The Sleepless (47 page)

Michael shook his head. ‘Thanks all the same.’ 

‘I’m very sorry about your friend Joe,’ Megan told him. 

‘Well, me too. That’s why I want to hunt down this “Mr Hillary”. ‘ 

Megan said, ‘How can anybody appear inside a hypnotic trance, the way he did to you?’ 

‘I don’t know. But the way Victor explains it, this Aura Hypnosis is very powerful. I didn’t even understand that my therapist was using it, until Victor told me.’ 

‘Dr Loeffler explained it a little,’ said Megan. ‘He told me that everybody has an aura ... he said it’s like bright coloured light that extends to two or three times the size of your physical body. Some highly-sensitive psychics can actually see it. He said that when he put me under, I would be aware of a white or pink light, and that would be
his
aura following mine, into my subconscious.’ 

She smiled. ‘I suppose it’s pretty personal, really – letting a strange man into your subconscious. It’s worse than letting him search through your dressing-table drawers.’ 

Michael said, ‘I saw that pink light, too, when Dr Rice took me under. I never knew what it was. I guess that Dr Rice didn’t want me to be aware that he was following me.’ 

‘Were you very badly traumatized?’ asked Megan. ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking.’ 

Michael shook his head. ‘I was out to lunch for months.’ He took Dr Rice’s zinc-and-copper disc out of his pocket, and held it up. ‘If it hadn’t been for this little baby, I think I would have gradually gone mad. And I mean seriously mad – beyond recovery.’ 

‘Let me see that,’ asked Megan, and took the disc in the palm of her hand. She examined it for a while, turning it over, and then she said, ‘Why don’t we try it together?’ 

‘I don’t understand you.’ 

‘Why don’t we see if we can
both
go into a hypnotic trance? I mean, the
same
hypnotic trance? Then we could look for this “Mr Hillary” together. If he exists in trances, as well as the real world, then perhaps we can find him without even having to leave the room.’ 

Michael looked at Megan cautiously. He hoped that her disability hadn’t unbalanced her, made her yearn for a freedom of movement which she could never experience again. But she smiled at him, and he couldn’t help smiling back. He liked her. She was bright and intelligent and genuine. She wasn’t angry at being paralysed, and she didn’t seem to crave sympathy, either. 

He took the disc, and put it on the table between them, and then pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. ‘I don’t know whether this is going to work,’ he said. ‘But I guess it’s worth giving it a try. We’ll hold hands, okay, and then we’ll stare at the disc and induce sleep in each other. Then we’ll see if we can get our auras to join together.’ 

‘What if we can’t?’ Megan asked him. 

‘Then the worst that can happen is that we both have a well-deserved nap.’ 

‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘Let’s try it.’ 

Michael took hold of her left hand. ‘You ready?’ he asked her. ‘Stare at the disc. The disc will help us to sleep.’ 

‘We want to sleep,’ said Megan. ‘We want to sleep, and to see our inner minds.’ 

Michael gently circled his thumb around the back of Megan’s hand, around and around. ‘We want to sleep. Our will is taking us deeper and deeper, into the darkness. Our will is taking us down and down.’ 

‘We
want
to sleep,’ Megan repeated. ‘We want to rest; we want to swim; we want to leave all of the waking world behind us.’ 

Michael wasn’t aware that he was falling asleep. He could still see Megan sitting opposite; he could still feel the soft warm skin on the back of her hand. But his thumb went around and around, and somehow his mind seemed to follow it, around and around. He felt a warm darkness rising up inside of him, a darkness that was deep and welcoming. The disc on the table winked brightly at him, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t take his eyes away from it. He heard helicopters in the distance; he heard traffic; but they didn’t distract him. They reminded him of childhood, when he was sick, and staying in bed all day, dozing and dreaming as the sun moved all the way round his bedroom, fading at last into darkness. 

‘We want to sleep now,’ said Megan, and her voice sounded very far away. ‘We want to sink back into our minds.’ 

