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Authors: Gillian Cross

The Nightmare Game (28 page)

BOOK: The Nightmare Game
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“But I'm not—I can't—what do you want me to do?” Warren said frantically. “I called her, just like everyone else. I called—”
“—just like everyone else,” Emma said slowly. “But you're not like the rest of us, are you? You're her brother. And you like
playing with names
. You like—wait a minute.” She was still wearing Robert's coat and she began to hunt in the pockets, feeling for something.
“What is it?” said Robert. “What have you got?”
Emma took out a crumpled piece of paper and pulled it straight. “Quick, Tom. Shine the flashlight so I can see if I'm right.”
Robert leaned closer, trying to read what was written on the paper. It looked like a list of nonsense to him.
MY OTHER DAME . . . MARY THE DEMO . . . MEMORY DEATH . . .
But Emma ran her finger down it and then turned on Warren.
“They're all
me
, aren't they? All anagrams of my name.”
“I—I—” Warren was stuttering so much that he couldn't speak.
“Hope likes patterns,” Emma said excitedly. “And so do you—but you make yours out of letters. When she gave you a braid for your bag, did you give her something back? Did you jumble her ordinary name and make her a new one?”
“
That's
the one you should be using,” said Tom. “Because that's what you call her in your mind. Come on. What is it?”
“No,” Warren said. Very fast. “No, it's nothing. I can't—
“Of course you can,” Robert said impatiently. He reached across and took the flashlight out of Tom's hand. “Come on. If you don't tell us—”
He twisted around and pointed the flashlight at Warren. He didn't really mean to threaten him. He just wanted him to know that he had to tell them his private name for Hope. That there was no chance of keeping it secret. So he pointed the flashlight straight at Warren's face.
And he saw—terror.
Warren's mouth was frozen open and his eyes were staring. He couldn't have spoken if he'd wanted to.
He can't be afraid of
me
,
Robert thought.
Not like that. He can't.
But he was. There was no escaping it. Robert recognized the fear he'd felt himself when he saw his friend Nate in the hedge-tiger's jaws. The fear that had paralyzed him when he lay flat on the road, tiny and defenseless, as a gigantic car roared over him in the dark. To Warren,
he
was like that. A monster too huge to escape from, too big to fight.
That's not fair. That's not how I am.
But it was a waste of time to think like that. There was only one way to stop frightening Warren. It felt like the hardest thing he'd ever done, but he made himself turn the flashlight, to show his own face.
“I'm sorry,” he said. Trying to look as though he meant it. Trying to
mean
it. “I shouldn't have bullied you. I just—” The words were true, but saying them to Warren made them as bitter as ashes in his mouth. “I just can't bear the idea of losing her. But I will, unless you help me. Please, Warren. Please call her properly.”
“I—I—” They could hear Warren breathing hard in the dark. Struggling to speak. “They're all stupid,” he said at last. “I just can't—”
I'll do anything to get her back.
Robert had thought it inside his head a million times. But he hadn't thought it would be so hard when it happened. He hadn't expected it to be so painful.
“Please,”
he said again. He reached out and touched Warren's arm, turning the flashlight just enough to see him.
Warren still looked afraid. But now his mouth was trembling. “Her name isn't very good for patterns,” he said. “Not like Emma's. I kept making new ones, and she liked that, but they're all stupid. You'll laugh.”
“No, we won't,” Emma said gently. “I promise we won't.”
Robert tried to imagine what it must be like to be so afraid of something like that. “We won't laugh,” he said. “Just tell us. What do you call her?”
Warren took a long deep breath and looked down at the ground. “I call her
H. Poor-Garments
,” he mumbled. “
Hoprag Monster, H.P. Strange-Room, Prongo Hamster, Honest Program, Graphomonster . . .
”
Long before he finished, he was in tears.
