The Dreamer Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set Vol I - III: A Sci-Fi Parallel Universe Adventure (The Dreamer Chronicles - Science Fiction For Kids And Adults) Read online

  The office was not huge, but well ordered. Sarina looked around her at shelves packed with neat files and folders, reports and reference books, while the Principal shuffled papers and cleared his throat.

  “Miss Metcalfe—”

  “I can explain!” Sarina said, “I didn’t mean to do it, it was just an accident!”

  “What was just an accident?” Mr Forrester looked over his glasses at Sarina with a furrowed brow.

  “Umm, this morning, when I knocked over the flask?” Sarina looked at the Principal, expecting him to ask her for more details, but he didn’t, he just sighed and looked down at the papers.

  “Sarina, I’m afraid we need to have a chat about your performance in maths and science. I’ve read the teachers’ reports and I understand that you seem to far prefer painting and drawing than maths and science, even during class.”

  Sarina squirmed. She had no idea she was being watched that closely. True, she did like doodling and drawing in her spare exercise book when the numbers, figures, formulae and calculations all became blurry, but she thought it was going unnoticed. Oh well, she’d have to find other ways to disguise her frustration.

  “I’m sorry Mr Forrester, I just can’t seem to stop myself, I promise I’ll—”

  “Sarina, we have a responsibility to your mother—and to the school—to make sure you are properly educated in the fundamental elements of numeracy.”

  He paused and fixed his gaze directly at her. “Especially when it comes to developing the critical thinking skills used in the scientific mind.”

  Why did he have to use such long words, Sarina wondered. Was everyone with ‘MEd’ after their name required to speak like this? Or was it just a ‘Principal thing’?

  Sarina opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say a word, the Principal waved his papers at her.

  “I’ve been authorised to send you to the remedial section of Frenchstone a couple of blocks from here. They do a very good job of turning around children such as yourself who are struggling with the basics. It’ll only be for a couple of years of course,” he cleared his throat as if in anticipation of the severity of the next statement, “and while you are there, you must realise that there will be no more art, drawing or creative classes. And from this point forward, unless you are able to demonstrate satisfactory results in your maths studies, I will be forced to deny your entry to any more art competitions. I must ensure your full focus, I’m sure you understand.”

  Sarina stopped breathing and the world spun away from her.

  A memory of a dull, grey-brick building, with corridors that echoed no matter how quietly you walked through them, came flooding back to her.

  Her mother had taken her to Frenchstone once. She shivered at the thought. On arrival they’d met the ‘Child Development Psychiatrist’ Dr Timms, whom she’d met before on several occasions when her mother had taken her to his office for ‘brain assessments’. Her mother was concerned about Sarina’s desire for doing nothing but art, and her great difficulty when it came to anything numerical and scientific.

  Dr Timms, a grim fellow who wore a permanent sour look, leaned down at her. She doubted if his mouth ever had a curve from birth. For some reason that she couldn’t fathom, he was wearing a white doctor’s coat, unmarked except for a large red ‘S’ inside a red circle embroidered on the breast pocket.

  “So, Miss Metcalfe, your mother and I want to show you around. It’s possible this might be your best chance at being able to grasp the more grounded concepts important in life.” He pronounced the term ‘grounded concepts’ quite deliberately, as if it was the only proper thing young girls should be learning and clearly superior to anything remotely artistic. He went on.

  “The fellows here know exactly how to make those facts and figures organise themselves properly in that scatter-brained head of yours. They’ll have you back on the straight and narrow in short order.” He straightened and looked at her mother. “If of course it is necessary.”

  As they toured the dim corridors and peered in dark rooms and met various dowdy-looking fuddy-duddies who spoke in very precise terms about ‘mental drills’ and ‘back to basics’, she’d had visions of being locked in grey rooms, with grey tables and grey chairs and grey fuddy-duddies and doing tedious long-division calculations over and over on special long rolls of paper. She could see why the kids she saw there looked so glum. Even thinking about the place now was weighing her down, let alone being stuck there.

