With a sigh, Stella closed her eyes and leaned back. Then she opened them again. Her head was clearing slowly, like fog burning off as the sun comes out. The Pirate studied her face for a moment, and then stood up. He was tall and slender, surprisingly graceful.
“I have something for you,” he announced. He walked over to a leather bag, where he rummaged around for a few moments, finally pulling out a worn and tattered notebook. “Here,” he said, handing it to her.
Stella looked at it for a moment, then flipped through the pages. It was her brother’s. The rest of it, whole and intact.
Deep in the dream in the desert
Still burning underneath the desert sun,
I know that I have dreamed this place before
This is my father’s desert—it’s the one
I see when I imagine him at war.
I turn to run as a tank rolls toward me.
Beneath my feet, I hear the metal catch
Of a land mine
If I step off,
It will explode.
The tank . . .
It’s coming for me, and . . .
I . . .
Can’t . . .
Move. . . .
She held the papers in her hand and felt herself pulled in two directions, both downward and upward—the ground collapsed, sand pouring into a pit, and it sucked at her legs like a living thing. Above her, the clouds parted and the sky pulled with searing intensity, and both the sky and the earth reverberated with her name. Cole was calling from above, from below—her heart raced, her throat closed, her head felt light, and the pain of being pulled in two directions made her think she might be split in half when the sky went suddenly white—
And she was back in the Dreamway.
Cole’s poem had almost pulled her back into her world, but something had kept her here. She looked at the notebook and then glanced at the Pirate. “Where did you get this?”
“I found it.” The Pirate removed his aviator’s cap and ran a hand over his short, spiky black hair. “I knew who it belonged to.”
“How did you know who it belonged to?” Anyway demanded, looking closely at the paper.
The Pirate smiled. “Ask Stella.”
Stella was about to say no, don’t ask her, because she had no idea. But those eyes . . . the face was so familiar. . . .
And then she had it.
“Alice?” she said, her voice a whisper.
“Fancy meeting you here.” And now it was obvious. Alice Yun was here in the Dreamway.
“You two know each other?” Anyway asked. He gaped at Alice. “And wait—I thought you were a boy! Girls can’t be pirates!”
“Tell that to Mary Wolverston,” Alice snapped.
Anyway sniffed. “I don’t know her.”
“Obviously not,” Alice replied. “Because she was a pirate.”
Stella sat up straighter. “How did you get here?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“I—I just—I don’t really know.”
Alice sat down on the floor and folded her long legs beneath her. “Interesting.”
“Do you know?”
“I’ve been able to get here for . . . years,” Alice admitted. “Ever since the accident, actually.”
“You can’t have,” Anyway huffed.
Alice shrugged. “Okay,” she said.
Stella looked at her. “You’re different.” She didn’t want to say, “You’re not in your wheelchair,” but Alice knew what she meant.
“When I was in the hospital, I used to dream that I could still walk. Still dance. In my dreams, nothing had changed.”
Stella thought about her own right hand and leg and how easily they moved in the Dreamway. “Yes.”
“I liked dreaming. So I worked on it until I was good at it. I found I could come here whenever I wanted, but I could only stay a little while. I’d always hit an exit in my dreams. But then I started really working at it—I’d sort of wake up in my dreams, and then I’d concentrate. I’d look for the exits and I’d just avoid them. After a while, I could stay longer and longer until eventually, one night—I wandered out of my dream onto the tracks. And now I come here when I want some alone time, and when I want to paint. In the real world—”
“The Penumbra,” Anyway corrected.
“Whatever—I live with my dad. I love him, but . . .”
“Is that how you started—taking stuff?” Stella asked.
“I only take things from the Dross,” Alice replied.
“What’s that?”
“The leavings,” Spuddle explained. “The very end of a dream. What’s left over once a Sleeper exits a dream.”
“I filch it before it gets recycled. It’s just junk, anyway. But some of the stuff in the storage area is really interesting.” Stella thought of the hideous Barney lamp. “It makes you wonder about people.”
