Andrea Höst: The Sleeping Life

This book is in Australian English. It is a sequel to Stained Glass Monsters and develops events from that book.

Even ignoring his nightmare predicament, Fallon DeVries would be glad to get back to the Arkathan and away from the ritual of saying goodnight to an idealised statue of his mother and sister. Every evening, as his father pressed lips to a marble forehead, Fallon’s heart crawled into his stomach and writhed.

"You’re looking well today, my dears," Vannan DeVries said. He reached down to pat the head of the smaller of the two figures, then glanced expectantly at Fallon.

"Goodnight Mother," Fallon said, obediently. "'Night Auri."

"You must be sure to visit on rest day, Fallon," his father said. "The house will be quiet with only we three."

"You’re forgetting Mrs Pardons."

"Indeed. Though I regret to say this evening’s offering will not easily slip my mind." Fallon’s father tugged at his short, brown-blond beard. "Perhaps she would do better with an assistant. We burden our old helpmate too much."

"It’s just because I’ve been home." The words had come too fast, too strong, and Fallon bit his lip, then forced a lighter tone. "I’ve eaten out the pantry. Besides, Mrs Pardons would be hurt if she thought we were angling to replace her."

"Oh, she could not think that." Distressed, Fallon’s father held a hand out toward the smiling, seated figure of his wife. "My dear, I had best go speak to her. Goodnight, lad."

Fallon let himself relax, knowing that Mrs Pardons would take in stride sudden reassurances that she was too valued a friend to be replaced, and nip in the bud any further ideas of new staff. Her cooking wasn’t likely to improve, but if Fallon’s plan succeeded she would be able to go back to providing meals delivered by her granddaughter. Father would never know.

"But he’s getting worse," Fallon said—to himself, not the statue.

The two figures smiled on: his stone mother relaxed in a stone chair, head turned attentively toward the library door, while stone Aurienne leaned against her knees, lips curved enigmatically. Even Auri admitted that the marble version of herself was a good deal prettier than it should be—and laughed at the thought of herself ever sitting devotedly at their mother’s feet—but still this remembrance of the dead was a triumph of their father’s skill. Mother had always had that complacent expression, that expectation of an audience. And Auri looked properly herself: restless and eager all at once.

Fallon went and ate jam tarts. They sat uneasily on the burnt grease Mrs Pardons had produced that evening, but were necessary energy. While his stomach settled he did the household accounts, refusing to let himself factor in any hope that his father would begin to work again, and make their financial situation less precarious. Then he prepared his room, setting a glow above a new book in the page-turner Sigillic, and weighting the corners of the latest collection of newssheets before settling with his head under a pillow to escape the light and dream his sister.

Though she neither ate nor drank, Auri had aged during the three years of the Dream, and now appeared fourteen to his sixteen. Even so, she was already inches taller, since Fallon took after their mother’s blond delicacy, while his twin had their father’s lanky frame. She read through the newssheets before crossing to the bed to take Fallon’s hand and draw him fully into the dream state that was now the whole of her existence.

"Can you think of anything to hobble Uncle?" Auri asked. "You’ll never get anywhere with Rennyn Claire if he keeps up this campaign against her husband."

"He was here today." Because he didn’t want to notice how frayed Auri was looking, Fallon glanced down at himself, shifting uneasily in the bed. "Banging on at Father about the need to counter the Kellian threat. Perhaps, if the first approach doesn’t work, I can offer Lady Rennyn inside information."

"Was Father very upset?" Auri asked, her voice sharpening as she crossed to the door. "Why can’t Uncle leave him be?"

Fallon followed his sister through the cold soapiness of the wooden door. "If anything, Uncle’s visits do Father good," he said, rubbing his goose-nabbed upper arms. "He gets annoyed and that makes him less vague and more in tune with the real world. But he—he is talking to them more."

Without replying, Auri stepped through the door of their father’s room, and again Fallon trailed her through slippery chill, finding her standing by their father, who was sitting up before his fire leafing through one of their mother’s books of verses.

"It might be too much for him," she said, stroking the oblivious man’s shoulder. "If you manage to get me back, he might be even more convinced Mama’s still alive. Or—"

She stopped, and moved to warm her hands over the fire, growing visibly more solid. Warmth was important to Auri, and while Fallon had learned to make sure there were always heatstones nearby, she preferred fires. Fallon didn’t go too close—fires in the Dream always made him feel floaty and less real.

"Father won’t blame you. You did something stupid, but Mother’s the one who made your disappearance all about her. She spent more time picking out becoming mourning clothes than crying. And wandering weeping in the rain was a scene right out of the last novel she’d read."

"She still wouldn’t have fallen ill if not for me," Auri said, bluntly. "And Father wouldn’t have—wouldn’t be this way if she were still alive. Me coming back isn’t going to make him better, is it?"

"It’s not like Father’s the only reason to fix this," Fallon said, moving away from the fire. He knew Auri’s mood was due to tomorrow’s return to the Arkathan, where Fallon would have to share a room with five others, and could not set the page-turning Sigillic without prompting questions impossible to answer. She’d been desperately bored during Fallon’s first term: unable to travel far from Fallon’s side, and finding little entertainment in a dormitory of sleeping students—beyond the things people did in their beds when they thought everyone asleep, which was hardly what Fallon wanted her watching.

"At least there’ll be plenty of food," Auri said, her thoughts obviously following—nearly—similar lines. "You look liable to snap in half. We’d do better to see if we can get any use out of Lady Rennyn before risking more experiments."

"This will be the last we can do for an age," Fallon pointed out. "And you promised not to wriggle out. Don’t be weak."

He pushed out through the door, knowing any suggestion of cowardice would bring her to the point. But, while Auri followed into the corridor, she passed him and stopped, blocking the way.

" I’m not the problem," Auri said. "You are. You kept putting this off until you were sure you had the right Sigillic, and now you’re all thin and worn looking. Do you want Father to carve a third family member?"

Fallon flinched, but would only concede a partial point. "I know I’m run down. But this is just a divination. And you know we can’t pin our hopes to one solution. No matter how clever and powerful a mage Lady Rennyn might be, if she isn’t told the problem she won’t be looking for a solution. It’s not as if I can explain anything."

"Bah. If she’s truly as good as the Elder Mages were, then she should know all at first glance, have an answer after a second. And why you’d argue against this I don’t know—admit it, there’s nothing you’d love more than to be the student of someone like that and burble on all day about the structure and nature of magic."