by Neil Gaiman
Nemo nodded and turned the card: the deuce of diamonds.
"I'll bet that even felt better, didn't it?" she said. "It's all about freedom and happiness and, well, goldfish, I guess, if you want goldfish. I like them until they're, you know, dead. You're going to have a wonderful future and you're going to have a good friend, a tall, pale man who lives far away from the city. Oh. Oh. I'll bet I know who that is!"
"Who is it?" Nemo asked. "Tell me, do!"
"Um," she said.
"Shall I turn over another card?"
The young woman raised her eyebrows. "There aren't any more cards," she said.
"Then how will I find the golden bottle?"
She sighed. "All right. Take this string." She lifted the end of a long piece of white string and gave it to Nemo. "The other end is tied around your golden bottle. All you have to do is follow it."
"Thank--"
"And, um, hope that somebody bad doesn't untie it before you get there."
"Thank you, ma'am," Nemo said.
"He called me 'ma'am'," she said happily, as she vanished.
Nemo opened his eyes and found himself back in his bedroom. He heard his papa calling him: "Nemo! Sleepyheads don't get breakfast in this house! No!"
The Fourth Night:
Little Nemo realized suddenly that the healthy grass of Slumberland was gone. Swirling patches of fog had appeared while he'd followed the string, and now he could barely see the ground.
"Oh, gracious!" Nemo said. "Where am I now? What is happening, eh?" He wasn't out under the bright blue sky any longer. He was in some dimly lighted, dank and echoing room. He still held the string, and he walked and walked and walked, but he didn't seem to be getting anywhere. He couldn't see walls on any side of him; he couldn't see the ceiling or the floor. There was just the fog, getting thicker and thicker.
And there was a rat, a huge gray rat the size of a large dog. "Oh my!" Nemo said. "Maybe that awful rat won't see me in all this fog. I hope!"
"I do see you there," the rat said. It had a rough, rasping voice.
"Oh! Oh! It is a talking rat!"
"What are you doing in my realm, Nemo? I don't get many visitors, and they're usually sorry they came here."
Nemo felt a cold emptiness within him. "I must wake up!" he said. "I must go home to Mama and Papa!"
The rat made an unpleasant growling sound; it may have been laughter. "You won't ever go home, Nemo. Look at your string."
Nemo glanced down at the string in his hand. It had been chewed off, and the end of it dangled uselessly from his fingers. He became even more frightened. He sank to his knees, searching in the impossibly thick fog for the other end of the string.
"You won't find it, you know," the rat said. Its voice was barely above a whisper, but it was compelling nonetheless. "You'll never go back to your home or your family again. Just this easily, hope turns to despair."
Hot tears ran down Nemo's cheeks. He stood again and looked wildly around himself; he saw only the fog and the rat. "Mama!" he cried.
"She can't hear you."
"Why is this happening? Why am I here? Eh?"
The rat showed its long, crooked fangs. "Your task, Nemo. You haven't found the golden bottle with the diamond stopper. Desire is waiting for you, and you haven't even begun to look."
"I have looked for it, yes," Nemo said hopelessly. "I would look some more, but how can I find it here?"
"There's an important lesson, then: Yearning may lead only to unhappiness. A wise person knows when to stop searching. It's time to quit, Nemo; it's time to give up."
Little Nemo blinked and the rat became an ugly old woman. She had skin like a cold dead thing and eyes the color of a bitter morning in December. Her short black hair was caught together with a dirty piece of cord, and she had on no clothes at all. On her left hand, where Nemo's mother wore her wedding ring, this woman had a ring with a barbed hook, and with it she ripped at the flesh of her own face. Nemo watched the blood trickle downward toward her chin. He shuddered, and then he shuddered again.
She reached for him. "Come, boy," she said in her low, disquieting voice, "I will show you how you'll end."
Little Nemo ran. He could hear the blood roaring in his ears. He felt prickly and hot. He ran through the fog; it twirled and twisted around him, but it could not hold him. There were many window frames suspended in the air. Nemo wondered what he might see if he stopped by one, but he was too afraid to look.
"Oh, why can I not wake up now?" he said. He ran some more. He had run a thousand miles, and he had not gained a single step on the ugly woman, who was still chasing him.
