Chapter 29

Rebecca’s pendulum clock chimed the midnight hour with a dozen hearty bongs. She left the window where she’d been standing and checked the gingerbread cookies.

Golden brown and giving off the most delightful Christmas aroma.

She pulled on her cooking mittens, grabbed the tray out of the hearth, and soon nibbled away at a single cookie…only one…or maybe just two. But these were for Brian.

The third went down in a couple bites.

Enough! She carried the plate into the bedroom.

Brian snored away.

Rebecca held the plate near his nose. Giggled.

Nothing but snores.

He had dark shadows beneath his eyes. Who wouldn’t be worn out after dreaming his way three centuries into the past?

Fine. She’d let him sleep.

Meanwhile, the cookies, with their bulging candy eyes, extra sugar, and little smiley faces, begged to be eaten.

Just one more. She took her time with it, making it last.

Oh, maybe another.

No. She hurried the survivors to the kitchen table and turned her back on them.

But you love us, they whispered.

She needed a diversion.

Anything.

A book!

She went to the bookshelf in her parlor and gazed at a tired collection of novels she’d read over and over again, except for one—Henry Stoddard’s copy of Wuthering Heights. She pulled the book out, basked in its old, leathery scent, and— “Oh!”

A scribbled-upon piece of paper poked out from within the pages.

How had she missed this when shelving the book the day he left it behind?

She couldn’t have missed it. Henry must have slipped the note in the book recently.

Or Abigail?

She clenched her fists. A bolted door wouldn’t do any good against either one of them.

Rebecca slid the paper out of the book and found it to be a hand-drawn map with notes scribbled in Henry’s script. His series of arrows and prompts traced a convoluted course through the World of Mortal dreams, ending at a graveyard labeled Sacred Heart Cemetery, Kenosha, Wisconsin. He’d marked a plot near the back of the cemetery with an X.

Buried treasure? An important grave? The pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? Her heart raced. And he’d made the hunt so easy for her! While she couldn’t afford to spend one of her few remaining coins to visit a graveyard in the waking world, this map provided the obvious solution. She could travel to a region within the World of Mortal Dreams, where every location on earth was replicated.

Still…cemeteries tended to be unlucky places when visited alone. Dark. Threatening. The air thick with foreboding.

She headed to the bedroom.

Brian slept with a smile on his lips. His chest slowly rose and fell. He’d wrapped his arms around a pillow as if it were a favorite pet.

Rebecca tried her best to ignore a twinge of guilt over disturbing the dreams of anyone enjoying so peaceful a rest. White knights must act when called upon.

She took his hand, closed her eyes, and eased her mind into the pool of calming images needed for crossing from one realm into the other. A dove, puffy clouds, blue sky, an eagle, a crescent moon, a waterfall.

The floor vibrated.

A smile, butterflies, cupcakes.

The walls hummed.

Fireflies.

The cabin spun like a top, careened against a barrier, bounced twice, wobbled, and righted itself.

“Open your eyes, Brian.”

He did…and smiled at her. He glanced around. “What are we doing here?”

“I’m not entirely sure.” She led him through the wrought-iron gateway of a country cemetery. They walked past row upon tidy row of headstones, the snow squeaking beneath their feet as it does on the coldest days.

A wooden fence blocked their way, but she climbed over a low section and beckoned for Brian to follow. Together, they stepped into a neglected section of the graveyard. The wind rustled through a cluster of trees, scattering dead leaves across the frozen ground and up against some of the cracked stones. She wrapped her arms around herself.

If he was as cold, he hid it well. Always the white knight.

Time had weathered many of the markers smooth. Others displayed no more than a few legible words of their epitaphs. Any indication visitors bothered to brave the cold and approach these desolate plots had been swept away by wind and snow, except in one case where a bouquet of roses provided a burst of color beside a gray stone.

Rebecca bent to a flower so deeply purple it could have passed for black. I have a name for this rose, Stoddard had said weeks earlier. Rebecca.

“Hello again, little friend.” She pulled the flower out of the clay vase holding it. The fragrance intoxicated her, just as it had outside Henry’s castle, and the prick of a thorn against her thumb brought no more pain than the kiss of a hummingbird.

