The Darkness of Dreamland

by T. L. Bodine

  “Have you ever been there?”

  “No.”

  “…Oh. But you’re sure that he can send me…wherever The Nightmare Man is coming from?”

  “He can send you anywhere.” They came to another fork in the path, and this time Sonia tugged him left. The stone ground gave way to dirt, and the stone walls were damp and slimy. The smell intensified. “Adrian, are you sure about this whole Nightmare Man thing?”

  “Before the queen…” he faltered, not wanting to go into any details about their interaction in her bedchamber. “…Anyway. She told me that someone had been stealing their dreams. That’s why you were put into the dungeon, right? Dream-thieving?”

  “Yes, but — “

  “And if a kid gets lost in Dreamland — if he gets stolen — he’d get taken from that courtyard, right? Isn’t that where all the kids are supposed to end up?”

  “Well, yes, but —”

  “So he must have taken him.” He hesitated, not wanting to say any more, but added, “Besides. I felt it. Back in the hall.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” Sonia slowed down, glancing back at him. Her brow furrowed, then a slow smile crept into her eyes. “But…it doesn’t have to.”

  “Irrational beings, right?” he responded back, with a hollow grin. “…Where are we?”

  The ground was damp. Their feet splashed in a thin layer of muddy water, and moisture dripped occasionally from the ceiling. The smell was overpowering — thick with sulphur and the sweetness of decay.

  “This way,” she said, giving his hand a tug. “I think…well, judging by smell anyway, I think we’re in the sewer.”

  As if to prove her point, a pair of rats — each the size of small dogs and glowing faintly blue-green — scurried past them, tails dragging in the water. “We can get out this way?” He wondered what was going on above ground, in the courtyard. The terrible certainty that had settled into his heart had faded, somewhat, and he ached to get above ground and see what was happening. What if he was wrong? What if the Nightmare Man hadn’t been there at all and he got to the Gatekeeper’s mountain and all of this was pointless?

  “Yes,” Sonia said, interrupting his thoughts. “I think so. This should drain out near the stables. If everyone’s still in the courtyard, we should be able to sneak out that way without being scene.”

  “That’s a lot of ifs and shoulds.”

  Sonia shrugged. Her wings fluttered uneasily, but she said nothing else.

  As she said, the tunnel did eventually open out into a large drain, but not before the water grew deeper and smellier. It flowed over the tops of Adrian’s shoes and welled up between his toes and he tried hard not to think of where they were or what they were walking through. They climbed out of the drain and up a steep bank on the other side, coming out on the far side of the stable.

  The stable wasn’t exactly what Adrian had expected it to be. There were horses there, to be fair — tall white horses and fat grey ponies, lean black horses and stout Clydesdales. But there were a great number of other things there as well: cats of every color, giant birds that looked like ostriches mixed with llamas, enormous iguanas. And there, at the far end, crouched into a tight metallic ball, was a familiar spidery carriage.

  Adrian walked toward it, glancing around to make sure that they were alone. They were. He couldn’t see the courtyard from here because it was obscured by a massive stone wall, but he could still hear stirrings and mutterings on the other side. “Sonia,” he asked, as he crept upon the spindle-legged carriage. “Do you know how to drive this thing?”

  “What?”

  “Lorelai’s carriage. Can you drive it?” He stopped a few feet away. The carriage seemed to be sleeping; it sat very quietly and still, although it occasionally gave a small shudder as though snoring.

  “Um. I don’t know.” Sonia came up beside him.

  “You said the trip would take a couple of days by foot. How long by carriage?”

  “Adrian, are you really trying to steal —”

  “How long?”

  “A day, maybe. Half a day if I can get it to go really fast.” Her wings fluttered rapidly. “Adrian, we can’t steal Lorelai’s carriage!”

  “Why not?” He stepped up to it, extending his hand to touch its side. As his fingertips brushed the polished black wood, the carriage sprang to sudden life, rising with a terrible creaking. It waved a spindly leg in front of it. “It’ll be faster.”

