Nightmares! the Sleepwalker Tonic

by Jason Segel

Charlotte dropped her spoon into the pot she was stirring and wiped her hands on a tea towel. “You do? Me too! What’s yours?”

  “Well, Ollie here is half of it,” Charlie said. “The other half is in Orville Falls. We need you to give us a ride.”

  “I can’t drive you anywhere right now,” Charlotte said. “That’s my big news. We have a guest visiting from out of town.”

  “We have a what?” Charlie asked. No one had mentioned anything to him about a guest.

  “Hi, Charlie. Remember me?” A girl stepped into the kitchen wearing one of Charlotte’s old robes. She’d obviously just gotten out of the bath, because her skin was pink from scrubbing. Her freshly washed hair was a startling red, and curly coils of it seemed to shoot in every direction.

  “Whoa,” breathed Ollie.

  Charlie stared at the girl. He knew her somehow, but he couldn’t remember where they’d met. The girl blushed, embarrassed by the attention.

  “You guys know Poppy, don’t you?” Charlotte said, returning to her work at the stove.

  “Hold on—that’s Poppy?” Charlie asked his stepmother. He would never have recognized the girl in a million years. The last time he’d seen her, she’d resembled a small troll. “What’s she doing in Cypress Creek?”

  Poppy huffed. “I’m standing right here, Charlie. You can ask me.” She waved a hand in front of his face to get his attention. “I’m here because you told me to come to the purple mansion if I ever made it to Cypress Creek. I would have been here sooner if I’d known you were Charlotte’s stepson.”

  It was all way too weird to be a coincidence. “How do you guys know each other?” Charlie asked.

  “Poppy’s mom used to bring her to my shop,” Charlotte explained. “And I have a soft spot for kids with gorgeous curly red hair.” She gave Poppy a little wink. “She makes me remember what it was like to be a kid, with my whole crazy future in front of me.”

  “But how did you get here from Orville Falls?” Alfie asked Poppy. “Did you walk the whole way?”

  “My family was sent here to help at the new Tranquility Tonight shop,” Poppy said. “When I saw the mansion on the top of the hill, I decided to come up and say hello.”

  “Poppy’s lucky. The tonic doesn’t seem to affect her,” Charlotte said. “So we might be able to find a way to stop it. Maybe there is some hope after all.”

  Charlie threw his hands up. “I know!” he exclaimed. “That’s why we wanted to go to Orville Falls—to find her. Ollie’s immune to the tonic too. They’ve got to have something in common, something that’s protecting them both.”

  “Do you have any idea what it could be?” Charlotte asked.

  “Nope, but we’re going to find out,” Charlie replied. He nodded to Alfie. “You ready to get started? Poppy, maybe you should have a seat.”

  Ollie rushed over with a chair for her, a crazed grin on his face.

  “What exactly are you going to do to me?” Poppy asked nervously as she sat down.

  Alfie took his clipboard out of his backpack. “I’m just going to ask you a few questions to see if there’s anything in your medical history that you and Ollie might share. First question: Do you take any medications?”

  “No,” Poppy replied.

  Alfie nodded and looked down at his list. “Have you ever eaten poison mushrooms?”

  “What?” Poppy asked.

  “I’ll take that as a no.” Alfie scribbled a note.

  Poppy looked up at Charlie. “These are some really weird questions,” she said.

  “They’re going to get even weirder,” Charlie warned her. “Ollie’s led a very interesting life.”

  Alfie cleared his throat. “Have you ever been stung by a jellyfish, attacked by a giant dog, or eaten bath beads?”

  Poppy gazed at Ollie in wonder. “You’ve eaten bath beads?”

  Ollie nodded. “The instructions said—and I quote—‘Add bath beads to warm running water and stir until completely dissolved,’ ” he told her. “Nowhere did it say ‘Do not eat.’ ” Then he shrugged. “Besides, I figure you gotta try everything once.”

  “He’s kidding, right?” Poppy asked.

  “I’ll take that response as a no,” Alfie said.

  “You know, I’m not sure Ollie and I have much in common,” Poppy said primly.

  Suddenly Charlie knew the answer. They did have something in common: Hazel’s Herbarium. Poppy had visited the shop with her mom. And Charlotte had treated Ollie for poison ivy.

