The Spinner of Dreams

by K. A. Reynolds

  Annalise gave Mister Edwards a grim, should-we-really-ingest-this glance. The fox nodded wide-eyed to Annalise as if the chance of death was an absolute certainty.

  “They’re not alive, are they?” Annalise asked, stomach churning.

  “Heavens no!” the crow answered. “It’s just an enchantment, I promise.”

  Annalise sighed. If it helped get her closer to her dreams, she would do it.

  Annalise and Mister Edwards popped the rooks in their mouths together. Annalise blanched; she swore her teeth crunched bone. “Why are you helping us?” she asked the crow, chomping the vile black bird. The taste was unbearable—sweaty socks stewed in compost. A sudden whoosh of water rushed down Annalise’s throat, quenching her body with cool delight. She marveled at the fox, refreshed, who nodded back the same. “Do you work for the Spinner of Dreams, too?”

  “I’m a free agent,” the ticketier replied. “My business is this train: making sure it gets to where it needs to be, and that those aboard are taken care of. It’s standard practice. The Fate Spinner expects it, of course.” She gave a small laugh. “It wouldn’t be much fun for her if people dropped dead before the real excitement began, now would it?” She gave Annalise an odd look, one loaded with kinship and pain, before she put her smile back on. “Anyway, why wouldn’t I help you? If I was heading to your world for the first time, wouldn’t you help me survive?”

  Mister Edwards nodded quickly.

  Annalise didn’t have to think before answering, “Of course.”

  “Well, there’s your answer. Now,” Ms Twixt continued, “if you’ll both excuse me, we’re almost at the break in the sky. Mister Edwards, Miss Meriwether, best of luck and, of course, may the magic of dreams be yours.”

  The ticketier punched Annalise’s ticket—in the shape of a crow—nodded cordially, then breezed through the next door.

  The skies outside lightened to cotton-candy pink. The ginormous wings attached to each car unfolded and pumped faster the closer they drew to the crack in the sky.

  Out of nowhere, the train shuddered. The passengers held on for dear life as an announcement came over the loudspeakers.

  Tchshht. “Next stop, the Mazelands and the Labyrinth of Fate and Dreams. Loyal passengers of White Crow Railways, may the magic of dreams be yours.” Tchshht.

  Lightning struck the heavens. Annalise and Mister Edwards peered out their window. With the crack in the sky directly above them, everything glowed red. Up close, the break was as huge as the field by her home. Spectral train tracks ran through the crack’s center, and the train rode them all the way up.

  “Have you ever been on the other side of the sky, Mister Edwards?” Annalise’s big hand throbbed like a heartbeat the closer they came to the break. And with each moment that passed, that heartbeat grew stronger, same as the horned thing inside her. Annalise stroked the length of her long blackberry hair and tried to stop thinking every bad thing imaginable.

  “I have,” the fox replied, clutching the seat’s railing in a death grip. “I was there about a month ago, after my husband and I decided to pursue our dream of owning our own candy shop in an abandoned castle in the hills of Caledonia.”

  “Oh.” Annalise’s words shook with the train. “That is a lovely dream.”

  “Yes, it was.” Mister Edwards smiled sadly. “I was to be the confectioner and my husband was to manage the business. Many thought our dream was silly—childish, even, as if possessing the spirit of a child was a terrible thing. But we thought what better way to spend our lives than by doing something that keeps us young at heart? Something colorful and fun that spreads a bit of childlike cheer into an often cheerless world. Something that, with just a taste of sweetness melting on their tongue, might make others feel young at heart, too.”

  Annalise beamed. “How beautiful, Mister Edwards. I sure could have used some of your confections over the years.”

  “Thank you.” The midnight fur at the fox’s cheeks blushed slightly to pink. “I’ve never been good at many things, but I am skilled at creating sweets—sculpting chocolate, sugar, flour, and cream into art so delicious that, for a moment, one’s troubles melt away. That is my passion.” His twinkling copper eyes darkened. “It was my husband’s as well. So, imagine our surprise when an oddly dressed cat raced past us in the park one day. We’d heard the legend of the Spinners like everyone else, so we followed the cat, got on the train, and were off after our wildest candy-eyed dreams.”

