In the City of the Nightmare King

by V. S. Santoni

  Beyond my neighbors’ rooftops, trees shook violently. The ravens sleeping on their limbs took off into the night. Giant shadows moved through the forest, wordlessly declaring dominion over Misthaven. My first trip here with Hunter, I said, “This place is weird.”

  “Yeah, it is,” he’d said, “Kids at the Institute call it the witch’s cauldron because late at night, the mist from the lake rises and swallows everything in the valley. Weird thing about the mist is, it never comes over the Institute’s walls. Supposedly, if you look real hard, you can see giant shadows roaming in it. Like Void-spawns the Institute’s forced into servitude.”

  Those ominous words echoed in my mind. And if the strangeness at the road between Misthaven and Dreadthistle proved anything, powerful magic was afoot.

  Chapter 5

  My thoughts swung between staying in class the following day or continuing to look for Blake. I didn’t know where to start, and I didn’t want to risk getting caught again and having Dad wedge himself into our investigation. But we needed to find Blake and escape. After I got in the car, Alison came out looking completely different from her usual self, her mess of fishnets and ripped-up clothes replaced with a Hello Kitty shirt and some skinny jeans. She’d even traded out her signature combat boots for Vans slippers.

  Dad gawked at her when she got in the car. “You look . . . different today.”

  She looked uncomfortable with him acknowledging the change. “Just trying something new.”

  Dad dropped us off at school and we headed for our lockers. “Are we going to keep looking for Blake today?” I asked her.

  “Maybe that’s not such a great idea,” she said, sounding unsure of herself.

  “What’re you talking about?”

  We reached our locker and she opened hers. “J, you heard what your dad said. Plus, what if we’re wrong? We’re going to look totally crazy.”

  “Ali, after all that weird stuff I told you about, you think I’m making this up?”

  “No, it’s just—Johnny, if Blake were here, we would’ve already seen him at school.”

  “He could be in trouble.”

  “Where are you going to look for him, J?” Her words hushed me. Even I knew we didn’t have a starting point. “All I’m saying is we need to lie low for a while and gather more information. We don’t want to get in over our heads.”

  We’d been in Misthaven for nearly a week when Dad gathered us around the dinner table on Thursday and grilled us about our new lives. Alison’s budding friendship with Tiffany Young, a popular cheerleader, proved Alison’s nonpareil flexibility in strange, new situations. Not surprising considering she’d also adjusted to the Institute faster than I had. I, on the other hand, acclimated to our new surroundings like a brick through glass. Fitting in at the high school didn’t matter to me, though. Finding Blake and getting out of this creepy place demanded more attention. I had started to think Alison didn’t believe Blake was even here. Maybe she only faked being normal to hide her own investigation, but something about the spring in her step told me she enjoyed all this. That scared me. I felt alone.

  Dad sliced into the vegan meatloaf Alison had forced him to make. He picked up a sopping piece and placed it on my plate. “So, how’s your first week going, kiddo?”

  “Great,” I mumbled, scraping my fork loudly against the plate.

  Dad looked more annoyed with me than concerned. He cut Alison a chunk too. “What about you, Alison?”

  “Great! Me and this girl Tiffany have been hanging out—”

  “Is that the sweet girl that’s been giving you and Johnny rides home every afternoon?” Dad interrupted.

  “Yeah. She’s rad. Supersmart too. She speaks fluent Mandarin because her dad makes her visit her grandparents in Xiamen every spring. But she keeps trying to get me to do a makeover, and I don’t know—anyway, we were talking about summer vacation”—I’d never heard Alison prattle this much in my life—“and we decided that we were going to spend all summer on the beach here in Misthaven. One of her friends, this guy Scott—Johnny’s met him—his folks own a lake house. We’re probably going to hang out there all summer.”

