So, I'll admit I put some horror-movie melodrama in this chapter, but I really enjoyed writing it! Authoress cackles with malicious glee. Enjoy the journey, boys and girls . . .

Lamarquise: Don't apologize; I enjoy being offended : ). Or, rather, I enjoy finding things to be offended about! Thanks for the summary, I'm still working on getting the movie. But here's the real question. Which creates the biggest explosion at the Super Bowl? A nuclear bomb or Janet Jackson's breast? Food for thought . . . : )

Comments, criticisms, and gushing praise are always welcome! Please R&R!

As always, Standard Disclaimers apply. Susan Cooper owns everything. I merely possess an overactive imagination and a surplus of time. And the movie quote is from Burton's Batman.

Chapter Seven

"Dreams surely are difficult, confusing, and not everything in them is brought to pass for mankind. For fleeting dreams have two gates: one is fashioned of horn and one of ivory. Those which pass through the one of sawn ivory are deceptive, bringing tidings which come to nought, but those which issue from the one of polished horn bring true results when a mortal sees them."

- Homer, The Odyssey

What with phone calls and visitors and television and Mrs. Reynolds, it was the longest day of Peter's life. Still, it passed, as all days before it had passed, and as all days afterwards would follow. There was dinner as always upon the table at seven, and if Jane had accidentally flavored the salad with melted butter and the mashed potatoes with vinaigrette, no one actually tasted the difference.

Afterwards, Jane took a protesting Annie by the hand and firmly marched her upstairs to bed. Peter remained with Will and his father downstairs, sprawled lazily upon the couch, watching more reruns off Distant Rubble Footage and Expert Opinions and trying to postpone the dreadful moment when he would have to be alone. But soon, despite his best efforts, giant yawns started to overtake him, and sandbags began to weight at his eyelids . . .

. . . he blinked, and his mother was shaking his shoulder and he was struggling towards wakefulness. The lights were dim, the television off, and the room empty. All was quiet, and his mother was whispering small, nighttime words in his ear. Blindly, Peter stumbled to his feet and up the stairs, Jane guiding him gently by the shoulders. Once he was pajama-clad, she entered his room and lifted the covers up around his chin and brushed his dark hair from his brow to clear a space for her kiss, a nighttime gesture she had not – at Peter's request – performed for several years.

He made no objections tonight.

Peter closed his eyes under her touch and dreamily wished he were a child again. Child-Peter wouldn't have to spend this night alone. He could wait several minutes and then tiptoe across the hallways in his padded pajama feet to gently open his parents' door. He would run across their floor, catapult himself upon the large bed, and bury his face in his father's diaphragm, letting the large, steady breathing drown out all fears until he slowly fell asleep.

But that Child-Peter was living in a ghost-world across the Atlantic. The Peter he knew was here, and his mother was gently wishing him goodnight and walking out of the room, closing the door upon him. And the here-and-now- Peter shivered, and slowly began to drown in darkness . . .

. . . The city was beautiful, all arches and grey stone and spiraling turrets that glittered in the sun. Colorful flags and banners snapped cheerfully in the breeze, which blew the wispy mane of a horse across Peter's hands. He was mounted upon a magnificent creature, a golden-hued mare harnessed with silver.

High grey walls rose up on either side of him, and between them a throng of people shouted and waved at Peter joyously. Hands cheerfully patter his legs, and children smiled up at him from behind gap-toothed grins. Through an archway Peter could see green fields, and above them a blue sky accented by puffy white clouds.

It was High Summer. And all the Land was rejoicing.

From somewhere within the crowd a red rose was thrown. Peter, laughing, reached out a hand to catch it. He was a second too late, however, and the flower fluttered to the cobbled road, just beyond the reach of his fingers.

Peter stared at the flower against the stones, forlorn and vulnerable to careless feet, and tears welled in his eyes. He pointed in longing and desperation.

And a boy, blond-haired and blue-eyed, smiled secretively up at him and knelt to retrieve the flower from the ground. Laughing in relief, Peter held out a trusting hand. Grinning, the boy held the rose out and their fingers met. The childish hand clutched at his.

Peter gasped.

For the childish hand was not childish at all, but worn and withered and skeletal. Dry bony fingers clamped about his wrist, and Peter helplessly tried to twist away. The boy tugged at his arm, and Peter looked up to see the flesh upon the young face melting in rivulets, a red ooze revealing a bleached white skull. Clear blue eyes were drowning in green pus, and sharp pointed teeth bit into a tongue of flame, which bled blackness. Blond locks transformed into snakes, which elongated and slithered up the bony arm to lick at Peter's fingers with their flickering tongues.

