Freddy wasn’t sure how she’d given her sister such a wrong impression of Cuerva Lachance. “Josiah isn’t here,” she whispered back. “Anything could happen.” Roland made a move as if to walk on across the park, then stopped again. Cuerva Lachance wasn’t a very big woman, but her presence was as solid as a brick wall. All she had to do to hold them back was stand there in her hat and trench coat and not do anything scary.
Freddy heard pounding footsteps on the grass behind her, and she barely stopped herself from turning to look. She knew who this would be. “Damn it, you’re slippery,” Josiah gasped as he staggered over to stand next to Cuerva Lachance. One of his eyes was puffy, and his nose was leaking blood. His presence, however, seemed to suck some of the tension out of the air. They’re less strong when they’re together, Freddy thought, startled. They balance each other out.
“Okay, listen,” said Josiah when he’d got his breath back, “it’s been fun tiptoeing around each other today and pretending to be all crafty, but we know you know which of you is Three. All we want is for you to tell us so Three can make the choice. It’s a painless process. It’ll be over in seconds. You’re being ridiculous; just tell us.”
“Nope,” said Mel, “we’ll pass.”
He flung out his arms. “Why?”
“Mysterious reasons,” said Cuerva Lachance. “I like those.”
“Not so mysterious,” said Mel. “We just don’t want to.”
“Freddy?” said Josiah.
She shook her head. “No deal.”
“But you’ve seen,” said Josiah, exasperated. “The choice is nothing. It doesn’t hurt Three.”
“I still say no,” said Freddy, “thanks.”
Josiah narrowed his eyes at her, then turned to Roland. “What about you?”
He couldn’t have been following the whole conversation, as he hadn’t been looking at Freddy and Mel, but he had gathered enough. He said, “Go away.”
“You know we can’t do that,” said Josiah.
“I don’t know anything,” said Roland, “except that I want you to go away.”
Josiah and Cuerva Lachance looked at each other. Again, there was that odd sense of something relaxing, becoming less dangerous. They should have seemed more dangerous when they were working together, but it was just the opposite. Rain was beginning to mist down over the park, sparkling in the sunlight. Freddy looked for the rainbow and found it arcing over the trees.
Cuerva Lachance smiled again. “All right.”
Mel, predictably, was the one who gave away her surprise. “All right how?”
“All right.” Cuerva Lachance flung out her arms in a woebegone gesture. “You win. We give up. It’s all over. Alack the day. We shall never learn who Three is. We shall go far, far away and weep on an iceberg, just because we can. I hope there are squirrels on our iceberg. Life is less colourful without squirrels. Come on, Josie, dear; let’s crate up the grand piano.”
“Alas,” said Josiah in wooden tones.
Mel opened her mouth. Freddy’s elbow shot out and clipped Mel on the shoulder. Two days ago, she would have been aiming for her sister’s side, but the extra height had caught her off guard. Ignoring Mel’s yelp of pain, Freddy said, “Okay.”
This time, it was Josiah who betrayed surprise. His eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
“Yep,” said Freddy. “You want to go. We want you to go. Everybody wins.”
“And you believe us when we say we’re going?” asked Cuerva Lachance, doing her habitual head tilt.
“Let’s pretend we do,” said Freddy.
Mel opened her mouth again. This time, Freddy smacked her on the back of the head.
“Fine,” said Josiah. “Let’s go home and pretend to pack up all our worldly belongings.”
“Fine,” said Freddy. “Let’s go home and pretend to let our guard down.”
Freddy, Roland, and Mel stood together and watched Cuerva Lachance and Josiah walk across the park towards the house on Grosvenor Street. “They’re going to outsmart us,” said Mel.
“I think so,” said Freddy, “but why do they have to? What’s so urgent about getting Three to make that choice?”
They turned to Roland, who had, at last, been looking at them as they spoke. “Any ideas?” said Mel, signing along.
His face had again drained of colour. “You shouldn’t have talked to them at all. You keep making that mistake. I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to talk to you about this tonight … or ever. We can’t talk about it! We have to treat it as if it’s not real!”
“Cally and the couch,” said Mel. Freddy nodded.
Roland blinked. “What’s Cally and the couch?”
“We had a cocker spaniel,” said Freddy. “She died when I was nine. She used to hate baths. Whenever someone said the word ‘bath,’ she would jump up on the couch and bury her head in the cushions. You can’t see me … I’m not here.” She had the uneasy feeling she had once behaved like this, too, but there was no use in worrying about that now.
“You’re being just like Cally,” said Mel. “This is happening, Roland. Ignoring it doesn’t make it not be happening.”
It should have worked, and maybe it would have if the story hadn’t been about a dog. “So now you’re comparing me to your cocker spaniel,” snarled Roland. “Thank you very much. It’s nice to know you care.”
He turned and took off across the park, through the gentle rain. “Great merciful Zeus,” said Mel, “I used to think he was reasonable. Why’s he acting like this?”
“He’s scared,” said Freddy. And then she realised: it was another clue. As far as any of them knew, Three really did just have to make a tiny little choice. Few of the Threes Freddy had met, pre-or post-choice, had seemed to have much of a problem with this. But Roland saw the choice as a trap. Maybe it was. Maybe his dreams, whatever they were, had told him something Freddy couldn’t know yet. Claire had had dreams, and she hadn’t wanted to choose, either.
“We’ve got to talk to him,” she said.
But they couldn’t. He had barricaded himself in his room again. Freddy banged on the door for a while, just to relieve her feelings. He may not have been able to hear it, but maybe, she thought sourly, he would feel the house shaking if she thumped viciously enough. Until he accepted what was happening and dealt with it, they were stuck.
22
She had another dream herself that night, but she could never remember afterwards what was in it except that Ban and Filbert were featured. They were both trying to tell her something immensely important, but their voices were drowned out by the organ music. There was organ music all through the dream, crashing like waves, overwhelming everything.
Freddy opened her eyes. Just like last time, the music was real. Cuerva Lachance was at it again.