“Eep!” It squeaked and doubled its speed. Its tiny legs pumped furiously, sending it hopping across the cracked clay, but there was nowhere to hide. Stella was awkward and slow, but the creature’s small legs were no match for the length of her stride. Stella caught it easily in her left hand. She held it up and looked at its face, which was almost comical, with its overly large eyes and very fine set of whiskers. He was a lovely color, sleek as a dolphin, and he wiggled in her hand, flashing her an indignant glare. “I’ll bite you,” he threatened.
“Don’t you dare,” Stella warned. “I saved your life!”
“Oh, so it’s like that, is it?” The mouse twitched his whiskers and sniffed. “We’re going to argue over who did what for whom?”
Stella paused and stared at the rodent in her hand.
“I am talking to you,” she said. She brought the mouse closer to her face. “HOW AM I TALKING TO YOU?”
“Believe me,” the mouse retorted, “I’d much rather you weren’t. Now if you would simply unhand me—”
Stella turned in a full circle and stared again at her surroundings. “Where am I?” she whispered.
The mouse scoffed. “As if you didn’t know.”
“Hey!” Stella had to stop herself from giving him a good shake. “I don’t know what this is or who you are or how it is that you can talk. But you were in my room. You have a piece of my brother’s notebook. Explain!”
The mouse rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh.
“Start with where we are,” Stella ordered.
“Put me down,” the creature countered.
“Not until you tell me where we are.”
“I should think it was fairly obvious,” the mouse said, “that we are in the middle of Nowhere.”
“Not helpful,” Stella replied.
“But true, nonetheless,” the mouse said. “See for yourself.” And he twitched his whiskers in the direction behind her.
Stella turned and looked more carefully at the Metro sign by the tree. It was an ornate iron lamppost at the top of which perched a sign written in curly letters. Dreamway, it read in all capitals. And then, below, Nowhere, and the escalator that led down into the concrete. Stella looked more closely at the elevator doors on the other side of the sign. They weren’t connected to anything. They were just . . . doors.
“Where—?”
“Can’t you read?” the mouse asked sarcastically. “If you want to get from Nowhere to Anywhere, you have to go into the Dreamway. We’re right on the edge.”
The moment he said this, the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Twenty people spilled out. Some were carrying shopping bags or random items. One man held a black cat. A woman wearing a large, colorful turban carried an oversize, heavy-looking book. One or two headed into the shops, but the rest walked the short way from the elevator toward the escalator down into the Dreamway. They did not glance at Stella or at one another, and nobody spoke.
“Who are they?” Stella asked.
“Sleepers,” said the mouse.
“What?”
“They’re asleep,” the mouse explained. “In your world. Barely just asleep. They’re heading into the Dreamway for the night. We’re on the edge of the Penumbra, right between Here and There.”
Stella stared at the tiny mouse in her hand, who was clearly doing his best to look dignified.
“What’s the Penumbra?” Stella asked.
“Not too bright, are you?” the mouse answered. “The Penumbra is the world you come from. The Shadow World.”
“I come from the real world.”
The mouse cocked his head. “Oh, do you?” He looked bored.
Stella scanned the landscape in every direction. There was nothing. Nothing but the strip mall, a single gnarled tree, the elevator doors, and the escalator down into Dreamway. “So the Dreamway is where they—sleep?”
“No,” the mouse snapped. “They sleep in the Penumbra. The Dreamway is where they dream.”
“That’s not how dreaming works.”
“Well, you’re the expert, of course.” The mouse twitched his whiskers haughtily.
Stella shook her head, and it occurred to her that, perhaps, she was the one who was dreaming. She slapped herself in the face and was very disappointed when it hurt the appropriate amount. “How did I even get here?”
“A question for the philosophers,” the mouse remarked. “But I think I pulled you through by my tail. Not,” he added quickly, “intentionally.”
The last of the Sleepers was on the escalator now. It looked as if the old woman was sinking into the concrete. As Stella peered around again, she began to feel dizzy. She didn’t like this place. It wasn’t . . . anything.
