The Girl Who Could Not Dream

  “But your family secret! You said—”

  Sophie cut him off. “I said if we saw anything suspicious, I’d call.” She stepped back, out of his grip. “You’d better call your parents. Let them know you’re okay.”

  Madison picked up the phone by the fridge. “You’re one hundred percent certain the spider won’t eat me?” Backing against the sink, she evaded the spider’s legs.

  “I do not eat children,” the spider said.

  Her eyes on the spider woman, Madison dialed, while Ethan pulled out his phone and began texting. If the police weren’t already on their way, they would be soon, Sophie thought. As if reading her mind, Ethan looked up. “If you find them fast, maybe you and your parents can be gone by the time the police arrive,” he said.

  She nodded. At least she could try.

  With Monster on her heels, Sophie ran up the stairs and threw open Christina’s door. Christina rushed out. “Why are you still here?” she cried, seizing Sophie’s arms. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, everything’s okay. You’re safe. We turned all the monsters we could find back into dreams, and we captured Mr. Nightmare. The police are on their way. Here”—Sophie gave Christina a dreamcatcher—“in case we missed any.”

  “You what? How? You called the police?”

  Craning her neck, Sophie looked up and down the hall at the other doors. She’d already looked in all these rooms. “Christina, I haven’t found my parents yet. Do you have any idea where they could be?”

  Monster nosed at the wall. “Any hidden rooms? Secret passageways? Portals to other dimensions or what-have-you?”

  Without answering, Christina pushed past them and hurried downstairs. Sophie and Monster followed close on her heels as she barreled through the living room.

  Madison and Ethan had left the kitchen and were perched kneeling on the living room couch so they could see the street. “Good. You found her,” Ethan said. “Does she know where—”

  Christina sped toward the kitchen and then halted. Sophie and Monster nearly bumped into her. Retreating fast, Christina pressed her back against the living room wall. “What’s that?”

  “She’s from Mr. Nightmare’s dream.”

  Christina’s face was pale, and she looked as if she was going to be sick. “Make her go away.”

  “Yeah, kind of felt that way myself,” Madison said. “Don’t worry. The police are coming.” She waved at the window. “They thought the first call was a hoax, but they believed me. They’re on their way now.”

  “The spider woman is on our side,” Sophie told Christina. “She helped us.”

  Flattened against the wall, Christina looked petrified. “I don’t care. Send her away. Please!”

  “We probably should send her back into a dream before the police come,” Ethan said. “They might not get that she’s a friendly scary spider.”

  Spontaneously, Sophie hugged Christina. “It’s almost all over. And then you’ll be back with your parents, and everything will be fine! You’ll see.”

  “Just please, get rid of her, okay?” Christina begged.

  Sophie nodded and then went into the kitchen. The spider woman was busily adding more thread to Mr. Nightmare’s wrappings. He looked like a plump mummy. “Um, hi. Sorry to interrupt, but I need to send you back into a dream before the police come. There’ll be questions, and . . . it would be better.”

  To Sophie’s relief, the spider woman nodded. “I understand. I do not belong here. I can feel the air pressing on me, making me feel heavy. The physics of your world do not want me to exist. My true self is out there somewhere, in a body that isn’t a spider. She will complete my work. For now, it is enough that even the memory of the woman I was had the opportunity to triumph over him.”

  “You were triumphantly triumphant,” Monster told her.

  “Thank you,” she said gravely. Sophie had never thought a spider could be regal, but she was both grand and gracious. “You may send me now.”

  Reaching into her pocket, Sophie pulled out a dreamcatcher. It was her last unused one. The used ones were all stuffed in her backpack. With more than a little regret, Sophie used the dreamcatcher on the spider woman. She faded away with a contented smile on her human face and her spider leg resting lightly on Mr. Nightmare’s encased chest. Sophie gently put the dreamcatcher in her backpack with the others and then called to Christina, “Okay, it’s safe now.”

  Christina came into the kitchen and stopped when she saw Mr. Nightmare, trussed up on the floor. Emotions flickered across her face, too fast for Sophie to read.

  Outside, sirens wailed in the distance.

