The Sandman and the War of Dreams

  Ombric was, of course, roosting in his huge globe, surrounded by his owls. They woke in unison, as always, though Ombric did not hoot as he usually did. Toothiana found herself perched in a marvelous twig structure that hung like a bell from one of the limbs that formed the top of Big Root’s canopy. It was the perch she had back in Punjam Hy Loo. How has it arrived in Santoff Claussen? she wondered.

  The children were in the same place they had started the evening, at the top of Big Root, nestled next to Kailash in her gigantic nest. They looked around, utterly perplexed. The Dream had seemed so real. Yet here they were, feeling rested and ready, but for what, exactly? The host of their dream was nowhere to be seen. Nightlight stood up and looked at the spot where Sandman had hovered. There was nothing. Not even a grain of sand.

  Mr. Qwerty peered at his pages. They were filled—the entire dream had been written down, and at the very end was a tiny drawing of Sandman.

  Nightlight gazed at the illustrated page. He was unsure what to think about what he saw. But he reached out and touched the sparkling sketch. The drawing was made from a sort of sticky sand. It had been left by Sandman himself!

  Golden grains clung to Nightlight’s fingertips. He looked at them closely. He could feel the magic in them. Then he had a sort of flash of memory, of a song from so long ago: Nightlight, bright light, sweet dreams I bestow. . . .

  “Is there a message there, Nightlight?” Petter asked.

  Nightlight closed his eyes and held his sand-covered fingertips to his forehead. The sand told him many, many things.

  Nightlight rarely, if ever, spoke—only the direst of circumstances could compel him to use his mesmerizing, otherworldly voice. So it was all the more alarming when he quietly replied: “Only that he’s gone to help Katherine. And that none of us should follow.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Nightlight Dawns

  THE FIVE GUARDIANS WERE in a full frenzy for the rest of the day. Or more accurately, Ombric, North, Bunnymund, and Toothiana debated all morning while Nightlight remained still and quiet. He watched his friends study grain after grain of Mansnoozie’s sand under a never-ending array of magnifying glasses, microscopes, spyglasses, cosmic ray detectors, and even a crystal-clear egg that Bunnymund assured them could pinpoint the precise origin of the sand and its exact age. It did neither.

  After hours of testing and studying, the only conclusion they came to was that this sand was . . . well . . . sand. It obviously had magical properties, but what exactly were those properties, and how were they triggered?

  No one knew. And so they argued on, about everything. Whether to try to follow Sandman. How to follow him if they ever could agree to follow him. Where he might have gone and what to do if they found him. Should they split up and try to find Katherine? Should they call the Lunar Lamas? Should they try to contact the Man in the Moon?

  And, most irritatingly, why hadn’t Sandman asked them to join him? They studied charts, they consulted clouds, they looked into the past, they tried to see the future, they grumbled and worried and fussed.

  Though Nightlight remained silent, it was not without purpose. He had not yet told his friends that he could “read” the sand. Which was not unusual. He spoke only if he thought it necessary. He was always curious about the ways of the “Tall Ones,” as he called adults. He did not think of them as smart or intelligent. He thought of them in terms of other qualities, those things that made a Tall One “good”: kindness, bravery, trust, fun. But if they were cruel, lied maliciously, or were mean? Then Nightlight viewed them as “bad.”

  North, Ombric, Bunnymund, and Toothiana were Nightlight’s favorite Tall Ones. He understood that they were the “most good.” And he understood that they had “knowing,” which was his way of calling them wise. Then he thought about Sandman’s dream story and the new Tall One—Mother Nature. Was Mother Nature good or bad?

  Now that he knew her story, he was not sure. As a child, she had been kind and wild and brave, like Katherine. And like himself. But so much hurt had come to her. So much loss.

  It had changed her. And it had changed Pitch.

