Dreamside - By Graham Joyce Page 0,77

in the car, after a nasty experience I had. I felt sure he— she, it—was trying to help us."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing we can use. Something about undoing what was done. He got very agitated."

"But that's all that was said?"

" 'Undo what was done.' "

"Not exactly a lifeline, is it?"

"Wherever it came from, I looked back and saw not Burns, but. . . Oh, why are we afraid to name it? I saw not the professor, but the Other."

"But it still doesn't help."

"No."

"We need a thread. Something to take into the labyrinth which will lead us out again. It's got to be you, Ella. You're the seer out of all of us, you're the one. Can't you weave us a golden thread?"

"Made out of what? You overestimate me Lee, you always did. Maybe Honora will be the one who finds the way. Come on, let's go."

At that moment Honora was in need of a golden thread of her own.

The moment that the door had closed after them, Honora regretted her decision to wait behind. The damp air inside the house chilled her, and she was terrified of what might be stalking them outside. Her nerves shivered.

The house felt strangely hollow, like a burial chamber. She got up and moved around the room, arms folded defensively, self-consciously avoiding the seductive powers of the fire and the candle flame. The wind got up again outside, moaning in the tall trees and swinging the gate back and forth.

From the open doorway she could see the gate swaying slowly in the shadows. Then it slapped hard against the gatepost, and swung open again. It was possible to make out the silhouette of a small figure crouched over the gate. It was no more than a shadow, bobbing backwards and out of view as the gate swayed open.

"Who's there?" said Honora. She hesitated on the doorstep, and then tentatively touched her foot on the path. There was the figure again, like a small, cowled thing. The gate stopped moving and the silhouette ducked behind it. Honora moved slowly down the path, one hand outstretched towards the gate. It banged violently shut.

Honora recovered. It was only the wind, the figure just a waving rhododendron bush behind the gate. With relief she secured the stiff latch and slid home the rusting bolt.

But back indoors she heard a scratching at the window pane. Someone was at the window. She moved slowly towards it.

It was the wind, riffling the straggling ornamental bushes, pressing their branches against the glass. Then there was a sighing in the garden—the wind in the ragged strips of broken fencing. A scuffling behind the house—only the wind, chasing a scrap of torn newsprint. The sound of banging at the front of the house. The wind again, slapping the gate back and forth. The gate which, only a moment earlier, Honora herself had carefully secured.

She looked out of the window, through her own reflection. The gate had somehow freed itself. It swung gently back and forth. An arched silhouette rode it, like a child on a wooden horse—surely only the curved back of the rhododendron, a trick of the shadows. Honora let the curtain fall and sat down before the fire.

The sound of scratching on the window returned. It was a sound like fingernails drawn down the pane of glass. She ignored it. It persisted. It was followed by a tapping, a slow, regular beating. Then a sound like that of a child breathing hard, a child misting up the glass with her mouth. Small, scuffling feet darted from front to back of the house. Honora pressed her hands to her ears.

The scratching and tapping on the window moved to the back of the house. Honora looked up. Now she saw the sickly, whey-colored face, mouthing at the glass, darting from one window pane to the other and tapping, almost playfully.

"No," moaned Honora covering her ears again, "no no no."

Then it stopped, and the figure went away. All Honora could hear now was the throaty rasp of her own breathing. She looked around her. There was nothing. She busied herself, becoming frantically methodical. She put another log on the fire, reeled to the kitchen, watched a kettle boil, brewed coffee and tried to talk herself into a state of calm.

She returned to the fireside, hugging her coffee to her like a shield. She counted off the seconds, as if each one were a sword-blow parried with diminishing strength. Slowly she became aware of a flicker at