The Girl Who Could Not Dream

by Sarah Beth Durst

  Sophie felt a little lurch in her heart. “You belong here, Monster.”

  He patted her with a tentacle. “I know I do. But at first, it feels strange.”

  She’d had no idea. He’d never said anything like this before. “Monster . . .” She didn’t know how to ask if he ever missed being in his dream. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  “As for how long he’ll last . . . Got me. I was told that I was an exceptionally vivid dream. The disco pony here, his dream was murkier. Who knows?”

  “Again, you are discussing me while I am here. Highly rude.” Wrinkling his nose, Glitterhoof sniffed and turned to Sophie. “You promised a noble quest. There is nothing heroically grand about a musty old cave filled with grumpy monsters.”

  “Right. Come on.” She stood and checked the clock. Her parents certainly should have been home for dinner. They always ate dinner together. Yet more proof that they were in danger, not merely out running an errand. She tried to shove the last of her doubts aside. It was too late for second, or third, thoughts. Leading the way, she stopped at the stairs. “Um, can you climb stairs?”

  Folding his wings on his back, Glitterhoof glared at Sophie. “I am not a cow.”

  “Yeah, I see that,” Ethan said.

  “Cows can’t walk up stairs,” Monster explained. “Their knees are backward. Also, they’re stupid.”

  “Precisely.” Tossing his mane, Glitterhoof marched on his four golden hooves up the stairs and then trotted through the bookshop. Craning his neck, he looked around the shop. He barely fit between the shelves. The tips of his wings brushed the spines of the books. “What are these things that clutter up your cloud?”

  “Books,” Sophie said.

  “What are ‘books’? Are they tasty?” Stopping, he nibbled at one, an old copy of Jane Eyre with a cloth spine.

  Sophie rushed to stop him. “You don’t eat them! You read them. They’re written-down stories. You know stories?” Glitterhoof continued to chew, taking out a chunk of Pride and Prejudice. “Dreams! They’re like dreams. But dreams that you have while you’re awake.”

  “Oh my!” Glitterhoof spat bits of paper out on the floor. One hit Sophie’s shoe, and she read the words “no compassion for my poor nerves.”

  Monster scooted past them, heading for the back door. “Can we move along?”

  Ethan followed. “Are we really going to ride that?”

  “I am not a that,” Glitterhoof said. “I am a pegasus, direct descendant of Poseidon and foaled by the Gorgon Medusa during the moment in which Perseus decapitated her—which, by the way, was rude.” Swiveling his head, he fixed his sparkling eyes on Ethan. “You, on the other hand, are descended from dirt.”

  “Monkeys, actually,” Monster corrected. Twisting the knob with a tentacle, he pushed the back door open. “And you were designed by a toy company.”

  Glitterhoof slammed the door shut with his hoof.

  Spinning around, Monster bared his teeth.

  Sophie stepped between them. “Not now. Please, Monster. Glitterhoof, we’re honored to have the help of such a noble . . .” She hesitated, not sure what word wouldn’t offend him. She didn’t have a lot of practice flattering people. Or ponies. “I know this isn’t what you expected for your first quest, but there are people in danger, and we really do need your help. You could save the day.”

  Mollified, Glitterhoof lowered his hoof from the door. “Very well. It is in my nature to be both heroic and magnanimous. Forgiveness is a hallmark of greatness.”

  Shooting a warning look at Monster, Sophie turned to Ethan. “Ethan, can you show Glitterhoof the map so he knows where we’re going?”

  “Oh, right.” Ethan pulled out his phone and showed the pegasus the map, switching it so it looked like an aerial view. After expressing amazement at the device, Glitterhoof studied the map.

  Softly, Sophie said to Monster, “Try to be nice. He’s here to help.”

  “He’s not physically possible,” Monster complained. “His wingspan cannot possibly support his body weight. A pigeon weighs about a pound, and its wingspan is a foot. Average horse weighs more than a thousand pounds. He’d need a thousand-foot wingspan. Besides, pegasi don’t have horns. He’s not a purebred pegasus; he’s a mutt. And he’s shedding glitter, which is weird.”

  Sticking his nose in the air and studiously pretending he couldn’t hear Monster, Glitterhoof asked Sophie, “Would you prefer to travel by flight or rainbow?”