Why did I come here? she thought, and then remembered. “Why do you have a piece from my brother’s notebook? What were you doing in my room?”
“I’m a Door Mouse,” the mouse said importantly. “I travel between the Here and There.”
“What about this piece from the notebook?”
“I . . . found it.” The mouse’s whiskers twitched shiftily.
“Where?” Stella demanded.
The mouse tried to look away from her, so she held him right up to her eyes. “Fine,” he snapped. “I found it in the Dreamway, all right? It was just sitting on a platform, so I said to myself, ‘What’s this doing here?’ And I realized it had come from the Penumbra. It shouldn’t have ended up in the Dreamway. Nothing and no one travels between the worlds without the proper authorization. But it seems as if a lot of unauthorized things have been happening lately, and I wanted to investigate.”
“So—how did it get in?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure, but I think—well, it’s possible it was a Chimerath.”
Stella didn’t know what a Chimerath was, but the word sent a shudder through her. “What”—her voice was suddenly dry and raspy—“is that?”
“A Chimerath is—it’s a shadow creature. They live along the Nightmare Line. But they’re always looking for a way into the Penumbra. They’re attracted to the brightness, you see. People with—with the brightness inside of them—”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, you know. A certain creativity. A certain lightness of spirit. They look for someone who has that brightness, and then they wait. The Chimerath wait until some darkness comes, and then . . .”
“What kind of darkness?”
“Fear,” the mouse replied. “Sadness. Those things are like a crack for the Chimerath to get through.”
Stella swallowed. She didn’t want to ask the next question. “What do they want Cole for?”
The rodent shifted, uncomfortable. “Well, ehrm. Well, they eat the brightness, you see. Suck it out of people like a bowl of pasta al dente.” He slurped noisily, and Stella shuddered.
“So—that . . . thing that tried to get Cole . . . ?”
“It didn’t try to get him,” the mouse told her. “It got him.”
Stella wobbled, as if the ground had suddenly become a tar pit. “What?”
The mouse pointed to the piece of lined notebook paper. “There’s your proof. He’s probably on his way to the Nightmare Line right now.”
“But—Cole is at home! He’s asleep in his room!”
“Yes—so are those people,” the mouse said, gesturing to a tall woman wandering around the strip mall. “Well—that one’s almost asleep. But the point is that the Chimerath doesn’t take your body. It takes your spirit—the youness of you. Are you following?”
Stella nodded, mute.
“Your you energy is very powerful. And if you can trap that energy—”
“You can use it,” Stella finished.
Stella thought about the vacant look in Cole’s eyes, the way he had flickered. “So Cole is—”
“He’s here and he’s there. But the important part of him . . .”
“. . . is here . . . somewhere.” Stella tried to stay calm and focus all of her energy on sounding reasonable. “But ni
ghtmares end,” she pointed out. “People wake up. People must be able to get out.”
“Get out?” The mouse looked blank.
“Yes—I mean . . .”
“Oh . . .” The mouse nodded. “Yes. Right. That’s if they come in as a Sleeper. A Chimerath pulled your brother through a door. That’s the difference between having a nightmare and . . . um . . . let’s say, becoming one? The longer he stays down here, the dimmer his light in your world will become. Eventually, it will go out.”
“And he’ll be—dead?”
“No. His spirit will be. Wait—there’s a word for it in your world. He’ll be . . .” The mouse paused dramatically. “A zucchini.”
“A zucchini?” Stella repeated. “You mean a squash?”
“What? No. That’s not—” The mouse shook his head. “Blank stare?” he prompted. “Muttering? Musssst . . . eeeeeat . . . brainssss . . .”
“A zombie?” Stella cried.
“Yes! That’s it—thank you! A zombie!” The mouse paused, then added, “Only he won’t want to eat brains, of course. That’s only in movies.”
