Dreamside Read Free

frequency. Over the last few nights it has come without fail."
    "Just the repeated awakening?"
    "Yes.
That's all, thank God; I mean there have been one or two other weird things
happening in there besides, but mostly it's the repeater. It doesn't sound much
but it's scaring the hell out of me."
    "It's
the same for me. I know how frightening it is. You get to dread every click or
sudden movement in case you wake up and find yourself back in bed."
    "But
I've even been testing myself in the dream, burning my hand, sticking pins into
myself to see if I'm in or out: it doesn't make any difference."
    "That's
how it was before."
    "Sure,
but then, somehow, even though I'd get it wrong sometimes, I felt I could tell
the essential difference. But not now. It gets so I
don't want to bother going to work, cooking my breakfast, washing my face even,
in case I wake up. Every time something just a little bit off the wall happens,
or if I get a client at work with a screw loose, I end up thinking I'll wake up in five minutes and then I can
go to work and deal with the real psychopaths."
    "I
thought we were the real psychopaths."
    "What's
worse is that the dreams make more sense than what happens when I'm awake. When
I was talking to you this morning I was convinced that it was just part of
another repeater and that I'd put the phone down and wake up."
    "But
you should have known that I'd pulled you out with the telephone. It was one of
our old techniques for burrowing out. Or burrowing in."
    “I know
that, but I didn't ever trust it. I don't entirely trust that business with the
book either."
    "Can
you remember anything the professor said about the repeater?"
    "Only
that he described it as a side effect, and said to try to enjoy it."
    "Yes,
he was helpful like that."
    "When
did it start happening with you?"
    "Like
you, around Christmas. Infrequently at first, then with
regularity. I thought it was me; but it wasn't just repeated dreams of
waking up. It was some of the other stuff."
    "You
went back to that place?" Lee was shocked.
    "Not exactly. But I
felt an overwhelming pull. Almost irresistible. I've
been fighting it. That's why I decided I had to get in touch, find out what was
happening to you."
    "I
know. I felt it too, pulling me back there, I mean. It was strong. I fought it.
That's when the repeaters started to really take hold."
    "Exactly. The more we
fight off going back, the more the repeaters go to work on us."
    "But
what would happen if we did give in? What would happen if we really did go
back there? I couldn't face it."
    "At
first I wondered whether you'd been there," said Ella, "whether you
were up to something, trying to make contact with me."
    "No."
    "It
was just a thought. I realize now."
    "Ella,
there have been many times when I've wanted you. But never
like that. It didn't seem to hold so much fear for me when I was
younger. Now even the thought of it can make me break into a cold sweat."
    Ella ran a
hand through her hair, silver moon and stars glinting at her ears. "So
where does that leave us?" she asked. "If it's not you a nd it's not me . . . Oh God, look at us, Lee, just
look at us. What a pair of casualties. I'm trying to be brave, Lee, really I
am, but I'm scared. So scared."
    Then Lee
did what he should have done when he first saw Ella standing outside his house;
he put his arms around her and kissed her, and let her cry for both of them.
And when Ella cried that evening it was not only for the terror of the dreams
that hung in chains around them. It was also for the unburdened, uncaring children
they had been thirteen years ago, and for the thirteen years of distance and
loss that had recast lovers as strangers.

 
    "Which
one of them is doing it, do you think?"
    "We
can't be sure that it's either of them."
    An open
fire burned brightly in the hearth. Ella sat close to it, her legs drawn up
under her. Lee sat behind her in an armchair. "You're wrong. One of them
is doing it. One of them is calling it all back.