Lair of Dreams (The Diviners #2)

“Say, Mabel, you find out anything interesting for this Diviners falderal?” Theta asked.

“Oh, all sorts of things. It’s in the exhibit,” Mabel said without elaborating further. It was her private experience with Jericho, and she didn’t want to share it. Especially if Evie was going to blab all of Mabel’s personal information without a second thought.

“The full creepy crawly, huh?” Theta pressed. “People who can talk to ghosts. People who can see the future and read objects, like Evil here. People who could, I don’t know, burn things, set them on fire.”

“Set things on fire?” Mabel scrunched up her face. “Goodness, no! Nothing like that.”

“Honestly, Theta, and you call me Evil,” Evie said with a laugh. “Where’d you come up with that one?”

The slightest tingle rippled along Theta’s fingertips. “Just making conversation. It’s freezing,” she said and walked faster through the falling snow.

In the quaint lobby of the small, traditional Kensington House, the girls waited, until at last a very tall, white-haired man wearing wire spectacles and a tweed jacket strolled inside. He puffed on a pipe.

Mabel poked Evie and Theta. “That’s him! Come on!” she whispered urgently.

“Dr. Jung?” Mabel said, rushing to greet him. Evie and Theta followed.

“Yes. I am Dr. Jung.”

“Thank heavens! We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Have you?” Dr. Jung’s brows formed a V atop his spectacles. “Forgive me. Did we have an appointment?”

“No, but we’re desperate to talk to you. It’s a matter of some urgency.”

The psychiatrist blew out a puff of smoke, considering. He allowed a polite smile. “Well, then, I suppose you had best come this way.”

After they introduced themselves, Dr. Jung ushered Theta, Mabel, and Evie into a cozy, handsomely furnished office lined with shelves of important-looking books and bade them sit before settling into a chair himself.

“Now, how may I be of help to you?”

“Doctor, what do you know about Diviners?” Theta asked.

“I thought you wanted to know about acting,” Mabel whispered.

Dr. Jung waited for the girls to settle. “Ah. I have heard of them,” he said, his Swiss accent neatly clipping the ends of his words. “So. Am I to understand that you are interested in psychic phenomena and the paranormal?”

Theta cut her eyes at Mabel. When Theta had invited Mabel along to the lecture, she’d had no idea they’d end up talking to Jung himself. There was no way around it. She’d have to let Mabel in on the truth. “I suppose so. See, I have a pal, a Diviner, who can walk in dreams. I mean really walk around inside them, like he’s awake, seeing everything.”

Mabel’s eyes widened. “Who is it?”

“Who do you think?” Theta said.

“It’s Henry,” Evie confirmed.

“Wait a minute—how do you know this?” Mabel swiveled from Evie to Theta. “Why does Evie know?” She swiveled back to Evie. “So you can keep some secrets, just not others.”

“Honestly, Mabesie, are you going to make me wear the crown of thorns for long?” Evie said through gritted teeth. “I’m sorry!”

Dr. Jung cleared his throat, and the girls quieted. “Lucid dreaming, you say? That is quite a power, indeed. Please. Continue.”

“Lately, my pal Henry and this other dream walker, Ling—”

Dr. Jung’s eyes widened. “There are two?”

“That was going to be my next question,” Mabel said, giving Evie a wary glance.

I don’t know this one, Evie mouthed to Mabel.

“It’s a long story,” Theta said. “The point is, they’ve been meeting up in the dream world in the same place every night—a train station. And from there, they go to some magical-sounding place where they can touch things and smell flowers and… well, from what Henry tells me, it’s all very real. Look here, Doc, I know it sounds like we’re lunatics, but it’s true.”

Dr. Jung rubbed his eyeglasses clean with a handkerchief. “Your friend and his compatriot walk freely through the unconscious realm. They are at play inside the psyches of many people, as well as engaging with the experiences and memories of all humanity—the collective unconscious.”

“Sorry, Doc, you lost me,” Theta said. “What’s this collective unconscious?”

The psychiatrist hooked his spectacles over his ears again. “Think of it as a symbolic library that has always existed, which houses all our personal and our ancestral experiences and memories, shared knowledge that each individual seems to understand on an innate level, like an inheritance. Religion. Myths. Fairy tales. All of it gains its power from the collective unconscious. And dreams are like a library card, if you will, that provides access to this great archive of shared symbols, memories, and experiences.”