He ran along a narrow muddy path where, here and there, someone had set down wooden planks. "I am in a deep ditch," Nemo said. Now there were walls made of dirt, and they reached a few feet higher than his head. There were sandbags piled on top of them, and ladders going up. He could not see where he was, and he could not see where he was going, but he did not stop running. The way turned and crossed itself, and Nemo quickly became confused in a maze of intersecting channels.
"A dozen years from now," the ugly woman said, "you'll die here in the trenches."
Nemo heard her as if she were beside him, whispering into his ear. "The trenches?" he said.
"The next twelve years--the rest of your life--mean nothing. You'll end here in the cold, in the mud, with all the others. The sound of the maggots will be like winter wind rustling the dead straw, except there will be no one alive to hear it. Why do you even--"
Nemo felt a sharp pain in his side just beneath his ribs. It hurt too much to run, so he continued walking as fast as he could. He turned into a trench that crossed to the left, and then into another leading back to the right. After a while he no longer heard the voice of the ugly woman, but he did not stop hurrying away.
At last, a long time later, he needed to rest and catch his breath. He looked behind him and saw two bright points of red. "Oh, I can see the eyes of the giant rat," he said. "I must get away, that's all!"
He had gone only a few more steps when he tripped over a rock embedded in the muck. "Oh!" he cried. "That did hurt my toe, oh!"
Nemo discovered that he was home again, but that he'd fallen out of bed and now lay on the floor twisted up in the sheets. "I guess I was dreaming again, Papa," he said.
His father shook his head. "Dreaming, eh? I wonder what you do dream about!"
The Fifth Night:
"I hope the Princess sends another messenger for me tonight," Nemo said, sitting up in bed. "He will help me find the golden bottle with the diamond stopper, I know! It is lost somewhere in Slumberland, and I must return it to the Spirit of Heart's Desire."
"Then you must look for it in Slumberland, Nemo."
"Who said that, eh?" Nemo looked around his bedchamber and saw a young girl somewhat taller than he. She was dressed like the older schoolmaids he knew except that her sailor-dress was black rather than blue, and she wore black cotton stockings, black high-button shoes, and a sort of silver cross around her neck. "Oh, you are very pretty! You are as pretty as King Morpheus's daughter, the Princess, yes! You are almost as pretty as my mama!"
The girl smiled. "You're sweet, Nemo."
"Do you go to my school? I think I have seen you there."
She shook her head, laughing. "No, we haven't met before. For most people, one visit from me is more than enough. Now, if you like, I can show you the way to Slumberland. It's just through that door."
"But there is no door there! Oh, oh, now there is a door!"
The girl opened the door that had just appeared in the wall. Little Nemo stepped through, still dressed in his nightshirt and slippers. He was outdoors again, beneath a bright blue sky. He was unhappy to see that he'd returned to the awful trenches.
"What's the matter, Nemo?" the girl asked.
"I don't like it here. The ugly woman said to me--"
His amiable companion smiled again. "I know what she said to you, a
nd now I'll tell you something: She doesn't always know what she's talking about."
Little Nemo shivered even though the sun was warm overhead. "Who is she?"
"She's my sister. My younger sister."
Nemo was confused. He didn't believe she could possibly be the sister of the ugly woman who'd chased him-- and it was even more unlikely that she was the older of the two. "Why did she bring me here?" Nemo asked.
"She thinks if people get a look at how they're gonna die, it'll tip them over the edge into despair. She doesn't realize that there are worse things around than death. Lots of worse things."
Nemo felt afraid. "How does she know what will happen to me?"
"She thinks she knows."
"Will I really die here in twelve years?"
"Maybe," said the girl. She looked more closely at Little Nemo and shrugged. "And maybe not. I think my sister could use a good lesson."
She took Nemo by the hand, and they walked a little farther. He thought she had the palest complexion and the blackest, most disheveled hair he'd ever seen. "What is that, eh?" he asked after a while. Nemo pointed to the heavy silver pendant the girl wore on a chain around her neck.
"It's an ankh,"
"An ankh, is it, eh?"
She smiled and lifted it up. "I have a brother who insists on calling it an ansate cross. Ansate means having a handle, like a long-haul driver on the CB."
"What--"
"Never mind. Now, I want you to look up there." She pointed to a wooden ladder raised against the wall of the trench.
"Shall I go up that?"
"Yes, Nemo, and tell me what you see."
