The Sandman: Book of Dreams

by Neil Gaiman

Nemo woke suddenly in his bed. "Um! Ooh!" he said. "I was dreaming! You weren't really chasing me, Leo!"

  The gray cat did not reply.

  "I'll take that now," said the Spirit of Heart's Desire.

  "Hurrah! Look!" said Little Nemo. "I still have the golden bottle with the diamond stopper!"

  "Yes," said the Spirit, "and now you must return it to me."

  Nemo felt his heart beating faster. He didn't want to surrender his prize.

  The Spirit of Heart's Desire sat on the bed beside Nemo, holding out one hand. "Don't you love me, Nemo? I won't love you anymore if you don't give it to me."

  Nemo felt like crying. He wanted the Spirit to love him, but he didn't want to give up the golden bottle.

  Someone else came into Nemo's bedroom. He was tall and very thin, and he was dressed all in black. "I will take that now," he said.

  As soon as the gaunt man took the golden bottle from him, Nemo felt a great relief. "I must still be dreaming!" he said.

  The man in black turned to the Spirit of Heart's Desire. "How dare you use one of my dreamers to steal the illusion of Heart's Desire!"

  Desire gave Dream a mocking laugh. "His desires are under my jurisdiction--or have you forgotten about that?"

  "It is not right for a child to desire something that strongly. Get out." In an instant, Desire vanished.

  Dream stood beside Little Nemo's bed. He put a hand on the boy's forehead and looked into Nemo's eyes. Then, like Desire, Dream also disappeared. Later, Nemo could never quite recall what the King of Dreams had said to him that night. Nemo didn't wake up because he was already awake. He lay in his bed and watched as the sunrise flooded his room with soft, golden light. Soon his papa and mama would call him to breakfast.

  ESCAPE ARTIST

  Caitlin R. Kiernan

  Wanda, nee Alvin, Mann, was my favorite character in A Game of You, the fourth Sandman story arc, the fifth book.

  The story went through a couple of name changes before it got its final title. I originally wanted to call it "Inside of Your Heart," and then I wanted to call it "The Bimbos of Night," but eventually, the ghost of an old Robert Sheckley spy novel rattling around in my head (my then-editor, Alisa Kwitney, is Sheckley's daughter), it became "A Game of You," and there it stayed.

  Two writers took Wanda on. The first of them is Cait Kiernan, a tall, elegantly gothic lady, who looks good in dark green velvet, and how many of us could dare to make that claim?

  The big black bird, unkindness of one, rarely leaves the smelly little cave he shares with her, the woman who has chosen to live in nightmares, rarely shakes the sifting, rust-colored dust she dreams from his feathers. Except, sometimes, when she opens her eyes and leans close, lips crackling like winter twigs and parchment and the bones of things much too small to make a raven's meal, her voice dry as a salt flat breeze, and she whispers, one word, or two, never more than that, "Desire, Raven," or "Delirium," or "Despair, Raven."

  And he stretches his wings, stiff, arthritic pop, and always he wonders if maybe this time it hasn't finally been so long that he's forgotten how, if maybe this time he'll simply go tumbling down the hill, ass over beak, lie bloody and broken in the slate and bramble until someone or something kindly comes along and eats him.

  But that never happens, and the wings that still feel impossible carry him out into the twilight, bear him high above the frontiers, across neglected dreamspace and blight and finally, far below, the gates of horn and ivory and the palace, like a chandelier smashed to cloudy crystal shards. And he circles, circles and descends, wheels nervous between the needle spires and shattered arches, until the ruins close away the sky. Sometimes the librarian's there, patching diamond walls with spit and putty and Krazy Glue, or sweeping away the glittering rubble of a collapsed arcade or flying buttress; more often, there is no one and he is alone. Comes alone, at last, to the gallery, His gallery, the frames dangling crooked on their crooked nails or fallen to the floor.

  And he lights, claws click-clacking, on some piece of rubble or die marble floor, the cracked and pitted flagstones, his black eyes shifting warily from one frame to the next. Wishing he were back inside his drippy damp cave, nestled warm against her, wishing he were a crow instead, a lying, shit-for-brains crow that could just flap around a bit and go back and lie, tell her he's done the deed, done his best, and what difference would it make, anyhow?

  Their answers are always the same. When they even bother to answer.