  That wasn’t a question she’d ever been asked before. “Uh . . . flight?”

  “Then climb onto my back. We will exit quickly and stealthily, and we will fly high above the clouds so we cannot be seen.” He knelt his front knees on the floor. Sophie climbed on first, and Monster jumped up into her lap. Ethan swung on behind her and wrapped his arms around Sophie’s waist. “Hold tight,” Glitterhoof commanded. “If you must vomit, please try to aim away from my glorious mane.”

  “Can’t believe I promised not to tell anyone,” Ethan said. “This is awesome.”

  “Yes, indeed. I am pure, unadulterated awesomeness, not a toy or a mutt. I am going to fly so fast that the humans will not be able to see us.” He bashed the door open, folded his wings tight to his sides to fit through, and squeezed out the opening. On the step, he paused as he gazed at the backyard with its aluminum shed, patchy lawn, and unweeded herb garden. “Ooh, so many colors!”

  Sophie squeezed his mane. “Fly! Quickly!”

  “My apologies, Damsel.” The pegasus launched into the air. His wings flapped, and all the stray twigs and leaves in the yard swirled into the air. He shot through the debris toward the sky.

  Sophie felt her stomach plummet. Wind battered her face, and she had to squeeze her eyes closed. Monster dug his claws into her arm, and Ethan’s arms tightened around her waist. The wind sounded like a shriek. She felt water droplets batter her face.

  Steadying, the pegasus flew straight and even. Sophie cracked her eyes open and looked down. Clouds streaked the view below them. Cars looked like toys between the houses. Roofs made a patchwork, and the streets looked like black rivers. Pointing past her face, Ethan shouted, “There! Left! Go left!”

  Tilting, Glitterhoof dived to the left. Sophie clung to his mane. Monster’s fur was fully fluffed. His face was hidden in black fuzz.

  Below, the park looked like it was made of green felt, and the playground was made of brightly colored toothpicks. Soon, they were soaring over curlicue neighborhoods with identical houses and abnormally green lawns. Each driveway had an SUV in it.

  Sophie wished she could enjoy this. The dying sun felt warm on her back, and the wind blew in her face so hard that it felt like it wanted to blow away every worry, every fear, and every doubt she’d ever had—but it didn’t work. She couldn’t forget her parents were missing.

  After the snarl of identical houses, the view changed again, and the houses were more spread out with thick clumps of trees. Sophie hadn’t realized they’d biked so far earlier.

  “See that?” Ethan shouted over the wind. “Those trees! His house is the only one.”

  From up here, Sophie could see that Mr. Nightmare had no neighbors. There were thick wooded areas on all sides, which made it a perfect isolated location for a kidnapper. She could also see he had an aboveground pool and a deck, which didn’t fit her image of a kidnapper. She wondered if she was wrong, for a second time. He could be 100 percent innocent, and she might be hoping too hard to see connections when there were none.

  In front, tucked near the trees, were three cars: Mr. Nightmare’s blue car plus two others. Maybe he had friends over? Oh no, more people to avoid, she thought. That could make this harder—or, if they were lucky, easier. With luck, the friends would distract Mr. Nightmare, and he wouldn’t notice Sophie, Ethan, and Monster creeping around.

  The pegasus spiraled down, circling the house. “There is a cave beside the dwelling. I will hide in it.” Without waiting for a response, Glitterhoof flattened his wings t
o his sides and plummeted. The ground raced toward them, and Sophie clutched his mane. Her fingers dug into her palms. Monster hissed at the wind, and Ethan pressed against her back, holding on as tightly as a seat belt.

  Glitterhoof shot into Mr. Nightmare’s detached garage. He braked with his wings and landed gently. Even his hooves were silent on the concrete floor. “Speed and stealth.”

  “Yeah, very impressive.” Monster slid off his back into a heap. On wobbling legs, he staggered away and then leaned against a lawn mower to pant. His tentacles hung as limp as cooked noodles. Sophie climbed off with Ethan. Her head was spinning, and she kept one hand on Glitterhoof’s neck to steady herself.

  “Do I earn an extra apple for that landing?” Glitterhoof asked, hopeful.