  “But…” she trailed off. “Okay, fine. I’ll try it. But I don’t know if it’ll actually work.”

  Adrian stepped out of the way, letting her climb up into the front seat. She looked around, searching for reins or pedals or anything else that might make it work, then sighed and crossed her hands in her lap.

  The carriage twitched.

  “What did you just do?”

  “What?”

  “You did something. And then the carriage moved.”

  “I don’t know, I just was thinking about how we needed to get going, and —” The carriage moved again. It gave a tremendous screech and backed out of the stall. “…Seriously?”

  “Is it…are you controlling it psychically?” Adrian asked, coming around to climb up into the front seat beside her. “You think and it…does what you ask?”

  “I…think so?” Sonia adjusted her wings and smoothed her skirt before refolding her hands in her lap. She screwed up her face in concentration, and the carriage suddenly lurched forward.

  Adrian thrust out a hand to grab hold of something — anything — for support. He gripped the bottom of the seat and gritted his teeth, feeling the absolute certainty that he would fall out at any minute.

  Sonia glanced over her shoulder, casting a final look back at the castle. It was impossible to hear anything over the creaking and groaning of the carriage legs. Adrian wondered if anyone had noticed that they were gone yet.

  “Faster would be better,” Sonia muttered, and the carriage responded by surging forward at a nauseatingly brisk pace.

  Adrian flattened himself against the back of the bench, hand clenched tightly around the seat, squeezing his eyes shut. At least it would be harder for Lorelai to catch up with them now.

  TREASON

  It was nothing short of pandemonium. Rosalie pushed through the gathering crowd without notice. Guards and servants crowded around the door. Guards tried to shove through into the courtyard, forcing their way through the crowd, but no one seemed to know where they were going. Rosalie couldn’t see outside over the heads of the milling crowd, and she didn’t care to. If someone was stealing dreams from the queen, that wasn’t any of her business; she just needed to find her way back to Lorelai before things got any worse.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Did you see him?”

  “It doesn’t make any sense — it looked like a dream…”

  “Why would a dream steal another dream?”

  Rosalie picked up snippets of chatter and conjecture as she wove through the crowd at the door and made her way up toward the main chamber. She didn’t know why she was going back there — Lorelai probably wasn’t still there. But she didn’t know where else to go.

  “Valor’s missing!”

  “Did he go into the fire?”

  “Somebody stole him!”

  “I’m telling you, it was a dream.”

  “Dreams don’t steal dreams!”

  Rosalie broke through the crowd and took a deep breath. It felt like surfacing for air after swimming through a great distance. Her heart thudded up in her throat and her wings sagged at her back.

  “Rosalie,” a voice hissed nearby.

  She jumped. A hand caught her, clutching her elbow, and tugged her into a shadowy area behind a large statue of a girl riding on a turtle. A pair of cold eyes bore into her, framed by a long curtain of silver-white hair. Lorelai had wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth, and her skin had a translucent quality. She carried several small jars of dreamstuff in her arms —
the payment they should have been given for Adrian.

  “Where have you been, you worthless girl?” Before Rosalie could respond, Lorelai continued in a low, urgent whisper. She shoved the jars into Rosalie’s arms unceremoniously. “Come on. While everyone’s still distracted.”

  Rosalie didn’t say anything. She held the jars awkwardly against her chest. Lorelai gave her a slight shove away from the statue and started down the hall, heading toward the store rooms. She was walking more briskly than usual, as though only barely containing herself from running. Her wasp-wings buzzed angrily at her shoulders.

  “Um…” Rosalie finally said as they crossed a foyer and closed the distance to the next door. “What’s going on?”

  Lorelai made a disgusted noise. “The thief came and stole the queen’s favorite toy, and now everyone’s gone half insane trying to catch him.”

  “I…some people were talking. They said the thief was a dream.”

  “Give them a few hours and he’ll be a chimera. Or a flying pumpkin.” Lorelai snorted. She stopped, resting her hand against the heavy wooden store room door, and pushed it open. It creaked slightly, but opened easily, and a splash of multi-colored lights could be seen shimmering in the dark. “What use does a dream have of more dreams?”

