The Vault of Destinies (James Potter #3) (12 page)

"Really?" James asked, glancing back at the woman again. Her face was still hidden, lost in shadow. "When? How?"

"A story for another time, I think," the woman demurred. "For now, I think I will be on my way. I was simply entranced by the view here. A city buried underwater is truly a spectacular sight. You might say that it appeals to me, in a rather deep, elemental way."

"Yeah," James said, sighing. "Me too, I suppose. But I should probably get back to my own room. I couldn't sleep. I was just too excited."

"Indeed," the woman nodded, her voice teasing. "That sort of thing seems to be rather common this night. Your friend is also up and wandering. But of course, you must already know that. You are probably planning to meet her." She exhaled slowly, wistfully. "Ah, young love…"

"Who?" James asked, frowning, but of course he knew the answer already. "Petra?"

"I'm sure I don't know her name," the woman answered tactfully, but her hooded head turned, gesturing toward the deserted hall behind James. She nodded, as if prodding him in the right direction. James finally had a glimpse of the woman's face. She was pretty, and younger than he had expected. A curl of reddish hair lay on her forehead like a comma.

"Sure," James nodded. "I should probably go and… er… check on her. If she's part of my group, like you said."

The woman nodded again, her red lips smiling knowingly. James' face flushed, partly because what she was implying—that he was sneaking off to meet a girlfriend for some unchaperoned snogging—was so untrue, and partly because he so terribly wished it was.

"Good night, James," the woman said, turning away. "Sleep well."

"Good night, er," he replied, but he didn't know the woman's name. She swept on, leaving a deep shadow behind her and no reflection on the crystal windows. James frowned at her as she departed. Then, remembering what she had said, he turned and ran along the hall in the other direction.

Closed doors and crystal panels lined the hall for some distance, and then the hall widened, enclosing a large space with a dizzyingly high, dark ceiling. An ornate brass framework of crystal windows embraced one side of the space, forming shining buttresses and terraces, filled with ferns. The floor was checkered marble, each square as large as James' parents' bed. The space appeared to be a sort of common room, full of chairs, sofas, tables, and desks. A massive silver chandelier hung over the room, dominating it, but its hundreds of candles were dark. The only light in the room came from a long low fireplace and a cluster of candles that stood near it on a brass brazier. James began to cross the floor slowly, threading between the low chairs and desks, instinctively feeling that he should be very quiet. Before he was halfway to the fireplace, however, he spied a figure lying serenely on a sort of half sofa. She sat up at his approach, apparently unsurprised, and James saw that it was Izzy.

"Hi James," she said quietly. "What're you up to?"

"I couldn't sleep," he replied, matching her tone of voice. "I saw someone's shadow go by and came out to see who else was up."

Izzy nodded. "It was probably me and Morgan. That's Petra, you know. I call her Morgan sometimes still because I was there when she changed her name. I changed mine too, but I couldn't make it stick. Hers fits her, though, even though she says that everybody else can still call her by her old name."

James nodded a little uncertainly. "I see… er," he said. "Anyway, why are you both up, then?"

"Just like you," Izzy replied. "We couldn't sleep either. Petra especially, I think. She has dreams. They make her feel a little crazy," she said, whispering the last part.

James sat down on the end of the chaise as Izzy curled her feet under her. He peered over toward the fireplace. "What do you mean they make her feel crazy?"

Izzy nodded her head back and forth and shrugged. "I don't understand any of it. I don't think they're regular dreams. She says she feels them even when she's awake. She says they make her forget what really happened, the last day we were back home, on Papa Warren's farm."

James wanted to ask what
had
happened that day, but thought he probably shouldn't. Instead, he asked, "Do you think she's all right?"

"No," Izzy answered, sighing and peering back over her shoulder, toward the fireplace. "But it'll be all right in the end. She says we just need to get away from everything. That's why we're going all the way across the ocean. I think she's hoping that the dreams won't be able to find her there."

James followed Izzy's gaze and finally saw Petra, seated at a low desk near the fire, her back to them. "What do you think, Izzy?" he asked, not taking his eyes from Petra's silhouette where she sat bent over the desk. "Do you think it'll work?"