  All at once, the ruby glow outside brightened, the seats hummed, and the feathered walls ruffled in a ghost-breeze. Mister Edwards tucked his tail between his legs and yipped with fright.

  “Oh, please finish your story, Mister Edwards,” Annalise said, stroking her hair. “When I’m scared, I’ve always found stories help.”

  A sudden hollowness wound through the train. Glancing around nervously, Annalise saw many of the dream cats had vanished. Only two remained—the one with the newspaper and the one called Despitious beside him—both snoring and purring in their sleep.

  “Really?” Mister Edwards whispered. “I’ve talked so much already. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

  The lanterns flickered and jostled as the blinds over the windows snapped shut.

  “Yes,” Annalise replied while clutching her seat. “I most certainly do.”

  Mister Edwards smiled at Annalise with thankfulness. “Okay. Well, we took the train, this very one, and entered the labyrinth. I’m not going to sugarcoat it; the labyrinth is deadly. We were terrified the whole time, but we kept on. And, working together, we almost made it to Dreamland.”

  Annalise grinned. “You’ve been inside the labyrinth? This is wonderful news! But . . .” Her face fell. “You didn’t finish. What happened?”

  Shivering, the fox curled his black tail tighter around him. The train of crows rattled and bounced. Mister Edwards talked faster and louder over the bumps. “We reached the end of the maze. The gates to Dreamland were only steps away. But before we could enter, the Fate Spinner’s guards—those accursed night wolves—rushed in without warning and”—his chin wobbled—“instead of letting us into Dreamland, the Fate Spinner captured my beloved Mister Amoureux. Then,” he continued, tail over his face, “she went after me.”

  “But why?” Annalise asked, gritting her teeth against her outrage. “Why would she do such a thing? You won, fair and square.”

  “I don’t know.” A dark flame of guilt sparked in the fox’s eyes. “But I didn’t go down without a fight. I escaped the wolves and ran after Mister Amoureux but didn’t get far. When I got hold of him, the Fate Spinner leveled her staff straight at me and blasted us apart.” Mr. Edwards paused, rubbed the place where his leg used to be, and forced himself to continue. “I don’t know where the Spinner of Dreams was, or what happened next, because I blacked out and was left for dead. When I woke, Mister Amoureux and my leg were gone.” The train car shuddered harder; they hung on tighter to the seats. “We’d survived every monster in the labyrinth. But in the end, we couldn’t escape the Fate Spinner.”

  “That’s terrible.” Annalise’s heart broke for poor Mister Edwards and his husband. She thought of how deeply she missed her grandparents. How the space they once occupied could never be filled. Because of this, Annalise felt she understood. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

  “Thank you, Miss Meriwether.” The fox’s warm gaze flitted up to her face. “I would have died if the train hadn’t found me and ferried me home. Now that I’m healed, I’m ready to go back and find Mister Amoureux.” He shook his head and sighed. “I don’t even know if he’s alive, but I’m determined to beat the Fate Spinner, stand before her sister, and make our dreams a reality.”

  A lightning bolt of inspiration struck her. “Mister Edwards, you’ve already completed the labyrinth!” Annalise burst with excitement. “Maybe we could beat it again—together!”

  “Yes.” The black fox opened his mouth to reply, when the train suddenly tipped back and climbed l
ike a roller coaster heading straight up.

  Outside, the unmistakable howls of—

  “Night wolves.” Annalise would know their cries anywhere. “What’s happening, Mister Edwards—do you know?”

  The black fox tried opening the blinds, but they remained stubbornly shut. “I don’t know. I can’t see anything.”

  The train’s speakers clicked on next. “Brace yourselves,” said the announcer. “We’re about to enter the Mazelands.”

  Tchshht.

  Annalise and Mister Edwards shared a worried look. From the corner of her eye, Annalise spotted movement behind their backs. Two children in the adjoining train car, who appeared about her age, moved in and out of sight. Annalise wondered if they were heading to the Mazelands, too.