Peter screamed.

The horse below him shrieked in response and went to rear; but there was no longer a golden horse, but only bones and dust under Peter's legs. The bones collapsed, and he found himself lying crumpled among a dusty heap of clattering ribs, and the death grip on his hand never loosened.

The Boy-Thing-Monster screeched from its burning mouth:

"See! See where it comes!"

And the crowd of beautiful people vanished, turning into ash and blowing away in the wind that suddenly whipped up and tore Peter's screaming (he had never stopped) from his throat. The grey walls grew old and mossy and crumbled with all the roar of centuries compressed into seconds. The blue sky became smothered in greenish-purple clouds. The rose still clenched in Peter's hand shot out tendrils that slithered up his arm and twisted about his neck. The thorns dug into his skin, and Peter could feel blood running down his chest.

And where the walls had been he saw upon the red horizon a great wave of water, rushing towards him. Black water, teeming with writhing creature for which there were no names. And the surface of the water was burning. Water and Flame rushed the City at once.

The Witch-Boy was giggling, and the green-pus eyes rolled.

"Aye, Sir Peter, 'tis too late! And thou canst tell the Watchman we said so. Take the message for us, willt thou?" And he stuck his face in Peter's, who gagged at the overwhelming stench of the putrid breath. He opened his mouth to speak, but the constricting rose left him with no breath. He choked.

"What will ye do, Sir Peter?" the Witch-Boy hissed mockingly. "You can't win this time. 'Tis our turn, now! We will win – we have already won. See, the waters of flame come! Nothing shall stop them, and darkness rides upon their crests!"

Peter looked and saw it was true, and cried deep within his heart.

"Oh, Peter Peter Peter, 'tis a pity and a shame, but you've lost already . . . lost lost lost . . . the land is lost . . . what will ye do? What can ye do, Sir Peter, against death?"

And the Witch-Boy began to laugh convulsively, and the convulsion spread to Peter through the death grip on his hand, and his body began to shake, and the Witch-Boy again opened its mouth, and there was a great stink, and it began to shout hysterically, over and over and over again: "Peter! Peter! Peter Peter Peter . . ."

"Peter!"

He woke. Serpentine sheets twisted about his neck and arms, and he couldn't breath. He realized that his fingernails were digging into his chest, and he slowly relaxed his hands and pried them away from his body. Someone was shaking him, gently yet firmly.

"Wake up, Peter Davies," a deep voice said.

"Argh," he moaned.

He was exhausted, and in his tiredness the shreds of the dream began to fall away from his memory, until nothing remained save a vague feeling of unease and dread.

"What is it?" he mumbled, pushing himself up against his pillows and blinking in confusion. The room was pitch dark, except for a square of blue moonlight that slid in through the widow.

"Shhh!"

A shadowed Will Stanton was standing by his bedside, a cautioning finger pressed to his lips. For several seconds Peter stared in terror, for Will was swathed in a strange, midnight blue cloak with a hood pulled over his face that made recognition difficult in the darkness.

"Will," he asked. "What's going on? Has something happened?"

"Nothing's happened, don't worry. Here, just get up and put this on."

Will Stanton held something limp and dark out to Peter. Peter took it, wondering. It was several seconds before he realized that it was a cloak just like Will's, but on a smaller scale. He looked up in sleepy, dim- witted confusion. "I don't understand – "

"See, I told you he was impossible to wake up! We should've dumped a glass of water on him. That's what I always do." It was a second voice, quick and light and very much awake. Annie. "Come on, Peter, hurry up!" Her words quivered with suppressed impatience and excitement.

"Annie? Where are you?" Peter peered into the darkness.

"Right here, silly." She stepped out from behind Will. She was wearing a third identical cloak. Her black hair blended with its shadows so that only her pale face and bright blue eyes were visible.

"What's going on?"

"Hush, boy. No questions, now, I'll explain everything soon. Get dressed."

Bemused, Peter hauled himself out of bed and shrugged into the strange cloak. The heavy folds dragged at his shoulders, and the muffling hood made it impossible to use his peripheral vision. He raised a hand to sweep it back.