  And this time, this particular time, it's not the heart or the book or the frame that swirls like a flickering, liquid kaleidoscope; this particular time it's the barb, the fish-hooked ring, tarnish and patina green, but still so sharp, and if that's not the worst, it's surely bad enough. He hesitates, buys himself another second, but Jeez, there ain't no use in draggin' this thing out, so he hops, leaps back into the air, wings fluttering. And at just the precise moment when he's always sure he'll bash his brains out, and the perfect image of the bright Rothko smear down the canvas, sticky blood and maybe a little gray speck of bird smarts for contrast, something shifts, or slips, or wrinkles, and he's through, moving fast between the steel gray void and the roiling mist, viscous, meat locker-cold here, and the windows hanging in the nowhere on their taut wires and chains and glossy jute twine. A hundred million windows, for starters; Victorian casements of polished oak, granite arches, snazzy, modern louvered affairs, and enormous rose windows of lead and stained glass. Windows to everywhere and everywhen and everyone stretching into the flat, horizonless distance.

  And he sees her almost at once, hunched thing, paler than the rat-filled mists that writhe like insubstantial tentacles about her legs. Palms and stubby fingers braced flat against a punky-looking sill, flaking paint and dry rot, and if she even notices as he perches on one of the window's sagging shutters, she makes no sign, does not acknowledge the intrusion. Her eyes are the color of jaundice and ocher and she stares, past intent, through filth-smeared glass at the murky shapes moving about on the other side. She grinds her teeth, and although she does not smile, she isn't frowning either. She wears her ring on the left hand, and he shivers in his feathers when he sees it. From the sill, a fat black rat, sleek coat and twitching whiskers, watches him cautiously.

  "Ah-hem," but she doesn't move, doesn't so much as flinch or even blink, and so he tries again, much louder this time--"AH-HEM," and sends the rat squeaking and scurrying into the gloom.

  And she turns her head, slowly, shaggy hair knotted, and he can see the scars now, puckered white traced on white, and he swears to himself that next time he'll at least argue with her before flying off to ...

  For a moment he can't even think, padlocked inside his head with those bottomless eyes, and then she speaks, and her words are sandpaper scritched slowly across raw meat, gristle sighs and murmurs, hardly as loud as the mist slinking around her. But it's better than the eyes.

  "What do you want, raven."

  "Uh, um, you know. It's that time of the month again," he says, and shifts uneasily from foot to foot. "Same shit, different day, if you get my meaning."

  "I don't know where he is" she says. And slowly, she turns back to the window, absently raises her ring finger, and digs the hook deep into the soft flesh of her cheek.

  "Yeah, well, you see, that's just exactly what I tell her every time, honest. But, hey, I just go where ..."

  "I said, I do not know where he is," and she twists the ring, pulls it free, flaying skin and dark muscle, spattering blood.

  "Right! Yes, ab-so-lutely," and he springs from the shutter, frantic wings slapping the cold, still air, darting between the windows and wires, between faces framed in ornate, gilded wood and stone and agony. And when he comes to one that opens into sunlight, and fields, and cloudless, blue sky, the raven spreads his wings and sails through.

  Five-thirty-seven in the morning by the plastic Pepsi-Cola clock over the door, and at least the rain had stopped, but he was still sitting in the booth, wor
n and duct-taped Naugahyde the color of strawberry licorice, waiting, and Buck Owens was still wailing from the jukebox; still so dark outside that the diner's plate glass window may as well have been a mirror.

  Alvin Mann's face stared back at itself, transparent, but solid enough to see the bruisy red gathered beneath his eyes, puffy from crying, and he was no longer sure how long it'd been now since he'd slept, really slept. He stared through himself, but there was nothing out there. Dregs of the Kansas night like an oil stain and the handful of pickups, a rust and bondo Mustang, the pumps alone on their crumbly island of concrete and light. At the edge of the mud and gravel lot, a portable sign flashed wearily, half its bulbs blown and nobody'd bothered to replace them, half its plastic letters plucked away by autumn storms, an epileptic's word game left behind. KORA'S KOUNTRY KITCHEN, OPEN 24 MRS, BREAKFAST ANYTIME, DAY OR NTTE--if you knew how to play.

  He turned away from the window and tried hard not to notice that there were other people in the diner--the handful of men in their overalls and John Deere caps, scattered along the counter, filling other booths--tried not to feel their eyes or hear their conversations. The diner was too warm and smelled like grease, coffee and cigarettes, frying eggs and thick pink slices of ham.

  "You sure you don't want nothing to eat?" He looked up and the waitress was already pouring more of the bitter coffee into his cup. "That bus ain't due in here for another hour, and it's usually late."

