“Daniel must know the code,” Mikal said. “We must do what we can, for those we can, when we can.”
Caleb heaved a sigh of defeat. “Okay, you guys win. We’ll keep Thazel with us while we search for the key, and then take him home after we’ve found it.”
Thazel breathed an excited musical note. “I’m so happy! I wish it was one of my keys you needed, and then you could take me home right now. I’m afraid if we stay here too much longer, the Keeper will find us.”
“Your keys?” Mikal asked.
Thazel nodded, and his long nose flopped up and down. “I have lots. It’s my job. I’m the Keyholder of OooLaGul.”
Caleb’s eyebrows shot up. “You, uh, don’t happen to have a key to Astria, do you?”
Thazel reached up with his long arms and pulled over his head a necklace that had been hidden in his shaggy fur. Hundreds of keys hung from it, and they all looked very much alike, but Thazel instantly selected one that was made of a darker metal than the rest. He tugged at it three precise times and the links began to twitch and separate, for the chain was made of a myriad of golden spiders, their legs securely interlocking with one another.
“This is my family’s personal key to Astria. It’s been passed down for generations and generations. But we never lose anything, so we don’t need it. You can have it, if you like.”
George took the key reverently as the spiders reclosed the gap. “Thazel … you have no idea what this means to us.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Thazel,” Caleb said.
Thazel looked very pleased with himself.
“I told you I knew where I was taking you!” Cavendish said.
“And you got closer than a hundred yards too! You’re really good,” Mikal said.
George got to her feet. “Yes, you did very well, Cavendish. Now let’s get Thazel home.”
Thazel clambered up, and the children stepped back to avoid his swinging arms.
George began walking back toward the Dreaming meadow. She stopped and turned when she realized Thazel wasn’t following. She held out her hand to him, and he took it gently, his enormous purple mitts swallowing half of her arm.
“Lumbering oaf,” Cavendish said.
“Go fly a kite, Cavendish,” George said.
“Fly a kite,” Thazel echoed.
“Why, I never!” Cavendish said, affronted.
“Everyone hush,” Caleb said. “We need to be quiet if we’re going to get Thazel out of here without being caught. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he’s kind of hard to miss, and the idea of tangling with those Nightmares makes me sick to my stomach.”
They moved slowly to keep Thazel’s enormous feet from cracking branches and making a ruckus, and it took much longer for them to reach the place where they had first entered the woods than they had expected. The warm air had thickened, and the children were sweating when they stopped for a rest at the edge of the meadow.
George pushed the hair off her damp forehead and saw the trail they had made in the dew-dampened grass on their way to meet the monster. “At least we’ll be able to find our way out.”
“It’s still going to take forever. Now we’ll have to move even slower, since we’re so close to the Dreamers,” Caleb said.
“Maybe there’s a shortcut,” Mikal said. “Is there, Cavendish?”
Cavendish didn’t reply, except to begin making a high-pitched beeping noise: “Neep neep neep NEEP NEEP NEEP.”
“Cavendish, stop it!” George said. “You’re too loud!”
“Turn off his speakers, Mikal! Do something!” Caleb said.
“I don’t know what to do! I can’t find his speakers. Cavendish, please stop!”
Thazel grabbed the map and held it against his furry stomach, muffling the noise until it faded away entirely.
“That was way too close,” Caleb said.
“Why would you do that, Cavendish?” Mikal asked as Thazel handed the map back.
Cavendish whispered something so quietly Mikal had to lean close to hear it.
All the color drained from Mikal’s face. “He says to run.…”
But then George lifted her arm and pointed a trembling finger to their right.
It was too late to run.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The woman was tall and slender. Her lavender hair was piled high atop her head, and her violet eyes cut through the night with a furious purple fire. That fierce gaze alone knocked the breath from their lungs and left George and Company staring in mute terror at the individual who could only be the Keeper of Dreams.
She stood on a small rise, close enough to smell her sweet perfume on the breeze. As the kids watched, inky shadows began to rise from the ground at her feet. The shadows groaned painfully as they swelled and stretched into gruesome forms. They grew darker and began to thrash and multiply until the Keeper seemed to be standing in the midst of a roiling black ocean.
