Time passed, and as it crept by so did my horror of the dreams and what they contained. In fact, in the last several forays I had made out on to the wild roads with my grandfather, nothing very dramatic had occurred and I was beginning to accept as another fact of normality the idea of apprenticing to be the local dreamcatcher. I even found myself taking some pride in my night-work, the clean despatch of the small dreams we encountered.
Most of them were harmless things: children’s night-fears, full of monsters that at first appeared grotesque and terrifying, but once bitten dissolved to nothing, like a mayfly on the tongue. With Hawkweed I learned how to run down and trap the more elusive human dreams of guilt and shame and anxiety. I did not understand, then, most of the images I came upon in this way, for many were blurred and shifted shape as fast as I bit them. Others were as bright and defined as the pictures I saw on the black box in the living room when we curled up on Anna’s lap on a lazy weekend evening.
Between us, my grandfather and I ate them all down, allowing nothing to escape, and all the inhabitants of Ashmore and its environs slept easy in their beds, their nests and dens.
*
One late summer afternoon, after a week of baking sun, the lads and I were lying scattered in whatever shade we could find behind the garages. Heat haze rose shimmering from the concrete.
We lay there and dozed, too hot even to talk, until there was an outraged howl from Ginge, who, defying the sun, had climbed up to sit on the bonnet of a black truck, eyes closed, a beatific smile upon his dreaming face.
‘Ow! It bit me!’ He leapt off the vehicle and glared at it accusingly. ‘It bit my bum,’ he complained, turning round and round to assess the extent of his injury. ‘It bloody hurts.’ He twisted desperately in the other direction, but his bottom got no closer. Eventually he fell over in a heap and peered through his legs.
The rest of us gathered around, curious, and not a little amused. Ginge was a show-off: we shared a certain grim satisfaction in his discomfort.
‘Go on then, Ginge,’ said Stripes, pretending deep concern. ‘Let’s have a look.’
Someone sniggered. Ginge’s head shot up, but the culprit’s face was carefully masked. Ginge was a big cat and could give you a fair bite.
‘My ma says you can do yourself irreparable damage, sitting on a hot car,’ Seamus added earnestly. ‘Says you can fry your bollocks so that they’re never the same again.’
‘Best have a look, Ginge,’ Feisty urged.
Ginge regarded them with dubious eyes. Then he turned slowly and lifted his tail. Even through the dense orange fur of his rump a distinctly pink flush was clearly visible.
Fernie sucked his breath through his teeth. Stripes shook his head. ‘Nasty, that,’ said Feisty.
‘Can you see it?’ Ginge demanded, twisting again. ‘Is it bad?’
‘Terrible.’ Even I was involved now.
‘Oh no—’ Ginge was starting to lose his sang-froid.
‘Only one cure for that, mate,’ Fernie stated solemnly.
Ginge looked hopeful.
Fernie leaned in confidingly. ‘Sweet cat-spit from a virgin’s tongue! Best go see young Liddy down at the canal.’
The other cats howled and fell about.
The blush on Ginge’s bottom flooded out over the rest of him until it burned, hot-pink, like a beacon.
‘Heard she’s quite a one, Ginge.’
‘Too wild for you.’
‘Too posh, more like.’
‘Thinks she’s some kind of princess, she does.’
‘Got herself some romantic airs.’
‘She wouldn’t lay a tongue on Ginge’s arse!’
‘Says she’ll only go with a proper wild cat, one that’s proved himself out on the highways: no green boys for her—’
‘I ain’t green—’
‘Nor pink ones, either!’
At this jibe, Ginge lost whatever composure he retained and flung himself at Fernie. Seamus, always one who enjoyed a good scrap, leapt on top of them both. Stripes, with a war-cry, joined the fray. It looked like good, clean fun: so I dived in as well. Soon there was one great whirligig of fur and the air was full of howls.
The heat was like a hammer. Enervated, we finally fell apart, helpless and exhausted.