Michael was about to repeat what she had said, but then he found that he was slowly falling, very slowly, through soft and suffocating darkness. He couldn’t hear anything any more – not Megan, not traffic, not even the sound of his own breathing. He was sliding down and down and down, although – unlike his nightmares of Rocky Woods – he wasn’t afraid of hitting the ground. He was falling too slowly, as if he were sliding down the side of a black velvet precipice. 

With slow, exaggerated movements he turned around, and found that he was sliding down a sand dune, on his back. The dune gradually levelled, and he came to rest, looking up at a sky that was seamlessly black. The sand was sunny, the sky was totally black. He couldn’t understand it. Seagulls flew past, dazzling white against the darkness. 

In the distance, he could see a woman standing by the edge of the water. She was looking down at the waves as they washed around her ankles. She was reflected in the water, so that it looked to Michael as if there were two of her, one upright and one upside-down, like a playing card. Her hair was blown in the salty sea breeze. 

He climbed to his feet, and began to walk toward her. As he did so, she turned, and he saw that it was Megan. She wasn’t paralysed any longer. She was standing watching him with regretful but triumphant eyes.
Those things that have passed, have passed. Think of those things that are yet to be.
 

He remembered as he approached her that people who lose their mobility often dream for years afterwards that they are still capable of walking. He was meeting Megan as she had been before her accident – something that even Thomas would probably never be able to do. He came up close to her and took hold of her hand, and he could
feel
her, she was real. It was almost impossible for him to believe that he was deep in a self-induced hypnotic trance. 

‘Hallo, Michael,’ she smiled. Her voice didn’t quite seem to synchronize with the movement of her lips. ‘We did it, then, both of us. We’re here.’ 

‘Our auras are here,’ he reminded her. ‘Our bodies are sleeping in your apartment. Let’s hope that Giraffe isn’t the jealous type.’ 

Megan stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. ‘I trust you,’ she said. 

Michael looked around. In the distance, way off to the left, he could see the gleaming white stub of Mr Hillary’s lighthouse. There was no sign of Mr Hillary anywhere, although there was a greyish bundle lying on the shoreline two or three hundred feet away, a bundle that could have been the body of a young girl. Seagulls were stalking all around it, and now and again one of them would dance in close and peck at it. 

‘Let’s head for the lighthouse,’ Michael suggested. ‘Maybe we can find Hillary there.’ 

‘Are you sure it’s safe?’ asked Megan. ‘I mean, if somebody injures your aura, what happens to your living body?’ 

Michael looked around, and ran his hand through his mousy, thinning hair. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘There’s only one way to find out for sure.’ 

She hesitated, and gripped his hand more tightly. 

‘You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,’ he told her. ‘We can always wake ourselves up.’ 

She stared up at him anxiously, but then she nodded. ‘Let’s do it,’ she agreed. ‘We have to do it.’ 

They walked hand-in-hand across the beach, and then climbed the soft grey slopes of the sand dunes. Behind them, the sea dragged itself wearily back from the shoreline. Above them, gulls still wheeled, searching for fish, searching for carrion. They trod through the lumpy grass until they reached the lighthouse, and then they circled around it until they found the door. A low, thick, solid oak door, with huge iron hinges. 

‘Perhaps we should knock,’ said Megan. 

‘We’re inside of our own minds,’ Michael reminded her. ‘We don’t have to knock.’ 

‘But supposing we’re not inside of our own minds. Supposing this is real?’ 

‘Did you ever see a pitch black sky on a sunny day?’ 

She frowned at him, and looked up. ‘The sky’s blue Michael. The sky’s quite ordinary.’ 

‘I see nothing but black. Maybe Dr Rice was right: maybe my aura’s all screwed up.’ 

‘It’s a beautiful blue, Michael. I’m amazed you can’t see it.’ 

Michael went up to the door and tried the heavy ring handle. ‘Let’s just see if there’s anybody home.’ He twisted the handle, fully expecting it to be locked, but without a sound the door opened, and they found themselves confronting a darkened entrance, chilly and fetid as a cave. They peered inside, but all they could see was part of an iron hand-rail and the first of several wooden steps. 

