‘It never has to,’ Allan said, looking at her and smiling.
His voice was warm and familiar, his presence impossibly real and strong. ‘No, no, this is a dream,’ she said. ‘I have to find Daisy.’
‘Daisy’s right here,’ Allan said. ‘Everything you want is here. Dream is a river that runs through every world there is, or was, or can be imagined. And Dream has brought you back to me. Wouldn’t you rather stay here?’
‘Oh, Allan,’ said Fay. She did want to stay – to be here at a time when things were safe and good, and they were a family – but how long does a dream last? Fifteen seconds? A minute? More? Already the colours were fading; the plaid of Allan’s shirt had changed from bright red-and-black to a dusty rose. Daisy’s eyes were on her now (Her eyes were blue. Remember that, thought Fay to herself), looking wide and anxious. This is for Daisy, she told herself. This is to bring Daisy home.
‘Allan, I can’t. I love you, but—’
‘Please, Fay, don’t forget me,’ he said. ‘The thoughts of the living are all the dead can hope for. Memory keeps us alive. Let it go, and I may as well never have existed at all.’
‘I’m sorry, darling. I have to—’
‘Don’t go. Just take my hand and stay with me. Here, where no one can reach us.’ He stretched out his hand and smiled at her. ‘Don’t be afraid. Just take my hand. We can be together for ever.’
This isn’t fair! Fay thought. Why did no one tell me Dream would be so cruel?
She closed her eyes and clenched her fists in the fabric of Daisy’s blanket. What made you think it would be fair? said a dry voice in her mind. Is Life fair? Is Death fair? So why should Dream be different?
The voice was vaguely familiar, although she could not place it. Was it a voice from Norroway? The Night Train? Nethermost London? In any case, it spoke the truth from deep within her memory. To get your Daisy back, it said, you must give as well as take: and when you have given all you can, then maybe you can earn your reward…
Allan was watching her, hand outstretched. His eyes, so kind and familiar, were dark with pain and foreknowledge. ‘You’re going to forget me,’ he said. ‘You may not mean to, but you will. This memory, and so much more, will be lost like a soap-bubble in the sun. And when you set foot on the shore of Death, you will have nothing left to pay your debt to the Hallowe’en King.’
‘Pay him what? What debt?’ said Fay.
‘The price of Daisy’s life, of course. When you can walk shadowless at noon…’ They were the words of the Oracle: the last part of the riddle.
‘Do you know the answer?’ she said. ‘Please, Allan, I have to know.’
Allan sighed. His face had become as insubstantial as morning mist. ‘I speak as I must, my love,’ he said. ‘I speak as I must, and cannot say more.’ And then, both he and the dream were gone, and Fay found herself on a sandy shore, with tears on her face, and no memory of why she had been weeping.
Two
The sun was shining. The sky was blue as only mem-ories can be. Fay felt a warm well-being in every part of her body. The sand was warm under her feet, and she realized that she was barefoot, and wearing a blanket around her waist. She had a backpack with her, too; a broken, ragged scrap of a thing, empty but for a large, cone-shaped seashell.
The blanket was old and faded. The pack was missing both its straps. And yet there was something that stopped her from simply leaving them behind. She put a hand into her pocket, and found a key ring, on which hung a tiny notebook. Opening the notebook, she saw that on the penultimate page someone had scrawled the mysterious phrase: My plaid has not been blown away.
I’m supposed to remember what that means, thought Fay. Why can’t I remember?
There was a little girl on the beach, building a castle in the sand. She must have been about six years old, blonde, and wearing a yellow dress. Her eyes were blue and filled with stars. Your name is Daisy Orr, thought Fay. You’re Daisy, and I love you.
She went over to the little girl and sat down on the hot white sand. Daisy looked up and smiled. ‘I made a moat for my castle,’ she said. ‘Now we just wait for the sea to come in.’ And then the child began to sing a song Fay almost recognized:
My father left me three acres of land,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme—
Those aren’t the words, said Fay to herself. And yet, it was the very same song she had used to board the Night Train; to cross the sea to Norroway; to reach the shore of Dream – and now she remembered those things again, like pictures from another life. She remembered the rose, and the madcap smoke, the tailor bees, and Alberon; and, looking down at the hot white sand, she saw what was left of her shadow, fainter than a heat haze.
For a moment all she could feel was dismay. So much of her memory was gone. But the vision of Daisy, asleep, through the cracks in the pavement below Piccadilly was clear, and she knew what she was here to do. The first of the Oracle’s riddles was bees, the second Dream, and the third, the third…
‘Your father,’ said Fay. ‘I loved him so much. And yet I don’t remember him.’ The thought filled her with a sudden grief. Was this the price of her journey so far? And when would her debt be paid in full?
‘He’s gone,’ said the child. ‘He fell through the cracks between the Worlds, and the Shadowless Man took him away. But you’ll stay, won’t you? You won’t leave me?’
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ said Fay. ‘Of course I won’t. I came all this way to find you.’
‘Then stay with me,’ said Daisy. ‘Stay until the sea comes in, and my castle is all washed away. We’ll lie on the beach and watch the stars and be here, together, for ever and ever.’
But now Fay could see the sides of the dream, like a soap-bubble ready to burst. The sky was several shades lighter already; the sea had lost its rich dark shine. The sun was veiled, and on the sand, there was no longer any trace of her shadow. She held out her arms and Daisy crept into their sheltering circle, but already she felt insubstantial, her body an armful of butterflies, ready to scatter to the winds.
When I leave this dream, thought Fay, will this memory be gone? Daisy, aged six, in her yellow dress, building a sandcastle on the beach? She feared that it would: and yet she knew this was the only way to reach the other side of Dream, where the Hallowe’en King was waiting.
The dream world was losing substance fast: Fay closed her eyes and tried to hold onto the image of her daughter’s face as it faded from her memory. Daisy’s eyes were blue, she thought. Her eyes were blue. Remember that. And then she raised her voice and sang the last of the Oracle’s riddles:
When you can walk shadowless at noon
Every sage grows merry in time…
And opened her eyes on the dusty, desert, sunless shore of Death – which, of course, was the answer.
Three
The first was Bees.
The second was Dream.
The third was Death.
And Death was all around her. It was in the strange, pale sky; the dusty ground; the thousand tiny fragments that shone like mica in the air. So this is Death. It isn’t so bad, Fay thought as she scanned the horizon. Death’s country is all absences; absence of scent; absence of sound; absence of the sun in the sky. No shadow on the hard, dry sand. No heat; no cold; no pain; no regret; nothing but her consciousness standing on the shore of Dream, with a handful of star-patterned rags, a notebook and a seashell –