The Tunnel of Dreams Read online

  ‘Strange old house, eh?’ Mike said. ‘Never been in there myself.’

  Mike waited and when no one replied he took half a step forward and peered closer into the twins’ faces. ‘How about you boys?’

  It was either a trap or a coincidence. Whatever the case, Arlo could feel his heart thumping wildly, and he knew that looking and sounding natural was going to be impossible, whatever he replied. So he stayed quiet and hoped his brother, who everybody agreed was the more accomplished liar, would save him.

  ‘It’s not that strange, actually,’ Stefan offered. ‘An old woman lived there and when she died her children couldn’t agree on how to split the proceeds so one of them blocked it being sold. That’s all.’

  ‘Oh,’ Mike said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, as if playing the villain in a bad school production. ‘I didn’t know that. So you have been inside?’

  ‘Sure,’ Stefan replied, not so much as blinking. ‘Last summer. We dared each other to spend the night in there, but the mosquitoes drove us out. You’re not missing much. It’s just an old house, and it smells sort of bad.’

  ‘Okay.’ Mike seemed satisfied with this and straightened, turning his head and scanning the rest of the street. Just like an owl. ‘See you later then.’

  He clicked his heels in a military fashion and turned self-importantly down the road.

  The boys watched him walk away.

  ‘You did that really well, Stefan,’ Arlo told him.

  ‘I hope so,’ his brother answered.

  THE SKY WAS clear and the moonlight turned the world to a muted black-and-white photograph. It was just past midnight, the time Alice had specified, and the boys moved swiftly down the street. Their backpacks swung from side to side. They were stuffed with the items Alice had told them to bring, stolen from the camping cupboard: high-energy snacks, headlamps, a water bottle, strong walking shoes, a jacket each, a sharp knife and warm sleeping bags. Nothing stirred. No cars passed, no curtains twitched, no strangers walked their dogs.

  ‘Over there, that’s where she said. Come on.’ Stefan pointed across the road to a real-estate sign, bravely offering a ‘Shady Hideaway’. The sign was set against a steep bank where the hill had been cut through to make way for the road. Even by moonlight it was plain that this was not a promising place to begin a search for a tunnel. There was nothing but gorse clinging to the sheer side of crumbling rock. But a promise is a promise, and the boys crossed the road, their brisk walk turning to a run at the sound of an approaching car. They dived behind the ‘For Sale’ sign just as headlights swept around the corner, brushing the road clean of shadow. Arlo pulled his head down to his chest and held his breath, waiting until he could hear the car taking the next bend before looking up.

  ‘You’re late.’ Alice was curled behind a clump of long grass, her dark form folded perfectly into the dirt and rock.

  Arlo gave a start. ‘You’re lucky I didn’t land on you,’ he said.

  ‘You’re lucky you didn’t land on me,’ she answered. ‘Did you get everything I told you to bring?’

  ‘We have everything,’ Stefan said. ‘But it’s like we said, we have to be back before three. So whatever it is, you’re going to have to hurry.’

  ‘You’ll be back in bed before three, I promise,’ Alice told them, but there was something about the way she said it, the secretly pleased voice a person uses when they’re delivering a riddle, that made Arlo think they were being tricked.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

  ‘I told you. Through a tunnel.’

  ‘What tunnel?’ Stefan challenged. ‘There aren’t any tunnels around here.’

  Alice looked quickly up and down the street then stood up. Her eyes seemed to glow for a moment and she whispered, ‘It’s right behind you.’

  That was ridiculous, of course. Both boys had walked this way a thousand times and there was definitely no tunnel through the bank. They would have seen it. Everybody would have seen it. But they both felt the oddest sensation: a warm wind at their back, followed by strange smells they couldn’t quite place, smells that couldn’t belong here.

  ‘It’s opened. I knew it would!’ Alice couldn’t hide her excitement. ‘Come on. Quick, before it closes up again.’