‘I’m worried,’ said Megan. ‘I can feel something not-quite-right.’ 

Michael didn’t reply, but squeezed her hand and listened. He thought he could hear singing, or moaning – very, very faint and echoing. 

‘There’s somebody inside,’ he said. ‘We ought to take a look.’ 

‘Michael, I don’t mind admitting it, I’m scared.’ 

They listened again. At first they couldn’t hear anything at all, only the crying of the seagulls and the persistent fluffing of the wind, but then they heard the moaning again, and this time it was definitely moaning. 

‘Somebody’s hurt,’ said Michael. 

‘But what about Mr Hillary?’ 

‘I don’t know. Maybe he won’t appear when there’s both of us here.’ 

‘Michael, I don’t want to go inside.’ 

‘You want to stay out here?’ 

‘I don’t want you to go inside, either.’ 

‘Megan, I have to. They killed one of my best friends. They’ve killed a whole lot more people besides. I can’t just let them go.’ 

Megan gripped his hand tightly. At last she said, ‘You’re right, of course. Perhaps I’m just a coward, after that accident. The thought of any more pain – ‘ 

‘I promise you, I won’t let anybody hurt you.’ 

Michael eased open the door, and they stepped cautiously inside. The interior of the lighthouse was intensely gloomy, and there was a strong smell of dead flowers and something else – cinnamon, potash and alcohol – some of the ingredients of embalming fluid. It smelled like a place of death. 

Together, they climbed the wooden stairs, which spiralled around to the right. The whitewashed wall beside them was chilly and damp, as if it had absorbed years of seawater. At the very top of the stairs, there was another oak door, which opened outwards, so that Michael had to turn the handle and then step back down the stairs. 

They stepped inside, and found themselves in a huge circular library, with thousands and thousands of books arranged on semi-circular shelves. Some of the books were so old that their bindings had worn through to the linen backing, and their vellum spines were worm-eaten. Other books were brand-new, recently published.
The Origins of Sin
by William Charteris.
Social Conscience
by
Leah Brightmuller. 

The library was illuminated by a single electric bulb which hung from the ceiling. It was a daylight bulb, of the type used by artists to paint at night, and it gave off a cold, frigid light. In the middle of the room there was a couch, upholstered in cracked brown leather, and on it, on all fours, crouched a very thin white young woman, with startling red hair and startling red freckles. She must have been making all the moaning, because she moaned again as Michael and Megan stepped into the room. As Michael circled around the walls of the library, he suddenly saw why she was moaning. Two gingery kittens were dangling from her breasts, each clinging on with its claws, each suckling greedily from her nipples. 

Every time the girl moaned, the kittens swayed, and dug their claws in more viciously. Michael could see tears in her eyes; but although her eyes were wide open, she didn’t appear to see him. 

‘What is it?’ Megan whispered, in fear and awe. ‘What’s she supposed to be doing?’ 

Michael slowly shook his head. ‘I don’t have any idea, I really don’t.’ 

‘God, that must hurt,’ said Megan. 

They watched the girl a few moments longer, uncertain of what to do. Then Michael whispered, ‘I don’t think Mr Hillary’s here. Maybe we should call it a day.’ 

But as they turned to go, a cold voice slurred, ‘Why call it a day? I should rather enjoy having you here.’ 

Behind them, tall and skeletal and white-bone-faced, his eyes red, stood ‘Mr Hillary’. His long grey overcoat trailed on the floor as he walked toward them,
shush-shush-shush
as if the coat itself were afraid of upsetting him. 

He laid one hand on Michael’s shoulder and one hand on Megan. Michael noticed that Megan couldn’t stop herself from shuddering. 

‘Why do you leave so soon?’ said ‘Mr Hillary’. ‘The party has barely started yet.’ 

‘I think we’ve seen enough, thanks,’ Michael retorted, and protectively took hold of Megan’s hand.