Henry’s eyes didn’t seem to see as well in the dark as mine, because he hadn’t recognized me. But now he groaned out loud. “Oh no, why do I have to go dreaming of the cheese girl? Just now I met my cat Plum, who was run over when I was twelve. He rubbed around my legs purring.”
“Oh, how cute,” I said.
“Not cute at all. He looked just the way he was when I last saw him: all-over blood and with his guts coming out.…” Henry shook himself. “Compared with that, you’re a positively welcome sight. All the same, go away, will you? I really don’t know what you’re doing here. Get out!” He waved one hand as if shooing an annoying fly away. “I said get out, cheese girl!” When I didn’t move, he seemed to be annoyed. “Why doesn’t she disappear?”
“Could be because I don’t answer to the name of cheese girl, idiot,” I told him.
Grayson cleared his throat. “I’m afraid she … er … came here with me, Henry.” Judging by his tone of voice, he seemed to find this somehow embarrassing.
“You know my cheese girl?”
“Looks like it.” Grayson rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand again. “She’s my new little sister. I only found that out this evening.”
“Oh, shit!” Henry looked dismayed. “You mean…?”
Grayson nodded. “I told you all hell was let loose at home. Talk about a super dinner party. Florence did her nut when Dad told us his professor, her two daughters, their nanny, and their dachshund were going to move in with us. In two weeks’ time.”
“Buttercup is not a dachshund,” I said indignantly. “Or at least only about a tenth of her is.”
Neither of them paid me any attention at all. “Hey, I’m really sorry about that.” Henry had put an arm sympathetically around Grayson’s shoulders. They were going back the way Henry had come from, walking side by side down an overgrown gravel path, and I was scurrying along in their wake.
“Then your dad is really serious. No wonder you dream of her.” Henry turned around to me. “Although you really could have done worse. She’s kind of sweet, don’t you think?”
Grayson turned his own head. “And she’s still following us.”
“Yes. Only, she feels it’s a little bit creepy here,” I said. “And what’s more, I’d like to know what you two are up to.”
“You’ll have to send her away,” Henry told Grayson. “Very firmly! It worked for me with Plum just now. He dissolved into crinkly drifts of smoke. Or of course you could turn her into a gravestone or a tree, but telling her to go away ought to be enough for a start.”
“Okay.” Grayson had stopped and was waiting for me to catch up. As he did so, he sighed deeply. “What are we really doing here, Henry? This is all crazy.”
“I know.”
Grayson looked around. Then he whispered, “Aren’t you frightened?”
“Yes, I am,” said Henry seriously. “But I’m even more afraid of what will happen if we don’t bring it off.”
“This is a nightmare,” said Grayson, and Henry nodded.
“No need to exaggerate, boys,” I said. “You’re going for a nice nocturnal walk in a famous cemetery, and what’s more, I’m with you—other people might enjoy a dream like this.”
Grayson groaned. “You’re still there.”
“Just send her away,” said Henry. “Concentrate on making her disappear.”
“Right.” Grayson looked firmly into my eyes. This was only a dream, so I looked equally firmly into his. I wouldn’t have dared to stare at him so hard earlier at supper, and I’d been concentrating more on his wrist, anyway. But now I had to admit that my future stepbrother was very good looking, in spite of his family likeness to Ernest and Florence. Everything soft and round about Florence was hard and angular in her brother, particularly his chin. Best of all were his eyes, which were caramel colored in the dim light here. Grayson’s glance blurred slightly and wandered slowly from my eyes to my lips.
Aha! Lovely dream. Really lovely dream. I just hoped Lottie didn’t turn up with her hatchet at this point.
Henry cleared his throat. “Grayson?”
“Er … yes.” Was that a touch of pink on Grayson’s cheeks? He shook his head. “Please, Liv, be a good girl and go away.”
“Not unless you tell me what’s written on your wrist,” I said, to cover up for my own embarrassment. “Sub um … and how does it go on?”
“What?”
“Sub umbra floreo,” Henry replied, stepping in for Grayson. “You have to be firmer about it, Grayson, and you really have to want her to disappear.”
“But I do!” Grayson assured him. “Only, she’s kind of so…”
“I know what you mean,” said Henry. Then he stopped short. “Is that by any chance your sweater she’s wearing?”
Dismayed, I looked down at myself. Sure enough, I really was wearing Grayson’s hooded sweater. Over my nightie. I’d felt so cold when I went to bed that I’d put it on again. Apart from that and my nightie, all I had on were my fluffy gray polka-dot socks. Typical of my dreams: I was never properly dressed for the occasion.
Grayson groaned. “Yes, it could well be my sweater,” he admitted. “Oh God, how I hate my unconscious mind. Why does it do these things to me?”
“Oh, come on, it could be a whole lot more embarrassing. Think of poor old Jasper and Mrs. Beckett in her bikini.” Henry laughed. “Hurry up. Jasper and Arthur will be waiting for us. That’s if Jasper made it here at all.”
“I hope he didn’t,” muttered Grayson. “Then at least we’d have a reprieve until the next new moon.…”
“Sub umbra floreo—what’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. “‘Planted under the flowers?’”
Henry chuckled.
“Look, I only studied Latin for six months,” I said, slightly wounded, “and that was ages ago, so I don’t remember a lot about it.”
“We noticed,” said Henry.
Annoyed, Grayson shook his head. “This is too much. Go away, Liv!” he said firmly. “Get out of here! Clear off! Er … begone!”
Henry looked at me with interest. He was probably expecting me to dissolve into smoke.
“Okay,” I said, when nothing of the sort happened and Grayson’s face assumed an expression of despair. “If you don’t want me hanging around, I will clear off. Have fun.” I turned and marched along the gravel path. Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw that Grayson and Henry watched me for a couple more seconds, and then they went on in the opposite direction. As soon as they did that, I took two steps sideways and got into cover behind a large tree trunk. Did they think they could shake me off as easily as that? Oh no, not now. Just when the dream was getting really interesting.