  “They’re coming!” Madison cried from the living room.

  Monster tapped Sophie with a tentacle. “Come on. We have to find your parents now. Ask her again.”

  “Christina, do you know—”

  “He must keep them in the safe room,” Christina told her, crossing to the basement door. “It’s beneath the fight pit—there’s a secret door in the floor. I’ll show you.” Together, they headed downstairs, passing the balcony and stepping over the ooze that clung to the stairs and dripped down the walls. Christina opened the red door to the fight club arena.

  Sophie and Monster followed her in. The sand was still speckled with blood, and ooze had congealed on the fence. Various empty beer cans were under the benches.

  Without hesitation, Christina led them into the fight pit. “The trapdoor is buried under the sand.” She pointed. “Right in the dead center.”

  Dropping to her knees, Sophie began to dig. Inside, she was screaming, Mom! Dad! I’m coming! Sand filled her fingernails and flew into her eyes, but she didn’t stop. Beside her, Monster used all his tentacles, flinging sand behind them.

  Watching them, Christina asked, “Your monster . . . He’s been with you a long time, you said?”

  “Years. He’s my best friend.” It would be nice if they had a shovel.

  “I didn’t know they could be friends,” Christina said. “I’ve never had any friends.”

  Pausing, Sophie looked up and smiled at Christina. “We’ll be friends.” We already are, she thought.

  “Something’s here!” Monster cried. Digging faster, he unearthed a handle. Sophie swept the sand clear of the trapdoor. She tugged on the handle—locked!

  Christina took a key out of her pocket, knelt next to Sophie, and unlocked the trapdoor. She lifted the door and sand fell inside. Sophie peered into the darkness. “Mom? Dad?”

  “Why do you have a key?” Monster asked Christina.

  From below, Sophie heard familiar, wonderful voices: “Sophie?” It was them! “Sophie, run! Get out of here!”

  “It’s okay!” Sophie called. “We stopped Mr. Nightmare. You’re safe!”

  Key in hand, Christina backed away from the trapdoor. “I’d like to be friends, Sophie. But I don’t think that’s possible. You see, you’ve destroyed my life. That’s hard to forgive. In fact, I think it makes us enemies.”

  Sophie felt as if all her muscles had frozen. “What?”

  “This is my life.” Christina waved her hand at the fight club arena. “This was to be our future. My father’s idea; my monsters. But you ruined it by bringing her back.”

  “Your father?”

  “The spider . . . She wore my mother’s face. The very first monster I ever created was a giant spider. My mother saw it, and she called the Watchmen. She said it was for my own good, that they knew what to do with people like me—but you and I both know what the Night Watchmen do with people like us. They hunt us. My father fled with me before they came. He saved me from them—and from her.”

  Sophie shook her head, as if that would make Christina’s words make sense. It wasn’t possible. Christina couldn’t be a part of all of this. She was a prisoner! She was like Sophie!

  “She chased us for years, but my father always kept me safe. This was supposed to be how we built our new life.” Christina waved her hands at the fight pit and toward the storage room. “W
e were going to be rich. So rich she’d never be able to touch us. So rich the Watchmen wouldn’t dare try to take me away. Then you came along.”

  “You were part of all this? Kidnapping Madison and Lucy and my parents?”

  “We needed more monsters.” Walking backwards to the door of the fight pit, Christina looked sad. “I was hoping for one to match the greatest monster I ever dreamed. We call him the champion. We were saving him until we had the right opponent for him. Guess you qualify.”

  Monster howled. “Sophie, it’s a trap!” He ran toward Christina.

  But Christina held the dreamcatcher—the one that Sophie had given her, the only unused one—in front of her and gave a sharp whistle. From the trapdoor, Sophie heard a growl, and her parents screamed at her to run.

  Sophie’s muscles finally obeyed, and she scrambled after Monster, toward Christina and the fight pit door.

  But Christina’s champion was faster. It burst out of the hole and lunged for Sophie. Swiping for her leg, it caught her ankle. She fell forward and slammed into the sand on her knees. Twisting to face it, Sophie screamed.

