Dreamquake: Book Two of the Dreamhunter Duet by Elizabeth Knox Page B

with files. The air was chilly and undisturbed.
    “We kept those messages separate,” said Mr. Nevis. “We had a special file for them—several by the time the Post Office abandoned the line, which they didn’t do, despite the problems, till the Founderston to Sisters Beach Railway opened, and the new telegraphic line with it. Those files had red tape on their spines. I remember making up a new one myself.”
    “How many were there?”
    “Mad messages? Hundreds. We had to have a special short key code for ‘Corrupt. Send again.’”
    Mr. Nevis made a noise of discovery and dropped into a crouch, his knees creaking. He pulled files from a shelf, bundled them into his arms, and got up with Chorley’s help.
    At the back wall, there was a bench under a light, a bare bulb in a wire cage. “I’m afraid you won’t be very comfortable, Mr. Tiebold. My manager doesn’t really like anything brought up from underground. But I’m sure you’ll find you won’t need to look far for a good example. For nonsense of a special kind.”
    “Is it formless nonsense? Or nonsense only in the context of the message?” Chorley asked. He longed to edge the man aside and look himself.
    Mr. Nevis was patting the pile of files, tidying and talking. “I never thought madness terribly interesting myself, whether it was Lady Macbeth wringing her hands or Lucia di Lammermoor wafting around in her bloodied bridal gown. I never looked at the corrupt messages with any real attention.”
    Chorley stepped up beside the elderly clerk, seized the stack, and slid it along the bench till it was under his own nose. “Has anyone ever gone through these looking for a pattern?”
    “What kind of pattern? All the Post Office did was try tofix the problem. It even had men camping out nights under every tenth pole in order to catch the pranksters.”
    “And all this happened before the Regulatory Body was formed?”
    “Yes. Otherwise it would have been their problem. The Post Office blamed us key men at first, said it was our mischief.
We
blamed the fellows on the other end. But it was the Place. That telegraph line was unbroken from Doorhandle to Tricksie Bend; it ran outside, not Inside—but the Place used it to try to talk to us. Look!” Mr. Nevis snatched one file, flipped pages, and found a message: MOTHER FAILING STOP DOCTOR SAYS ONLY MATTER OF DAYS STOP PLEASE RISE UP I SAID RISE UP COME AT ONCE STOP ANDREW.
    “That’s more or less typical. That ‘Rise up’ stuff.” Mr. Nevis sounded triumphant. He peered at Chorley, waiting for a reaction.
    Small hairs were bristling on Chorley’s nape, his whole scalp tightening. The “interruption” in the telegram was a plea, like the cry of a king besieged on a battlefield. He licked his dry lips. “Does this sort of thing turn up often?”
    “‘Rise up’ you mean? Yes. We got that one all the time. Come to think of it, perhaps that’s the pattern you’re asking about?”
    “Yes.”
    Mr. Nevis sighed. “I suppose then that you’ll want to read through all of these?”
    “I will.” Chorley was engrossed already, leafing through the first file.
    “Shall I see if I can find you something to sit on?”
    “Thank you.”

     
    On the afternoon of the last day of classes, Rose brought Mamie home with her so that Mamie could help her choose what she should take on her proposed four-week visit with the Doran family at their summerhouse in the Awa Inlet. Rose and Mamie came in with the Dorans’ chauffeur and Rose’s school trunk.
    “You can put it down here, thank you,” Rose said to the man. “Mamie will stay for dinner, and someone will take her home later.”
    “Have you even checked that anyone is home?” Mamie said. “Or are you too busy being decisive?”
    Rose ignored her friend, thanked her friend’s chauffeur, and sent him off. “I could spend hours choosing what to take,” she said. “I think I’ve exhausted my decisiveness.”
    “Well then, while you’re weak and easy