He pulled her close, and they walked with arms linked, murmuring insults. Trumbull looked at them, muttered something about mating practices, and stalked ahead.
“We still don’t know how to get them off the campus,” I said to Charlie and Audrey. “I don’t think we can try something like that again—they’re too eager for evidence of sabotage. And it sounds like they weren’t even the ones who stole the books—they just haven’t turned in the perpetrators.”
“I’m really mad at Jesse and Sally, but I don’t want to get them in worse trouble.” Audrey shook herself. “My head hurts. Let’s find out if Trumbull keeps aspirin in the house, and then see if sleeping on it helps. Maybe we’ll have a great idea in the morning.”
CHAPTER 24
Neko met us, found the aspirin, opined that we illustrated every possible reason to avoid practicing magic, and pro forma invited Audrey to sleep in our room again.
I woke shivering in the early morning, to find Neko and Audrey sitting on the other bed, talking quietly.
“Were you having nightmares too?” asked Neko. She patted a free spot amid the sheets, and I struggled free of the dream’s paralysis to join them.
“Shub-Nigaroth’s laughter,” I said bitterly.
“What’s that mean?” asked Audrey.
“It means,” said Neko, “that it’s not practical to fear everything in the universe that’s scary.”
“Essentially, yes,” I said. “So She probably thinks it’s funny that I now have nightmares about being cold, too.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Neko, and hugged me tightly. I leaned against her, trying to forget the airless chill of my dream.
“You too?” I asked Audrey.
“My dreams were different,” she said, turning her head away. Audrey, stripped of her usual manic confidence, seemed a worrisome and vulnerable thing.
“Different how?” I tugged on the sleeve of her nightgown, and she let herself be drawn back to our mammalian warmth.
“It was a good dream. Sort of.”
“Oh, those,” said Neko.
Audrey flopped back on the bed. “I read too much about the Mad Ones, the other day. I dreamed that we were in that basement, unable to move, listening to Trumbull talk about how dangerous the spell was, and I just—just turned into smoke or energy or something. It was easy. And I floated over and started doing things to Barlow and Peters, to make them stop. It wasn’t like the spells you’ve been teaching us—I only needed to think about it to break them, and I felt so smug that I’d saved everyone. And then I started doing the same thing to Sally—” I held her while she sobbed. Between her gasps I caught the word “monster,” repeated.
Neko held her too. “No, you’re not, you’re not—Audrey, look at me. Look at me.” At last Audrey did pull back and turn, sniffling. Neko went on. “Only the way we all are. You know those horrible movies, with the Japanese villains all white guys in bad makeup?” Audrey nodded, shakily, and I got the feeling that she’d liked some of those movies better than we had. “I have dreams where they come and get us out of the camps. Or where I’m one. Sometimes you look for strength where you can find it, even if it’s horrible.”
“But that’s different. The Mad Ones really are down there somewhere, right now, eating slaves and mutilating prisoners.”
“And men of the air are up here,” I said, “mutilating prisoners and killing millions in wars and trying to summon brain-eating entities for power, and probably eating things I don’t want to think about too. And Trumbull’s people sacrifice kids for immortality. And my people, under the water, preserve every stupid idea humans have had since we first lit fires. We’re all monsters, or related to monsters, one way or another.” I wrapped my arms around my knees, still shivering. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t very reassuring.”
“No, it kind of was.” She sat up, rubbing her eyes.
“Salt water?” I asked, and Neko laughed. “What?”
“You’re predictable, that’s all. Audrey, she wants to wash your tears into a jar so you can give them back to the ocean. It’s actually weirdly comforting, too.”
Audrey laughed shakily. “Sure, why not. It’s not like anyone else wants them.”
I got up and padded out to the kitchen. The dining room was dark—thankfully Trumbull wasn’t working late tonight.
I showed Audrey how to use the salt water. She dipped her fingers, wiped her eyes, then dipped her fingers back into the cup I’d found. I set it aside on the sill.
“Trumbull’s asleep,” I said. “I wonder if she’s having a bad night too.”
“Do Yith dream?” asked Neko.
“I’ve no idea. I’d expect them to have a fair amount of control over it, if so—but she really was scared.”
“She wouldn’t have acted so angry if she wasn’t,” said Audrey. “I’m glad she stuck around to save us, even if she was a jerk about it afterward.”
“So am I,” I said. “I hope she’s human enough right now for sleep to do her some good. Whatever happens next, I suspect we’ll need her help to get through it.” And persuading her to grant that help—if it were possible at all—would probably be my task.
*
I’d just fallen back asleep at last—or so it felt—when a pounding on the front door shocked me awake. I lay still a long moment, caught between waking and dreaming, before I realized that it was 1949, and this couldn’t be the soldiers who’d demanded entry twenty-one years past. It’s January 27th. The anniversary of my father’s death had passed yesterday, unnoticed in the tumult.
The knocking paused and started again, and it occurred to me that if Trumbull’s amnesias hadn’t taken, this still might be soldiers. Neko sat up, wide-eyed. We both started throwing on clothes. Audrey rolled over, and I nudged her.
“Oh god, my head. What’s going on?”
“We don’t know,” I said grimly.
We hurried into the hall to see Trumbull in a bathrobe and an extremely irritated expression. She opened the door, and Spector rushed in. Charlie followed more slowly a few yards behind.
“What on earth is going on?” Spector demanded. He stamped snow off his feet and glared. “Barlow insists that someone sabotaged one of his experiments last night. He’s convinced you did it even though he didn’t see anyone and won’t say how it happened. And he says his secretary is ‘damaged,’ as if she were a piece of equipment. He swears he’ll have me disciplined for recruiting a ‘team of moles,’ and Mr. Day insists he didn’t see anything.”
“Sabotaged?” Trumbull went from irritated to livid. “Sabotaged? Fhigrlt Ngwdi’ygl!”
I pulled Spector aside, not sure if you’re lucky to be sane had been a statement or a threat. Charlie pushed the door open, took in our various expressions, and moved to stand beside me and Spector.
“It’s a long story,” I told Spector, “But they came close to ‘sabotaging’ the whole campus, and Trumbull stopped them.”
“Ah.” There was a long pause, then with a sort of weary hopelessness he asked, “Evidence?”