Izzy shook her head, making her blonde curls swing. "No, it won't work. Don't tell Morgan—
Petra
—that I said that, though, all right? I don't think her dreams are going to go away. I think they're going to get worse. Until it's all over, at least."

"How do you know, Iz? When will it be over?"

The girl shrugged again. "Headmaster Merlin says that she has to find out where the dreams are really coming from. He told her to chase them. That's what she's doing now. She's
chasing
them. It works best right when it happens, right when they wake her up."

James studied Petra, saw that she was engaged in some intense activity, bent over the desk so severely that she appeared to be wrestling with it. "What's she doing?" he asked very quietly. "I mean, how does she chase a dream?"

"She's writing it," Izzy said simply. "Like a story. She's good at that. She used to tell me stories all the time, when it was nights out. She'd make them all up in her head, and a lot of them were better than the stories she read to me in the books. Me and Beatrice and all the rest of my dolls all listened. It was our most favorite thing."

James could see it now that Izzy had told him what Petra was doing. Her elbow moved slightly, and a quill wavered in the air over her shoulder, silhouetted in the darkness.

"Does she read the dream to you, Iz?"

"Oh no," the girl answered quickly, obviously disinterested. "I don't want to hear them. They're nasty. I don't want to ever think about any of that ever again. It scares me too much. And it makes me sad. I miss my mother, sometimes, and I cry, and Petra doesn't know what to do. I never want to hear those stories."

James looked back at Izzy, frowning thoughtfully. "Then why do you come along when she chases the dream? Are you standing guard?"

Izzy nodded. "Yes, that's what Petra says, but I think there's another reason, maybe. I think she asks me to come because she needs me here to prove that the dreams aren't true." She sighed again, in a quick, businesslike manner, and looked at James. "She needs me here to prove that I'm still alive."

James' eyes widened. What in the world did that mean? He opened his mouth to ask, but a shadow moved nearby. He glanced up and saw Petra approaching, shaking her right hand as if to loosen the kinks from her fingers.

"Hi James," she said, smiling tiredly. "I see you haven't given up skulking around at night, Invisibility Cloak or not."

"Yeah," James said, his face reddening. "I couldn't sleep. Are you, you know, all right and everything?"

"I'm fine," Petra lied, glancing away. James saw that she had her knapsack in her left hand, partly unzipped. A sheaf of loose parchment lay inside. "Izzy probably told you what I was doing. I just have some things to work out, that's all."

"Izzy said it's a bad dream," James said, standing. "Is that really all it is?"

Petra looked back at him. In the darkness, James couldn't read her expression. He went on quickly, "I mean, you don't have to tell me or anything. It's just, you know, I was there. I remember what happened that night in the Chamber of Secrets and everything, and I had my own run-in with the Gatekeeper. I know what you're going through, sort of. If you, I don't know, wanted to, er, talk about it. Or whatever."

Suddenly, helplessly, Petra laughed. She shook her head wonderingly and pushed her hair out of her face. "James, you are very sweet. I'm glad you're here, and not just for the reasons you said. Me and Izzy both, we owe you and your family a lot. I don't know what we'd have done without the lot of you. But you, especially. You make me feel better. Do you know that? You make me laugh. Lately, that's a very rare thing. Walk with us, won't you?"

James could feel the heat beating off his face as the blood rushed to his cheeks. He was glad it was very dark in the room. "Sure," he said, pushing himself to his full height. "I was just checking on you. Some lady in black robes told me where you'd gone. You probably saw her already."

"I didn't," Petra answered, sighing. "Did you, Iz?"

"I only saw that man sleeping by the statue near our rooms. I think he's a lantern lighter, fell straight to sleep while out doing his job. He snored really loud, and it echoed. Remember that?" She giggled.

"I remember," Petra said, smiling.

"So," James began, feeling a little bold, "how did it go?"

Petra walked slowly along the hall, watching the murky view beyond the crystal. "How did what go?"

"The, er, dream chasing. Izzy mentioned it. She said you were writing it down. Like a story."

Petra nodded. "Headmaster Merlin told me I should try it. I didn't want to, but… it helps. A little." She touched Izzy's head lightly, resting her hand on the girl's blonde hair. "It isn't a very nice story though. It's rather horrid."

"I… I could read it, if you wanted," James said, studying the floor furiously as he walked. "If you thought it might help."