  Nightlight stared at his friends. They seemed changed too. Like they’d lost their knowing and bravery and tallness. Now all they did was “talk the loud,” as he referred to arguments, and “do the nothing.” This scared Nightlight.

  He put his sandy fingertips to his forehead again.

  The sand.

  Just having it touch his brow made him feel calm and clear. Suddenly, he felt himself understand his friends’ behavior. The sand had given him a bit of the “knowing.” His friends—they were hurting too. Katherine being gone was hurting them so much that they were scared. Just like he was. And he hated feeling scared. And hated all this hurt. He hated it so much, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He thought of the words of Katherine; stories that had washed away when Mr. Qwerty had cried. He could almost hear them from his pocket. It was as if Katherine herself was calling out to him. He had to do something.

  He leaped up and slammed his staff on the floor as hard as he could, over and over till the room began to shake. The other Guardians stopped in midargument and looked at him with bewildered awe.

  Now that he had their attention, he began to dart about the room in his faster-than-light way, herding them toward the center of the room.

  “Hey, squirt,” North harrumphed. “Who do you think you are? You can’t shove—” Nightlight kicked the Cossack firmly in the rear, moving him along.

  “He’s gone mad!” said Bunnymund just before Nightlight grabbed him by both ears and yanked him into place.

  “Or he’s playing some sort of game,” mused Ombric as Nightlight jerked his beard firmly and pulled the old wizard along with it.

  Toothiana began to see what the boy was up to. She moved to the room’s center without any coaxing.

  There they stood as Nightlight had insisted, in a sort of circle looking at one another, perplexed and curious about what the boy was up to.

  Nightlight now sat cross-legged on the floor in the center of them. He held up Mr. Qwerty and turned the magical book’s pages slowly. Then, when he found the right spot, he stood and thrust the book close to each of their faces.

  Those four—those magnificent four, the bravest and most wise of all the Tall Ones who had ever lived, these guardians of the worlds of children—stood sheepishly as a boy (admittedly a magical boy, but still, a mere boy) showed them what Sandman’s sand was capable of doing and how to unlock its magic.

  Nightlight held his sandy fingertips to his lips and blew. The sand drifted toward them, and as it sprinkled around their eyes and faces, for the second time in twenty-four hours, the four instantly fell asleep. In perfect unison, they teetered, teetered some more, then fell backward onto the floor. They were snoring before they’d landed.

  Nightlight again pointed to Mr. Qwerty and said to his napping friends, “Katherine’s story! Her life! Her hurts! HER! That’s what we save. Remember your knowing. Be stronger than the scared and the hurt, and dream a way to save our Katherine!”

  Then Nightlight spoke to Mr. Qwerty: “Be writing what just happened on your pages, Mr. Q. That today Nightlight, the boy Guardian, had the knowing of a Tall One.”

  That’s the most Mr. Qwerty, or anyone, had ever heard Nightlight say.

  And though Ombric, North, Bunnymund, and Toothiana were away in the land of dreams, they could still hear him. And in their sleepy minds they each were in agreement that what Nightlight had told them was exactly what they needed to hear.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Do Be Afraid of the Dark

  KATHERINE WAS SURROUNDED BY total darkness. She could see nothing. She couldn’t tell if her eyes were open or shut. She tried to blink but wasn’t even sure if she’d succeeded—in such darkness, it was impossible to tell. She then attempted to flash her hands back and forth in front of her eyes, but she realized she couldn’t move. Her brain was telling them to move, but they didn’t budge. And then s
he realized that nothing would move—not her legs, not her toes, not her smile. She tried to cry out, but nothing happened.

  Strangely enough, she didn’t feel afraid . . . yet.

  Then she began to hear voices . . . low murmurs of speech . . . a little louder than whispers . . . She couldn’t make out any of the words. . . . It was just an unnerving babble . . . of wordlike sounds. The voices were deep and menacing . . . mocking . . . as if amused by her being trapped—

  It hit her. She was trapped. But where? By what?