Each of us found a shady spot and started licking our fur back into place. Ginge lay on his side a little way apart from the rest of us and peered with apparent fascination at a distant tree. A tickle began in the middle of my skull. I had been thinking of revealing my secret life to my friends for some time, but something had always stopped me. Latent common-sense, perhaps; or fear of my grandfather. Now, I could feel the words bubbling away in my head. I pushed them down, tried for modest silence, but bravado got the better of me. Looking around to make sure everyone could hear, I dropped casually into the silence: ‘I’ve been out on the wild roads.’
The others stared at me.
I waited for their startled approval.
Then:
‘You ain’t.’
‘Liar!’
This was too much to bear.
‘I have,’ I said hotly. ‘Loads of times. With my granfer.’
At the mention of Hawkweed they went quiet again. Stripes rubbed his ear furtively. It was something he often did if he felt uncomfortable, or if the weather were changing.
‘He’s a dreamcatcher, ain’t he?’ Fernie said, squinting at me through the bright sunlight.
Seamus made two scratches in the dust. He looked fearful.
‘So?’
Ginge stuck his chin out. He knew he’d lost points: wasn’t prepared to lose more. ‘They’re filth, dreamcatchers. They attract evil, like flies to shit.’
For a moment I was stunned. I felt the hackles rising all the way down my spine like teeth of fur, and it was only when they reached my tail that I realised I was furious: furious on behalf of my grandfather, the dreamcatcher who kept the wild roads of this region safe from the harm of human dreams: furious on my own behalf, as his apprentice.
I opened my mouth to respond, and was surprised when a roar came flooding out.
Ginge’s ears went flat and his whiskers trembled.
Fernie stepped between us. ‘Enough fighting for today, I’d say.’ He turned to me, a calculating light in his eyes. ‘You’re not the only one who’s seen the wild roads. I have too. So, been out with your granfer, have you? What do you do then?’
For a moment I havered, caught between the urge to fight and the compulsion to impress them. Vanity won; but just how honest should I be? My so-called friends could be unpredictable. Volatile hormones spun through their bodies seeking an outlet. One-upmanship was not encouraged: there was an agreed hierarchy, and stepping out of line could bring savage reprisals, even exile from the group. Rodomontade was tolerated, so long as it was entertaining, but the fact that I’d kept my excursions secret from them might well earn their displeasure.
I decided to hedge.
‘Well, you know – hunt and stuff.’
At once I knew I had their interest.
‘Hunt what?’
‘Oh, this and that. Rats and things.’ I could see this hadn’t impressed them. Hastily I added: ‘A dog, once.’
‘A dog?’ Fernie sounded sceptical.
‘You’ve got to be kidding!’
‘Dogs can’t use the wild roads—’
‘They’re too stupid!’
‘Anyway, the Great Cat would never allow a dog on to the highways – She made them for us—’
‘Now we know you’re lying!’ This from Ginge.
‘I’m not. We did. It tasted... bloody awful.’
The swear word brought them back to me.
‘Yuk! A dog! Fancy hunting a dog.’
‘Well, we didn’t hunt it, exactly—’
But that was enough for them: now they were off and flying. ‘Wow! I bet that old Alsatian at the yellow cottages tastes bad—’
‘Or that little yappy one down the lane—’
‘Can’t imagine that on a wild road.’
‘Perhaps if we all banded together we could get it on to that little highway past Glory Farm,’ Feisty suggested.
‘It doesn’t really work like that,’ I said hesitantly.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘Well, the dreams. They come out of dreams, see.’
‘How could a dog come out of a dream, stupid?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know exactly. This one did. It started really tiny and it... grew.’ When I tried to explain the dog-dream like this it sounded plainly ridiculous, a desperate and ill-constructed lie; even I began to question my memory of the events.
‘Don’t believe you—’
‘A dog!’
I felt I was digging myself a deep hole.
‘Are you sure it wasn’t a mouse?’
I began to wish I had, and could hide myself in it forever. It was all or nothing now: if I backed down I’d lose my place in the hierarchy, probably get chased off, ridiculed.