  “Hold on a second. When was the last time you had poison ivy, Poppy?” he asked.

  Poppy gave the question some thought. “Kindergarten, maybe?”

  Charlie’s spirits sank a little. Hazel’s Herbarium hadn’t been open when Poppy had been in kindergarten. So there was no way that Charlotte’s poison ivy ointment was what she and Ollie had in common.

  Then he had another burst of inspiration. “Did you ever use any of the stuff that your mom bought at Hazel’s Herbarium?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Poppy said. “Charlotte’s homemade toothpaste is the best. She makes it for me special whenever I go to the shop.”

  Suddenly the connection became clear. “Ollie, you used Charlotte’s poison ivy ointment. Poppy, you used her homemade toothpaste. And every time Paige waves Charlotte’s lip balm under her aunt’s nose, Josephine seems to wake up a bit.” He turned to Charlotte. “There must be a common ingredient in those three things! Whatever it is could be the antidote!”

  Charlotte was already shaking her head. “But there isn’t, Charlie!” she insisted. “Other than water, there isn’t one single thing that those three products share.”

  “Nice try, though,” Alfie offered. His and every other face in the room had fallen. They’d come so close to finding an answer.

  “Wait,” Charlie said. Medusa had told him that the tonic’s power came from the hand that made it. “There is something that all three of those things have in common.”

  “What?” Charlotte asked.

  “They were all made by you,” he told her. Charlotte must have added something to them without even knowing she’d done it.

  “I don’t understand. What difference does that make?” Alfie asked.

  “Charlotte told me that she made the honeysuckle lip balm to keep Josephine’s spirits up while her sister was sick. And I know for a fact that when she made Ollie’s ointment, Charlotte was looking forward to her trip to New York. And she just said that seeing Poppy always makes her remember what it was like to be young, with her entire future ahead of her.”

  “Yeah. I still don’t get it,” Alfie said.

  “Charlotte mixed something into each of those products—something strong enough to fight the despair in the Tranquility Tonic.”

  “I did?” Charlotte couldn’t seem to believe it.

  “Yep,” Charlie told her. “I think you added hope.”

  There was an eviction notice on the front door of Hazel’s Herbarium. Charlie tore it down and crumpled it up.

  “Come on, you guys,” he said, switching the shop’s lights on. “We’ve got work to do.”

  Alfie and Ollie filed in behind him, eager to get started. Alfie had a box of garbage bags. Ollie was clutching a handwritten list. They were there to get supplies. Charlotte planned to mix up a big batch of antidote, using every ingredient in the toothpaste and poison ivy ointment. While she believed Charlie’s theory that the antidote’s most important ingredient would be hope, Charlotte wasn’t going to leave anything to chance. She’d also asked them to bring every bottle of valerian root on the shelves in the shop. It would put the Walkers to sleep long enough for her antidote to do its work.

  The boys filled three garbage bags with oils and extracts and jars of gloopy substances that even Charlie couldn’t identify. But when Alfie went to collect the large glass canister labeled HOARY MUGWORT, he discovered it was completely empty.

  “What should we do?” he asked.

  “I guess we should head back to the m
ansion,” Charlie said with a sad shake of his head. “Hoary mugwort was the most important thing on Charlotte’s list.”

  “We’re giving up?” Ollie asked.

  “No way!” Alfie looked shocked. “We’re really just going to go home?”

  “What else can we do?” Charlie grinned and opened the front door of the shop. “The only hoary mugwort bush in town is behind my house.”

  Once they were out on the street, Charlie led his team toward the purple mansion. Almost all of the shops on Main Street were empty. But one, a few blocks away, had drawn a crowd. A line of people were still waiting to get the tonic, and a few of the customers who’d already visited were lingering outside in a daze. A tall Walker at the edge of the crowd seemed to take an interest in the boys.

  “Let’s hurry,” Charlie whispered. Then he turned to Alfie. “I think I just saw Winston Lindsay.”