  Sophie patted his mane. “It was a wonderful landing. Thank you. Definitely an extra apple. And if you stay hidden and wait for us, you can have as many apples as you want.” She hoped she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt. She’d never sneaked into a house before. They’d have to be very, very careful.

  Glitterhoof whinnied (quietly) in approval.

  Sophie felt Monster looking at her as he licked his fur flat. “What?” she whispered.

  “You bribed him with fruit.”

  “So? He likes apples.”

  Monster sauntered past Sophie to the entrance of the garage. “Not a problem. I’m just happy you didn’t tell him about the cupcakes.”

  Behind them, Glitterhoof cried softly, “What cupcakes?”

  SOPHIE SCURRIED ACROSS THE YARD AND DUCKED between the bushes that lined the house. Ethan and Monster joined her. She listened for shouts or alarms, but all she heard was muffled cheers. She guessed someone—maybe Mr. Nightmare and his friends—was watching TV, a football game or a boxing match. They inched along the side of the house. Dropping to her hands and knees, Sophie peeked around the corner into the backyard.

  “Who’s that?” Ethan whispered near her shoulder.

  Lounging on a chair by the cellar doors was the most enormous man she’d ever seen. He looked like he ate pro wrestlers for breakfast. Muscles bulged from his neck and were threaded with veins. His head was so much narrower than his neck that it looked like it might pop off. The lawn chair sagged underneath him. Maybe he was a friend of Mr. Nightmare’s? One of the cars in front was probably his. “Let’s not find out,” Sophie whispered back.

  She retreated, and Ethan and Monster backed up too. Branches scratched her arms. She halted when she bumped into Ethan, who had stopped. “Look,” Monster whispered. He pointed at a basement window, covered in a mat of leaves. “I think I can unlock it.”

  Using his tentacles, he fiddled with the window until at last it popped open. Squeezing inside, Monster disappeared into the darkness. “Monster, wait,” Sophie whispered. She flattened onto her stomach next to the window and tried to see in. It was as if the basement had eaten him. She couldn’t see him, or anything else.

  After several long seconds, he stuck a tentacle through the window and waved. “Come quickly.”

  “Mom and Dad?”

  He poked his head out. “No, but you have to see this.”

  Ethan helped her pull the window open wider. She wriggled through and then dropped to the ground, landing with a squishing sound on a pile of wet towels. She heard the low buzz of several voices, men and women, their voices blending together into a steady hum— The TV, she thought, except it didn’t sound like a TV anymore.

  “This way,” Monster whispered. He tugged on her hand with a tentacle, and she followed him around the corner, past the cellar doors that led to the backyard and the man with all the muscles.

  It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the dim, flickering lights. When they did . . . “Whoa,” she breathed. She and Monster were on a balcony—a dark gray concrete slab with a railing that overlooked a sandpit.

  Behind her, she heard a soft thump. Ethan. “Where are you?”

  “Shh,” both Sophie and Monster said, and Sophie added, “Around the corner.”

  Creeping closer to the balcony railing, Sophie looked down into the pit. It was a circle of sand surrounded by a chainlink fence that reached up to where they stood. Outside the fence, below them, were five people on a wooden bench. All of them were watching the empty pit.

  “What’s going on?” Sophie whispered. “What are they waiting for?”

  “It looks like a gladiator thing. You know, from a video game. ‘Two men enter; one man leaves.’ Or is that from a movie?” Ethan pointed. “Look. Something’s happening.”

  A man walked forward. His face was in shadow, but he held up a key. As he displayed it, right, then left, as if he were a magician about to do a trick, the people on the bench cheered.

  He pushed a cage up to the door of the sandpit. Sophie couldn’t see what was inside, but the cage rocked from side to side. Climbing onto the top of the cage, the man brandished the key again, and then with a flourish, stuck it into a lock and raised the door.

  “This isn’t good,” Monster murmured.

  “Behold, Specimen One!” the man cried.

  Jumping to his feet, one of the onlookers punched his fists into the air. A woman stamped her feet and whistled, and music suddenly switched on. Heavy drumbeats thudded through the basement, and a guitar wailed as a monster charged out of the cage and into the pit.