He was glad to climb the ladder and look out of the trench. "Oh, it is a lovely garden!" he cried. "Have we found our way back to Slumberland? Is the palace of King Morpheus near? I do hope it is!"
"Just follow the path through the hedges," she said. "And give the Princess a kiss for me when you see her."
"If I never do anything more as long as I live," Nemo said, "I must find that golden bottle. I would do anything to please the Spirit of Heart's Desire."
The girl frowned. "I know," she said. "Almost everyone would. I hate the way people are punished for the crime of falling in love with Desire. Now, get yourself up that ladder--and be careful up there."
Nemo scrambled over the top of the ladder. In his haste and excitement he caught his feet in the coils of barbed wire, and he fell sprawling to the muddy ground.
"Nemo!" said his mother, shaking him by the shoulder. "If you kick off the covers every night, you will soon catch your death of cold!"
The Sixth Night:
There were hedges and gravel paths, a sundial and an iron bench. The garden--if it was a garden--went on and on.
"Now where am I, eh?" Little Nemo said. "Is this Slumberland?"
Just as he'd been lost in the maze of trenches, Nemo was now lost in a labyrinth of tall hedges. The shrubbery towered over him; as before, it was impossible to see where he had been or where he was going. Every twist and turn in the maze brought him to a place that looked exactly like all the other places Nemo had seen there: There was the carefully groomed lawn and the trimmed hedges and a green-painted bench.
And the statues--Nemo had never seen so many statues, of men in overcoats or business suits, women in gowns or servants' uniforms, even children sitting at desks or at play. The statues weren't particularly heroic or even memorable. Then Nemo followed an avenue of the maze and came upon a statue that looked familiar. "Oh gracious!" he said. "It is my uncle Alexander! I wonder why there is a statue of Uncle Alexander in this place."
He walked along some more, beginning to feel both tired and hungry. He said, "I do hope the Princess will send someone soon to find me. Yes!"
A moment later--a dream moment that may have lasted seconds or hours or years--a man appeared from beyond a turning of the way, perhaps in answer to Little Nemo's wish. The man wore a long brown robe and his face was hidden within its cowl. He walked along the path, studying a large book. Nemo saw that there was a chain around the man's wrist, and the book was attached to the other end of the chain.
Nemo didn't want to disturb the man in the brown robe, but he was very curious. "What is that great book you are reading, eh?"
The man gazed at Little Nemo for a moment. "It is a book that contains everything that ever happened, and everything that will ever happen." He had a calm voice, like a churchman or a librarian.
Nemo was astonished. "Does it tell how the world was made?"
"Yes, it does." He turned to a page about a quarter of the way from the beginning. "Here it is, in this chapter."
Nemo was puzzled. "If this is when the world was made, what is in all those pages that come before it?"
"Things that happened before there was a world," the man said.
"If there wasn't a world," Nemo said, "where did they happen?"
"You may read it if you wish."
Nemo looked at the book, and although the words were in English, the pages didn't make a particle of sense to him. He shook his head. "And does it tell how the world will end?"
The man nodded his cowled head. "Here," he said, indicating a page about three-quarters of the way through the book.
"What will happen after the end of the world?" Nemo asked.
"You may read it if you wish."
"Thank you, sir," Nemo said, "but if that book tells about everything that will happen, does it say if I find the golden bottle with the diamond stopper?"
Without a word, the man opened the book to a certain page and showed it to the boy.
"Now I must find my way to the palace of King Morpheus," Nemo said. "Can you tell me--"
The man didn't even look up from his reading. He just pointed to a path.
"Thank you, sir!" Nemo said. He turned to hurry away, and stumbled into a wall of hedges. "Oh, pshaw! I will be tangled in these bushes now!"
He fought with the branches for a moment, until he realized that he was fighting with the sheets and his pillow. "Oh, Mama!" said Nemo. "I was only dreaming again
The Seventh Night:
Little Nemo woke and sat up in his wooden bed with the high headboard. He'd heard a noise in the room, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. "Was that you, Leo?" he asked the family's cat. "Did you meow?"
"Yes, Nemo," the cat said. "The Princess is eagerly waiting for you. Do hurry!"
"Oh, now you can talk, Leo!"
Leo stopped a moment to lick his paw. Then he went on: "The Spirit of Heart's Desire wishes to have the golden bottle with the diamond stopper returned. Nemo, you are to rash to the palace as quickly as you can. All of King Morpheus's loyal subjects are expecting you, yes!"