25
FROM THE SHOULDER OF THE GREAT EARTHEN PILLAR, LORN looked down at her father and knew that she was safe. He was smaller than the image she had made—and too clumsy and heavy to climb its steep, high sides.
When she leaned forward to see him better, the flaming eyes threw her shadow long and dark across his face. He knew who she was. She could see that in his eyes. And she could see that he understood the image, too. That it had shocked him.
He'd heard her story.
The others were shocked, too. Annet was gazing up at the monster, white with disbelief, and Perdew's mouth was tight and twisted, as if the sight was painful. All along the line, the faces Lorn knew so well—the faces of her friends—showed that they were seeing what she meant them to see.
Except for Bando, of course. He was frowning angrily and clenching his fists, but he didn't really understand. “I would have rescued that girl!” he said fiercely. “If I'd been with the robbers, I would have broken the door down and saved her! I would have
killed
her father!”
It was true. He would. And if that was the kind of justice she wanted, all she had to do was point a finger and shout.
He's there! He's standing next to you!
Still caught up in the story she'd told, Bando would have turned and seen—what she wanted him to see. He would have lashed out, using all his massive, simple strength, confident that what he was doing was right.
All she had to do was point.
But she knew, at once, that she wasn't going to do it. If she used Bando like that, she would have to spend the rest of her life clinging to her own version of the story, to justify what she'd done. And maybe she didn't understand it all yet. Maybe there was more to discover.
The white fluff burned brightly, but very fast. For a few seconds, she let everyone stare at it, while she watched her father's face. It looked the same as it had all her life. Cold and stiff. Almost expressionless. But now she sensed that he was afraid. Perhaps he'd always been afraid.
Before the others had recovered from their shock, the flames died down, leaving only a few sparks chasing each other through the ashes. Lorn slipped off the shoulder of the image and began climbing down toward the tunnel floor.
She was only halfway down when the rumbling started.
In the cavern, they heard noises like that all the time. They were made by the huge figures that walked through the woods, shaking the earth and talking together like thunder. The sound was part of the ordinary fabric of their lives and they'd all learned how to ignore it.
But this time it was much closer than usual—low over the tunnel entrance—and it had an odd, repetitive beat. Lorn could feel the vibrations all through her body. She slid the rest of the way to the ground and caught at Zak's hand.
“What is it?” she whispered. “What's happening?”
“Hope?” said her father's voice. “Are you there?”
She sensed his hands fumbling toward her and she sidestepped instinctively to avoid him. “Zak! What is it?” she asked again.
Zak didn't answer. She could feel him listening as the rumbling stopped for a moment and then began again, more insistently. It was starting to unsettle the others now.
“Let's get back to the cavern,” muttered Dess. “Everything's weird down here.”
“Don't be such a coward.” That was Cam, speaking briskly to keep them all calm. “That noise hasn't got anything to do with us. Has it, Zak?”
Zak ignored that question, too. “Lorn,” he murmured. “Can you find a faster route than the way you brought us?”
Lorn smiled to herself in the darkness. She'd made sure that the journey there was as long as possible, to give their torches time to burn out. Trust Zak to realize that. The straight way home would only take a few minutes.
The flames had gone completely now, and people were beginning to blunder around in the dark. Raising her voice, she said, “Hold hands in a line and I'll take you back.”
She took Bando's hand very quickly—to avoid her father's—and waited while the others shuffled into place. Cam made them call out their names, all the way down the line, to check that no one was left behind. Then Lorn started forward, leading the way.
And all the time they could hear the strange, staccato rumbling.
It was very close and with every step it seemed to get closer. By the time they reached the wall, it was almost directly over their heads. Lorn led Bando right up to the opening in the secret passage and then slid her hand away.
“Here you are,” she said. “All you have to do now is crawl through to the storeroom.”
“Aren't you going first?” said Bando.
Lorn shook her head at him, even though he couldn't see. “You've forgotten,” she said gently. “I'm not allowed to come. I have to stay down here.”