“No.” Caleb’s whisper was raw with panic. “No, no, no. Not this.”
The Keeper didn’t say a word, just lifted one lovely hand and pointed to the children.
The Nightmares surged forward in utter silence, and that silence was more horrifying than a thousand bloodcurdling screams.
Caleb stood in a trance, eyes blank and mouth hanging open.
Thazel started to cry and tried to hunker down as low to the ground as he could get.
“Go! Go now!” George pushed Mikal toward the Moor far in the distance.
Mikal held Cavendish tight and bolted away over the meadow.
George grabbed Thazel by the arm and pulled as hard as she could. “Thazel, get up! You have to run! Caleb! Caleb, help me!”
Caleb snapped out of his daze, looking wildly around to find his friends. “What are you still doing here?” he yelled as his eyes fell on George. “You have to get away! You don’t know what they’ll do to you if they catch you!”
“Help me get Thazel up! Please, hurry!” George said as the Nightmares drew ever closer.
“Thazel, get up, right NOW!” Caleb shouted. “Or we’ll leave you to the shadows!”
That was all Thazel needed to hear. With an enormous bellow, he rose to his feet and thundered after Mikal.
“Run!” Caleb shoved George forward, and they dashed away through the rows of sleeping Dreamers.
The noise was too much for the Dreamers, and as they awakened, their little voices cried out. Their screeching wails stabbed daggers of pain through the children’s heads.
As Mikal reached up to cover his ears, Cavendish fell from his grasp and tumbled to the ground between two beds.
“Wait! Don’t leave me!” Cavendish squawked. “Please come back!”
Mikal spun around, almost smacking straight into Thazel, but Caleb had already skidded to a halt to retrieve Cavendish.
George caught up to Mikal and Thazel just in time to hear a shriek filled with horror. Her heart faltered in her chest as she turned and saw Caleb thrashing violently on the ground in the grasp of a shadow so black it seemed to pull all light into it.
“I have to help him,” Mikal said, but his feet were heavier than stone.
“No, I’ll do it. You take Thazel and find the Moor. Go! We need a way out of here!” George shot back over the meadow toward Caleb.
Mikal stood paralyzed with fear, watching her go.
“I just want to go home,” Thazel sobbed beside him. “I’m so scared.”
“I’m not a coward. I’m not, I’m not,” Mikal repeated softly to himself. He gritted his teeth, and a fire started in his toes and rose swiftly up his body until it burst out of his mouth in a triumphant yell. “I’M GETTING BRAVER!” He clutched at Thazel’s enormous hand, and together they sprinted toward the Moor.
George reached the place where Cavendish had fallen, and found him lying askew and babbling to himself. “They can’t leave me, I’m the map. It got him. Dragged him right away.”
George laid eyes on Caleb just as the shadow was pulling him under the bed. Only
Caleb’s face was still visible, and his fingers clawing at the grass as he struggled to escape the creature.
“Help me, George!” Caleb pleaded. “Please don’t let it take me!” And then with a jerk, he vanished into the darkness.
“Caleb!” George screamed as she threw herself to the ground and grabbed desperately for him. But he wasn’t there. “Caleb! I’m here! I won’t let it take you!” She slithered halfway under the bed trying to reach him, and then her legs began to kick wildly. But she wasn’t being dragged in. She was fighting her way out, and in both hands she held Caleb’s bony wrists. She pulled and tugged and yelled at the shadow that fought her, until suddenly Caleb sprang free.
They scrambled to their feet just before the horde of Nightmares converged upon them.
George snatched Cavendish and turned to run, but slimy black fingers tangled in her hair and scarf. She turned and began bashing at the Nightmare, using Cavendish as her weapon.
Cavendish, though slender and only as square as a dictionary, still packed a mighty wallop.
“GET. AWAY. FROM. ME!” George shouted, landing a blow with every word.