  They booked it back to the purple mansion in record time and arrived to find Charlotte in a whirlwind of activity. The second the boys appeared in the kitchen, she began pulling bottles from trash bags and organizing ingredients—all while humming a little tune to herself. She was back to being weird, witchy Charlotte, Charlie thought. Whatever happened, he hoped that would last forever.

  Alfie and Charlie were given herbs to chop, while Ollie and Poppy were put to work scrubbing pots. Charlie saw them talking as they stood side by side at the sink. Judging by their intense conversation, they’d found something else that they had in common.

  As soon as the herbs were chopped and deposited into little glass bowls, Charlie’s stepmother began issuing new orders.

  “Charlie and Alfie, I need six cups of hoary mugwort leaves. Three cups of mint. A dozen dandelions and a handful of feverfew.”

  “Poppy and I are finished with the pots,” Ollie said. “Should we go outside to help them?”

  “Nope. You guys are staying here with me,” Charlotte said. “I overheard the two of you talking about your nightmares. Have a seat at the counter. I’m going to go get my markers.”

  Charlie wished he could stay and watch Charlotte draw their nightmares, but the antidote needed hoary mugwort. He sent Alfie out the front door to search the lawn for dandelions while he went out the back door with a bag. He was still plucking leaves off the silvery bush by the fence when Alfie raced around from the front yard, a dozen limp dandelions gripped in his fist.

  “There are Walkers at the bottom of the hill!” he exclaimed, gasping for breath. “One of them is Winston Lindsay. He must have followed us here from town.”

  The blood in Charlie’s veins ran cold. He grabbed his sack of hoary mugwort leaves, and together he and Alfie barreled through the mansion’s back door.

  “Charlotte!” Charlie said. “The Walkers are at the bottom of our hill.”

  Charlotte was on her feet in an instant. “Lock the doors!” she yelled as she ran to the windows at the front of the house.

  Charlotte might have sprung into action, but Poppy and Ollie seemed not to notice. They sat at the kitchen counter, staring at a piece of paper that Ollie held in his hands. Charlie walked up behind him to see what had captured their interest. It was one of Charlotte’s drawings. This one showed a little girl wearing a navy-blue pinafore with a crisp white shirt underneath. A red tie peeked out at the collar. Her bobbed hair was a deep auburn and was parted on one side. The outfit she wore reminded Charlie of pictures he had seen of his great-grandmother when she was a child. But the eyes in Charlotte’s drawing weren’t those of an ordinary girl. They held far too much anger and sadness for a child of her age.

  “Who is that?” Charlie asked. He couldn’t seem to pull his gaze away from the picture. “I think I’ve seen her somewhere before.”

  “It’s the little girl from our nightmares,” Ollie replied. The laughter had disappeared from his voice. Ollie Tobias sounded terrified.

  “Both of you dreamed about the same kid?” Charlie asked.

  “Yeah,” said Poppy. “And my brother dreamed about her too. That’s why my dad bought the tonic for us. This girl kept showing up in our nightmares, and we were both too scared to go to sleep.”

  “I think I saw her here in Cypress Creek too,” Ollie whispered. “When I was awake. She’s real. I swear it.”

  There was a banging at the front door. Ollie shrieked and fell off his stool, and the picture fluttered to the floor, where it landed in a puddle of goop. Charlie helped Ollie first, then retrieved the illustration. But it was already ruined.

  “Who’s there?” he heard Charlotte yell at the front door.

  “It’s me!” Andrew Laird shouted from the other side.

  “And me!” Jack shouted too. “Why’d you lock the door?”

  Charlotte unlocked the dead bolt and threw her arms around her husband. “Charlie said he saw some men lurking outside.”

  “I’m sure he did,” Charlie’s dad said, putting down his shopping bags. “They must be expecting a full moon tonight, because there sure are a lot of strange people out on the street today.”

  Charlie hurried to the front porch and looked out over the railing. He could see three men and a woman loitering at the end of the mansion’s drive. All of them were Walkers.

  “I think we better get to work,” he told Charlotte. He had a feeling that the Walkers were there for a reason. And it couldn’t be a good one.