Brian brushed snow from the gravestone. “Sarah Chance. But I can’t make out the dates?”

The name took a long moment to register—Henry’s Salem-era wife. “Oh my. He’s been visiting her grave all this time?”

“Who was she?”

Rebecca studied the name of an old friend from a long-ago time. A heroine. “She was a princess in someone else’s fairy tale.”

A dog’s distant bark cut through the crisp air.

What now, confront Henry and ask why he discreetly invited her to intrude on his homage to the centuries-ago love of his life? No. Sorcerers lived for their riddles. He’d left a book behind. He’d later hidden a note in it. This was not a game of direct confrontation.

“We should hide.” She grabbed Brian’s hand and ran with him to a nearby clump of trees, glancing behind when they reached the sanctuary and erasing their footprints with a wave of her arm. A thrill tickled her tummy. Rebecca lived for riddles, too.

The incessant barking grew louder until Stoddard brought his dog around a hill and approached the grave.

Brian shifted in front of her like the bravest of knights. “What’s he doing here, Rebecca?”

“Shh. I love you,” she whispered. She’d make him a nice breakfast in the morning for protecting her in the face of perceived danger. She’d coddle him.

Stoddard and his panting dog fogged the icy air with their breath.

Rebecca watched and waited.

Soon, the sorcerer motioned to the roses at the gravestone. They burst into flames, burned quickly, and disappeared, leaving a puff of green smoke in their wake. He pulled a fresh bouquet from within his coat and placed it in the vase.

He turned and fixed his gaze in their direction, staring right at them for a moment, before shifting ninety degrees to the left and pointing toward a low hill in the distance.

But Rebecca couldn’t see anything of interest that way.

Henry led his dog away. Message delivered, or so it would seem.

Brian stepped out of their hiding place.

“Not yet.” She tugged his hand and brought him back into the trees.

A minute or two passed.

The neigh of a horse cut through the icy silence, and a black filly appeared at the top of the rise. The horse trotted to the grave, stopped, and kicked backward, shattering the vase of flowers. The filly snorted angry steam out of its nostrils as it turned its attention to the gravestone, perhaps considering whether a harder kick might shatter that, as well.

Dark fog appeared at the rise and poured downhill, painting everything in its path an inky black.

The void.

Rebecca shrank deeper into the trees, pulling Brian along.

Soon, the horse and grave disappeared into the shadow. A moment later, the fog lifted, revealing a girl, not a filly.

“That’s Abigail,” Brian hissed.

“Yes.” And now Rebecca knew what the “imp” truly was. “She’s a phooka.”

“A what?”

“They’re related to goblins in Irish lore,” she whispered, “only meaner. I didn’t know these shapeshifters even existed!”

The black fog washed over Abigail again, replacing her with a beautiful, winged faerie with long, golden hair flowing down her shoulders.

Rebecca caught her breath. Was Abigail a half-breed? Faeries had control over the elements. And over the void? But faeries were supposed to be benevolent, were they not?

She shuddered. “The combination of a phooka and a dark faerie could have frightening power.”

“A dark what?” Brian’s grip on Rebecca’s hand tightened.

In the blink of an eye, faerie became filly. The horse lifted its front legs, whinnied, and galloped away.

Rebecca’s heart fluttered despite what she’d seen. Henry Stoddard’s motives had always been questionable at best. Yet he’d earlier given Brian a clue for solving one of her riddles, and now… “So, he’s an ally after all.”

“Who?”

“Henry. He just revealed the nature of the creature we’re supposed to defeat.”

Brian walked over to the gravestone. He touched his shoe against a shard of broken vase. Then he bent to a flower, picked it up, and rolled the stem in his fingers. “Why doesn’t he beat her himself?”

“He can’t.”

“Or won’t?”

“Can’t. Sorcerers may be stronger than witches, and they certainly enjoy longer lives, but their powers are no different. We need more than the mere illusions Henry or I might cast to stop a dream-killing void and this…monster.”

Rebecca’s thoughts went back to Salem and all the torment a seemingly innocent imp had caused once already. A phooka-faerie toying with the void could do worse by ten thousandfold.

A cold wind chilled her to the bone.