Overheard in a Dream (53 page)

“That was a lot of excitement,” he said at last. “I’ll bet you’re tired.”

She nodded.

“It’s all right to go to sleep, if you want. It’ll take us a while to get back to town.”

“I’m not sleepy.”

The darkness sped past.

James looked over again. She seemed so tiny strapped into the seat.

“What happened tonight was very scary, wasn’t it?” he said. “Is it still on your mind?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I thought my mum was going to die.”

“Yes, it was awful, wasn’t it? Luckily, though, everything’s turned out all right. Conor’s going to need to stay in the hospital overnight, I think, because he’s had a bump to his head, but he’ll be okay. And your mum isn’t really very badly hurt at all. She’ll probably be able to go home when we get to the hospital.”

A soft silence followed, plumped up with the sound of deep, peaceful breathing from the back seat.

Morgana turned her head away from James to look out of the window again. “What scared me most was thinking about the Lion King,” she said. “His mother died. He was just a baby when it happened, so he doesn’t even remember what she looks like. I always feel so frightened when he talks about that, because I wouldn’t want it ever to happen to me. But tonight I thought it was going to.”

“So, you’re still playing with the Lion King?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

Silence.

“Listen, Morgana, I’m very, very sorry I told your parents about him. I broke your trust and that was wrong of me.” James said. “And I’ve felt bad that you thought you couldn’t talk to me about him anymore.”

“That’s okay,” she replied softly.

“No, it isn’t okay. It was something that should have stayed between us because you made it really clear that you were telling me in confidence. I was wrong to tell without your permission.”

She shrugged. “No, it’s okay. When I told the Lion King about what you’d done, he said it didn’t matter. The same thing’s happened to him. His auntie doesn’t want him to play with me either. She told him she would give him a spanking, if she found out he was still seeing me.”

“Why does his aunt not want him to play with you?” James asked.

“She doesn’t believe him. She doesn’t think I’m real.”

James looked over questioningly.

Morgana turned and smiled. “Isn’t that silly? The Lion King said to me that when he told his auntie that he had seen me down by the creek, she said, ‘Don’t you dare
ever
speak to me of visions, Luhr! You sound just like your mother.’”

Also by Torey Hayden

One Child
The Tiger’s Child
Twilight Children
Ghost Girl
Just Another Kid
Beautiful Child
Somebody Else’s Kids
Silent Boy

HARPER

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Previously published in other
languages as
The Mechanical Cat
First published in English as
Overheard in a Dream
by HarperCollins 2008

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© Torey Hayden 2008

Torey Hayden asserts the moral right to be
identified as the author of this work

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available from the British Library

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