  She realised that she’d been staring at the Principal quite blankly while the memory rattled through her head. She shook herself back to the present and tried to focus, and wondered for the millionth time why they thought there was something wrong with her.

  She frowned. Hang on. What was it he’d said? Did he say no art? No drawing? No painting? For two years? Surely that was illegal. And then it really sunk in. If she didn’t live up to his expectations, he’d deny her entry to the National Young Artists Breakthrough Competition. She slumped. No art. No competition entries. Could it get any worse?

  “I’ve spoken to your mother and she is in full agreement,” Mr Forrester continued, “but we’ve agreed that you have one week to show some dedication and genuine progress. If we don’t see good results in the next maths assessments, then Frenchstone will be the next step in your educational journey. It’s for your own good of course.

  “That will be all for now. I’m sure if you have any questions you can discuss them with your teacher.” He stood up to dismiss her and walked around to open the door, standing there with his hand out and the door open.

  Her jaw dropped. What did he say? One week?

  Sarina walked out as if in slow motion, stuck in a dreamlike trance.

  Except for her, this was no dream.

  It was a nightmare.

  ~~~

  She skimmed the treetops and flew along the edge of the forest, the wind whipping her hair, her flight obscured against the darkness of the inky-black sky.

  Down in the valley Sarina saw the lights of the township in the distance and smelled the smoke from the wood-burning stoves in the cottages.

  She soared higher and turned around slowly, scanning the scene. She saw high up on a hill in the far distance, a dark, fortress-like building. She stopped, hovering in mid-air to try to make out the details.

  Suddenly from behind her, she heard loud explosions and faint screams echoing from the valley. She twisted around and saw flashes of light amid silhouetted buildings, crumbling in the distance, powerless to help the tiny figures running from falling masonry and the fires raining down on them.

  She blinked, and with no effort was jammed up high in the corner of the ceiling of a vast, dark stone-walled room inside the fortress. The room was stark and empty except for a guard stationed at each corner. Far below, in the middle of the room, seated together at a long stone table were two men.

  She could barely make out their features in the dim light. One was severe-faced and was giving instructions to the other. He appeared to be the leader, and was pointing and gesticulating to the other man—wait—the other man wasn’t a man, he was something … not quite human. She gave up trying to figure out what he was, but instead strained her ears to see if she could hear their conversation.

  As she turned her head to listen, she lost her grip on whatever she had been holding onto, which she realised, had been nothing at all. To her horror she found herself slowly floating down to the men—and then again; a shift of view and she was sitting opposite the two men—or rather, opposite the man and the strange-looking creature.

  “Did you hear that?” the severe-faced man said, “a noise, from the roof.”

  Both man and creature looked up to where Sarina had been, straining into the darkness.

  “It was nothing, your Greatness,” the creature said, who Sarina noticed had a bird-like beak instead of a nose. It was slowly dawning on her that she knew this creature. But how?

  “If something was there, I would have smel
led it,” it said. It curled its beak inward and fixed its beady eyes directly on Sarina, who shrieked, her hands flying up to her mouth.

  But nothing happened.

  Why couldn’t they see or hear her? Her mind raced, her heart pounded and her breath was tight in her chest as she feared to move or make a noise.

  The creature pulled its gaze away from Sarina and back to the other man.

  “Your Greatness, we must force the townsmen to give the boy up. It’s the only way.”

  “Perhaps.” The man’s eyes narrowed. “That deaf-mute is the only one who can show us its location, of this I am certain.”

  He stood to leave. “They will come to appreciate my vision for a superior world, a world that the townspeople will be grateful for. A new world that will provide them with riches that will far exceed the hard-earned returns from their backward farming techniques. They will realise they were wrong to challenge my right to rule.”

  He glared at the creature. “Despite the removal of their women and children, they are proving obstinate. We must resort to more persuasive methods to force them to give up the boy. If they choose not to, then there will be painful consequences. Possibly fatal. I intend to succeed no matter the hurdles thrown at me.” He glanced out at the sky. “You must work with the men to complete the plan. We will be ready in one passing of the sun.”

  He motioned the guards to follow him and walked out of the hall.

  The creature turned back and leaned forward, placing his hands—which Sarina could see now were more like talons—on the table. Suddenly he leapt forward, sniffing the air around Sarina, his eyes looking right through her. She screamed and fell backwards off the chair.