  Stefan had noticed this before, the way the times you most need to ask a question are so often the times when it’s hardest to get that question out. It wasn’t just one question, he had a hundred of them. A tunnel entrance the size of a small child doesn’t just open magically in a rock face without you having questions. But Alice was pushing Arlo into the opening, and scrambling close behind him, so his questions were going to have to wait. He did however think to grab his headlamp from the side pocket of his backpack before following the soles of Alice’s worn sneakers into the darkness. He was frightened—his body prickled with anxiety—but he was excited too. It made life difficult, the way those things so often mixed together in his blood.

  Up ahead Arlo put on his headlamp and the roughhewn walls of the tunnel danced beneath twin beams. The walls were cold to touch but the warm breath of strange air pulled them forward.

  ‘How long is the tunnel?’ Stefan asked, dropping from stoop to crawl as the walls and ceiling closed in. The ground was rough and he felt sharp stones digging into his knees. He thought of Arlo at the front, terrified of weta and spiders, doubtless pushing ahead with his eyes scrunched and his shoulders drawn tight to his neck.

  ‘It opens out in a moment,’ Alice said, as if this had been his question, before adding a cautious, ‘I think.’

  ‘You’ve been here before though, right?’ Stefan checked.

  ‘Yeah. Once.’

  That can’t have been right. With a tunnel you either went through twice, or you were still on the other side. Stefan added this to the list of questions he needed to ask and turned his attention back to the tunnel. As far as he could see it was clean of insects, which was strange, and it was widening, just as Alice had said it would. Indeed it was now high and broad enough for Arlo to stand in the middle and turn back to his fellow adventurers. Stefan saw from the expression on his face that he was not frightened at all, but buzzing with the excitement of such a strange midnight adventure.

  ‘Isn’t this incredible?’ Arlo whispered, as if speaking too loudly might break the spell and return them to their uneventful beds. Then he turned to Alice, his eyes ablaze with curiosity.

  ‘Who made this tunnel, and why haven’t we ever seen it before? And where is it taking us?’ Arlo had a way of asking his questions in mouthfuls.

  ‘I don’t know who made the tunnel,’ Alice said. ‘But the reason you haven’t seen it before is that it isn’t usually here. It only appears on a full moon, and only for identical twins.’

  That couldn’t possibly be true, but then again they were standing together in the middle of a tunnel that shouldn’t exist. ‘And as for where it leads to, you’ll see it for yourselves soon enough, so it hardly matters. Come on, I don’t know how long the tunnel stays open for. If you turn off your headlamps you’ll see a light ahead.’

  They did as they were told and sure enough a thin slit of light shone ahead of them, exactly as it had in their dreams.

  Stefan shivered. ‘What’s making that light?’ he asked.

  ‘Sunlight,’ Alice answered.

  ‘But it’s—’

  ‘Come on, hurry up.’

  The going was easier now that they could walk upright and they moved quickly towards the light. The warm wind strengthened with every step and by the time they stopped again it was whistling all around them. There were snatches of sound too, hints of voices and movement. The light and wind both originated from the same source, a horizontal gash in the rockface, half a metre higher than their heads.

  Alice pointed upwards, raising her voice above the wind. ‘That’s it. That’s the exit.’

  ‘How do we—?’ Arlo started, but Alice was already crouching, her hands together in a cradle ready to boost the foot of the first
boy to volunteer. Arlo stepped forward.

  ‘On the other side you will tumble into long grass and bright daylight,’ Alice told him. ‘Stay lying down, hidden from sight. Do not move, do not make a sound. Your life depends upon it. Do you understand?’

  Arlo nodded, and looked at his brother. If they were going to turn back, he was pretty sure this was the moment to do it. Neither spoke. They had made a promise.

  Arlo put his foot in Alice’s hands and his hands on her shoulders and stepped up against the wall, reaching for the opening. He pulled himself forward easily. Arlo was a strong climber; they both were. The wind whistled about his ears and he turned away from the blinding light, lowering himself backwards into the grass. He lay still, barely daring to breathe, taking in the heat and smells of summer, and a medley of noises that made no sense to him.

  Stefan was next. He waited on the ledge then reached down to pull Alice up. She was strong and agile too. She hauled herself up beside him and nudged him forward. ‘Go on then.’