“THIS ISN’T. WHAT I. WAS MADE. FOR,” Cavendish shouted back.
Then Caleb wrapped his arms around George’s waist and pulled her out of the Nightmare’s grip, leaving her scarf behind in its inky hands.
They ran as fast as you can only when pursued by Nightmares.
They reached Mikal and Thazel at a dark wall covered with pulsing bits of light. Thazel was huddled on the ground whimpering, but Mikal was running his hands over every inch of the flat surface he could reach.
“The Moor is hidden in the wall!” Mikal said. “I can’t find the handle!”
The children looked back at the Nightmares pouring toward them, and then at Mikal. Their faces were bleak.
Then a crack of light appeared in the wall, and Mikal let out a jubilant holler as the Moor to the Door Way opened.
George and Caleb each grabbed Thazel by one arm, and they burst out of the Land of Dreamers and into the light.
* * *
The kids slammed the door behind them and stood on the step, gasping for breath.
“Well, that was … an adventure,” George said. “You guys okay? Are you hurt, Caleb?”
Caleb brushed his hair out of his eyes and shook his head. “I’m … I’m okay. I just never want to go back there. Ever.”
“I definitely prefer the cemetery,” Mikal said. “Give me a dead body any day over…” He waved a hand at the door. “Whatever that was.”
“I sure won’t be bringing Daniel here. He’d never forgive me,” George said. “What’s the time, Cavendish? And what were you thinking, making all that noise?!”
“The time is now nine forty-seven PM DWT. You currently have forty-nine hours and twenty-four minutes until you’re reduced to rubble. And I was just trying to warn you that danger was approaching! Is it my fault that my alarm was turned up so loud? Doesn’t anyone care about me?” Cavendish asked pitifully. “I’ve had a very bad day! First you hit me, then you dropped me, then you left me! Then you used me to fight off a Nightmare! Oh, the abuse. I don’t think I can stand any more.”
George rolled her eyes and handed Cavendish to Mikal. “Turn him off, Mikal. He’s right. He’s had a hard day and needs some time to recover.”
“Why, of all the rude, insensitive people I’ve ever met, you are surely by far the worst! Imagine! Using me to fulfill your needs and then just turning me off whenever it suits you after heaping abuse on me! You just wait till I—”
Mikal gave Cavendish an apologetic look and clicked him off. The screen faded out.
“Now let’s get Thazel home,” Caleb said.
It took a moment for Thazel to stop weeping. Finally he hiccupped and looked around in dismay. “What is this place? I don’t like it!”
“This is the Door Way,” Caleb said. “It’s the way we get from world to world. It’s how we’re going to get you home.”
“We have to ride the Touries now,” Mikal said forlornly.
“We don’t like riding the Touries?” Thazel asked, noticing Mikal’s reluctance.
“Mikal gets carsick, er, doorsick. The Touries aren’t so bad. You just need to be able to keep your balance,” Caleb said.
George called for four Touries to stop, but it was hard to find one big enough for Thazel.
Finally two brown doors and a huge garage door pulled up.
It took some coaxing, and Mikal had to agree to ride with him, but finally they managed to get Thazel onto the garage door.
George’s brown Tourie informed the children that they would be unable to access OooLaGul without a special password.
“Do you know the password, Thazel?” George asked.
“Technically you need two passwords,” the Tourie said. “One to get me to take you there and one to access the world.”
Thazel scrunched up his face, deep in thought. Then he grinned. “I think I do! It’s OooLaGul!”
“Rightie-oh, then. You heard the monster. Let’s get him home.”
“That isn’t a very creative password. What if someone guessed it?” George asked.
“Why would anyone want to guess? Who wants to visit monsters?” Thazel asked.
Caleb chuckled. “I guess that it doesn’t have to be creative when you put it like that.”
They continued on until they came to a large steel-vault Moor. It was thick and heavy and looked like it belonged in a high-security bank.
“Is this it?” Thazel asked.
“According to my directions manual, it could be no other,” the door said.
They dismounted and walked Thazel to his doorstep.
“It was nice meeting you, Thazel,” Caleb said.