"No. Leave it up. Follow me." Will turned away and led them out into the hallway. They tiptoed cautiously past his parents' room, and then Will halted before the doorway to the attic. He twisted the doorknob without a sound. A yawning black pit appeared. Will took two steps forward and vanished into the darkness.

Peter went to follow and then paused. There was a small pulling at his cloak, and he turned his head to see Annie beside him, her eyes wide as she stared at the opening. Wordlessly, he took her hand and without hesitation entered the stairwell and shut the door behind them.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The dream threw Jane from sleep. She was flung upright in bed, and her hands were clenching the bedclothes on either side of her. She relaxed her grip, but then her hands began to shake. She breathed deeply, but her stupid hands kept shaking, and she couldn't stop them. So she stood up and went to go stand by the window and gaze upon the winter night. She opened the sash, welcoming the bitterly cold air on her flushed cheeks. She thrust her face outside and lifted it to absorb the moonlight.

Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale moonlight?

A quote from some movie she had seen once. For some reason, it fit her mood tonight. She felt a little mad.

She hadn't really expected a quiet night's rest. Indeed, she hadn't expected to sleep at all. But Bran, the dear boy, had fallen swiftly into a deep slumber, and she had rested her had upon that well-loved shoulder and listened to his heartbeat until she found herself slipping quietly away.

But she hadn't anticipated that her girlhood dream would revisit her, not tonight of all nights. It had been years. She looked out at the snow and tried to trace the memory of a face against its whiteness.

It had been a favorite game of hers throughout adolescence, this grasping at remembrance. She had never spoken to another about it, not her brothers, not even Bran. She usually got as far as a craggy nose and wild white hair. But then she could never quite decide whether the mouth was merry or stern, or whether the eyes were grey or blue or brown. Any by the time she got there, she could no longer remember whether she had decided this time that the nose was hooked or straight, or whether the hair, after all, was smooth and long rather than bushy and wild.

And at that point she would give it all for lost and crawl back between her sheets to be welcomed by more mundane dreams. Normal dreams, such as everyone had, about walking down the street naked, or flying, or being chased by bloodthirsty inch worms.

Tonight had been different, though, she thought. There had been the usual mountains and wind and the wild old man who waved at her from a distance. And, as always, Bran, Will, Simon, and Barney were standing beside her. And the sadness, oh yes, the sadness was always there.

But as far as she could remember, the man had never spoken to her before.

She frowned out at the darkness. The words were there in her head, she just couldn't quite remember them. She would grasp at one, but then three more would slip away from her, like water running through a sieve.

Something about what had happened today. That's what the wild old man had talked to her about. How odd. She must have subconsciously processed it all or something, and then regurgitated the news in a dream that was just as comforting to her as it was loved.

So there was something about the bombings, and then the old man had told her that everything would be all right. And then he had said something about Peter, and about Annie, and it was here that everything went fuzzy.

But the next part had been clear enough. The wild old man had vanished, and Will had turned to her.

"It's time, Jane Drew," he had said. "Give me the stone."

The words were sharp in her memory, so sharp that they seemed to be spoken by the air around her. She pressed her palms against the windowsill and bent her head so that her long brown hair fell about her face. She was intent, listening for more. But nothing else came. She closed the window.

She sighed and tossed her hair back and walked over to her oakwood box. It was inevitable. Always after the dream she would think of the stone and she could never rest peacefully until she had felt it against her palm. She opened the lid and happily inhaled the familiar odor of the wood.

But the box was empty.

Jane stared. It couldn't be.

Her stomach plunged and she felt as if she wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. For a second panic threatened, but then she took a deep breathe and pushed the hysteria away and began to think rationally.

There was nothing she could do tonight. All she would accomplish by waking Bran and the children would be to make everyone unhappy and grumpy. Tomorrow would come soon enough, when she could search for the stone by daylight. And who knew? Perhaps she was still dreaming and she would wake up and open the lid and there her treasure would be, blue-green shining in the sun. And maybe, after all, it would b best not to tell anyone about it for several days, at least until she knew that it was well and truly lost. She didn't want to make Bran feel bad unless she had to.

She walked determinedly back to bed and crawled in beside Bran.

Just before she slept, words floated into her head. They belonged to a man's voice. Not Bran's. Not Will's. No one she could place a name to. But the voice had the same quality Will's sometimes possessed: a Remoteness, tempered with pride, strength, and affection.

"Thank you, Jane Drew. Sleep well. No more dreams tonight, child, I promise."