  The champion bulged with muscles that popped over its arms. Its skin was fiery red and streaked with purple veins that glistened like snakeskin. Two curved bull horns crowned its head, and its face was dominated by a massive jaw full of fangs. Its tail was thick with spikes, and as it twisted, Sophie saw its back was covered in spikes too.

  A foot from Christina, Monster snaked out a tentacle and ripped the dreamcatcher from her hands. He then pivoted and ran toward Sophie and the champion.

  He flung himself onto the monster, wrapping his tentacles around its neck, and he pressed the dreamcatcher against its skin.

  “Monster, don’t! You’ll disappear too!” Sophie tried to jump for him, to grab the dreamcatcher from him, but the champion swiped at her. Its claws raked her arm. Crying out, she clutched her arm and fell back again onto the sand.

  Monster was fading, becoming translucent, along with the champion. She could see the sand through the champion’s muscles. “Run, Sophie!”

  “No, Monster! Throw me the dreamcatcher! Please!” Scrambling to her feet, she ran toward him. The champion’s arm shot out at her, blocking her.

  “Go, Sophie! Remember me!”

  There had to be something she could do! Some weapon! She remembered the pole that Mr. Nightmare had used. It leaned against the pit outside the fence—

  The champion clawed at Monster, pulled him off, and threw him against the side of the pit. Monster thudded against the wall, and the dreamcatcher fell out of his tentacle.

  “Monster!” Sophie cried. She ran to him. He was half faded, limp, and breathing shallowly. Before she could reach him, the champion’s tail swung around and knocked into her. She was tossed to the side.

  Christina strolled in, picked up the dreamcatcher, and pressed it against the unconscious Monster.

  “No!” Sophie screamed.

  Monster vanished.

  Christina ripped the threads of the dreamcatcher. As the droplets of the dream fell onto the sand, Sophie felt as if her heart had been ripped out of her chest. “Now you know what it feels like to be truly alone,” Christina said. Then she ran out of the pit, slamming and locking the door behind her.

  From the balcony, a horse whinnied.

  “She’s not alone.” Ethan’s voice came from above.

  Sophie looked up. Ethan and Madison were mounted on Glitterhoof. He swooped down into the pit and kicked the champion with so much force that it flew backwards against the fence and slumped unconscious onto the sand.

  Ethan and Madison jumped off Glitterhoof’s back. Together, they pressed dreamcatchers onto the champion until it faded and disappeared.

  ALL OF THEM GATHERED AROUND SOPHIE.

  “I came to tell you I delivered Lucy to the bookshop,” Glitterhoof said. “I’m afraid I was seen—a woman who introduced herself as Ms. Lee and said she baked those delicious cupcakes. She offered me a few and then agreed to watch Lucy until her parents could fetch her so that I could return to you and render assistance.”

  “Glitterhoof found us upstairs,” Ethan chimed in. “So we all came looking for you . . . I’m sorry about Monster.”

  Sophie nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  “Send me back to a dream,” Glitterhoof said, “before anyone else sees me. You must keep your secret, if you can. You can owe me those apples.”

  “The police are outside,” Madison said. “They had just parked their cars when Glitterhoof arrived at the back door. They’ll be inside any minute now.”

  Sophie knew she should say goodbye, or thank him, but she felt numb, as if her skin weren’t her skin, as if she was looking at everything and everyone through a thick sheet of cellophane. Someone passed her an unused dreamcatcher. She held the dreamcatcher to the pegasus.

  She then added that dreamcatcher and the one holding the champion to the backpack. She wanted to tear the champion’s dreamcatcher to pieces, but she didn’t. It wasn’t the champion’s fault that Christina had made it what it was. Monster had said once that the dreamer shapes the dream—that’s why all of Christina’s creatures were terrifying monsters.

  “She escaped?” Sophie asked, though it wasn’t really a question. Christina had had plenty of time to escape while they fought her champion. Upstairs she heard heavy footsteps in the living room—the police must have entered the house. Soon, they’d find Mr. Nightmare, wrapped in spider threads.

  Madison nodded. “Saw her run out the cellar doors, but the monster—”

  “I know.” Standing, Sophie crossed to the trapdoor.