  “Miss Meriwether,” Mister Edwards asked quickly as the train accelerated, “what did you mean a moment ago? When you said that maybe we could beat the maze together?”

  Annalise turned back to Mister Edwards. “I just thought, maybe, it would be nicer if we weren’t alone on our quest for our dreams. That if we teamed up and faced the labyrinth together, maybe we’d have a better chance at beating the Fate Spinner.”

  Out of nowhere, a child in the adjoining car screamed. The blinds over the bird’s-eye windows flipped up. A glaring red light flooded the train. And Annalise was sure she saw eyes and teeth and wolves outside, but a flash and a caw later, and they were gone.

  “I’d, um, like that very much, Miss Meriwether,” the fox said, giving her a terrified grin. “But for now, hold on.” He shouted over the cawing of birds, “We’re heading into the break!”

  Annalise only had a moment to relish the notion that Mister Edwards might be becoming her friend when the train lurched hard right. Annalise let go of her bag and grasped Mister Edwards’s front paw. A quick, searing pain stabbed through her hidden big hand. The beast inside her twisted and burned, but there was no time to think about that. Not as Annalise and the fox flew from their seats still holding on to each other, and the train broke through the crack in the sky.

  Chapter 12

  Into the Mazelands

  Annalise and Mister Edwards tumbled down the aisle as the train of crows rocketed through the rift between worlds. Red light blazed through the windows. The giant wings on the cars outside pumped harder, trying to balance the train twisting on the tracks. After a few seconds, the harsh light dimmed, the cars straightened, and the train of crows sailed along, smooth as silk.

  They’d made it to the other side of their sky—to the Mazelands, the birthplace of all fates and all dreams.

  Annalise landed under a chair, big hand tucked inside her cloak. “Mister Edwards, are you okay?” He’d rolled under another seat and bumped his head.

  “I think so?” He blinked at her in a daze. Annalise helped him up, then led him back to his seat. They’d barely had a chance to sit down, when shadows shot past the windows, followed by a snarl and snap of wolves’ teeth.

  “Mister Edwards!”

  “Miss Meriwether!”

  Annalise latched onto the fox and peered outside. They were still far above land, riding the same train tracks through another sky. “I don’t see anything, but I know I heard wolves.”

  “I did, too.”

  “Could they be like the crows?” Annalise asked. “Could the wolves have magicked into a train as well? Did this happen last time you were here?”

  “No,” Mister Edwards answered at once. “But everything about this feels different. Like someone’s trying to stop us from reaching the labyrinth.” His furry brow creased. “What I don’t understand is why.”

  The large white crow appeared in the next car tending to the children Annalise had seen earlier. The ticketier glanced over her shoulder and stared at Annalise as if trying to tell her a secret. But before Annalise could decipher what that secret was, the enormous crow unfurled her great wings and dived through the train’s feathered wall.

  A sharp keening—like cutlery scratching across plates—sliced through the air outside. The ticketier reappeared briefly before flying under the train with a shriek and fading from sight.

  Everything hushed. The feathers of the train’s interior ruffled. The speakers shhhh’d with static. Then every lantern in the train blew out.

  Annalise felt abandoned in space.

  “Is this supposed to happen, Mister Edwards?” Annalise’s stomach flip-flopped with worry.

  Mister Edwards held tighter to Annalise. “No. It is not.”

  Beyond their window, the alien sky glittered with stars. Each star reflected the red light of the moon, like tiny droplets of blood splashed across the heavens. The train tracks had just spiraled downward like a strand of DNA toward land, when another train on another set of tracks sailed boldly past their own. A train that looked a lot like wolves—fangs, claws, leathery skin, and all.

  Annalise knew she’d heard night wolves. Behind one of the wolf-train windows, Annalise thought she spotted two achingly familiar faces staring at her as the train sped by.

  Her parents—red-eyed and haunted, huddled together in fear.

  Annalise rubbed her eyes in disbelief. In all her years of anxiety and panic, her heart had never beat so fast. No, she told herself, stroking her hair by fours. You imagined them. Maybe you imagined the whole thing?