  Lit by the bulbs overhead, the monster was shriveled and bald. It blinked at the audience with six black eyes that looked like marbles stuck into its bulbous flesh. It had two squat legs and four muscular arms that sprouted out of its back.

  “It’s scared,” Monster said.

  The monster flexed its four arms and roared, and the watchers cheered louder.

  “Or maybe angry,” Monster amended.

  Behind the four-armed monster, the cage slammed shut and so did the pit door. Roaring again, the monster pivoted and ran on its feet and knuckles like a gorilla toward the cage door. It grabbed the fence and tried to climb it.

  “Correction: very angry.”

  The man in charge poked it with a pole, and as he twisted for another jab, Sophie caught a glimpse of his face—Mr. Nightmare.

  “You were right,” Ethan said. “He is a good actor.”

  The monster swiped at the pole, but Mr. Nightmare pulled it back fast. He poked again, and the monster fell backward onto the sand.

  As the onlookers cheered again, Mr. Nightmare sauntered to the pit door. He shoved a second crate in position in front of it. Facing his audience, he raised his fist and the pole into the air, encouraging them to cheer even louder, and then he lifted the door to the second crate. “Specimen Two!” he cried. “Ready your bids!”

  A second monster tumbled into the sandpit. This one had an elongated shark’s mouth, a flat face, and spider legs. It was also coated in goo. As it saw the first monster, it hissed.

  Sophie leaned forward to see it better. There was something familiar about it . . . and then suddenly she knew why the second monster looked familiar. She’d seen it before: in the somnium. “Monster, I think that’s one of ours. Please, tell me I’m wrong.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  The first monster spotted the second one. Roaring, it charged.

  The second monster opened its mouth and yellow slime spewed out, covering the first monster. The crowd fell silent for half a second, and then roared their approval.

  “It is like a gladiator match,” Ethan said.

  “With monsters. Our monsters.” Shuddering, Monster wrapped his tentacles around Sophie’s leg. Below them, snarling and snapping, the two monsters in the ring tore at each other while the crowd howled louder.

  SOPHIE BACKED AWAY FROM THE RAILING.

  “What? What’s wrong?” Ethan asked in a whisper. “Okay, yes, stupid question. Everything’s wrong. But specifically, what’s wrong now? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Are there ghosts? What about vampires? Werewolves? Never mind. You can tell me later.” He clamped his mouth shut as if he couldn’t help
the waterfall of words.

  As Monster curled around her ankles, Sophie told herself fiercely to think, breathe, and not panic. At least she knew why all the bottles were stolen. And she knew for certain who stole them.

  “He’s making them, from the bottles he stole,” Sophie said. “He’s like me.” She’d thought she was the only one who could bring dreams to life. Her parents said they’d never met anyone like her. She’d imagined a dozen times . . . no, a hundred times, or a thousand . . . what it would be like to meet someone like her—to know she wasn’t alone; she wasn’t a freak. But she’d never imagined anything like this.

  Monster hissed and spat. “He’s nothing like you. You’d never do this.”

  Kneeling, Sophie put her arms around Monster. He pressed against her, and she felt his heart beating as fast as a hummingbird’s through his fur. “I mean, he can drink dreams and bring them to life. It’s the only explanation.”

  “Not much of an explanation,” Ethan said. “It doesn’t explain why he kidnapped Madison and Lucy, if he did. Or your parents, again if he did. Or why we’re still standing here, talking, when there are monsters fighting right down there, instead of running away as fast as we can.” He pointed at the pit so hard that he stabbed the air, and then he pointed in the direction of the window, beyond the cellar doors.

  Burrowing his face into her shoulder, Monster said, muffled, “The boy is right. We shouldn’t be here. Sophie, this isn’t a nice place.”

  Ethan nodded vigorously. “Exactly. This is not safe. We should go—”

  “Not without looking for my parents.” Releasing Monster, she stood. Below, the onlookers cheered, louder than the thudding music. One of the monsters wailed, a high-pitched screech that made prickles pop up all over Sophie’s skin. The only good thing about this fight was that no one looked up to see Sophie, Ethan, and Monster on the balcony. “Mr. Nightmare’s distracted. This is my chance to find them, or at least a clue to where they are.”