“But—you never answered my question,” Stella prompted. “Why do you come here?”
“I like moving around on my own, you know? Seeing things. My dad—he doesn’t like to let me out of his sight. Here, I’m free. So—now you answer my question. What are you doing here?”
Quickly, Stella explained how Cole had been kidnapped by a Chimerath, how he was somewhere in the Dreamway. “His paper was marked Undisclosed.”
“I’m hoping Dr. Peavey can tell us where he is,” Anyway filled in. “Somewhere on the Nightmare Line.”
“Weird,” Alice said. She glanced at the notebook in Stella’s hands. “So—you think the Chimerath is dragging him through the Dreamway?”
Stella nodded. “And I think . . . I think he’s dropping scraps of paper—like Hansel and Gretel. To lead me to him.”
“Undisclosed,” Alice said slowly, thinking.
“Yes, it’s . . . peculiar,” Spuddle chimed in, in a voice that suggested it was more than peculiar, that in fact nefarious was the better word, but he was too delicate to suggest such a thing.
“Strange doings along the Nightmare Line,” Alice said.
“What do you mean?” Anyway asked sharply.
“Look at your map.”
The mouse pulled it out from the pouch around his neck. Alice took it from him as it grew, unfolding to the size of a diner menu. Stella stared at it. It was interesting to watch as the map flickered and changed. She noticed that the tracks did seem to stay relatively in the same place, but the station names shifted and changed, and sometimes one would disappear or another new one pop up from nowhere. The Nightmare Line existed mostly independently, intersecting with only a few other lines—Memory, Metaphor, Water, and Daily Life. But now the Nightmare Line flickered on the map, at times blinking more brightly than all the other lines combined.
“I’ve heard noises,” Alice said. “Something is happening there.”
Anyway and Stella exchanged a glance. “Curiouser and curiouser,” Anyway said.
“I think it should be ‘more and more curious,’” Stella replied. She was a firm supporter of standard grammar.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” Spuddle put in ominously.
“Well, then, it’s lucky that I’m a mouse,” Anyway replied.
After a moment, Alice turned to Stella. “How’s the arm?”
Stella looked down. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s like it wasn’t even real.” She thought for a moment. “Maybe it wasn’t.”
Alice pressed her lips together, considering. “Back in our world,” she began, “I can’t feel my legs, you know? If you touch them, I don’t feel it. But every now and then, I get these pains. Pains in legs that can’t feel anything.”
“So—is that real?”
“I guess that kind of question just doesn’t help much,” Alice said slowly. “It might not be ‘real,’ but it really hurts. So I just tell myself this kind of pain can’t kill me, and that’s how I get through it.” She studied Stella’s face. If she was suggesting something, Stella couldn’t figure out what it was. Then Alice turned to the mous
e. “You’d better stop door-switching, you know. You’re not a Door Mouse anymore.”
“One does not simply stop being a Door Mouse,” Anyway huffed.
“You’re not a Door Mouse anymore?” Stella asked. “You never mentioned that.”
“Peavey fired all the Door Mice. He just announced a major restructuring.” Alice laughed, but it wasn’t a pretty sound. “He said it would ‘do wonders for the economy, offering exciting opportunities for those willing to help grow the job market in cutting-edge new industries.’”
Stella’s jaw dropped. “Is that how this place works?” she asked.
“It’s not how anyplace works,” Alice shot back. “But definitely not here.”
“I suspect,” Spuddle interjected, “that this all comes back to someone misfiling the appropriate paperwork.”
“Oh, it’s misfiled all right,” Alice said.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Anyway repeated. “And curiouser,” he added.
Alice sighed.
“But who is Peavey?” Stella demanded. “Why does he get to fire people?”
“He’s the one who sorted out the Dreamway when it got too chaotic,” Anyway answered. “All the baggage was getting mixed up, so he organized the lines and came up with the baggage system.”