  The voices came closer. She still couldn’t grasp what they were saying. But then she recognized a different sound. Crying. It was a girl crying. The other voices were becoming quieter, and she could hear the crying more clearly. . . .

  Then Katherine became afraid.

  That was her voice crying. But it was the strangest sensation—the crying was somehow separate from herself, as if behind a wall. Then she heard an actual door opening. Light, white with brightness, began to shine in front of her. It was coming from the opening doorway, and she could see the room inside. It was so bright. Almost blinding. Then she began to make out a shape sitting on the floor. It was a girl.

  It was her!

  But she looked older. How can this be? This older Katherine’s crying continued. It sounded like a young woman’s.

  Her clothes were faded and nearly rags. Why?!

  And in her hands was . . . Mr. Qwerty! Good!!

  She saw herself start to turn the pages, one by one by one, from the beginning. This Katherine was reading the book very intently, but as she finished a page, a dark hand reached out and tore the pages from the book. She glimpsed her entire history as it was taken away. There was one set of drawings that she could clearly make out. The images she had made for North for his city of the future. She watched her older self close the book and close her eyes. She was going to sleep. She looked unspeakably sad. Tears escaped from her closed eyes.

  Then the sounds of the murmuring voices grew louder. . . . They came closer to Katherine, and closer, till it seemed as if they were inches from her . . . just next to her ears . . . They mumbled on and on . . . then began to laugh . . . She could feel breath against her ears and cheeks . . . but she couldn’t see . . . Who was it?! What was this awful language? The door—the door allowing the light in—began to slowly close. The bright glow of that other room, the only light, began to vanish. But then she realized it wasn’t a door closing, but Pitch himself blocking out the light. He held the pages of her book in his one good hand. He looked at them gleefully and began to laugh.

  This is like a nightmare, Katherine thought. And her fear deepened. This is a nightmare, she realized. Her fear swelled then because she knew—she could feel it: She was caught in a nightmare from which she could not awaken.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A Dream within a Dream . . .

  NICHOLAS ST. NORTH DIDN’T realize he was asleep on the floor of Ombric’s library in Big Root. The Dreamsand had felled him in midthought, and it was such an odd thought. He was thinking of Nightlight and what in the world the boy was doing. But at the same time he had been briefly distracted by Bunnymund’s ears. One of them was definitely longer than the other—by about three-quarters of an inch—then BAM! He was asleep, and while he could still hear Nightlight talking, it was as if the boy were a thousand miles away . . . Something about Katherine . . . about saving her.

  And so that’s where his mind began to wander as he dreamed—to Katherine. He saw bits and pieces of his time with her. How she had tended his wounds when he was so near death after his fight with Pitch and Bear. How she had brought him out of his bitter, lonely shell. How the two of them had saved each other time and again. Then he dreamed of Nightlight. Of the enchanted friendship between Katherine and the spectral boy.

  He was worried, though. Katherine was growing up, but could the same be said of Nightlight? He was an otherworldly creature who never changed; he never grew taller or thinner or fatter—even his hair didn’t grow. He’d been a young boy for who knows how long. This was troubling, and then more so as North’s dream began to darken. He saw Katherine becoming older, and growing. Then Nightlight seemed to vanish, to fade away into nothing, and as he did, Katherine’s eyes closed. Darkness folded around her like a shroud, a shroud that became Pitch’s cape. Then Pitch’s face appeared atop the cloak and began to spin faster and faster, making a dreadful sound, a most awful sound, a squealing, screeching, laughing sound. North felt terrified. He felt far away. He felt helpless.

  Then, like a bright bolt, everything changed.

