Crown Phoenix: Night Watchman Express, Page 2

Chapter 2

  Three Dreams

  iriam did not hear the Marchpanes’ arrival. She tried to keep awake, but when she looked at the clock, the numbers blurred and swam on the white face.

  I’ll close my eyes for just a moment, she reasoned. Without knowing it, she slumped forward and rested her head on her knees. Her mouth opened, and she snored suddenly.

  Beside her, in its holder, the candle guttered and went out. An hour or so went by. Footsteps went past her door – Simon and Neil had obeyed the order to go their temporary room.

  Much later, other sets of footsteps came up the stairs. They paused by Miriam’s door before they went on. The Marchpanes, evidently, had decided to go to bed.

  Downstairs, the large grandfather clock whirred, followed by twelve chimes. Midnight. Outside, there was a sound of rushing wind, followed by a long, drawn-out whistle from a passing train.

  By this time, Simon and Neil had finished the sandwiches and were asleep. Miriam lay on the floor, not realizing that she would have to move to another bedroom soon. The boys were under silk quilts in a spare bedroom down the hall, but at the sound of the train, all three of them began to dream.

  Miriam turned her head on her arm. She was in front of a pair of dark doors that were scraped and scarred with – what? Was it the marks of human nails?

  The doors opened slowly. In the darkness behind it, there was a tall, forbidding woman whose face was hidden in shadows. On the other side of the door, a man stood. He was just as tall and forbidding as the woman.

  The only thing in that terrifying place that gave her any comfort was the fooling of someone’s arm under her hand. He put his hand on top of hers, and she curled her cold fingers around his warm thumb.

  You’ve got to believe me, she said to them, with the silent, rough desperation of dreams. I am not guilty! I should not be here! The woman merely stared back at her and pointed at the iron door, and somehow Miriam knew that she had to go in there, into the prison chamber, which was underground, and it would be more terrible than anything she had ever experienced.

  No, she said, shaking her head, No!

  The woman stared back, and raised something to her mouth. A long whistle began, rising like a scream, getting louder and louder.

  Miriam tried to shout for Mrs. Williams, or for Furnace, or for someone, but no sound emerged. She drew in a deep breath and tried again. Her lungs cracked with the effort, but she was powerless against the lights and the whistle; she could not make herself be heard.

  On the floor, Miriam shifted and murmured. In her sleep, she reached out one hand as if she searched for something or someone that was no longer there.

  In the boys’ room, Neil was also lost in a nightmare. He stood on a long stretch of sand. Above him, the sky was black. When he looked down, his feet were crusted with soft sand. Beside him, a huge cliff stretched so far up that when Neil looked for the top, he felt dizzy.

  He noticed a path that led around the cliff. It was white with more sand and powdered rock, and he knew he had to climb it.

  As he climbed, the dust left marks on his clothes. He became aware that someone followed him, but he didn’t want to turn around to see who – or what – it was.

  The path climbed up the cliff and led into a tunnel that burrowed right through the rock. Neil entered the hole and walked forward. He didn’t pause to see if his follower would enter as well.

  The tunnel stopped at the other side of the cliff. It opened onto a ledge that stuck out over a dizzying height. Neil could faintly hear the waves below, but the night was so profoundly dark he could not see anything.

  He heard another sound, a slight cry. He went to the edge of the ledge at the tunnel’s end, and tried to shout, “Is anyone there?”

  No response. There was just another cry, as if for help. It seemed to come from below, but not from the beach… Neil lay down on the ledge, and looked over the side.

  He saw a cage that hung from the bottom of the ledge. A huge chain was driven right into the rock. The cage swung slightly as he watched it, and he had to clutch the rock to keep his balance.

  It swung again, farther this time, and as he watched in horror, he realized it was not empty. A woman was in the cage, and she looked up at him. She was a dark shape who screamed his name.

  “Help me!” she shouted. “You’ve got to rescue me!”

  The cage hung from the rock on a huge chain from the stone ledge. Neil looked down helplessly, and his head swam from the huge height.

  “Help me!” she screamed again. He heard urgency and terror in her voice.

  He shook his head in utter frustration. He didn’t know how to even begin to save her, but somehow he did realize one thing. If he did not, he and his friends were utterly lost.

  Simon also dreamed. Usually he was so tired from riding and playing tennis that he slept soundly all night, and barely stirred.

  But now, he saw that he was in a small room, lit with only one small lamp. He tried the door, but it was closed. He rattled the handle, but nothing budged. It was locked.

  As he shook the door, the bolt on the outside shot back. For some reason that he couldn’t name, Simon fell back on the floor and scooted backwards towards the hard bed in one corner. His heart thudded as the door opened.

  A lady came in. She carried a tray with a bottle and two glasses on it. The lady put it down on the table with the lamp and turned to face Simon. Since she stood in front of the light, he couldn’t see her face, but he knew that she was beautiful. Her silhouetted waist was tiny, and her hair shone like copper in the glow of the lamp.

  He smiled when he realized how lovely she was and was about to say something to charm her, or to get her to move into the light so that he could see the beauty of her face, when the music started. Somewhere outside the door a loud concerto played. It grew even more deafening until Simon thought that his eardrums would crack.

  He pressed his hands over his ears and shouted, ‘Turn it off! Please!” The music was so loud that he could not hear his own voice.

  The girl, however, did not move. She stood there and watched, faceless and nameless in her own shadow.

  That is what the three children in the house dreamed, that first night, as the Night Watchman Express screamed by the house.