  Every syllable she spoke twinkled with excitement. She loved it here. The whole thing pissed me off. I impersonated Tiffany: “And you can totally, like, jam out to Shawn Mendes all summer!” My sarcasm left Alison wrinkling her nose at me. “Jeez, Ali, I never thought you’d be into all this normie bullshit—”

  “Johnny,” Dad said, cutting into his meatloaf. “That’s enough. Maybe you should follow Alison’s lead and try to fit in better. You said all the kids at the high school are nice to you.”

  “It’s fine, Mr. D,” Alison said. “Johnny here’s just pissed his crush barely even talks to him.” She wagged her head at me like a snake. I exhaled through my nose. Hunter sat next to me in nearly every class, and even though I didn’t really care about school, I hated that my mind stayed permanently fixated on kissing him. I longed for him to remember how we once were. But Hunter wanted me to join the football team, not make out with him behind the bleachers.

  Later that night, a loud staticky burst woke me up. I threw off my covers, walked to the door, and cracked it open. It sounded like Dad’s radio screeching downstairs. No one else stirred, so I went to turn it off. The hallway distorted the sputtering static, slowly giving it form, and as I came to the stairs, the noise took shape—a muffled voice. It repeated something too quietly for me to understand. I hurried downstairs and found the shortwave on an end table, a boy’s voice coming through: “My name is Mikey. You are trapped in the Dreamhaven.” I snatched the radio and, even though I knew it wouldn’t work, yelled back, “Can you hear me? Can you hear me?”

  The boy’s voice vanished and the staticky noise turned to silence. Dad’s door squeaked open, so I snuck into the kitchen, got a glass of water, and promptly returned to my room. If Mikey was the same boy I’d heard on the radio the first time, that meant we were trapped in a dream, stuck somewhere in Everywhen, without our magic. That explained why I hadn’t been able to escape. The whole picture grew clearer: After bringing Hunter back from the Void, the Institute had taken us under the Heka Building and imprisoned us in this dream prison. Wizards were most powerful in Everywhen. Somehow the Institute had locked our abilities. That complicated things—how could I escape a dream prison without magic?

  I wanted to wake Alison and tell her, but I didn’t need Dad’s impostor eavesdropping. If he caught me, who knew what he would do.

  I stayed up all night thinking about Mikey. Not knowing his identity made me question his reasons for telling me about the Dreamhaven. He could’ve easily been tricking us. When morning bird songs sounded outside my window, I rushed into Alison’s room.

  “I’m starting to miss being an only child,” she grumbled as she got up.

  “Yeah, yeah, good morning. Listen: Dad’s shortwave radio came on last night and woke me. I went downstairs to see what was going on, and there was some boy named Mikey talking on it. He said this place was a dream prison, and that we were trapped here.”

  “Do you stay up all night so you can wake me in the morning and tell me weird stuff?”

  “Alison, I’m serious.”

  “So am I. Johnny, we’ve been here for a week. You can’t honestly believe we’re trapped in a . . . dream prison all because you heard some kid say that on the radio. It could’ve been a podcast, or a dream.”

  “Then how do you explain our memories?”

  “I don’t. I was reading an article on Buzzfeed about how really close friends sometimes have shared dreams.”

  “Alison, I literally couldn’t leave this place.”

  “J, you’re imaging things—”

  “I’ll take you out there myself—”

  She went on, talking over me. “Maybe all the stress from moving set you off or something—I don’t know. Point is, there’s
nothing weird going on. And if we’re wizards, why can’t we use magic?”

  “There could be an anti-magic field, like that one at Gaspar’s.”

  “Or maybe you’re terrified that our lives are really boring so you’re making things up. You’re scaring your dad, and you’re making me nervous, too, J. Can you please try to forget about all this stuff?”

  Dad walked past the door. “Hey, you two, better get ready for school.”

  Alison gave me her menacing “worried sister” look, and it made me feel ten inches tall. “I need to get ready, J.” I walked out into the hallway and she closed the door behind me. She wasn’t going to listen. But I wasn’t wrong: the Institute had trapped us in a dreamworld, and they’d stripped us of our powers too.

