Free Dreamside by Graham Joyce Page B

won't tell on me," said
Ella. She took his cock in her cold hands and rolled it like dough. Rain swept
against the outside windows in great gusts, coming in through the open window,
soaking the curtain and dampening the disorderly heap of books.
    "Here is the church," she said,
" here is the steeple."
    He promised not to say anything.

 
 

S I X

 
 
    Learn from your dreams what you lack —W. H. Auden
    From that night Ella stopped her
I'm-more-lucid-than-you games. She was a fast learner,
and her genuine skills developed accordingly. She contrived to disguise the
substantial change in the accounts she offered to the weekly seminar, and if
anyone was made suspicious by her later reports being more modest than her
early claims, nobody said anything. Even so, an unacknowledged hierarchy did
develop in the group, with Lee, Ella, Brad and Honora clearly emerging as the
people with the strongest ability to influence the course of their dreaming.
Each of them progressed, without major effort, from
being able to conjure small objects to switching locations and settings in
which dreaming took place.
    Professor Burns, when
pressed, admitted that, despite several years of trying, he, like most people,
had never experienced the state of self-awareness during dreaming which would
allow him to manipulate the course of dream events. "I think I'm too
crusted over by a life devoted to academic pursuits," he confessed, admitting
to more than a little envy of their abilities. "Besides which," he
added, "I don't have the modern swagger of youth in the face of
fear."
    End of term beckoned,
and the round of dreamwork seminars was held to be a moderate success. Their
efforts, Burns asserted, while not having lit up the skies of science and
progress, had contributed to a growing body of research in the increasingly
important field of parapsychology. To conclude matters, he added cheerfully, a
miserly wine-and-cheese celebration on the expenses of the parsimonious
departmental budget would be arranged for the final week of term.
    The students made their
arrangements for a long summer: Ella and Lee planned a backpacking expedition
around the Greek Islands, sleeping on beaches and living on tzatsiki and feta
cheese salads; Honora a trip home to beautiful County Fermanagh where she hoped
to make a few pounds sketching portraits of tourists boating on the Loughs;
while Brad, as a medical student, had work which would keep him at the
university. Meanwhile June warmed the nights in which they lay in their beds
and dreamed their lucid dreams.
    Invitations to the wine
and cheese party came as promised. The students dutifully spruced up and went
along to the house. A stiff performance with an early finish was predicted, but
they were surprised to find Professor Burns racing around in high spirits, his
eyes enlivened by whatever share of the drinks he had already consumed,
exhorting everyone to get stuck in to the crates of wine that had been provided
along with the standard party fare of cubes of cheese and French loaves.
    "Drink! It'll probably be the last time we can get this out
of the miserable blighters!" Burns danced around, lavishly topping up any
glass within arm's length, everyone's congenial host. "Don't be shy
Brother Cousins, there's another crate through there!"
    Some group members had
brought their partners, swelling the numbers to twenty or more young people
freely availing themselves of the generous flow of wine and filling the house
with noisy chatter. Burns held forth to a knot of students in the corner, his
steady stream of university anecdotes and outrageous disclosures producing
waves of raucous laughter. After an hour or so he noticed Honora standing alone
in the middle of the room with an empty glass. He cha-cha-cha'd his way over to her. He had obviously been making the most of
the departmental wine while the going was good. His jewel eyes blazed merrily
and a long thin lock of iron-grey hair had become displaced from its