  —

  Hours later, after the sun had set and the streetlights had come on, the Walkers were still there at the bottom of the drive. But there were more of them now. The original four had quickly turned into eight. And the eight had become sixteen. Now there were at least twenty Walkers out on the street. They weren’t doing anything yet. Just standing and drooling—and waiting to receive their orders. But there was no way for Charlie’s friends to leave with the Walkers that close, so Charlotte had declared it a sleepover party. She told Jack to take his father to the living room and keep him busy. The less Andrew Laird knew, the better. Charlie’s job was to keep an eye on the Walkers and sound the alarm if it looked like they were about to attack.

  Charlie and Ollie had stationed themselves at one window. Poppy and Alfie had chosen to guard the other. From his post, Charlie could hear the goop in Charlotte’s giant cauldron bubbling and spitting. Charlotte had warned them that the stuff needed hours to cook. It wouldn’t be done before eleven o’clock. Until then, there was nothing to do but sit quietly in the dark drawing room, watching the Walkers congregate outside the purple mansion.

  “Hey, look! It’s my mom!” Ollie exclaimed. He pointed to a woman in a dirt-streaked white outfit who was making her way toward the rest of the group. Sure enough, it was Mrs. Tobias, dressed in her croquet costume. She’d even brought along the mallet.

  “Sorry,” Alfie said.

  “Don’t feel sorry for me,” Ollie said with a snicker. “Feel sorry for the guy who sold her the tonic. He’s going to be in a world of pain when my mom wakes up. She’s a genius when it comes to revenge.”

  Charlie heard footsteps on the stairs to the second floor—and they were far too heavy to belong to anyone but Andrew Laird. Charlie took a look at Alfie’s watch. It was past ten. He hoped his dad was finally going to sleep.

  The door to the drawing room cracked open, and Jack stuck his head inside. “Big guy just took a bunch of valerian root and he’s going to bed,” he whispered. “What’s happening out there on the street?”

  “I think they’re waiting for a command or something,” Charlie said.

  Jack slipped into the room and went over to the window where Ollie and Charlie were watching. “How many are there?” he asked, pressing his forehead to the glass to get a better look. “Whoa. That’s a whole bunch of Walkers!” He looked at Charlie, fear in his eyes. “What are we going to do if they attack before the antidote is done?”

  “I have no idea,” Charlie answered truthfully.

  “Do you think we should bring in some backup?” Jack asked.

  “You got anyone in mind?” Charlie
joked grimly.

  “Hey! Look!” Alfie said, drawing Charlie’s attention back to the window. “I just saw a kid down there with the Walkers. Think it might be someone from school?”

  “What did he look like?” Charlie asked.

  “I didn’t see much,” Alfie said. “But it looked like a girl.”

  Ollie said he’d seen the little girl from his nightmares in Cypress Creek. Was it possible that the girl in question was mingling with the crowd of Walkers at the bottom of the hill? “Where did you see her?” he asked. “Show me!”

  Charlie nervously scanned the crowd of Walkers but didn’t see anyone who could have passed for a kid. “Did you see her, Jack?” he asked, but there was no answer. “Jack?” he called out. A terrible thought entered Charlie’s head before he could even turn around.

  “I think I heard him go upstairs,” Poppy said from her spot near the window on the other side of the room.

  In a split second, Charlie was on his feet and running for the tower. He should have taken his brother’s suggestion more seriously. He had a pretty good idea of where Jack went and sure enough, the portal was still open when Charlie reached the octagonal room at the top of the stairs. Jack had gone to the Netherworld for backup.

  Charlie stepped through the portal and into the Netherworld’s version of the Lairds’ purple mansion. His brother hadn’t needed to imagine a nightmare. Things were scary enough as they were. Charlie raced down the stairs and found Jack standing in the foyer of the mansion. He was holding a sheet of paper in his hands. As Charlie drew closer, he could see it was one of the WANTED signs with Jack’s face on the front. It was a moment Charlie had hoped would never come.

  “Somebody slipped this under the door,” Jack said with a nervous grin. He showed Charlie the flyer. “It’s got to be a joke, right?”

  “Jack—” Charlie couldn’t find the words. How did you tell a nine-year-old that the creatures he thought were his friends had turned against him?

  “I mean, the Nightmares don’t really think I’m the kid from the prophecy, do they? The one who is going to destroy their world?” Jack’s smile was fading.