Stella felt every bit of her insides tremble. She remembered the strange look in Cole’s eyes and the way he had flickered on the subway.
Then, suddenly, an image of Angry Pete popped into her mind. Could Cole turn into—that? A frigid icicle of fear traced down her back.
“How fast? How fast will it happen?”
“Oh—it could take years. Or days. You never really know.”
“Days?” Terror squeezed her heart. “How will you stop it? What are you going to do?” she demanded.
“Me?” The mouse huffed. “I’m going to take this paper to someone who can prove where it came from then file a report!”
Stella nodded. “And then what happens?”
“Someone will look into the situation!”
“And then?”
Cheerful, tinny music bleated over the silence that hung between them. The fish fountain burbled on, oblivious, as the mouse let out a squirmy cough. “Well . . .” he admitted, “eventually someone might write a strongly-worded letter.”
“A strongly-worded letter?” Stella screeched. “Eventually? Someone has to get my brother out of here now!”
“Well—then you’d have to go into the Dreamway, and that’s—”
“Fine,” Stella said. She began to walk toward the escalator.
“—ridiculous. What? Wait! What do you think you’re doing?” the mouse squeaked. “You can’t just walk in there and find your brother. You don’t know where you’re going! You have no idea where he is!”
“That’s why you’re going to help me.”
“Why should I?”
“Because I have you in my hand, and I’m not letting you go.”
The mouse thought this over. “Huh,” he said at last. “I see. Good point.”
“Can you help me?”
“Of course I can help you! I am, after all”—and at this he lifted his long silver whiskers a bit—“a Door Mouse. If I can’t help you, then I don’t know who can.”
She looked down at the mouse. “Great. So what’s your name, anyway?”
The mouse looked surprised. “Yes!”
“What?”
“No one has ever guessed my name before.”
“I’m sorry, it’s—what?”
“Not What!” The mouse looked deeply offended. “Of course I’m not What. He’s a ridiculous toad. I’m Anyway!”
“Oh, your name is Anyway?” Stella repeated.
“Of course.” Anyway shook his head with clear disgust. “And I had just begun to think she wasn’t completely hopeless,” he grumbled to himself.
Stella shot another concerned glance toward the Dreamway. It looked like a normal subway entrance, with the exception of the fact that it was in a strip mall and seemed connected to an elevator to nowhere.
She hesitated. Those other people have already gone down there, she thought, trying to reassure herself, those Sleepers. “Are you sure that’s the only way?”
“If you want to get somewhere, you have to get out of Nowhere,” the mouse replied. “Duh.”
Sometimes, crazy things sound reasonable. This, for Stella, was one of those times.
Just in case, though, she smacked herself across the face again. It still hurt. She sighed and wondered what to do with the mouse. He was grouchy and furious at being held against his will, but she was afraid that if she let him loose, he would run away. That would, of course, be a disaster as she had no idea where she was or where she needed to go. The Door Mouse eventually suggested that she keep him in the little pocket on her pajama top. That way, she could keep an eye on him, but he wouldn’t be strangled by her “giant walrus fingers,” as Anyway referred to them. (Do walruses have fingers? Stella wondered. Or were her fingers themselves like walruses?)
So she put him in her pocket, where he was an unexpectedly reassuring spot of warmth against her quickly-beating heart.
Anyway seemed quite pleased with this arrangement. He stood with his paws at the top lip of the pocket, very much like a lookout in the crow’s nest of a ship. From there, he could direct Stella where to go.
Stella stood at the top of the escalator, watching the steps vanish into the darkness below. It was decrepit, with a brass railing and wooden steps that clattered and shook. Stella did not want to step onto it. “It looks very old,” Stella said.
“Old? Hah! It’s ancient,” Anyway agreed, but he said it in a proud, rather affectionate way.
“How do I know it’s safe?” she asked.
Anyway laughed again. “Wait—are you quite serious?” he wondered.
“Yes.”
“How do you know it’s safe?” He looked at her sharply and twirled his whiskers. Half to himself and almost as an afterthought, he added, “What is safe, my dear?”