  Stefan lowered himself from the gap, settling into the grass beside his brother. Alice quickly followed. They squirmed together, heads in a circle, the boys awaiting their instructions.

  ‘All right,’ Alice began. ‘Whatever happens, nobody can see the two of you together. Never. That’s the first rule here.’

  ‘Where are we?’ Stefan asked.

  ‘I don’t know. But it’s…’ Alice paused, as if uncertain how to explain it. ‘Look for yourself. But be careful.’

  The boys lifted their heads and knelt, parting the long grass before them and peering out onto a world that was both completely strange and yet somehow familiar. Beyond the grass was a wooden fence made of twisted manuka branches bound roughly together with thick, oily rope. Past that was a dirt track, winding its way down to the shore. A low tide had exposed wide mudflats, and beyond them, on the other side of a deep channel of water, was a hill, capped by a great structure that glowed white in the sunlight. Stefan squinted and tried to make it out. It looked like a huge tent, the sort you might see at a circus, but without any of the gaudy colours. A sailing ship moved quietly through the channel towards a broad harbour. From its rigging, men shouted instructions to one another, although they were too far off for Arlo and Stefan to make out what they were saying, or even what language they were speaking. The air was tinged with the smell of seaweed and something burning. To the south a great black pillow of smoke hung low over a long stone wall.

  The sound of footsteps pulled them back from their confused fascination. A young man with baggy trousers and the kind of cap you only saw in television shows was walking down the road, kicking at stones and whistling to himself. The brothers instinctively drew back into the grass. As the boy drew nearer the twins turned to one another, to check they weren’t seeing things.

  ‘That’s…’ Arlo started, but he was too stunned to finish the sentence.

  ‘I know,’ Stefan whispered, pulling further back from the road. There was no doubt about it, the boy walking slowly past them, kicking a stone with seemingly not a care in the world, was Mike McGuiness.

  ‘But it can’t be,’ Arlo muttered.

  ‘It is,’ Stefan replied. ‘And I’ve noticed something else too. Look around you. Look at the harbour, and the shape of the hills. Look out to the island.’

  Beside them Alice said nothing. What they were experiencing, she too must have been through, and now she was leaving it to settle on them in the same way. Arlo looked again at the road, the trees, the hills, the rush of water now filling the inlet and the broad, rock-strewn bay beyond, but still he didn’t understand. It was all new to him, new and strange.

  ‘The island,’ Stefan repeated softly. ‘Look at the island.’

  Arlo looked to the west where his brother was pointing. The northern end of a low island, its top so flat it might have been sliced off by a gigantic knife, poked out from behind the headland: an island so familiar the sight of it was immediately comforting.

  ‘Mana Island!’

  Slowly it dawned. Arlo looked about him with new eyes. It wasn’t just the island that was the same, it was everything. The hills, the inlet, the harbour, the overgrown bank. Yes, the houses were missing, and the roads, the double bridge and the train tracks. Where there should have been a radio mast there was a strange tent, but there was no denying what this place was. They were still sitting at the side of the road in the very suburb in which they lived, at the very spot where the ‘For Sale’ sign had been erected. Only the sign was no longer there, and it wasn’t the middle of the night anymore. It wasn’t any time at all.

  'WHAT DO WE do now?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Alice said, and her face set serious and determined. ‘Not until it’s dark.’

  Stefan looked up. The sun beat hot and high overhead. It would be many hours before the sky darkened.

  ‘We’ve already told you,’ Stefan said. Arlo could hear the nervousness in his brother’s voice. ‘We’ll help you if we can, but if our parents wake up and find us missing, they’ll call the police.’

  ‘You’ll be back by three.’ Alice dismissed their concern with a small wave of her hand.

  ‘Three o’clock tonight!’ Stefan insisted.

  Arlo had had enough. ‘We’re not going to let you trick us. Come on Stefan, give me a leg up. We’re going back.’

  He tried to stand but Alice’s hand shot out, grabbing his shirt and pulling him back to the ground.

  ‘If they see you, you might be killed,’ she hissed at him, her eyes fierce and dark. ‘And even if I let you, you couldn’t get back through the tunnel.’

  ‘Why not?’ Arlo demanded, but his brother had already seen the answer.

