Ms. Daisy pawed Kane’s knee impatiently and let out another whine. Like a playful sheet of ocean surf, Kane’s memories pulled away, then swished over him all at once.
The merged reveries. Poesy’s dramatic arrival. The crumpled Dreadmare. Shattering glass and spitting gunfire and…
Had Ursula drop-kicked him?
Wincing, Kane felt new tenderness on his stomach. His collarbone. He focused on the pain, afraid of what came after, but the horror didn’t wait for him to be ready. It dragged him under itself and pressed the breath right out of his lungs.
Kane rushed to the doors and forced them open. There was nothing on the other side except the second half of an empty room. Kane was by himself. Cast out. Banished. Alone, with no way to return and nowhere left to run.
He sank back to the floor.
Ms. Daisy barked. A curious bark, aimed at the boy who had just tumbled into her house and was now hiccup-sobbing on her stoop. She nosed an empty bowl at his feet.
Kane swiped away his tears. She was hungry. How long had he been unconscious?
Ms. Daisy distracted him from crying by nudging his hand and then her bowl again, which was about the only thing not tossed about the room. The sanctuary was an utter mess. Most of the carpet had gone crunchy with glass. Charms and artifacts were everywhere. Kane’s backpack was here, vomiting its contents where Kane had dropped it. The chandelier dangled from the top of the black doors like a popped-out eye.
Dean had certainly put up a fight. That much was clear.
The dog seemed a little embarrassed about the mess. She gave Kane low looks full of eyebrows as she navigated through the destruction, leading him to a closet just outside the main room. There he found many coats, canes, and leashes. Slumped at the bottom were bags of dog food, like you’d find in any store. Their normalcy felt eerie in the surreal space.
Water was easier to find. Poesy had left a carafe of water on her desk. Kane drank from it, then poured the rest out into a teacup for Ms. Daisy to share.
He dropped down beside her and wondered what to do next, though he tried not wonder too hard, not entirely sure he wanted to reach a conclusion. There was no way out of this place. Not without the key on Poesy’s wrist or Dean’s power to pass through in-between spaces.
He scooted over to the doors and pressed his head against the cool varnish like a prayer. Maybe he slept like that. The urgency had vanished, but the tears had not. Darkly, an old and familiar urge opened within him. There was no way out of this place, sure, but maybe out wasn’t the way to go.
Maybe escaping didn’t mean leaving this place at all.
Kane turned to the room of stolen dreams, and he recalled the library of his childhood. The feeling of thick air and soft spines, of tilting your head sideways to read the names of authors. Mostly, Kane recalled the intoxicating potential of it all. For a child like Kane, potential was his forever friend. The promise of something else—or somewhere else—where Kane could start over and actually belong. It wasn’t just about finding a world that would tolerate him. It was about imagining a world that loved him back. That enjoyed him.
Kids like Kane weren’t often enjoyed.
There was a charm at Kane’s feet. A moon. From it emanated the caress of hemlock on a winter night, the iron smell of blood on frostbitten blades. From another charm Kane sensed a world of carnivorous flowers, dynasties, and revenge. Then there was a reverie about football and family betrayal. A reverie of black and white with smoke sifting through drawn blinds. Then a scorched planet, completely hollow, life teeming on the curved pith of its interior. A reverie loud with carnival jingling, and a reverie with no sound at all.
Kane could go anywhere. He could be anyone in these worlds. He could inherit any life, become anything, and forget everything else.
He could forget this battle. He’d forgotten once before, hadn’t he?
Kane took a great breath in, held it, then let it out. He shook out his hands. No. He didn’t want to forget. Not again.
He reminded himself of the few reveries he’d witnessed. They all taught him something new about the way dreams inhabit a person. Dreams can be parasites we sacrifice ourselves to. Dreams can be monstrous, beautiful things incubated in misery and hatched by spite. Or dreams can be the artifacts we excavate to discover who we really are.
Kane didn’t know what his own dreams were. He only knew that if he wasn’t careful in this moment, they could rise up and dethrone his rule over what was fact, what was fiction, and what was right.
Harvesting reveries wasn’t right. Hoarding them away in an ethereal vault was not right.
Running away wasn’t right, either.
But what could he do?
He rummaged through the debris, the desk, and the shelves, sensing for any ethereal object that might help him. He attempted to venture into the passages beyond, but every time he did he ended up back in the room with the curios, which amused Ms. Daisy endlessly.
When it got to be too much, he took a break from searching to cry some more. He wasn’t the right person for this. He wasn’t brave, like Sophia. He wasn’t smart, like Elliot. He wasn’t cunning, like Adeline. He wasn’t independent, like Dean.
And he wasn’t strong, like Ursula. More than anyone else, he wanted to be like Ursula. He wondered how anything could ever touch a person who was that strong and that good. He thought about the unfairness Ursula had endured, from others, and ultimately from herself in that final moment. He made himself face his own cruelties toward her, too. He hadn’t written the BEWARE OF DOG sign all those years ago in elementary school, but it was his imagination that inspired it. He was a scared kid, hurting who he needed to hurt so he could escape, and Ursula had been his friend anyways. It made him cry harder.
Beware of dog.
This memory turned a switch in Kane’s head, and before he knew fully why, he was kneeling in front of Ms. Daisy. She raised her dog eyebrows at him. It was very doglike. Too doglike. Why would someone as ridiculous as Poesy own a normal dog?
“Beware of dog,” Kane said. He looked between Ms. Daisy’s sleek, black coat and the door’s lustrous, black finish. The only time he’d seen the door work from this side was when Poesy was returning from walking Ms. Daisy. Otherwise, the whistle had to be used to call it. But whistles didn’t call doors. Whistles called dogs.
Kane’s hands were shaking as he scratched behind her ears.
“Find Sophia,” Kane begged.
Nothing happened.
“Find Ursula.”
Ms. Daisy’s nubby tail wagged, but that was it.
“Dean,” Kane said. “You know Dean, right?”
Ms. Daisy’s ears shot up, looking around for Dean excitedly. Kane pulled her to the door and pointed.
“Can you find Dean?”