The Girl Who Could Not Dream

by Sarah Beth Durst

  “Ambulances are outside,” Ms. Lee said to all of them. “The EMTs will check the two kids over, and the police will take your statements. They’ve already taken Lucy’s. You will tell them you were kidnapped and held in the basement. Do not mention monsters or pegasi or dreams, do you understand? Regular police do not need to hear that. They do need to hear that Mr. Nightmare is guilty of kidnapping. If you stick to that fact, then he will be in jail for a very long time.”

  “But . . .” Ethan began.

  “I am sorry to put this burden on all of you, but you must keep this secret.”

  “Why?” Madison asked.

  “Explanations later,” Ms. Lee said to Madison and Ethan. “We need to get you two back where you belong. Your parents will be overjoyed to see you. Remember what I said: if you want to be believed, leave out the impossible.” She turned to Sophie’s parents. “We’ll send medical professionals to check you out. And later, I will be speaking to you both about your failure to disclose Sophie’s abilities. She needs to be registered, and she needs training so that nothing happens to her—or to anyone else. You’ve seen what damage a rogue nondreamer can do.”

  “She’s just a child,” Dad objected.

  “So was Christina, and she . . .” Sophie couldn’t make herself say the words. It would make it too real. “Monster . . . Monster saved me.” Her voice broke.

  Mom stroked her hair. “You can’t take her from us!”

  “Why would I want to do that?” Ms. Lee asked. “She’s your child. Whatever you were told about the Night Watchmen, we aren’t ogres who take children from their parents. We aim to stop people like that. We’re the good guys.”

  “Are you with the police?” Madison asked. “Secret branch of the government?”

  “Secret agents?” Ethan asked.

  “All you need to know for now is that this kind of situation is an aberration,” Ms. Lee said. “After the immediate crisis is over, I will be available to answer all your questions.” Turning to Sophie and her parents, she said, “Come with me, quickly.”

  “Wait, what about the distiller?” Ethan asked. “And all the dreams still in bottles? He stole dozens. We saw the empty shelves.”

  “Our shop can’t function without the distiller,” Dad said. “If you don’t intend to put us out of business, we’ll need it back.”

  “I’ll ensure it’s returned,” Ms. Lee said.

  “There are also rabbits,” Ethan said. “Lots of them. Some are multicolored.”

  Ms. Lee paused. “Multicolored rabbits?”

  “In clothes,” Madison said. “And they’re kind of ninjas. It’s weird.”

  “Everything will be taken care of,” Ms. Lee said. Guiding Madison and Ethan to the stairs to the kitchen, she then led Sophie and her parents out the back cellar doors.

  Sophie was surprised to see it was still night outside. She had no grasp of what time it was, what time she’d lost Monster.

  While the others were brought to ambulances to be examined, Sophie and her parents were driven home in an unmarked white car. No questions were asked.

  SOPHIE SLEPT THROUGH MOST OF THE NEXT DAY. She heard her parents check on her a few times, tiptoeing in and then out, shutting the door softly behind them. Every time they came in, she kept her eyes shut and her breath even, until at last she was too hungry to stay in bed anymore.

  She opened her eyes. Her bed felt cold. Stretching her legs, she didn’t feel Monster’s heavy warmth at the foot of the bed. She sat up. It was quiet. She didn’t hear his voice, demanding that she go back to sleep or that she fetch him a cupcake. She was alone in her room for the first time in years, and suddenly she wanted to be anywhere but here.

  Standing up, she slid her feet into slippers. They didn’t make her feel warmer. She padded down the stairs to the kitchen, hoping her parents would be in the bookshop. But no such luck. Both her parents were sitting in the living room, as if they’d been waiting for her. Both of them had circles under their eyes so dark that they looked like bruises. She wondered if they’d slept at all.

  Her mother stood up from the rocking chair but didn’t move toward Sophie. “You were very brave,” she said. “I want you to know that.”