“It seems pretty clear,” Alice said, “that whatever is going on, Peavey is the one with the answers.”
“We’ve got to get to him ASAP,” Stella agreed.
“What does that mean?” Anyway asked suspiciously.
“All Sesquipedalian Anteaters Preen,” Spuddle explained.
“What does sesquipedalian mean?” Anyway asked.
“Six-footed,” Spuddle told him. “Obviously.”
“I know a shortcut,” said Alice, who was—very wisely—ignoring the whole exchange. “But I don’t think you’ll like it.”
The Shortcut
STELLA FELT BETTER AS ALICE led them through the twists and turns of the nonoperational track. Her arm still throbbed, but it didn’t burn. Her mind still retained wisps of cloud, but every movement made it feel clearer.
Although they were not exactly close friends, finding Alice in the Dreamway had made Stella feel more confident. Alice knew the Dreamway, at least this section of it. Anyway rode along in a dark silence, but Spuddle buzzed in excited circles around Alice’s head.
“I can’t believe your collection!” Spuddle gushed to Alice. “It’s wonderful! And to think that all of this came from Dross! No one ever complained that it wasn’t returned. I’ll have to alert the offi—”
“No,” Alice said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t put as much faith in bureaucracy as you do.”
Spuddle stopped up short in midair. “I . . . don’t . . .” He clanged and pinged, as if someone had wound him too tightly.
The Dead Mileage was an interesting section, in the creepy way that old abandoned warehouses can be interesting. In one part, someone had discarded a group of perhaps thirty mannequins. Several were headless, armless, or legless, and separated limbs littered the floor. The scene reminded Stella of one of her fairy tales, “The White Cat,” and sent a shiver across her scalp. At another point, there were several abandoned subway cars. One had a family of possums living inside, but they hid when they saw the group coming along.
Once, Alice stopped and seemed to reconsider. Then she turned around.
“Are we lost?” Stella asked her.
“Thought I heard something,” Alice replied. “New direction.”
It was interesting how Stella’s eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light. Or perhaps this was just a function of the Dreamway—her senses were heightened, and she knew things were there even when she couldn’t see them. Pipes and ducts ran along the curved tunnel ceiling, but there was space here. They could walk easily, and every step created an echo.
“Do you hear that?” Stella asked, pausing a moment.
Alice stopped, too, and gestured to Spuddle to be still. The dragonfly landed on a pylon and perched quietly. Anyway snapped out of his sullen silence to peek from Stella’s pocket. The silence stretched in every direction as they strained to hear. Alice was just about to give up when they all heard it—a steady thrum, like the rhythm of a jackhammer. It reverberated for a moment and then stopped.
“What is it?” Stella asked. She did not mention that she had heard something else—Cole’s voice mixed in with the jackhammer.
“Track maintenance,” Anyway said.
“Maintenance on nonoperational track?” Alice asked. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“What’s that?” Spuddle gestured toward a patch of light to the right of them. They raced down a long tunnel that ended suddenly and stepped out into gray mist. Not far away was the lacework of a suspension bridge.
“So—where, exactly, does this go?” Stella asked as the friends hurried toward the bridge. Thick mist licked at them, and Stella thought that it looked as if they were about to plunge into a cloud. She was a few steps ahead, and a fleecy vapor cast a veil over her, hiding her from view. Alice turned to answer. But she didn’t answer. Instead, when the vapor passed away, Alice had disappeared. “Alice?” Stella cried.
“Pirate!” Spuddle shouted.
Stella darted forward, missed her footing, and plunged (farther and longer than she had expected) down into the mysterious gray.
What
LANDING ON HER SIDE, STELLA slipped round and round and down, twirling like a corkscrew. “Anyway?” she shouted, pinwheeling her arms into the thick stew of mist.
“It’s a slide!” Anyway shouted from her pocket. “I hate slides!” He let out a squeaking screech.