‘Right then,’ I said forcefully. ‘If you don’t believe me. I’ll show you.’
‘Yeah?’ sneered Ginge.
‘Anyone who’s got the nerve for it can meet me back here tonight when the moon’s full up. I’ll take you dreamcatching.’ I stared challengingly around the group.
Seamus wouldn’t meet my eye. Feisty shifted uncomfortably from paw to paw. Fernie grinned cynically. Stripes examined something interesting upon the ground.
It was Ginge who broke the silence.
‘All right, then. I’ll be here. Looking forward to seeing what a liar you are.’
*
Midnight saw a furtive group of cats gathered by the garages. Moonlight gifted them with long, attenuated shadow-selves. Of Seamus and Feisty there was no sign.
‘Seamus is superstitious,’ Stripes said matter-of-factly. ‘He’s scared of dreams and stuff.’
‘And poor little Oscar’s mummy won’t let them out in the big bad night,’ Fernie jeered.
‘Let alone the wild wild roads,’ added Ginge, swaggering up and down with his tail up.
‘How’s yer bum, Pink-Boy?’ Fernie asked evilly. ‘Ready to earn a licking from the lovely Liddy?’
I led the little group past dark-windowed houses and their sleeping occupants, through silent gardens and across the empty road. I could sense the presence of dreams in the air, and sure enough, by the time we reached the common I could see a soft trail of golden lights skimming the tops of the hawthorns, drawn by the network of highways that criss-crossed this wilder heart of the village.
Weaving through a rough boundary of brambles and furze, we passed from the civilised world of cultivated gardens, neat closeboard fences and carefully pruned privet hedges into an area of land that had – apart from the temporary effects of volunteer parish working parties trying to keep some of the winding pathways clear for dog walkers and blackberry pickers – rebuffed the modern world. Largely unchanged since medieval times, the common acknowledged no owner, made concession to none other than its own. Here, amongst the goat-willows, gnarled crab apples and blackthorn, ancient hollies loomed dark and massive, leaves hostile with prickles from crown to root. At Christmastime, heedless of such defences, villagers came to steal their boughs and berries; but hollies have long memories, and the satisfaction of knowing that their assailants will soon be in the ground themselves, nourishing the soil for another generation of trees.
Ginge looked about him apprehensively. ‘It’s pretty dark in here, isn’t it?’
‘Does little Pinkie want to go home?’ Having been out on the wild roads already, Fernie wasn’t frightened: scoring points off the younger cats’ fear was only adding to his enjoyment.
I gave him a hard stare. ‘Leave him alone.’
Fernie looked surprised. ‘Or what?’
I stood my ground. ‘Or I’m not taking you in with me.’
‘Suits me.’
‘Oh leave off, Fernie,’ Stripes said wearily.
The wild road we found was a small one, framed by blackberry runners heavy with hard green fruit. To the uninitiated it might just have been a rabbit run; but I had been here before.
Fernie shouldered himself in front of me, pushed his head into it and looked around. Ginge, arriving a moment later, was confronted by the sight of what was apparently half a cat hanging in mid-air, its head, front legs and chest in some other dimension entirely, and jumped backwards with a little exclamation of shock. Fernie withdrew from the highway and regarded him with satisfaction. ‘Now you see me—’ he winked at Ginge ‘—now you don’t—’ and leapt into the wild road, leaving only the tip of his tail visible to the outside world.
I sighed at these theatrics. ‘Come on,’ I said to the others, ‘before he does something really stupid.’
Inside, it was at once icy and dusty and a freezing wind blew all around us. For me, this was something I barely even noticed any more, but the others looked less comfortable. Ginge, a small and tawny sand-cat, shivered in the gale; Stripes, belying his domestic name, had taken on the form of some small, spotted jungle cat. Fernie, revelling in his prior experience, was larger entirely, with tufts on his ears and fangs that glistened in an ear-to-ear grin.
‘Where are these dreams of yours, then?’