  ‘She’s right.’ Stefan’s voice was flat and serious. ‘Look. The tunnel’s gone.’

  Behind them the bank was solid and unyielding. Arlo panicked, rolling out of Alice’s grip and clawing his way up the rock face, sending a shower of stones and dust flying. But it was hopeless; there was no sign of the opening. He let himself slide back into the grass and sat, knees drawn up, his head buried in his arms, and felt warm tears of hopelessness run down his face. They were trapped here, on the very road they lived, yet a world from home. He felt Stefan move close to him, and put an arm around his shoulders.

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ Stefan said. It was a lie. They both knew that.

  Long minutes passed in which the boys said nothing, each trying to make sense of this impossible puzzle. Alice said nothing, waiting patiently until they were ready to hear. All this time the noises of the outside world continued to screech, jostle, shout and crash. Out to sea, beyond the headland, a steam whistle sounded low and mournful.

  Arlo knew just how it felt. But there was no point sulking, he knew that too. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, shrugging off his brother’s arm. He looked at Alice, who sat still as a statue, ready for them. ‘Okay, so I have some questions.’

  ‘I know you do.’ Alice nodded. ‘And most of them I won’t be able to answer. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the whole truth, but I was afraid you wouldn’t have listened to me, and my sister is in danger. I think, if I don’t get to her soon, she might die.’

  The sadness in Alice’s eyes in that moment was depthless. Arlo couldn’t look away.

  ‘You’re twins, aren’t you?’ Arlo asked her.

  She nodded. ‘Identical twins. Let me tell you what I know,’ she said. ‘You’ll be safe here. I will do everything I can to keep you safe.’

  She stopped abruptly and cocked her head to one side, as a dog might when listening for its owner’s whistle. ‘It’s the cart. Quick, duck down.’

  The boys did as they were told. Arlo heard the grind of stones beneath the rims of a heavy carriage. He peered through the bushes to see an open cart, drawn by two leisurely horses. In it were four children, all about his age, sitting with straight spines and smug smiles, aware people were watching them pass and pleased with the attention. A smaller boy ran behind the cart, waving wildly at the passengers
, who were all doing a great job of pretending not to see him. Sitting alone on the front bench seat, holding the reins, was the driver. Arlo turned disbelievingly to his brother, to check that he too had seen it. Stefan stared straight ahead, his eyes wide.

  ‘It’s…’

  ‘Yes,’ Stefan nodded. ‘Mr Coleman.’

  Mr Coleman was their school principal, and although his trademark shaved head was covered by a cloth cap, and the dusty jacket he wore was not of a style he’d have normally chosen, there was no mistaking the driver’s cheerful face. As if this were not a challenging enough sight by itself, the driver flicked one rein and gave a short unintelligible command and at once the two chestnut horses and the cart they hauled rose into the air and continued on their way, the horses’ hoofs still trotting over imaginary ground.

  ‘We’re dreaming, right?’ Arlo checked. ‘We have to be dreaming.’

  ‘I thought that too, at first,’ Alice said. ‘But if it is a dream, it’s not like any dream I’ve ever had before.’

  Alice told her story clearly and matter of factly, but Arlo could sense the emotion bubbling just below the surface. It wasn’t hard to imagine her pain. Her tale began when she and her sister Jackie were younger than she could properly remember. They lived with their mother and if Alice had ever met her father she couldn’t remember it. She did remember that life was hard for her mother, although she offered few details. Just that her mother wasn’t well, and they didn’t always make it to school when they should have, and it wasn’t as easy for them finding food for their table, or shoes for winter. Their small family moved often, and the sight of a police car outside their house became familiar. At some point, Alice thought it was when the girls were seven, there was a court case, and a woman came to tell them that their mother would be spending time in prison, and they were taken to live with a foster family. Jackie wasn’t happy in the new home and she and Alice quickly hatched a plan to run away. The first time they only managed to stay away for a day before being picked up by a social worker, but two weeks after that they managed three days and were moved on to a new home, and another one after that. No home could hold them, and, the way Alice told it, in time the authorities became less enthusiastic about searching for them when they escaped.