Chapter 43

Seb is awake, standing over me, shaking my shoulders. ‘Oh, you’re back! What happened to you? I couldn’t wake you! What happened, Malky?’

I cannot answer him. I dare not close my eyes. I lie there on my back, my chest heaving, and I feel a bead of sweat trickle off my forehead.

‘Is … is this a dream?’ I ask. I can’t see Seb’s face in the dark, just his shadowy form next to my bed, outlined by the light from the blue crystals hanging above us.

‘A dream? Course not. What’s the matter with you? I was in the dream with Hitler, yeah?’

I nod and wipe the sweat off my brow with my pyjama sleeve. Seb says, ‘Okay, so I woke up and you were here, but you were still asleep. Your face was twitching. I’ve been trying to wake you. I nearly called Mam.’

My breathing’s returning to normal. ‘Wow. That was intense. I thought I was awake. That is, I … I thought I had woken up. But I hadn’t and … and …’

It sounds stupid.

Seb falls back into his bed. Then I hear his chuckle. ‘Did you see Hitler’s face?’

He rolls over and is asleep in minutes, while I just lie there. The pain in my arm is still there. If I run my fingers along the row of teeth-marks, I can still feel the indentations. Very slightly. But they are there.

Mam’s at the bedroom door now. ‘You okay, love?’ she whispers. ‘I heard you shout.’

I shouted?

‘Cuthbert back?’ she asks.

‘Yeah.’

She comes into the room, squeezing between our two beds, and sits down on the edge of mine. She reaches out to stroke my hair. ‘Eee, pet. You’re sweating like mad. Bad one, was it?’

I nod, and she keeps stroking my head, gently. In the dark, I see her eyes move upwards until she’s staring at the Dreaminator, then she looks down at me.

Make Your Dreams Come True! the box said. It didn’t mention nightmares.

I roll over so that she can’t see that my eyes are wide open. I don’t want to fall back asleep: I’m scared. My arm still hurts.

Then she sings the song, really quietly so as not to wake Seb. I haven’t heard it for years, and I still don’t know all of the words.

‘Let it be, let it be …’

After a while, Mam reaches up and turns off the Dreaminator and goes back to bed.

I fall asleep, but I don’t dream of anything, I don’t think.

If I had stopped there, things might not have got much worse. But I didn’t, did I?

And they did get worse: much worse.

Chapter 43

Chapter 44