Land of Dreams by James P. Blaylock Page A

had called the murderer out, had shot the villain Harbin in the head, at close range, and had himself been shot through the heart. It was cold-blooded murder in the eyes of the law. But not half so cold-blooded, in Jack’s eyes, as the murder of his mother for the sake of-what? – revenge against her husband? Against
her
for having rebuffed the dark and clever Algernon Harbin?
    The corpse of the murdered Dr Harbin had disappeared. It was thought that he’d pitched over backward off the bluffs, into the moonlit Pacific. His body had quite likely been borne south on the longshore current, food for fishes and crabs and, finally, for sea birds on the sands of some deserted cove north of San Francisco. The operator of the carnival disappeared with it, and the carnival with him. He was sought for weeks afterwards by the county sheriff although the search could hardly have been carried out with much enthusiasm. Both parties were dead, after all. There was no one left to prosecute. Dr Jensen had been coroner at the time, and he’d buried Lars Portland in the cemetery beside his wife, after coming to conclusions that would have seemed pointless to question.
    Dr Jensen had always seemed to Jack to be the real victim: denied the woman he loved; burying his best friend, who had not been denied that woman. And Jack had suspected for years that Dr Jensen knew more than he let on, that there were remnants of the mystery that had not been buried beneath the last spadeful of dirt in the Rio Deli cemetery. Dr Jensen, he had always supposed, would reveal them in good time, but now it was beginning to seem as if certain of those revelations were blowing in on the wind, or along the ruined tracks of a years-decayed railroad.
    ‘I give up,’ said Skeezix, grimacing at Helen. ‘You win. You’ve got the book and I haven’t. I won’t wrestle you for it, because you’re a girl and might cry.’
    ‘Because I’d twist your nose, you mean. Forget it. Ask me nice or eat cabbage soup.’
    Skeezix strolled across and plucked up Helen’s braids, one in either hand, dancing them above her head so that their shadows leaped on the wall. ‘This is Perry and Winkle, the battling braid boys, reenacting the battle of the pier,’ he said, making the braids bow to each other and then launch themselves forward, pummelling each other while he made realistic battle noises with his tongue. Helen twisted around in her chair and slugged him twice in the stomach, at which he jerked back, hooking his foot around her chair leg, causing the chair with Helen in it to topple over backward onto the floor in a clatter of knocking and laughing. Helen shoved her hand against her mouth and managed to punch Skeezix one last time before rolling clear of the fallen chair and standing up.
    During the melee Jack had picked up the book, and so Helen slugged him too and took it back. Skeezix hooted with laughter,
Triumphing
through his fingers. A voice sounded from below. ‘Who is that?’ it shrilled - the voice of Miss Flees. ‘Is that you, Bobby? Are you in the attic? Who’s in the attic? I’ll find out! Come down out of there! Is it you, Helen?’ There was a pause as Miss Flees listened. Skeezix, Jack, and I Helen stood still, barely breathing, but grinning at each other. Jack crept across and looked down through the vent. There was Miss Flees below, holding a wooden spoon in her hand, with her head cocked sideways. Peebles was there, sitting atop a stool.
    Jack motioned to Helen and winked, and Helen – very softly, almost birdlike – began to mimic the high, windy voice of. Mrs Langley the attic ghost, reciting, as the ghost often did, snatches of romantic poetry about dead lovers and ruined lives. Her voice rose and fell in the still attic. There wasn’t a sound from below. Miss Flees stood as before with her head tilted and listening. Helen abruptly shut up and gave Skeezix a fierce look, as if to advertise what she’d do to him if he didn’t contain his