  Sophie noticed that the fallen books had all been restacked and that the stacks were pushed against the walls, leaving a clear path to the kitchen for the first time in ages. She’d forgotten that the floor was wood. It glowed in the sunlight that poured through the window. Her parents must have dusted, too. Everything shone.

  Her father was sitting on the couch with an unopened book on his lap. She had the impression he’d been sitting there for hours, without touching the book. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Sophie tried to summon up enough energy to answer, but she felt as if she were swimming through sludge. She shuffled to the refrigerator and opened it.

  “Are you hungry?” Ditching the book, Dad popped to his feet. “I can make you something. Grilled cheese and tomato?”

  “Okay.” It was easier to agree than to think of any particular thing she wanted. She wanted Monster. Just Monster. She saw extra cupcakes on the counter, and her eyes felt hot. She turned away and was certain she’d never eat a cupcake again.

  “We miss him too, sweetie,” Mom said.

  “I know.” It was hard to say the words, and her voice felt distant and small. She was not going to cry. Not going to cry. Monster used to hate it when she cried. He’d complain she got his fur wet. She sat down at the table while Dad heated up a skillet and smeared butter on two slices of bread. She watched him for a while, and then she asked, “What did Ms. Lee mean, about registering me? And training me?”

  Mom and Dad exchanged glances, the kind of look that implied entire unspoken conversations. “You aren’t the only one with this . . . gift,” Dad said.

  “Yeah, I figured out that much.” Thinking of Christina, she felt her stomach churn. She suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore. “How many more are there like me?”

  “No one knows,” Mom said. “There could be just a few or there could be hundreds. Most people don’t ever encounter liquid dreams, so no one knows how many nondreamers there are.”

  “That is one reason why what you can do needs to stay secret, and why the Watchmen keep an eye out for people like you,” Dad said. He added a second sandwich to the skillet and glanced briefly at Sophie, as if to check on how she was taking this news. “If all the nondreamers knew and could access dreams . . . Imagine thousands of people drinking dreams and bringing them to life, all across the world.”

  “Monsters, demons, vampires, werewolves, every kind of bogeyman could spring up everywhere, faster than anyone could stop them.” Mom sat at the table, across from Sophie. Her voice was gentle, her eyes kind, which made her words all that much worse.

  Sophie felt herself start to shake. “But good things, too. There could be good dreams, the kind that could help the world.” Monster was good.

  “Yes, but the Night Watchmen believe the bad would outweigh the good,” Mom said. “According to Ms. Lee—”

  “She was here?” Sophie asked.

  Dad nodded. “While you slept, she came to visit.”

  “Being able to dream things to life . . . It’s a rare and dangerous ability,” Mom said. “There are consequences to what you can do.”

  Dad sighed heavily. “We didn’t want you to have to bear that kind of burden. We thought we could keep you separate from all of it. No drinking dreams equals no danger. You knew the rules. We thought that was enough.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sophie said in a small voice.

  Mom’s smile was sad. She reached across the table and touched Sophie’s hand. “We aren’t mad at you, Sophie. What you did . . . You did the right thing, with the knowledge you had. You thought you were alone. You didn’t know there was anyone who could help you, and frankly neither did we. We’d always believed that the Night Watchmen were our enemy. Regardless, we should have told you more.”

  “Will you now?�
�� Sophie asked.

  “Yes,” Dad said, after exchanging another glance with Mom. “Ms. Lee is right—you should be trained. She can help you find a mentor who will teach you everything you need to know. She says there are dangers to drinking dreams for people like you, and if you aren’t trained, you could hurt yourself or others.”

  Sophie thought of the headaches that she’d gotten after the last few dreams and wondered if that’s what Ms. Lee meant, or if she meant something worse.

  “Sophie . . .” Mom stopped as if searching for the right words. “You should know that from here on out, for the rest of your life, you will be watched. Ms. Lee and others like her . . . The Night Watchmen are aware of you now.” Mom hesitated. “They might not be our enemies as we thought, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re our friends. You’ll need to be careful.”

  Without Monster, it was hard to get worked up enough to care. “I’m always careful,” Sophie said.