Stella stuck out her legs, trying to arrest her fall, but she plunged faster, farther.
“I’m coming!” shrieked Spuddle’s voice above them.
Stella landed in a snowbank with a sudden plomp. She wasn’t hurt. She wasn’t even cold, she realized as she sat up.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Anyway said.
“Not in my pocket, you’re not,” Stella told him. Snow fell from a gray sky, blowing against a visible gust across the path before them. The edges of the snowy walkway were lined with birches—slender trees with papery white bark. Stella had seen snow many times, but she was used to a greater contrast—black branches and streetlamps, dirt and grime mixed in with the snow. Here, everything was white on white, with the exception of the dark, slender markings on the trunks of the birches. Stella did what she always did in an unexpected snow—she held back her head and stuck out her tongue, where a flake landed lightly and stubbornly refused to melt. In fact, it got stuck at the back of her throat.
She fished it out with a finger and inspected it.
A mound of snow shuddered nearby, and then a head popped out. It was Alice, who snorted little flakes out of her nose and hacked a few times.
Anyway studied the sky. “What is it?” he asked.
Alice held up a handful. “It’s . . . paper,” she said.
Reaching out with his paw, Anyway caught a falling flake and inspected it closely. He let out a sudden gasp. “It’s not just paper. It’s . . . paperwork!”
It was Spuddle’s turn to gasp as Anyway looked around. “I suppose that’s what happens when you have to fill out everything in octuplicate,” the mouse said.
“That’s what happens . . .” Alice said slowly, “. . . when you shred everything in octuplicate.”
Spuddle screeched, “They shredded it!?” Frantically, he zipped from one fragment to the next, trying to put them back together. After a few moments, it became clear that the task was impossible and he burst into tears. “All my work! They shredded it all!”
Awkwardly, Stella hauled herself to her feet. After helping Alice out of the paper bank, Stella stared around at the landscape. The white falling from the sky was, in fact, confetti—huge drifts of it had gathered at the edges of the path and at the roots of the birches. When she stepped closer, she realized that the b
irches, too, were not trees. Stella reached out to touch one. Peering closer, she read the words. It looked like a page from her mother’s economics textbook.
It was slightly easier to slog through paper shreds than snow but made more annoying by the fact that little pieces kept sticking to Stella’s wool sweater.
“It’s only a bit farther,” Anyway said as Stella shuffled her feet through the shreds.
After a while, they came to a clearing, at the center of which was an enormous white desk. Suspended from an overhanging branch was a black-and-white television set. “An orderly Dreamway is a happy Dreamway,” the image of Dr. Peavey said. “Which is why all forms must be filled out in octuplicate and given to the Management Office, where they can be properly filed and processed. . . .” It blared on and on. On the other side of the desk was a door.
“Can I help you?” asked a voice, and that was when Stella noticed the frog sitting on a corner of the desk, half-hidden by a pile of papers.
“What!” Anyway spat, and Spuddle gasped.
“What?” Stella asked.
“Yes.” Anyway peered up at her. “Him. That’s What.”
“What’s what?” Stella repeated.
“I’m going to just assume that this makes sense to you all,” Alice told them.
“Please allow me to cut this short,” said the frog. “My name is What, and I am the Under Secretary in Charge of Paperwork. Hello . . . Anyway.”
“We’re here to see Peavey,” Anyway replied.
“Let’s see . . .” The frog flipped languidly through an appointment book. “Do you have an appointment?”
“You know very well that we don’t,” Anyway snapped.
“Well, I’m afraid that Dr. Peavey isn’t available,” What replied cheerfully. He flipped several pages in his book. “Ah! Here we go. How about next Tuesday at nine a.m.? Would that be convenient?”
“That will not be convenient!” Spuddle shouted, ticking and springing with rage. “Just as it would not be convenient to file form after form and wait patiently for replies that never come only to realize that my forms have been shredded to bits!”
“Are you sure you filed them properly?” What challenged.
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