  ~~~

  “Sarina, Sarina, what is it?” her mother said. She stroked Sarina’s forehead.

  “A dream, Mum, that’s all, a bad dream.” Sarina sat up, her pyjamas twisted around her, her hair tousled. She shivered as she remembered the piercing, beady bird-like eyes looking right through her.

  Thank goodness it wasn’t real.

  ~~~

  Later that morning in class, the nightmare was a distant memory, mostly due to another maths lesson going badly.

  Sarina looked up at the board … and then looked back down at her exercise book … and back at the board again.

  No matter how many times she did this, the numbers swam in her vision. She couldn’t make head or tail of what was going on.

  Sighing, she turned to a new page and started re-writing the problem for the third time.

  “Sarina,” the teacher called from the front, “how is it going this time?”

  Sarina cringed and looked up.

  “Umm, would the answer be 2.75, Miss Andrews?” she said, with a question in her voice.

  Miss Andrews smiled and walked over to Sarina. She scanned Sarina’s calculations then looked back up at the rest of the class.

  “OK everybody else, while I help Sarina, please carry on with the next problem on page 31. It’s quite a bit more complex, so let’s see who can solve it first.”

  While Miss Andrews was talking, Sarina caught Nathan grinning at her. Oh that boy! Just because HE could do those sums easily, it didn’t give the right to be so mean.

  Nathan pointed his finger at his chest, mouthed ‘I’m number one’ then held his index finger up in the air.

  Miss Andrews turned to Nathan, who quickly recomposed himself to look like a model student, looking up into the air and pretending to hold his finger up as if to say ‘ah-ha’.

  “Nathan, you can do the problem on page 39, since you think you are so far ahead.”

  As soon as the teacher looked away, Nathan looked across at Sarina and rolled his eyes.

  Sarina ignored him—for now. She needed to convince Miss Andrews that she could do these calculations. The consequences of failing didn’t bear thinking about.

  Miss Andrews bent down next to Sarina. “Now, Sarina, let me take a look. Explain to me how you arrived at 2.75?”

  “Well Miss, I divided 14 by the results of 3 x ‘A’ as you said and then … well and then …” Sarina didn’t actually know what happened after “then” because that was the point at which all the numbers had sprung off the page and danced a merry dance in front of her eyes, as if to taunt her that this should be easy and obvious.

  “and then I got stuck.” She looked up at Miss Andrews for help, using her best puppy-dog eyes.

  “I know dear,” Miss Andrews said. She leaned down and lowered her voice so only Sarina would hear what she had to say. “I’ll do my best to help you Sarina, but there’s only so much I can do. I know the Principal has spoken to you, so let’s see what we can do together. Let me get someone to work with you for a bit, OK?”

  Sarina smiled gratefully. “Thank you.”

  Miss Andrews straightened up and looked around the class, searching for a suitable coach, stopping and nodding to herself in recognition of the perfect choice.

  “Ah yes. Nathan Goldberg. Would you please come over here and bring your chair? You’re just the perfect person to help Sarina out for a few classes.”

  Sarina groaned inwardly. Perfect, sure, she thought, watching Nathan get up and bring his chair over to her. She had to admit, he didn’t look too happy about it either.

  Sarina forced a smile as Nathan sat down next to her.

  “What are you grinning about, Picasso?” Nathan said, “Surely you’d rather be in one of your precious art classes?” He said the word ‘art’ with the kind of emphasis someone would put on their least-favourite food.

  “Just because your Great Great Grandfather knew Einstein or something, there’s no need to be rude,” Sarina said.

  “He didn’t just know Einstein, he worked with him. They discovered the Einstein-Rosen Bridge together. I’m named after him actually.” Nathan smirked.

  “Well maybe you can build me a bridge and help me get over this, if you’re such a maths superhero.” Sarina glared at him.

  “Superhero?” Nathan muttered. He sounded annoyed about his coaching assignment. “I’ll give you superhero.”

  He glanced at Sarina. “What famous artist ever became a superhero and saved the world?” He turned back to his book, flipping to the page he needed.