  “Even more careful,” Mom said. “We may have been wrong to fear the Watchmen so much—and to make you fear them—but as nice as Ms. Lee is, she doesn’t necessarily have your best interests at heart.”

  “Keep your friends around you,” Dad said, and Mom nodded. She fetched a plate from the cabinet as Dad cut a tomato.

  “I don’t have any friends,” Sophie said, pushing back from the table. She headed for the stairs. She could feel the tears coming now.

  “Hey, Sophie?” Dad called. “What about the sandwich?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Sophie ran up the stairs and threw herself onto her empty bed. Alone in her room, she finally cried.

  The next morning, Sophie woke to sunlight streaming through the curtains. She sat up, alone, and didn’t want to curl up in bed again. She went to the bathroom, showered, dressed, and trudged downstairs. Her parents were again in the kitchen. Her mother’s eyes were overbright, as if she’d been crying too, and Dad looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.

  “I forgot to set my alarm,” Sophie said. “Did I miss the bus?”

  “You don’t have to go to school today if you don’t want to,” Dad said. “We can call in sick for you if you want to rest some more.”

  “I don’t want to rest anymore, and I can’t stay here.” Every room had a million memories. She kept expecting to see Monster out of the corner of her eye, to hear his dry voice as he commented on breakfast or her homework or . . .

  Mom nodded. “It will be good for you to start a routine again.”

  “Can I make you breakfast?” Dad opened the fridge without waiting for Sophie to answer. He examined the date on a container of yogurt and tossed it. “Not yogurt. Cereal? Pancakes? Waffles? Come on, let me make you the finest waffles you’ve ever seen, with strawberries and whipped cream . . .”

  “Dear, we don’t have any strawberries or whipped cream,” Mom said.

  “She’s going to say no anyway,” Dad said. “Let me at least imagine whipped cream.”

  Sophie felt her mouth want to quirk into a smile, but it didn’t actually move. She wondered if she’d ever smile again. She supposed she would, but it would be wrong, without Monster. “Cereal is fine.” She went to the cabinet for a bowl and the box. Sitting at the table, she poured the cereal. Her father poured the milk, and her mother handed her a spoon.

  As she ate, both her parents hovered over her as if they expected her to explode. She had to leave. School would be a welcome relief. Everyone there would ignore her, and she could go back to pretending that she didn’t exist. She finished her cereal in record time, got her backpack, wondered what homework she’d missed, and headed downstairs to the bookshop.

  Her parents followed her like lost puppies.

  “Love you, Pumpkin,” Dad said behind her.

  Sophie hesitated, her hand on the door handle. She was supposed to say “Love you, Zucchini,” and then Mom would pick another fruit or vegetable and then Monster would mock them by calling out the names of every other vegetable he could think of. But without Monster, the words stuck in her throat. “See you after school.”

  She went outside and walked to the bus stop without looking back.

  Everything at the bus stop seemed ordinary. The mother with the toddler tried to talk to her again, but Sophie ignored her. The boys shoved one another off the curb. The two girls gossiped and laughed and never even glanced at Sophie. When the bus came, she climbed on and sat by herself.

  At school, she walked through the hallway without meeting anyone’s eyes. She passed the bathroom where she’d let Monster out to climb into the ceiling, and she avoided the music room, where they’d fought the gray creature. At her locker, she traded her textbooks for her notebooks. There were no happy birthday notes, no missing dreamcatchers, nothing unusual at all, and she told herself that was a good thing. The danger was over, and life was—at least on the surface—back to normal, except for the way her heart hurt every time she breathed.

  In class, she kept her head down and eyes on her notebook. She half listened to what the teacher said, writing down a few scattered words but not really letting them compute. She drifted through several classes that way, and then it was time for lunch.

  After dropping her notebooks off at her locker, Sophie let the stream of students sweep her toward the cafeteria. She got in line and ignored how the line grew in front of her as kids cut and then cut the cutters. She stared at the chocolate milk. Was everything going to remind her of Monster? Was it going to be this way forever? Sophie picked up a few items at random and then slinked over to an empty table. She set her food down and stared at it, not hungry.