  “Maybe he’s the dream from the old story — the one who took everyone to where the Darkness comes from,” Rosalie suggested meekly. “Maybe he’s real.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Lorelai said, but something caught in her voice as she did. Her eyes narrowed.

  “There’s no reason it can’t be true,” Rosalie said.

  “No…I suppose…” Lorelai extended her hand, curling her fingers around a jug filled with bright silvery-purple dreamstuff. She pulled it from the shelf and handed it to Rosalie, who tried to adjust her load to add it to the stack.

  “Um…What are we doing?”

  “The guards are all a bit…preoccupied,” Lorelai said, laying another jug atop the stack in Rosalie’s arms. “So we must pay ourselves what we’re owed.”

  “So we’re stealing?”

  Lorelai clicked her tongue. “We’re getting proper payment for our services.” She laid another jug of dreams in Rosalie’s arms. They sagged under the weight. Lorelai grabbed two more and tucked them beneath her own arms. “Now. Come along. We’ve tarried here long enough,” she said, as though it had been Rosalie’s idea to come in and spend time loading up on dreams.

  Rosalie had a hard time following Lorelai out into the hall and toward the stables. The dreams were heavy and awkward, and the glass jugs kept sliding in her sweaty hands. Lorelai walked too fast and Rosalie struggled to keep up, barely able to see over the stack of jugs nestled in her arms.

  The door to the stable loomed before them; Rosalie could just make it out above the jugs in her arms. She tried to shift the jugs in her arms so that she could see better, but realized immediately that was a mistake: one of the small jars slipped through her sweaty fingers and there was no way to catch it in time. It crashed against the hard stone floor, shattering instantly. The dreamstuff unfurled, twisting around Rosalie’s ankles like an over-eager housecat.

  Almost immediately, a voice sounded behind them.

  “The store room door is open!”

  “Did you hear that?”

  Lorelai cursed under her breath and gave Rosalie a hard shove with her shoulder before taking off at a run for the stable. Rosalie followed awkwardly, unbalanced now. She could hear the clanging of armor and heavy footsteps coming closer behind her, and she struggled to run. More jars fell from her grasp, smashing to the ground and releasing their contents like sparkling, thick mist.

  “Thief!”

  Rosalie didn’t turn to see who was yelling. It was a guard, that’s all that mattered — and, from the sounds of it, he was coming up on her fast. She let out a strangled cry and threw herself forward, shoving through the door with one shoulder, not even bothering to hold on to the falling jugs as she struggled to get out into the open.

  “Thief! In here! We’ve caught the thief!”

  The door swung open under her weight and she stumbled out into the stable area, nearly falling as the path stepped down from stone to dirt. She clutched the surviving jug to her breast, only half realizing that she still carried it, and ran toward Lorelai. Her lungs burned.

  Lorelai had stopped and was staring ahead with a cold, stony glint in her eye. Her jaw clenched. Both jugs under her arms were intact, but her hands were balled into fists at her side and her knuckles were white. Rosalie nearly crashed into her.

  “What are you doing? Run! Guards!” Rosalie panted out, bent double and clutching the jug to her chest. The dreams inside shifted and jumped like an animal in a cage.

  “It’s gone.”

  “What?”

  Lorelai pointed at the empty stall where the carriage had been.

  The door opened behind them. “Stop! Both of you!”

  “Fuck!” Lorelai spun around, extending her hand; the jug under her arm slipped, but she caught it with her elbow. The air rippled, and Rosalie felt a warm rush of air pass her cheek. The next moment, both guards crumpled. They lay in a tangled heap. “Come on!” Lorelai yelled, and started forward at a run again, shifting the jugs into her hands.

  Rosalie wasn’t sure how, but she followed, ignoring the burning in her chest. She clung to her dream jug as though it were the only thing keeping her tethered to the world and followed Lorelai into the cover of woods that grew alongside the courtyard’s massive stone fence.