  Or maybe it’s the Fate Spinner trying to make you afraid.

  Beside her, Mister Edwards growled out the window. Though whatever she thought she’d seen had passed, the foreboding feeling it left remained.

  “Was that what I think it was, Mister Edwards?” Annalise’s big hand thrashed and fought to be free from her prison of cloak.

  “My father used to say, if it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.” The black fox said with an edge of fear. “That looked like a train of wolves and smelled like the Fate Spinner.” Mister Edwards turned darkly away. “I don’t like the word hate, Miss Meriwether, but I hate her for what she’s done to me and my husband.” He growled and said softer, “And I hate her for what she’s making me do.”

  Annalise’s big hand burned.

  “I’m sorry, Mister Edwards,” she said as the speakers clicked on once more.

  Tchshht. “Our apologies,” a new voice said. Listening closer, it sounded like all the crows of the train were speaking at once. “We’ve arrived in the Mazelands. Please prepare for landing.” Tchshht.

  “No turning back now,” Mister Edwards said with a nervous smile.

  “No,” Annalise replied, tapping her bag the right number of times. “It’s only forward from here.”

  The two spared a glance outside. The train tracks dipped slowly downward through the Mazelands’ sky. At the track’s end lay a city of ancient ruins. Dark woods surrounded crumbling walls and giant statues, castles and grand palaces turning to dust. Annalise had seen palaces in The Book of Remembering, but none like these. Darkling clouds expanded around them, sputtering with lightning and thunder, making the window glass and walls tremble.

  “Look.” Mister Edwards motioned outside. “Can you see it?”

  Annalise leaned farther over until a tangle of sharp passageways twisted out of the dim reddish gloom. “Is that . . . ?”

  The fox nodded gravely.

  Beyond the ruined city and forest was the reason Annalise had come. Her blood ran cold and hot at once. “The Labyrinth of Fate and Dreams.”

  Shaped like a human skull spanning miles, the ancient maze she’d seen in the book bore impossibly tall stone walls coated in the mosses of time. At the labyrinth’s center stood an extravagant palace of smoky red quartz that appeared to have grown naturally out of the ground. The sketch in The Book of Remembering had been striking, but it was nothing compared to this.

  Farther past the labyrinth, arching over the distant horizon, a beam of golden light shone through a hole in the dark heavens, spotlighting the green lands below it. A shimmer of magic and joy rushed through Annalise—a nostalgia that rem
inded her of home. “That must be Dreamland.” Annalise wasn’t asking but rather saying it out loud to taste the truth of it. The truth tasted like silver and gold.

  “Yes,” Mister Edwards answered with quiet reverence. “The home of Reverie, the Spinner of Dreams.”

  Rainbow birds the size of cars and creatures that looked like dragons soared over vast rolling green meadows and sapphire waterfalls streaming into hidden pools. Pale sunlight encased the small world, shining from a lilac sky. It was the most beautiful oasis Annalise had ever seen, and she could scarcely look away.

  “Does the train continue on to Dreamland?” she asked the black fox, her face alight with wonder. They were not yet over the maze, but directly above a forest, a great distance from where they needed to be.

  Wolves howled from the dark woods below.

  “I’m afraid not,” Mister Edwards replied. “I asked that same question the first time I rode this train. See that circle of light surrounding Dreamland?” Annalise nodded. “Try to go through that without running the maze and you’ll be electrified instantly. The only way to reach your dreams is to go through the labyrinth and win.”

  Annalise clutched her bag tighter and counted her exhales, the breath that grew louder and louder and harder to suck through her throat. Her cursed hand ached but not in the usual way. It stung like eyes on the verge of tears.

  “Miss Meriwether, are you all right?”

  Annalise nodded and tried to smile. “I will be, thank—”

  A blast of lightning lit the sky and shot sideways at the train. Annalise’s big hand sizzled and flew from her cloak. “Mister Edwards,” she cried. “Look out!” Annalise covered the fox with her body and hair and bag and good and bad hands and held tight. But it was too late.