  “Do you think there are any more down there?” Madison asked. “Because I am tapped out. Done with monsters.”

  Ethan elbowed her.

  “Oh, sorry, Sophie. You know . . . except him.”

  Sophie told herself not to cry. She’d do that later, when she was alone. Right now, she still had to free her parents, before the police explored the basement. She lowered herself through the trapdoor and dropped down.

  It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the dim light. When they did, she saw a cement-walled room with a jail door that cut through the middle. There was a vat for water and one for food, and the room stank of pee. The stench made her gag. She breathed through her mouth as she looked around—and then she saw that the jail door hadn’t been holding the champion in. It had been keeping it out of the cage that held her parents.

  “Sophie!” her mother cried, running toward the bars.

  “You’re all right!” Dad said.

  Sophie ran to the jail door, and her parents reached through the bars to touch her hands, arms, and face. “How do I get you out?” Sophie asked.

  Dad pointed to the wall. “The key!”

  Hands trembling, Sophie fetched the key from a hook. She tried to unlock the door. Her hands were shaking too hard. Taking a deep breath, she tried to steady herself.

  “I’ll do it.” Madison reached past her and unlocked the lock. Sophie hadn’t realized that Madison had come through the trapdoor. Dimly, she was aware that Ethan had followed her too.

  Sophie ran inside. Mom and Dad both pulled Sophie to them. Sobbing, they held her. Sophie didn’t cry, but she held them both as tightly as she could. She felt as though there was something missing inside her.

  As her parents cooed to her, she led them to the trapdoor and looked up. There wasn’t a ladder. How were they—

  A woman’s face appeared in the opening. “Is anyone hurt down there?”

  “Ms. Lee?” Sophie said.

  “Jia?” Mom said, just as shocked.

  “Who?” Madison asked. “What’s going on?”

  Leaning over the opening, Ms. Lee, the baker, held out her hand. “Come on. We have to hurry and get you out of here. The police will have a lot of questions, and it will be best if the three of you aren’t here when they search the basement—they’re already upstairs.”

  None of them moved.


  “Who are you?” Dad asked.

  “I’m your neighbor,” Ms. Lee said. “Will you accept that I’m here being neighborly?”

  Clutching Sophie, her parents shook their heads.

  Ms. Lee sighed. “I am from an organization that watches for abuse of dreams. I was assigned to observe your family’s shop and monitor your customers.”

  “You’re a Night Watchman,” Dad said flatly.

  “Yes, I am,” Ms. Lee said.

  Sophie’s parents hugged her tighter.

  “What’s a Night Watchman?” Madison asked.

  “I wish I could have intervened sooner, but we didn’t have enough information on who was responsible.” Ms. Lee sighed. “It took the arrival of a pegasus with that little girl before I was able to track you down. Come, we need to hurry.”

  “I don’t understand. You’re a Watchman?” Sophie tried to match her memories of Ms. Lee—sweet, insecure, smelling like cupcakes—with her image of the Watchmen—shadowy and terrifying. She couldn’t make herself think of Ms. Lee as terrifying.

  “We trusted you,” Dad said, echoing Sophie’s shock.

  “You can still trust me,” Ms. Lee said. “I’m here to help you.”

  “But the Night Watchmen hate us,” Sophie said. “They want to destroy dream shops.”

  Ms. Lee shook her head. “You’ve been misinformed. We have no problem with dream shops. We have problems with people like Mr. Nightmare, who misuse dreams.”

  Sophie felt rather than saw her parents exchange glances and knew they were communicating in that look.

  “In fact, we are grateful to you,” Ms. Lee said. “You’ve all been instrumental in bringing down one of the worst dream-creature traffickers that we’ve seen. Now, please, we have limited time. Come with me.”

  Another exchanged glance.

  “Very well,” Mom said heavily.

  Ms. Lee helped pull them out and onto the sand of the fight pit. She was surprisingly strong. On the sand, she smiled at them—the friendly, reassuring smile that Sophie knew so well. Sophie felt as if everything was turned inside out and upside down. Monster was gone, and the Watchmen weren’t evil? Two of the constants in her life had disappeared in seconds.