out from under her feet. The wind ripped up clods of earth and loose soil, tossing it in the air and lashing it at their faces. The others held her up as she found new footing on the exposed roots. Then the roots themselves curled and bent in the wind as if twisted by a giant fist. They began to snap, were torn off and bulleted into the lake. The tree groaned and leaned with the wind. It was being dug out of the earth.
Then Lee felt Honora stiffen, and saw her mechanically turn her head towards the boiling lake. Her features reset themselves in that familiar gaze. Her face was ivory. He felt her loosen her grip, as if she wanted to be taken by the wind, as if her resistance was exhausted. He knew that she was going into the lake.
—No Honora! No!—The wind lifted the words from his lips.
Ella saw what was happening.—Stop her!—
—I can see her in the water! She wants me! I'm going to her!— Honora slipped Lee's arm. He lunged to pull her back, but she fell away easily.
—Hold her! Keep her there!—Ella called out to Brad, knowing that somewhere in the storm he too was holding Honora. Then she felt Lee stumble towards her and a sudden absence of pressure at her other hand.
Brad had slipped Ella's hold and had gone with Honora. Ella and Lee slithered to the base of the tree, clinging to its exposed roots. They saw Honora plunge into the raging water, crying out unintelligibly into the heart of the storm. It was Brad who plunged in after her and dragged her, kicking and thrashing and screaming, out onto the bank. Then he fell or dived back into the water. Fell or dived they would never know, but they saw him look back at them as he was dragged under. Lee grabbed Honora and brought her weeping to the tree, where the three of them clung like survivors of a shipwreck groping for a plank of driftwood.
As quickly as it had appeared, the wind dropped, and the waters on the lake calmed. Brad did not come up again. The three lay panting, exhausted on the bank of the lake. Already it was beginning to ice over. Then the dream broke.
EPILOGUE
I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming
I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly
dreaming I am a man
—Chuang Tzu, 3rd century BC
Ella checked her face in the hotel room mirror. After packing and clearing her room she decided to forgo breakfast and leave early. Carrying her split-leather holdall down the stairs, she crossed the polished parquet floor to the reception desk, where she learned that Lee had already taken care of the bill. She was grateful for that since money was going to be a problem for a while. Then she went outside and crossed the deserted hotel car park, unlocking the door of the Midget before swinging her bag on to the passenger seat.
The sun was well up in the sky. The morning was fresh but tranquil, and it promised to be a beautiful spring day. She readjusted the soft-top of the Midget to its down position, and the clip which Lee had repaired for her came apart in her hands. Since there was no one else around, Ella allowed herself another weep, last one before leaving.
"Come on, Innes, you'll see worse than this," she said into a crumpled tissue. But she was crying for a whole host of things. Ella had agreed to stay behind for a few days to tidy up the details. In the end, she had felt most responsible, particularly for Brad.
It was she, after all, who had raced down to Cornwall to bring him back. She had cooked up the whole plan; and it was she who had gone alone to the hospital that morning after the ultimate dream. When she had woken the morning after the storm on dreamside—incredibly only three days ago—she had not waited for the other two. She had got into her car and had driven to the hospital with a terrible foreknowledge. It echoed an earlier experience in her life. It had been a fine morning, like this one, of diffuse yellow sunshine and the grass wet with a heavy dew.
She had thought of the time she had washed him and shaved him and cut his hair and dressed him, ostensibly in preparation for meeting the others but really for their last