  You have a point, Sarina thought.

  ~ 3 ~

  Demands

  Paolo walked along the Outer Circle, a cobbled road and the outermost of the three main paths that ringed the township. He had made his last delivery of seeds to one of the furthest farms and was on his way back to the Main Square, deep in thought.

  The township was built around a park, a school and the town hall, and on any normal day, there would be children shouting and playing in the lanes, the smell of freshly baked bread; and there would be groups of men and women chatting outside the brightly-coloured wooden slatted houses. His mother and father would have been among them, with his baby brother. Those times were long gone, perhaps never to return, and he straightened instinctively, trying to relieve his sadness.

  Five years ago, Makthryg had forced the township’s women and children to leave and work in the mines some leagues away, threatening to destroy the township if they refused. Paolo wasn’t sure of the purpose of the mines, but he had heard the women and children were being forced to look for rare compounds the sorcerer was collecting. His father had been killed protecting his mother and brother, and they too were taken.

  Lately the attacks on the township itself had become more frequent—Makthryg had loosened the leash on his bird-creature to invoke terror on the men—but this time there was a new urgency behind the threats, as if Makthryg was becoming impatient.

  Impatient for what? Paolo frowned. The stress in the men was obvious from the lack of laughter and the disappearance of the nightly ball-games in the Square.

  He stopped at the crossroads of the Outer Circle and Main Street, caught in his thoughts, when his stillness was interrupted by a man jogging.

  “What are you doing there, Paolo?” the man said
, breathing hard as he came to a halt, “Shouldn’t you be at home by now, cooking the dinner?” He laughed. “Anyway, I can’t stop, I’m late for the meeting of the Elders.” He resumed his trot down the Main Street, not stopping to check if Paolo had read his lips.

  Paolo watched the man as he crossed over and turned into the alleyway that led to the town hall’s side entrance. He was used to the cruel jibes from the men—there were those who were still jealous that Paolo had been spared when their own children had been taken to the mines.

  Still deep in thought, he walked past the rows of stone buildings in the centre of the township and he realised, no matter what the others thought, he was lucky he hadn’t been sent away. Better that he forget his guilt at not being able to save his father, and find a way to bring them back. Even if it meant a fight to the death. A village with no children was barely more than a ghost village. And a boy who couldn’t look after his younger brother—and worse, who couldn’t remember his mother’s face—was little more than a ghost himself.

  He shook himself out of his reverie and followed the man.

  When he arrived at the town hall, he saw that the men inside were engaged in animated discussion. He knew he’d need a good field of vision to read their lips, so he looked for a window to spy through, and moved around to the side of the building.

  He found a good spot and pulled over a wooden crate from a building across the way, placing it under the window. He raised his head slowly and peered inside.

  Inside the room Paolo saw all twenty-five of the township’s Elders.

  On the far side of the room he saw Andreas, standing on a box of his own. He was in animated discussion, gesticulating and occasionally pointing outside.

  Paolo focused in on the man. Ever since they shared a cabin, he had learned to read Andreas’s lip movements, even from a distance.

  “We must defend ourselves against Ma—” Paolo couldn’t lip-read the word fully, but the way Andreas spoke the name contemptuously, it was obvious he was referring to Makthryg.

  “He might have some ___ and ___”—Paolo didn’t quite catch the words as Andreas picked that moment to turn around and make eye contact with each of the men—“but he is still a man like us—and there is only one of him against all of us.” He straightened and spread his arms wide. “I say we make a plan and bring this evil to an end. Who will be with me?”