  * * *

  In the white room, Nathaniel and the little girl were eating sandwiches. Nathaniel’s peanut butter was dry and gritty in his mouth, and the crusts of the bread grated against his tongue like sandpaper. He tried to feed his sandwich to the dog, but the mossy-furred creature turned up its nose and refused to take it.

  The little girl didn’t seem to mind her sandwich. She happily munched away at it, humming to herself. She swung her legs back and forth under her chair, her elbows propped up on the table. Grape jelly oozed out from the edges of her sandwich and dripped down from the corners of her mouth.

  Nathaniel wished there was a clock so he could tell what time it was. Not that it would help; he didn’t know how long he had been here. It seemed like forever. He glanced toward the blank wall for the hundredth time, waiting for it to yawn open and the Nightmare Man to come in.

  Whenever the door appeared this time, Nathaniel decided, he was going to run for it and try to get out. If he could just get out of this room, maybe he could go home.

  The moss-colored dog lifted its shaggy head. Its ears perked forward, and a low whine caught in its throat. The little girl turned around in her seat and smiled widely; her mouth was stained purple from jelly. Nathaniel jumped to his feet.

  The doorway appeared in the wall, gaping open like a hole in stretched-out play dough. The Nightmare Man appeared in the doorway, filling it with his cloak. Nathaniel ran for it, ducking his head low. A second figure came into view, stepping into the room; it was a tall knight, dressed in silver-colored armor. It flickered and glowed around the edges the way the little girl did.

  The two figures stepped inside. The doorway was open and empty.

  Nathaniel tried to make it through the door before it closed. A skeletal hand caught the collar of his t-shirt and held him back. He strained against it, uselessly, and watched as the door closed inches away from his face. He tried to squirm out of his shirt, but got tangled in the sleeves. The wall sealed itself, and once more the wall was smooth and white.

  “I brought you a friend,” The Nightmare Man said in Nathaniel’s mind.

  The knight stood awkwardly, staring down at Nathaniel. His hands shook a little, and his gauntlets rattled. Nathaniel looked up at him, peeking from within the collar of his shirt. He looked familiar and generic at the same time, like a drawing in a storybook.

  The little girl shoved the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth and smiled. She waved at the knig
ht with sticky purple fingers and climbed down from her chair.

  “Where am I?” The knight said, finally, looking around at the empty room.

  “Among new friends,” The Nightmare Man said, and let go of Nathaniel’s collar, letting him slump to the floor like a marionette with cut strings. “Samantha…look. Meet your new friend.”

  * * *

  Adrian wanted to sleep so that he could ignore the terrible nausea that crept over him every time he opened his eyes, but he was terrified that he might somehow fall off the wagon if he did. He considered asking Sonia to stop so that he could climb inside of the carriage itself, but he didn’t know if they were being followed.

  They seemed to be moving quickly. He dozed, intermittently, but always jerked awake. Whenever he chanced to open his eyes, nothing around him made much sense. It should have been night time, he thought. He was sure they hadn’t spent the night in the dungeon, and he was equally sure that he hadn’t slept that long on the carriage. And yet, no matter how many times he dozed and awoke, no darkness fell, no moon crept up into the sky. The sky itself faded from blue to grey, a flat, lifeless color. There didn’t seem to be any clouds, just a solid blanket of grey haze that covered the sun and muted it down to a pale disc.

  As they journeyed north, the path became darker, and Adrian realized that he could no longer see the sun at all. It was light out, but light in the pale grey way of a sky before a snow storm. The creaking sound of the carriage sounded muted, as though all of the sound had been dampened or muffled. Adrian gave up trying to doze. Whenever he closed his eyes, half-formed memories crowded into his thoughts and he forced himself to open his eyes again. He thought about Nathaniel, and the Nightmare Man, and tried to think of what he would do if he couldn’t find them after all. He thought about other things, too, things that had been shaken loose in his memories by the queen’s invasive touch. He swallowed back his nausea and focused on the scenery as it passed by.