Stella took a couple of deep breaths, watching the stairs sink into the landscape. Her stomach felt cold and queasy, her legs heavy. But she forced herself to take a step, and then another, and then another until she had gotten onto the escalator, which rattled on, unconcerned, taking her down below the asphalt crust that she had been standing on moments before. Anyway hummed a few bars of “Turkey in the Straw” as the escalator went on, down, down, down into the semidarkness.
“Ready, ready!” Anyway shouted, and Stella realized that they must be coming to the end. Escalators often gave her trouble, and the dim light made her nervous. She was preparing to step off when Anyway cried, “Mind the gap!”
Gap? Caught off guard, Stella stumbled forward and tripped. With a cry, she twisted as she fell to avoid crushing Anyway and managed to catch herself—with her right hand.
She brought her right hand up to her face and made a fist—a tight fist. Gracefully, she wriggled her fingers. Her right hand had never been flexible. She could move it, yes, enough to get dressed, but it wasn’t easy. Her wrist curled toward her body, and her fingers were stiff. Her right leg, too, dragged slightly. People hardly noticed it—Stella hardly noticed it—until she had to run, or dance, or climb a rope. Stella sat up. She pointed the toes on her right foot, then flexed. “Wow,” she whispered. She stood up, and gave a little jump, and another. Then a skip she had never been able to do before, and it took a couple of tries before she managed a lovely, even series of skip, skip, skips. She stopped suddenly and waggled her fingers in front of her face. It was mesmerizing, the way she could make them move up and down, up and down, in a wave.
Ahem! The paper-crinkly sound of someone very small clearing a very small throat cut through her concentration.
Only then did she remember to check her pocket.
“Thanks for your concern,” Anyway said drily. “You’ll be pleased to hear that I was not crushed beneath the weight of your falling body.”
Stella was barely listening. “I had a stroke. I had a stroke when I was a baby, and my hand doesn’t—”
“Things are different here.”
She spread her fin
gers, then clenched her fist again. “I’m healed.”
“No.” Anyway shook his head. “No—you’re just in the Dreamway. It’s like you’re an avalanche.”
“An avalanche?”
“You know—something that represents you. Like a projection of you.” Stella still looked blank. “Like in a video game.”
“An avatar?”
“Yes, that’s what I said, an avatar. It’s a little like that. Except that you really are here. And you aren’t.”
For the first time, Stella looked up. She was sitting on the floor, and before her, at a bit of a distance, was a subway station. But it looked nothing like the subway station that she visited every afternoon on her way home from school. This was a beautiful old-fashioned train station, with enormous stone columns and echoey marble floors. Arched windows were perched along the top of the walls, like birds on a wire. It looked like the kind of thing that someone would see in London or Paris. Stella had never been to either of those places, but the cities evoked elegance and grandeur, and that was what this train station was like. Several arched tunnels led off along the sides of the walls. Stella imagined that this was where the tracks were. She skipped again, enjoying the feeling of movement. It doesn’t matter if it isn’t real, she thought. It feels real. It feels realer than life. It feels . . . easy. She had to stop herself from running.
“We have to go.” Anyway perched on her knee, then crawled up her sleeve and back into her pocket.
Closer to them was a large chrome arch guarded by a gargoyle on either side. Beside each gargoyle was a silver mesh container, like a large basket, about the size of a pickup truck. At the top of the archway was a television monitor, on which a man with a bad toupee—the TV said his name was Dr. Peavey—droned something about paperwork. The arch was strange, made of metal and brutal in design—a direct contrast to the elegance of the station beyond. It didn’t belong; it looked like something someone had added recently.
“We’ll have to get past the turnies somehow,” the mouse said darkly.
“Turnies?”
“Turnstile operators. We’ve got to get past, and right away!” He tugged at her pocket, until she was forced to move out of fear that he would rip her favorite pajamas.
The Dreamway Page 4