  Now Katherine was standing over him. Her face was huge. This seemed familiar. . . . It was! It was when North had been turned into a toy by Pitch during the battle at the Himalayas: Katherine had picked him up, held and protected his tiny paralyzed body, and dreamed a dream that had saved him: the dream of his future. The dream had been so glorious. So beautiful. He would build a great city of snow and ice, and it would be filled with magic and good works. It would be like Santoff Claussen, but on a grand, magnificent scale. In bright, brief flashes, he saw Katherine’s dreams for him more clearly than he ever had before; he saw it as a reality, of what could be: There was a great tower—a polelike spire that rose up from the center of this city—and from this pole, lights would shine out into the world. . . .

  And now—now he could clearly hear Katherine’s voice urging him to “build this place. . . . It will destroy Pitch. . . . It will save me.” Then she said the words they all used, the most powerful words in all of magic: “I believe. I believe I believe.”

  Believe, indeed! North thought in the wakeful part of his sleeping mind. Katherine was sending him a message from wherever she was being held—he just knew it! It was as strong as any feeling he had ever had. Nightlight had told him to find a way to save Katherine. But he hadn’t had to find it. It was being sent to him. By the bond of their friendship, Katherine was telling him how to save her!

  He fought now to awaken. But that dratted Dreamsand was so very powerful.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Of Dreams and Relics and Powers Unsuspected

  DREAMSAND WAS INDEED POWERFUL, but when the Guardians share an identical dream, the power of their struggle to wake up was even stronger. They had all felt as if Katherine was reaching out to them by sending this dream. So they roused themselves, shaking the sleep from their minds and rising with a cry—a unanimous call to action.

  “This dream must be made real! For Katherine’s sake and for the good of all,” proclaimed Ombric. He felt reenergized. He felt like the Ombric of old. He quickly thought through all the possibilities and circumstances. He nodded to himself as he pondered.

  First, this Sandman fellow had gone to help Katherine and insisted they not follow. Now they had their first message from her since she’d been abducted. Ombric nodded once more. Sandman must be making progress. And so the choice was obvious: The city of North’s future must be built. Ombric wasn’t yet sure why or how, but he knew it would somehow be Katherine’s salvation.

  He looked up to see his fellow Guardians all nodding along with him, agreeing with the very same thoughts they themselves were having. They all knew what had to be done. It was bold. It was ambitious. It was unlike anything they had ever attempted. A new city had to be built. And an old one changed.

  Toothiana flew to the knothole window of Big Root. “No time can be lost,” she called down to the whole village, then she sent out her bright, musical call, singing all the way to Punjam Hy Loo. “The magic elephant must come and help,” she added. She called out once more, cocked her head as if listening to the wind, and then, with one flap of her wings, she filled the air around the village with legions of her tiny flying warrior helpers.

  Bunnymund tilted one ear appraisingly, then tapped his foot four times on the floor. Within seconds, hundreds of Warrior Eggs popped forth from fresh tunnels surrounding the outer edge of the thick forest around Big Root. They scurried toward Ombric’s home on sticklik
e legs. “The creatures of the air will need help from those of the earth,” the Rabbit Man explained wryly.

  Ombric took this all in approvingly. He held his staff aloft. “Guardians!” he boomed out. “Place your relics together, my friends. This mission will require all of our powers!” His owls began to hoot madly, as if they could sense that something unprecedented was about to occur. Bunnymund held his staff against Ombric’s, and the jeweled egg on its tip began to glow. Toothiana took out her ruby box and joined it to the staffs. The glow shifted from pale to red, growing ever brighter, glistening. Then they all looked to Nightlight and North. Nightlight motioned for North to go next.

  The valiant buccaneer kept his head down; he seemed almost . . . bashful. His voice was barely a whisper when he said, “You are indeed the truest of friends.” He paused for a moment, overcome. At last he added, “That you would help make true this dream given to me—”

  “My dear North,” Bunnymund interrupted. “It is, I believe, a dream we share.”

  The Pooka’s words were true. It was by now a dream that belonged to them all.

  North grabbed his sword and swept its crescent-moon tip up to the other relics. The light of North’s blade was almost too bright to look into. There was a moment’s hesitation.