"Will you come to Slumberland with me?" Little Nemo asked.
"Yes, I will go with you. And Captain Jack the Soldier will go to protect us, and Bobby Bear, too!" * Nemo took off his nightshirt and put on his clothes. "How will we get to Slumberland, Leo?" he asked.
"Hobbyhorse will take us easily, you will see!"
Little Nemo climbed onto Hobbyhorse's wooden saddle. He carried Captain Jack in one arm and Bobby Bear in the other.
"Oh my!" said Leo. "Is there enough room for me?"
"Yes, yes! Jump up here, Leo!" The small gray cat leaped onto Nemo's lap, and the boy began rocking back and forth on his Hobbyhorse. Soon, as if by magic, they were racing across meadows and fields, leaving the town far behind.
"Gracious!" said Leo. "I have never ridden so fast! It is making my head spin!"
"We will be in Slumberland in no time," said Captain Jack the Soldier.
"I can see the domes of King Morpheus's palace!" said Bobby Bear.
"Tell me when we get there, for I will shut my eyes until then," said Leo.
In less than a minute, Hobbyhorse came to a stop at the bottom of the grand marble staircase that led up to the palace gates. "We will come back soon," said Little Nemo, "and then we will go home ag
ain."
"I will be here, yes!" said Hobbyhorse.
Still carrying Captain Jack and Bobby Bear and with Leo following behind him, Nemo began mounting the marble stairs. From his previous visits he knew there were exactly 1,234,567,890 steps; he had counted them often. It took a long time to climb the staircase, but when they arrived at the top, the Princess's special courier, Lopopo, was waiting for them.
"I see you have brought your friends to Slumberland, Nemo!" Lopopo said, grinning. He took off his pointed green hat and bowed. "The Princess asks you to wait for her in the Ice Cream Chamber. You may have as much ice cream as you wish!" Lopopo bowed again, and then he went to tell the Princess of Nemo's arrival.
The Ice Cream Chamber was a room as big as a castle, and in the middle of it was a mountain of ice cream. "Oh, that is grand!" said Nemo.
"There is enough ice cream to freeze an ocean!" said Bobby Bear. "This has got me winging!"
"I will have some," said Captain Jack the Soldier. "All that riding made me hungry!"
"Oh, what kind of ice cream is it?" asked Nemo.
"Ah! Ha! It is rum raisin!" said Captain Jack.
Before Nemo could eat even a tiny bit of the ice cream, the bad-tempered, green-faced Flip threw open a door and strutted into the chamber. "Huh!" he said. "You thought you could have a party without me!"
"It is that Mr. Flip," Leo said.
"Flip," said Nemo, "you may leave now! We don't care if you do!"
"I'll show you something," said Flip. "I'll fill this flubadub with ice cream and have some all day and all night!" He held up the golden bottle with the diamond stopper.
"Oh! I have been searching for that!" said Nemo.
"I know it, kiddo! I guess if I give it to the Princess, she'll like me and forget about you anyway!"
Little Nemo felt a terrible fury, a passion greater than anything he'd ever known before. "I guess you will give it to me!" he said fiercely.
"Wait, Nemo!" Flip said, astonished by the boy's grim expression. "For mercy's sake!"
"Let it go, or you'll be worrying!"
Nemo tore the golden bottle with the diamond stopper from Flip's grasp. As soon as he touched it, Nemo was filled with a profound happiness. "Gracious!" he said in a quiet voice. "This must be the most wonderful thing in the whole world!"
Captain Jack the Soldier said, "Now you must take it to the Princess and the Spirit of Heart's Desire."
"I... oh!" Nemo said. He didn't want to give it to anyone. He ran out of the Ice Cream Chamber, chased by Captain Jack, Bobby Bear, Leo, and Flip. They shouted at him to stop, but he just ran and ran. He didn't know what was inside the golden bottle with the diamond stopper; he just knew that it was his Heart's Desire as much as anyone's.
"Come back, Nemo!" called Captain Jack. "That does not belong to you! No!"
"I will not let them have this," Nemo told himself. He dashed out of King Morpheus's palace and began running down the 1,234,567,890 steps; halfway down, he came upon two people. "Mama! Papa!" he exclaimed. "You are here in Slumberland!"
His papa reached for the boy's treasure. "I'll take that now, Nemo," he said.