The Book of Dreams Read Free Page A

quern-stones of the Enemy even if you be crushed yourselves.’”
    Despite the sunshine, they both shivered. A gloom fell over them.
    “The fact we’ve been asked to do this shows how serious the threat is. I mean, the girl has abilities beyond either of us. If you’ve heard my story, then I guess you know hers too? She’s half-fairy. Light flows in her veins. I’ve been told she’s still growing into her powers, but she took on her quest for Faerie at a much younger age than we did.”
    “Honor’s worried about her,” Laurel said. “Apparently Dana is not the same girl we know from the story. Maybe she has fallen under malign influences already?”
    Gwen was shocked by the suggestion. But it made her think. Even before she had decided to be a teacher, Gwen was involved with youth groups and summer camps. She had a special affinity for the young, particularly ones with problems.
    “Dana was only twelve in her Faerie tale,” Gwen pointed out. “That’s over a year ago. The change in her personality could be due to something less sinister.” Gwen grinned. “She’s a teenager now.”
    Laurel rolled her eyes, but she was grinning too. They were both at ease with each other and definitely in tune. Perhaps that was what made Gwen careless.
    “So, I understand you’re in the same boat as me?” she said. “In a long-distance relationship with an Irishman? My boyfriend, Dara—”
    The air between them went suddenly frosty.
    Laurel’s features cooled and her eyes hardened. Glancing at the clock tower, she stood up. “I have to go. I’ve got an appointment with my thesis supervisor and I need to prepare for it. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be involved with the mission. You’ll have to do this without me.”
    “But …” Gwen was so surprised she could hardly think. “You … you’re needed! Only humanity can rescue Fairyland. It’s always been that way.”
    “I’m sorry,” Laurel repeated, and her tone rang with finality. “I’m telling you what I told my sister. I’m no longer a Companion of Faerie. I won’t fight their battles. Maybe it’s time Faerie grew up and took some responsibility for its own survival. Time they learned to rescue themselves.”
    And she hurried away.
    • • •
     
    Gwen sat stunned. What had happened? She was sure she had been getting through to Laurel. She had felt the first inklings of real friendship between them. Yet somehow she had said the wrong thing and ruined everything! Disheartened to the point of tears, she stared blindly into the fountain.
    The splashing water sparkled in the sunshine. Though pegomancy was not something Gwen was very good at, she began to see patterns in the weave of water and light. Granny had explained to her the truth of fortune-telling. Everything is interconnected. Reality is like a hologram. Every piece contains the truth of the whole. All that happens—past, present, and future—can be read in what lies around us, if we only know the code. If we can read the language . What was she looking at? Something horrible. A monstrous shape with snakelike tentacles. There was another form near it. A human male. Now the tentacles snaked out, piercing the man’s body like grappling hooks.
    Gwen let out a cry and looked away. She couldn’t bear to see more. But she knew what it meant. With or without Laurel, her mission had begun.

 
    B runswick Avenue was an old tree-lined street of big brick houses with bay windows, gables, and stained-glass transoms. Most had landscaped gardens and rockeries overlooked by verandahs dangling with wickerwork planters and glass wind chimes. Midway up the street stood an abandoned convent, nailed and boarded. The nuns were long gone and the school they had founded had moved elsewhere. Where the street ended was a small park with flowerbeds and rosebushes, and looming over the park was the rambling brownstone in which Dana Faolan had lived for the past year.
    The house was a maze of winding stairs, dim