  Her name was Laurleen, Laurleen printed on her name tag in black, and he shook his head no, no thank you; she shrugged, have it your way, wandered off to refill other cups and scribble orders for pancakes and sausage and hash browns smothering in lumpy melted cheddar. He tore open a packet of sugar and dumped it into the cup, stirred briefly, and then added another two and cream from the little pitcher shaped like a cartoon cow, until the liquid was the muddy color of almonds and most of the acid taste was hidden beneath syrupy sweetness.

  Elvis coffee, Charlotte would have said, because she'd read somewhere, in one of her mother's supermarket tabloids, The Star or Weekly World News maybe, that Elvis Presley had drunk his coffee the same way. Charlotte, who'd drunk hers black.

  Alvin sipped, scalded his tongue and set the cup back down, wondered if it was always going to be like that, Charlotte everywhere he looked, Charlotte sneaking herself into whatever he did. And the tears were still very close, hot and heavy behind his bloodshot eyes. He marveled that there could still be a drop left inside him to spare.

  "Hey, you're Zeke Mann's boy, ain't you?"

  And this time when he looked up, it wasn't the waitress, this time it was one of the men, turning away from the cash register, toothpick staked firmly between tobacco-yellowed teeth. The man stuffed his change and an unopened pack of Doublemint gum into an already-bulging denim pocket.

  "I'm Alvin Mann," he answered, eyes immediately back to his cup and the thin white foam still swirling there like a lazy galaxy winding down, prayed a silent, faithless prayer that the guy wouldn't say anything else, that the next thing he'd hear would be the brass bell above the door, beneath the Pepsi clock, clanging exit and release, telling him he could breathe again.

  "Yeah, I thought you looked familiar."

  And the adrenaline, then, playground hair trigger response, hammering through his veins, heart-drum in his ears. Alvin wrapped his hands, his mother's long, delicate fingers, tight around the cup, too hot to hold, but the pain calmed, almost as soothing as the little white pills he and Charlotte had sometimes stolen from her mother's medicine cabinet.

  "Damned shame," the man said, "about your friend, I mean. The Williams girl. She was your friend, right?"

  "Yes sir, she was my friend," and now the coffee cup wasn't enough, and he bit down hard on the tip end of his tongue, but don't let them see it, Alvin-baby, and it was as much Charlotte's voice as his own, 'cause that's just what they want, and Jesus, you're almost out'a here.

  "Yeah, a damned shame," and the man was still standing there, and Alvin could taste his own blood, blood and coffee spit, rich and faintly metallic. "But lots'a folks seen it coming, I guess. Kid that weird is bound to come to no good. Gotta pay the fiddler, you know, sooner or later."

  Pause, and he could hear the clock, ticking insect sound, and someone chewing loudly.

  "You headed somewhere?" the man asked, pointing to the small, blue suitcase tucked underneath the table.

  "Away," and his voice wavered, "just away," faintest tremble, but in another second he knew there'd be tears, salty wet stigmata, and they'd all be pointing, pointing and laughing their growling, throaty man laughter, and that's just what they want, that's just exactly what they want, Charlotte said.

  Then, Laurleen, harpy-voiced, "Hey, Billy. You left your car keys laying over here."

  Billy patted his jeans, his coat pocket, frowned.

  "Shit. Thanks, Laurleen. Guess I wouldn't'a gone very far without those."

  Billy went back for his keys, and Alvin was up, up and moving, past Laurleen swabbing at the countertop with her soppy gray rag, past the pay phone and the jukebox (Buck Owens having surrendered unnoticed to Ricky Skaggs) and the gumball machine with the faded March of Dimes sign stuck on top. Past the cigarette machine with "out of order" Scotch-taped to its face; two doors, each painted the same hospital puke green, sexed with varnished cedar plaques nailed up like horseshoes, GUYS and GALS wood-burned in ropy, lariat script.

  Alvin pushed one open and slipped inside.

  November, one day and a week since Halloween. Bonfires and pumpkin grins finished now and the dead month, autumn's gourdhusk heart, and nothing else, stood between them and winter. They lay together in the brown sea of soybeans, listening to the whisper and rustle of leaves, the shriveled bones of leaves. The soil was damp and smelled faintly of earth-worms and the tiny white mushrooms that grew between the rows, and above them, the sky thought it was still October, brilliant electric blue showing through the waist-high canopy.

  For a long time Alvin had lain with his eyes shut, feeling the shadow-dappled sunlight, dull warmth on his face, his hands, and Charlotte talking, Charlotte almost always talking, reciting the KERC New Wave show out of Lawrence; Missing Persons and Devo and Gary Newman, and then she'd gotten around to the new Kate Bush album, a song about Houdini and Beatrice Houdini. Last Wednesday, she'd skipped school, out more than in this fall, had hitched all the way into Junction City and pocketed the cassette at Kmart.