Petra was silent, and James was suddenly worried that he had offended her. He glanced aside at her, but she was looking thoughtful, her eyes half-lidded. "Perhaps," she finally said, "you may be right, James. Maybe that would weaken it. Like Izzy probably told you, it's… more than just a dream. It's like a certainty. Like a memory of something that didn't really happen, or happened very differently. I can't shake it off. It haunts me."

James nodded and willed himself not to say anymore. Silently, the three walked on, finally coming to the lantern-lit corridor where James had begun. He saw the door to his room, still standing slightly open.

"We can find our way from here," Petra whispered.

"We're just around the corner and down the stairs," Izzy added, pointing. "Past the man sleeping with the lantern wand in his hand. You want to come and hear his snore? It's funny. It sounds like this," Suddenly, loudly, Izzy snorted, making a comical imitation of a snore.

"Shh! Iz!" Petra rasped, stifling a laugh and covering her sister's mouth with her hand. "People are sleeping!"

"I know!" the girl whispered, pushing Petra's hand away. "And that's what they sound like!"

Petra shook her head at James, still trying not to laugh. James grinned at her.

"Good night, James," she said quietly. "Thanks for checking on us. Thanks for walking us back. Maybe I
will
let you read the dream. If you really want to. I think you'd probably understand it better than anyone else, for all the reasons you mentioned back in the hall. If you think you are up to it, that is."

James nodded soberly. "Definitely. If you think it will help. Besides, I'm… I'm curious."

Petra studied his face for a long moment, biting the corner of her lip. Finally, she hefted her knapsack, reaching inside, and produced a thin sheaf of parchments. Wordlessly, she handed them over to him.

"It's not a nice story," she said again. "And it won't make a lot of sense. I can tell you the rest, if you want. Later. I need to tell
someone,
I think. It's just too big a secret for… well, for Izzy and me. Do you agree, Iz?"

The blonde girl screwed up her face thoughtfully. She shrugged.

"It's all right, either way," James said, taking the parchments. There were about four pages, covered with Petra's neat, small handwriting. Suddenly, he felt strange about the offer. "Are you sure? You don't have to, if you don't want to."

"I
do
want to," Petra said, sighing again. "But you can't tell anyone, all right? Not any of it. I swear, if you do…"

James shook his head vigorously. "I won't! I promise! Pinky promise, even!"

Petra blinked at him, and then laughed again. "All right, I believe you. Thanks, James. See you in the morning. We still have a long way to go, don't we?"

James nodded. "Good night, Petra. Night, Iz."

The girls turned and continued down the hall, Petra's hand on her sister's shoulder. James looked down at the small stack of parchment in his hands, barely believing what had happened. He felt both giddy and dreadfully nervous about it. He wanted to read Petra's dream story, wanted to read it that very moment, standing in the dim light of the Atlantean corridor, and yet he was strangely afraid to do so. What if it was as awful as Petra said it was? Nothing, he felt quite sure, could change the way he felt about her (whether he liked it or not) and yet…

Finally, he turned and pushed the door of his room open, letting himself into the darkness inside. He passed the shape of his sleeping brother and crept toward the table next to his bed, where his duffle bag lay, unzipped. He rooted in the bag for a moment until he found his wand. Glancing around, he laid Petra's story on the bed and pointed his wand at it.

"
Velierus,"
he said, as quietly as he could. A tiny burst of blue light illuminated the bed, and the parchments folded together, doubling over repeatedly until all that remained was a thick packet, no bigger than an auger. It was totally seamless, as if it was encased in a perfect sphere of parchment. Kneeling, James hid both his wand and the secret package in the bottom of his bag. A moment later, he threw himself onto the bed and pulled the covers up to his chin.

He would read Petra's dream story soon. Until then, he relished the idea that she had chosen him, and him alone, to share it with. He had suggested it, of course, but the fact remained that she had accepted his offer. She trusted him. She was glad of his presence. And what else had she said? He made her laugh. James' cousin Lucy had said the same thing to him once, last year, after Granddad's funeral, but it seemed so much more meaningful, so much more
portentous
, when Petra said it. He sighed, remembering the sound of her voice, the pleasing music of her laughter, sad and weary as it may have been.