The best thing would be if I stayed permanently awake to keep watch over Mia. But putting that idea into practice was just as impossible as getting Arthur committed to a psychiatric hospital. No one could live forever without sleep.
I for one obviously couldn’t manage to stay awake even for a single night, in spite of the three double espressos I’d drunk just before ten, and even though I wasn’t lying down in bed, but leaning back against Mia’s headboard. I had borrowed a book from Ernest, a thriller, but that wasn’t a good move. It just confirmed the dim view I took of the world. When the serial murderer’s third victim was buried alive, and I was feeling as baffled and helpless as the woman detective inspector investigating the case, Mia complained of the bright light. Reluctantly, but slightly relieved, I closed the book and switched off the bedside lamp. I could work out the rest of the plot, anyway. In the end, the young detective inspector would be buried alive herself in the same kind of casket, and of course she’d be rescued just in time, but she’d be afraid of the dark for the rest of her life.
I looked in turn at the sleeping Mia and the dial of her alarm clock. At some time between 2:20 and 2:21, I must have dropped off to sleep. Because otherwise I wouldn’t now be wandering helplessly in this labyrinth of rooms, feeling desperate. The rooms all looked the same, or at least that’s how they seemed to me. Once, examining the way the doors were arranged, I thought I’d been in a room before, but as this was a dream labyrinth, there was presumably no point in trying to find my way by logic.
Why didn’t I please, please just wake up? If only Spot would come and jump on the bed. And why didn’t Mia’s alarm clock ring? I’d set it to go off every hour, just in case I did go to sleep.
I didn’t know exactly when I’d begun to dream—at first it was a relatively peaceful dream, with elephants and monkeys in it—but when I saw my green door and suddenly realized that the caffeine hadn’t worked, I had rushed out into the corridor, panic-stricken.
Grayson, who was standing outside Mia’s door with a shotgun, had jumped in alarm when my door banged shut behind me.
“Weren’t you going to stay awake?”
“Yes,” I cried in despair, “but it didn’t work, and now I can’t wake up. You’d better slap my face. As hard as you can.”
“I don’t think that would do any good. Anyway, I don’t hit girls.” Grayson scrutinized me, frowning. “Calm down, Liv. Everything’s all right here. I went to bed long before Mia—and believe me, Arthur hasn’t shown up. But Henry will be here any moment. We agreed to meet outside Mia’s door. He said there was a way of stopping Arthur once and for all.”
I took a deep breath.
“If I could, I’d imagine you a nice soothing herbal tea,” said Grayson.
“Why doesn’t that silly alarm clock go off?” I tried to remember what time I’d last set it for. Was it three? Or three thirty? “I should have told Mia everything so that she could protect herself,” I said.
“No, you shouldn’t. You wouldn’t have helped her that way; you might even have put her in worse danger. Don’t you remember what it was like for you? How long it took you to get used to the idea of this place existing? And how much longer it was before you could manipulate dreams to go the way you wanted?” Grayson sighed. “I don’t quite have the hang of that yet myself.” He showed me the shotgun. “This was meant to be a really cool machine gun, but instead it’s the old thing that Grandpa and I used to take duck hunting when I was nine.”
I had to smile, although only briefly. “Does Henry really have a plan?”
“He said so, and he sounds determined. Where can he be?”
“Yes, where?” With a groan, I looked down the corridor.
Arthur had been right. Waiting was the worst thing. Waiting and uncertainty.
They really wore you down.
“If I were Arthur, I wouldn’t strike tonight,” I said, more to myself than to Grayson. “And not tomorrow, or next week. Why be in any hurry? He can wait until we’re all out of our minds with anxiety.”
“You don’t know Arthur well enough. Patience isn’t his strong point. And he certainly won’t risk waiting until Henry’s found a way to put him out of action.”
“How right you are,” said Arthur’s voice, and his figure materialized out of nothing right in front of us. In my fright I didn’t even have time to gasp for air. “And what’s more, who says I’m not going to strike every night from now on?”
“Over my dead body,” said Grayson, taking aim with the shotgun.
Arthur laughed. “Those were the days, remember, Grayson? When we went duck hunting with your grandpa. I remember the check caps we all had to wear. Although I also remember how difficult you found it to pull the trigger because you felt so sorry for the ducks. And I’m not a sitting duck.”