They'd all forgotten. She felt the shock go down the line as they remembered.
“You mustn't stay.” Bando caught hold of her hand again. “Come on, Lorn. I'm not letting anyone through before you.”
“Stop it, Bando,” Cam said unhappily. “You know we have to keep the rules. If Lorn comes through—”
“Lorn
must
come through,” said Zak, interrupting her. His voice was loud and forceful. “Don't worry—the rules will all be kept in the end. But she has to come up to the cavern.”
He hardly ever spoke like that, but when he did, no one argued. Bando stepped aside and Lorn went down on her knees and crawled into the passage, lying on her stomach and dragging herself along with her elbows.
She was expecting Bando to follow her, but somehow her father managed to slip in before him. As she scrambled out into the storeroom, she could hear him scrabbling behind her, dragging at the stones as he squeezed through the narrowest part of the passage.
The rumbling voices sounded much louder once she was through the wall. It was impossible to understand them—impossible to make out any words at all—but she couldn't stop listening. The noise nagged at her mind and she knew there was something about the rhythm that she ought to understand. Some kind of pattern. But she couldn't work out what it was.
Her father heaved himself out of the tunnel and began to feel around for her. “Hope?” he muttered. “Are you there?”
Silently, she sidled away, toward the foot of the ramp. She could hear Bando blundering through the passage now, but she didn't wait for him. She walked straight up the ramp, as fast as she could. As she came out into the space behind the brazier, she heard her father stumbling between the heaps of grain in the storeroom.
It was as she stepped into the main cavern that the pattern of the rumbling suddenly changed. Until then, it had been a steady, simple rhythm, worked out in single beats. Now, suddenly, there was another strand. A pattering, intricate, polysyllabic thread that wove its way in and out of the others.
The noise drummed in her ears, shaking every cell of her body. It was more than a sound. It belonged to her, in some way that she couldn't quite grasp. Why not? Why couldn't she remember? She began to walk down the cavern, toward the entrance tunnel.
By the time the others arrived, she was crouching by the entrance, reaching in to pull out the clump of branches that blocked it. Annet ran toward her and caught at her arm.
“What are you
doing
?” she scolded. “Come away from there! It would be crazy to go outside now.”
“That's for Lorn to decide,” said Zak. He was still at the other end of the cavern, but his voice carried clearly. “What can you hear, Lorn? What are the voices saying?”
Lorn stood up, knowing and not knowing. “They—want me,” she said slowly. “They want me to go out there. To go back.”
Her father moved suddenly, appearing around the brazier. “You mustn't go!” he shouted. “You'll freeze to death out there!”
He started toward her as though he meant to grab her and pull her away from the entrance by force. But he was only halfway when Zak bellowed after him.
“Stay where you are! Don't meddle with things you don't understand!”
Lorn saw her father pause for a second, turning around to bellow back. “I can't let her go!
She's my daughter!
”
As soon as the words were spoken, he realized what he'd said. There was a long, horrified gasp from Annet, and another from Perdew. Lorn could see the revulsion on their faces as they looked at her father.
And she saw his face, too, as she'd never seen it before. He looked hesitant and uncertain, as though his own words had shaken him.
“She's not yours,” Zak said. Almost gently. “She's bound to us. She chose this life in the cavern in preference to everything else.”
He began walking toward Lorn down the length of the cavern. She felt as though his eyes were seeing right into her head, as though he could hear what she was thinking.
But suppose I don't want to stay after all? Suppose I've changed my mind?
She turned her face away, to stop him picking up the other voice that sounded even deeper in her mind. The voice that said,
Robert . . .
But Zak wouldn't leave her even that much privacy. He caught her chin in his hand and made her turn toward him. “You chose this place,” he said. And his blue eyes were relentless now. “You chose the cavern—and all of us—and that makes you special. We can't let you go—unless you give us something in exchange.”
BOOK: The Nightmare Game
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