  While she talked, Alvin watched the sky and an enormous black bird circling low overhead, a crow, maybe the biggest crow he'd ever seen. It passed between them and the sun, fleeting eclipse of flesh and feathers, dazzling corona, and wheeled away, cawing like a hoarse old woman.

  Charlotte took his hand, then, hers so much harder, callused, the nails chewed down to nothing, and he held on tight as the ground began to vibrate, to thrum and thump like a hundred thousand pissed and bottled bees. And he knew that he'd been hearing it for some time now, the huge combine harvester dragging itself slowly, inevitably, across the field. That he'd been trying not to think about it; Charlotte was still talking, almost singing, with a kiss, her voice thin and raspy from cigarettes and talking all morning long, I'd pass the key.

  Alvin squeezed her hand tighter, didn't dare let go or close his eyes again, didn't dare so much as blink. Dug the fingers of his free hand as far into the soft skin of the field as he could. Charlotte was staring into the sun, her hazel-green eyes beginning to tear, seeming almost to melt, vitreous trickle leaking across her temples into her red hair, hair the same vivid cinnamon as his, this is no trick as the thrum became a grinding thump, and finally, the thunderous rattle and clamor of steel on steel. She turned to him, her lips still moving, but the words lost, simply swallowed by the combine, and the water streaking her cheeks glistened, and she wasn't smiling, but she wasn't frowning either.

  One summer afternoon, when Alvin had been seven, his mother had caught him sitting at her dressing table, painting his mouth
the color of pink carnations with her lipstick. For a moment pulled so long and brittle it had seemed a small forever, she'd stood behind him, staring in horror and disgust at her son's reflection, and he'd stared back at hers, the lipstick frozen halfway across his lower lip.

  Finally, she'd taken it away from him, had wrestled the tube from fingers too frightened to turn it loose, and slapped him so hard that his ears had rung and the pink had smeared across his chin like candy blood. Had slapped him again and ordered him down onto his knees, bare knees against the bare pineboard floor, and by then he'd been crying and she'd threatened to hit him again, twice as hard this time, if he didn't stop his bawling, bawling like a baby, not the little man he was.

  She'd made him pray with her for God and Sweet Baby Jesus nailed up on Calvary to forgive him. Had made him recite the books of the Bible, Old and New Testament, frontwards, then backwards, and the Lord's Prayer, and part of the Pledge of Allegiance, both of them speaking through hitching sobs and tears and strangling snot.

  And she would have made him stay right there until his father and Uncle Lonnie had come in from the fields, if his aunt Dora hadn't found them first. Hadn't led him to the bathroom and scrubbed his face with a washrag and Dial soap, scrubbed at his mouth until his lips had burned. Then she'd sent him to his room and Alvin had listened through the wall to his mother crying, her sister comforting her, praying with her, telling her that it didn't mean anything, that he was just a child and didn't know what he'd done.

  That nothing like this would ever happen again.

  And he'd understood.

  Tip? and always it was his mother's voice in this dream, or just that terrible once, his father's, but when he turned away from the mirror and all the pretty things in the old steamer trunk, there was never anyone standing in the attic except the Woggle-Bug and Jack Pumpkinhead, the Tin Woodman and the Walrus, waiting for him in the musty half-light jumble of cardboard boxes and produce crates. Downstairs, the pot 'n' pans silverware sounds of his mother setting the table for Sunday dinner, and then the thunder that rattled the roof and made Mr. H. M. WoggleBug, T.E., mutter and rub his antennae together anxiously. The Tin Woodman counted backwards, four mississippi, three mississippi, waiting for the lightning that never came.

  "That's the jackdaws, mind you," muttered the Walrus, and Jack crossed his wooden legs like he had to pee.

  Alvin turned back to the mirror, to rose-scented powder, the rouge and mascara, but someone had taken an eyebrow pencil and written adnaWadnaWadnaWadnaW, over and over again until the letters filled up the entire looking glass, row after row, top to bottom, and he couldn't see his face through the sloppy scrawl. And when he reached out to wipe it, to smear away the greasy black with his fingertips, the mirror was always smooth and clean and squeaked. But the letters were still there, indelible nonsense, unreachable, and the Walrus leaned down over his shoulder to see, tuna breath and his mustache scratching against Alvin's cheek like a wire scrub brush.