I looked around, but the air was dark in all directions. Trying to appear decisive, I set off into the gloom, Ginge close behind me, Fernie and Stripes bringing up the rear.
The dreams were elusive that night, of all nights. For half an hour, we paced the highways, Fernie’s taunts growing ever more derisive, and I was beginning to think of turning back, and leaving home forever. Then we came to a junction where two other highways joined the flow and there, bobbing gently above our heads, was a cluster of small golden globes. I turned triumphantly to my companions.
‘Watch what I do,’ I said softly. ‘Stay here quietly, or they’ll scatter.’
I dropped into a hunter’s crouch and silently approached the dreams.
Stripes turned to Fernie, his face quizzical. ‘What’s he doing then. Fern?’
Fernie stared into the darkness, eyes narrowed. The gloom reflected back off his pupils as dark, unrelieved black. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’
Ahead of him, all Ginge could see was the large cat whom he had known in another life as his friend Orlando making a balletic leap into the roof of the tunnel, jaws opening and closing with a snap, then performing a neat flip and jerk movement as if to bring quarry to the ground.
With the dream squirming pleasantly underfoot, I raised my head. ‘Come and see,’ I said.
Intrigued, Ginge stepped forward. A bitter whiff raced past his nose, an acrid, unfamiliar smell. ‘What’ve you got there, Orlando?’ he called into the darkness.
‘A dream, Ginge; just a dream. Come and have a look.’
‘I can’t see anything, Orlando.’
‘Well, open your eyes, then.’
‘They’re open as far as they’ll go,’ returned Ginge; and it was true; his eyes were as round and wide as dinner plates.
Stripes and Fernie pushed past Ginge.
‘You’re a fraud, Orlando; nothing but a bloody liar!’
I stared at the usually mild-mannered Stripes, bewildered. I opened my mouth to protest and turned to indicate to them the half dozen or so dreams still bobbing in the air currents above us. But as I did so, the globes began to dance in an agitated manner, then to stream wildly away from me; and when I turned back to my friends their faces were lit briefly by the golden lights. In their eyes, in the split second during which the dreams illuminated them, I could read a shared expression of dawning terror. Then there came a great roar and a rush of blizzard wind and suddenly in the highway, seeming to fill all available space and gaining on us by the second, was a great black shape, in the midst of which glowed a red maw framed by shining white incisors.
The chill that permeated my chest was not one of horror, but of recognition.
Then Hawkweed, the vast and savage Hawkweed of the wild roads, was upon us, anger radiating from him like a fire, his breath steaming hot and rancid in the freezing air.
At once, Fernie, Ginge and Stripes took flight, legs everywhere, falling over each other in their panic to get away. And who could blame them? As they ran, their wild forms sleeted off them, shimmering wisps of primal energy sucked back into the fabric of the highway. Dwindling second by second from magnificence to their undistinguished domestic forms, they hurtled away into the darkness.
Hawkweed turned to me, his face twisted with disgust. ‘What are you doing here, Orlando? Without me? With those—’ he stared after the diminishing trio ‘—those houseflies?’ The word held the utmost scorn.
I hung my head. ‘They didn’t believe me,’ I whispered.
Hawkweed curled his lip. ‘And you thought you’d show off to them? Show them what a hero you are? Hunting down all the little dreams of the village like some mighty spiritual warrior?’ He craned his neck, thrusting his great head up under mine. At such an angle he appeared even more grotesque than usual, the preternatural light of the highways gleaming off his eyes so that they appeared at once blank and milky. I backed away, more than a little afraid.
‘I meant no harm by it—’ I began.
‘No HARM?’ Hawkweed’s roar echoed off the walls of the tunnel.
‘No harm?’ he said again, more softly. He laughed. ‘The world is full of harm, and it’s our job to lessen that harm wherever we can. You’re the son of a dreamcatcher’s son, Orlando, and you have eaten the weed. For you there is no escape, no way to shed or share the burden. Wherever you go it will be with you always and you will feel its presence.
‘Only you can see the dreams, laddie. Don’t you understand that? Only you.’