  During homeroom, Hunter noticed how spaced out I looked and nudged me with his elbow. “Hey, bro, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Just had some strange dreams.”

  Tiffany turned in her seat and rested her arms across the backing. “Alison says he’s really into weird stuff. You should take him to the verge sometime, Hunter.”

  Alison says he’s really into weird stuff? What else had Alison been saying about me behind my back? I decided against obsessing over Tiffany and Alison’s conversations. “What’s the verge?” I asked Hunter.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You two might even find that magic wishing pond, or the unicorn,” Tiffany teased.

  “Magic wishing pond? Unicorn?”

  “None of that stuff’s real. Stop messing with him.”

  “I bet Old Man Johnson thinks it is,” Tiffany said.

  I looked to Hunter. “Old Man Johnson?”

  “Brian Johnson. Some old conspiracy theorist that lives out in Misthaven Housing community, the trailer park near—”

  “Says this whole place is a dreamworld,” Tiffany interjected. “He even tried to get some folks to go with him to the verge one time. Creeeeepy.”

  Tiffany inadvertently sparked new life into my investigation. “Do you know where he lives?” I asked.

  Hunter and Tiffany looked confounded. Not many people bought into Johnson’s ramblings. “Why do you want to know where he lives?” Tiffany asked.

  “Just curious.”

  She sneered at me and called to a girl sitting an aisle over. “Hey, do you know where Old Man Johnson lives? Like, we know he lives in the trailer park, but where specifically? Johnny’s curious.”

  The girl lowered her bad boy romance novel. “He doesn’t even live in a regular trailer. He lives in a tiny camper with this huge canopy out in front. I heard it’s far away from all the other trailers too. He’s a hermit.”

  “How do I get there—to the trailer park?” I asked.

  “That little bus that goes around town all day. It passes by in front of the trailer park.”

  “Is there a stop nearby?”

  “There’s one out in front of the school.”

  Before the bell rang, I texted Alison and told her to meet me at our locker before first period. Maybe Old Man Johnson knew Mikey—maybe he was Mikey; either way, he was another puzzle piece bringing us one step closer to understanding the situation. The bell rang and I darted to our locker. Alison showed up shortly after.

  “What is it, J?” she asked, sounding exhausted with me.

  “Have you been talking about me with Tiffany?”

  “What?”

  I readjusted my priorities. “Never mind. I’m headed to Misthaven Housing Community to look for Brian Johnson.”

  “Who’s Brian Johnson?”

  “He’s a conspiracy theorist. According to Tiffany, he thinks this place is a dreamworld.”

  “Like that Mikey kid on the radio?” Her tone was sarcastic.

  “Exactly.”

  “Johnny, if you skip class, you’re going to get in trouble again, and your dad’s going to be pissed.”

  “Alison, this is our chance. Stop acting like all of this is normal. You know there’s something weird going on.”

  “You’re the only weird thing going on, Johnny. I’ve got to get to class.”

  She tossed away my concerns without a second thought. Her sudden attitude shift left me dizzied. Either this place had corrupted her mind or she had bought wholesale into the fantasy: Here, she wasn’t just accepted; she was popular. The Dreamhaven’s promise, popularity and acceptance, proved a seductive lure, especially for those who’d never known either, but it remained a wild-eyed serpent, a menacing lie, the illusion’s every piece twisted and crooked in some way.

  Chapter 6

  An old rusty sign guarded a lonely bus stop down the road from the traffic circle in front of the school. With nowhere to sit, I paced, still pissed at how weird Alison had been acting. No one had followed me, so I waited there for the bus. The blustery storm clouds overhead looked like tarnished silver, fading from gray to black. Earlier, a light rain had dappled the streets with turbid, brown puddles. The bus pulled up to the curb and I got on.

