“And where exactly did you hear the sound this time?” Unfortunately Henry’s expression didn’t tell me what he was thinking.
“In the next corridor on the left.” I gestured vaguely toward the sea. “Do you think it was Anabel? I’m sure she’s brilliant at turning invisible and making nasty rustling noises. Or maybe it was Arthur. There’s nothing he’d rather do than scare me to death.” Not that I could blame him. After all, I’d broken Arthur Hamilton’s jaw almost exactly eight and a half weeks ago. I know that sounds bad, so I’ll just say (to avoid getting too long-winded and complicated) that he deserved it. Although I’m afraid it didn’t do me much good at the time, because out of our whole group of friends at school, his girlfriend, Anabel, was the rotten apple in the barrel. Or anyway, as it turned out, the crazy one. To be politically correct, I should say she suffered from “acute polymorphic psychotic disorder with symptoms of schizophrenia,” which was why she was now in a closed psychiatric hospital well away from London, where she couldn’t do any more harm to anyone—except in her sleep. Anabel was firmly convinced that a demon had given us the ability to meet in our dreams and shape those dreams deliberately—an evil demon from pre-Christian times with nothing less in view than ruling the world. Luckily for me, however, its attempt to take over the world had failed in the nick of time, just as Anabel, assisted by Arthur, was about to shed my blood as part of the necessary ritual. (I told you it was a long, complicated story!)
Belief in the demon was part of her sickness, and I was very glad that this demon existed only in Anabel’s deranged imagination, because I had a problem with supernatural phenomena in general and demons in particular. Not that I could really come up with a conclusive explanation for the entire dream business. For the sake of simplicity, I mentally filed it away under the heading of “psychological and scientific phenomena that are perfectly capable of logical explanation, but can’t yet be fully understood in our present state of knowledge.” At least that made more sense than believing in demons. Even if my conviction had been slightly shaken again by that rustling sound just now … But I wasn’t going to mention that to Henry.
He was still waiting for me to go on with what I’d been saying. “In the next corridor on the left,” he repeated. He didn’t mention Anabel and Arthur. He hated talking about those two, because until that incident on the evening of the Autumn Ball eight and a half weeks ago, they’d been among his best friends. “And you were there because…?” He gave me an inquiring glance.
“Because there was something I had to do.” Feeling uncomfortable, I rubbed my arm and automatically lowered my voice to a whisper. “Something totally immoral. I wanted to … no, I had to spy on someone’s dreams.”
“That’s not immoral, just very practical,” said Henry. “I do it all the time.”
“You do? Whose dreams? And why?”
He shrugged his shoulders and briefly looked away from me. “Well, it can sometimes be useful. Or entertaining. It all depends. And whose dreams did you … er … have to spy on?”
“Charles Spencer’s.”
“Grayson’s boring old uncle, the dentist?” Henry looked rather disappointed. “Why him, for goodness’ sake?”
I sighed. “Mia”—my little sister—“saw Charles in a café with another woman. And she swears they were exchanging soppy glances and almost holding hands. I know that Lottie and Charles aren’t officially an item, but he flirts with her like crazy, and they’ve been to the cinema together twice. A blind person could see that Lottie’s head over heels in love with him, even if she won’t admit it. She’s been making him a pair of felt slippers for Christmas, so that in itself … Don’t grin in that silly way! This is really serious. I’ve never seen Lottie in such a lovelorn state over a man, and it would be terrible if he’s just toying with her feelings.”
“Sorry!” Henry was trying, unsuccessfully, to keep the corners of his mouth under control. “At least now I know where your password … Okay, carry on.”
“I had to find out what Charles really feels for Lottie—it was urgent. So I took his silly trapper’s cap and broke into his dream tonight.” It struck me, yet again, that at this very moment I was lying in my bed with the cap on—probably my hair was all sweaty by now. And presumably, also at this moment, Henry was thinking what I must look like in the trapper’s cap with earflaps. He was going to start laughing again, I knew he was, and who could blame him?
But he responded to my glare with an innocent look suggesting that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “I get that. So how did you do it?”
I didn’t see what he meant, and frowned. “Well, I went through his dream door.”