“It really was, and thank you again for the key,” George said. “Oh, look! Your fur is turning silver, Thazel. And your hair has faded back to normal, Caleb. Are my freckles still purple?”
“No, they’ve faded to silver too,” Caleb said. “So have Mikal’s suspenders.”
“That’s slightly better, I guess,” George said. “And you look very handsome in gray, Thazel. I’m sorry we couldn’t help you with the nose problem. I hope it doesn’t cause you too much trouble.”
“I think I’ve decided I like being different,” Thazel said. He then blew a rippling musical note out of the dangling accordion. “It makes pretty noise.”
George laughed, and Thazel looked down bashfully.
“And now I have a mark that shows I survived the Land of Dreamers, just like you three.”
“Not me,” Caleb said. “My hair was already like this, so I don’t have a mark.”
“Maybe you’ve been to the Land of Dreamers before and that’s when your hair first turned silver,” Thazel said. “But I should be going. I’m eager to get home. Thank you for helping me. I don’t know that anyone else would have.”
“I think they would, because you’re a good monster, Thazel,” Mikal said, holding Cavendish with one hand and his stomach with the other.
Thazel reached for the door handle but paused. “There was something strange in the Land of Dreamers that I forgot to tell you. The whole time I was stuck there, all of the Dreamers had the very same dream, night after night. Geese riding bicycles. Doesn’t that seem odd to you? I don’t know. Maybe that’s a normal kind of dream for unmonsters.”
“No,” George said. “That does seem odd.”
“Pretty weird,” Caleb said.
Thazel turned to the door and mumbled the second password. “Thazel Thooflebottom.”
Mikal giggled, and George elbowed him in the ribs as Thazel stepped through the Moor into OooLaGul.
* * *
George took a deep breath. “Now what?”
“Now we sleep,” Caleb said.
“Now we eat,” Mikal said at the same time.
George grinned. “Both super good ideas. Which one first, though?”
“I say we find a place to make camp,” Caleb
said. “And then we can eat there.”
Mikal groaned and looked longingly at the backpack containing the food. “But it’s been such a long time since breakfast. Long enough I can wait a little longer, I guess.”
“Where do we camp?” George asked.
“How about we find out where we’re going next? Maybe there will be somewhere safe to sleep,” Caleb said.
Mikal’s eyes brightened, and, hunger forgotten for the moment, he fired up Cavendish.
Cavendish’s screen faded in light blue. “Are you still mad at me?” he asked timidly. “Because I can refuse to come on, you know!”
“Nobody is mad at you,” Mikal said.
“Super! Now, what are we up to this fine evening?” Cavendish asked.
“We need to know our next destination,” Caleb said.
“Ah, I see. And how’s that working out for you?”
“It isn’t, really, because you’re the map and the only one who knows it,” Caleb said.
“Hmm, I see, I see. That is indeed a problem.”
“We were hoping you could tell us where we’re heading,” George said.
“Well, I suppose I could. Since you asked so nicely and all. Hmm. It appears you’re headed for the District of Dragons, the Blue Planet, to be specific.”
“I think I’d normally be more alarmed by that whole District of Dragons thing, but I’m way too tired right now,” George said.
“And I’m too hungry,” Mikal said.
“And I’ve always wanted to see a dragon,” Caleb said, cautiously mounting a passing Tourie.
George and Mikal shared a Tourie, and as they settled down for the ride, George took a quick count. “Three for backpack, four for Caleb, five for Mikal. Nothing’s missing.”
“Hey! What about me? Don’t I get counted?” Cavendish asked from Mikal’s arms.
George shook her head. “Sorry, Cavendish, but I can’t.”
“Whyever not? Am I less important than a backpack?”
“Of course not. But you’re not … mine. You know? So I can’t count you.”
“I see. And how would someone become yours? Not that I’m asking for me! I’m curious, is all.”
“I’m not sure. It just happens. It’s like someone sneaks up and ties one end of an invisible string to my stomach and the other end to my special people or things. It makes them mine, and then I can count them.”
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