  The bus headed south along Pine Street until the suburban homes lining both sides turned into abandoned brick buildings, the road becoming old and pocked. Eventually, Pine Street turned into River Road and curved southwest. Misthaven Housing Community came before the bend in the road, marked by a moldering wooden sign with the property’s name on it. Dry rot had eaten the wood, leaving it chipped, fractured, and crumbling. The bus stopped in front of Hill Street, a broad gravel path that looped into Darkwood forest and stretched for less than half a mile before retreating to the main road. I got off the bus and crunched across the pebbles, making my way into the trailer park.

  Misthaven Housing Community lay hidden deep enough in Darkwood Forest that sunlight barely reached it through the canopy. The cheap living attracted good and honest people working too hard for low wages, but society often ignored places like this, making it a perfect place for crooks to conduct their shady dealings. Single- and double-wide trailers greeted me along the lane, some in shambles with yellowed and rusting aluminum siding while tidier ones kept well-groomed cinderblock flowerbeds out front. I searched for Old Man Johnson’s camper—and spotted Blake, crouched, and looking for something under a trailer’s lattice skirting. My faint wizard sense confirmed it was really him. Blake’s aura sounded like a skateboard rolling across pavement, and if you closed your eyes you felt a windy blast weaving through your clothes as you sped down a hill. A deep plunge into Blake’s aura uncovered loneliness and guilt situated at the heart around which those denser sensations orbited.

  “Blake,” I called.

  He looked over his shoulder. “Johnny!”

  Hearing him say my name assuaged my fears that he’d lost his memories, like Hunter. We almost hugged, but we stopped and silently debated whether to man up and shake hands instead. He gave me a big, chuckling hug anyway.

  “You recognize me?” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. What’re you doing here? How did you get here?”

  “No clue. I woke up in this trailer, with a new foster parent and everything. I still had some of my memories from the Institute too.”

  “Do you remember anything from between January and now?”

  Blake considered the question briefly then shook his head. “Not clearly, no.” Three months gone in a blur, just like Alison and me. “Have you seen Alison or Hunter?”

  Every weird event and coincidence spilled from my lips like a waterfall. Blake gave me a curious look when I mentioned Mikey.

  “Why haven’t you been at school? What were you doing?” I asked.

  “I’ve been skipping, so I could check this place out.”

  “Why were you looking under that trailer?”

  “I was looking for hidden cameras.”

  “Let me text Alison and tell her I’ve found you.”

  I sent Alison the message,
and a minute later she dinged me back: Are you serious?

  I texted, Dead serious.

  Does he remember anything.

  His memories are patchy. Like ours. Are you going to sneak out and come meet up with us?

  It took her a while to respond: I don’t think that’s a good idea. One of us has to hold down the fort.

  Don’t you want to see Blake?

  Of course, I do, and I will, but one of us needs to stay behind just in case.

  In case what?

  Just go on without me. I’ll meet up with you at home later. Tell Blake I miss him.

  I lowered my phone, irritated but hardly surprised. “She says she misses you.”

  “Is she going to meet up with us?”

  “No, she said she wanted to stay behind just in case.”

  “In case what?”

  “Exactly. She’s been acting weird.”

  “She’ll come along when she’s ready. Let’s go find this conspiracy nut you were talking about.”

  We set out together, searching for Brian’s camper. Blustery, rain-scented winds howled through the swaying pines. While I worried about getting caught in one of Misthaven’s downpours, Blake kept a pensive look on his face, eyes fixed to the ground.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “You said the kid on the radio called himself Mikey?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Nothing. Just curious.” Blake’s somber dodge sold him out. Blake hated talking about certain things, his past chief among them. We used to sit together for lunch every day at the Institute. Blake loved telling us everything he knew about Legacies, Defectors, Void-spawns, anything magical, but when the questions put him in focus—his extraction or his life before the Institute—he always fell silent. Somehow, that name twigged something in him, but I wasn’t going to force him to explain.