  Two trays were placed on the table. She noted their arrival and wondered why their owners didn’t pick an empty table.

  “Hey, Dream Girl, snap out of it,” Madison said.

  Sophie looked up.

  Madison sat across from her. Ethan was next to Sophie. “You got shepherd’s pie again,” Ethan said. “On purpose?”

  “Obviously not.” Madison reached across the table and swapped Sophie’s shepherd’s pie for an egg sandwich. “Eat this instead.”

  Sophie picked up half the sandwich. “Uh, thanks. Um, why are you guys sitting here? And being nice to me?” She eyed Madison, then the sandwich, and wondered if it was poisoned or filled with spit or something. Just a couple of days ago, Madison would have rather showed up to school naked than talk in public to Sophie.

  “Believe it or not, fighting a pack of imaginary creatures after being kidnapped by a creepy guy is surprisingly bonding,” Madison said.

  Ethan shrugged. “We can’t talk about this with anyone else.”

  Sophie put down the sandwich. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Then we’ll talk around you,” Madison said merrily. Leaning forward, she asked in a conspiratorial whisper, “Do you wonder what happened to the rabbits? Do you think they caught them all?”

  “Maybe. Or they could have slipped out of the house. Where do you think Christina is?” Ethan asked. “Was Mr. Nightmare really her dad? Makes my own parents seem not so bad. I’d rather uninterested than evil.”

  “Seriously,” Madison agreed.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Watchmen already found her,” Ethan said.

  Sophie looked at them both, talking so casually about things that not so long ago they would have considered ridiculously impossible. But now they sounded . . . excited and weirdly happy. “Aren’t you guys mad at me? I mean, you wouldn’t have gone through all that if not for me.”

  They looked at her, and then they exchanged glances in a way that reminded Sophie of her parents. She realized they’d been talking without her. Or about her.

  “Yeah, we know.” Madison reached into her pocket and pulled out a dreamcatcher. She laid it on Sophie’s tray. “We want a commission. We’ll come by after school to work out the details, but we think it’s only fair. And if it turns out the dreams have too many personal details, we expect your parents not to sell them.”

  E
than handed Sophie his dreamcatcher. “This one isn’t for sale. This one is for you.”

  Sophie felt her face flush red. “I . . . uh . . . I don’t understand.”

  “We like you, Sophie,” Ethan said, “even if you don’t want us to.”

  “Not that we think you’re suddenly cool or anything,” Madison said. “I don’t want to be BFFs. But yeah, after school today. Your place.”

  Madison and Ethan both nodded.

  Sophie felt herself almost smile.

  AFTER SCHOOL, THEY MET IN THE DREAM SHOP. Sitting on the stairs, Ethan was tossing a ball into the air over and over. Next to the somnium, Madison was filing her nails.

  Sophie, with her father guiding her, was distilling Ethan’s dream.

  She chased the light through the tubes as it shimmered with flecks of gold. Her father whispered in her ear, “That lever. Yes. Now that one, fast. Good. Excellent.” She guided the liquid through another tube, steering it so that the flecks of light brightened into a steady glow. “You have a good eye for this.”

  She didn’t answer, instead concentrating on sending the liquid light through the next spiral of tubes. Dad reached across her and hit another lever, which sent it shooting into a tube to the left. It sparkled brighter.

  “Get a bottle,” Dad said.

  Scurrying to the shelves, she fetched an empty blue bottle. She placed it under the spigot. Drip by drip, it filled with Ethan’s dream. When it was full, she carried the bottle over to the somnium, where her mother waited.

  Catching his ball, Ethan stood and crossed to stand beside Sophie.

  A moment later, the others all crowded around. Sophie watched the clouds in the somnium swirl. She saw the school music room, and Monster standing in front of Ethan, defending him from the gray creature. And then they were on the bus ride home, with Monster in her backpack, and then the bike ride where he was seasick. Sophie felt tears on her cheeks.