Keeper of Dreams (39 page)

“I’m not that much smaller than you,” Enoch said. “I’m not sure I could get through a space that
you
can’t get through.”

“It’s trickier than that. I want you to help me figure out how to get through it. Two heads are better than one. Even if one of them is only yours.”

“You’re such a sweetheart, Mo.”

“Coming or not?”

“I’ll help you on your quest. But I don’t know if I’ll be much good to you.”

“Neither do I. But you made it over the abyss, didn’t you? You found your way through the cave, didn’t you?”

“It wasn’t hard to find my way. Just went straight and got to the end.”

“
Straight!
Go straight and you end up somewhere in Nebraska! There are a dozen turns and I haven’t marked them. You couldn’t have gone straight.”

“I didn’t even have a light,” Enoch said. “Of course I went straight.”

She looked at him intensely, and apparently decided to believe him. “So you went straight. And found your way here. That means that either you’re very lucky, or for some reason you’re supposed to be here. Either way, you might be useful.”

She turned her back on him and started off into the woods. Uncertain what she wanted him to do, Enoch just stood there for a moment. She stopped and looked back at him impatiently. “Are you coming or not?”

“Yes,” he said, and he started toward her.

“Use your head next time,” she said. “I shouldn’t have to tell you
everything
.”

Enoch had never felt so stupid in his life. And yet he didn’t mind at all. Mo was taking him to find the Healing Dust. And even the prospect of adventures along the way didn’t bother him. This place was so unreal that he couldn’t imagine really getting
hurt
.

“Everything comes out all right, doesn’t it?” he asked.

“It always has so far,” she said.

“I mean, we can’t actually get killed or anything, can we?”

“Let me put it this way, Eeny. When I scrape my knee in this place, I still have a scab when I get back home.”

“So what happens here—it really counts?”

“Sometimes,” said Mo, “I think it counts double.”

It should have frightened Enoch more than ever, but in fact it made him more eager to go on. What you got here could stay with you when you want back to the outside world. There was a chance, then, for his mother.

The Quest

There was no doubt about it—Mo knew her way around in this place. She half-trotted most of the time, even though there was scarcely a sign of a path to follow, and Enoch could hardly keep up with her. From time to time she would slow down and walk quietly, listening, watching. Enoch watched, too, until she said, “Look, Eeny, give me a break. Watch where you’re going so you don’t keep making so much noise.
I’ll
watch for danger.”

“What kind of danger?” he asked.

“The kind I’m watching for.”

Just when Enoch was getting hungry, they came to an old apple orchard and had a meal.

“I thought it was supposed to be spring here,” Enoch said.

“So?”

“So why are the apples ripe?”

“Aren’t apples ripe in spring?”

“Where do you come from, Mo, the moon?”

“Farther. Chicago.”

“You’re kidding. A big city, and you know your way around the woods like this?”

“In the city you learn to walk soft, you learn to keep watching. It’s the same thing.” She threw a core at a tree trunk some thirty feet away. Right on target. “Besides, I’ve had a few months here to practice.”

“Months? How long have you lived here in Dowagiac?”

“Moved in about the first of December.”

“Then how could you have been in here for
months
? You haven’t even lived in Dowagiac for three weeks.”

Mo grinned. “A real mathematical wizard, aren’t you. Look at your watch.”

It was five o’clock.

“So what time did you come in here?”

“I don’t know. We got to the store about four-thirty.” Suddenly Enoch jumped to his feet. “Dad’s looking all over the store for me.”

“No he isn’t. Besides, I thought you
wanted
to get lost.”

“My dad
is
looking for me. What do
you
know about it?”

“He isn’t looking for you because exactly one second has passed since you went into that door. Or maybe since you crossed the abyss. I’ve never bothered to time it out. It doesn’t matter how many hours or days or weeks you stay in here. Come in at five, go out at five on the same day.”

Enoch thought about that for a while. “You could live a whole life in here, and a whole other life out there.”

“Right.”

“If you like it so much here, Mo, how come you ever go back at all?”

“Escape.”

Enoch laughed. “Escape is coming
in
here. That’s escaping from reality.” It was a realistic thing to say.

“When was the last time a squirrel jumped on your neck, genius? Where he bit you, how does that feel?”

“A little stiff.”

“This is reality, pinbrain. After a few days of this, sometimes even a week, it gets so I can’t stand it anymore, always having to watch out, always having to be quiet and careful. This is the real world here. This is life and death. Out there, that’s escape. Out there I’m a child, and they protect me.”

Enoch spat a seed out of his mouth.

“It’s life and death out there, too.”

Mo looked at him for a few moments. “Maybe it is, for some people. But that doesn’t make this escape.”

He nodded. She had got him thinking about things he’d rather forget. His own life in danger—that was easier these days, easier than other things.

“I said something wrong, didn’t I?” Mo asked.

“Sure, why not?” Enoch smiled. “It’s nice to know you can do something klutzy.”

“Come here.” She led him to a cottage, a storybook place with a thatched roof and shuttered windows instead of glass. She went boldly
inside, without knocking. The house was neat and clean, though poor. No one was there.

“Do you know these people?”

“No,” she said. “They’re all dead.”

“Oh.”

“It was my second time in this place. I came to ask permission to eat the apples. A knight never steals, you see. They had been murdered, a man and wife. It wasn’t nice. I buried them. My parents couldn’t understand why I came home with bloodstains on my dress. They were scared half to death.”

“Who did it?”

“The giants, I think. The little people say that they carry off children and raise them up to be slaves in their castles. I guess the parents objected to having their children carried off.”

Enoch felt sick and angry, looking at the four small beds that the children must have slept in.

“I wanted to get revenge. But when I stood over their graves, trying to think up a good oath of vengeance, a redbird came and stood on the woman’s grave. ‘No,’ she said. That’s all. Just ‘no.’ And then a bluebird came and stood on the man’s grave and said, ‘Free the king from the Castle of Contempt.’ ” Mo reached under the smallest bed, and drew out a sword. It was small and light, as if it were made for her young arm. It glistened in the light from the door.

“That’s how I learned my purpose here. I’ve come back every chance I could, learned all I could. I got this sword from the treasure of the dragon Drast. It wasn’t such a big deal, though. It’s easier to steal from a dragon than you think.”

“What about the king?”

“I’ve found the castle, but I can’t get in.”

“Too well defended?”

“I’ve never seen a soul. I just can’t get in the door. That’s what I need you for, to help me get in.”

“I’m not good at things like that.”

“Like what?”

“Prying open doors.”

“I already tried prying. Anything metal that I touch to the door turns
into sand. Anything living that I touch to the door except my own skin turns to ashes. No fire, no heat. Just ashes. It’s a problematical door.”

“Magic?” To Enoch’s surprise, he said something unrealistic and didn’t even feel embarrassed about it.

“Of course,” she said. “But what’s the spell? I’ve said every magic word I could think of. I sat in front of the door eating apples for three days just talking and talking and talking, in hopes I’d accidently say the magic word.”

“And
I’m
supposed to get you in?”

“That’s the idea.”

“You’re going to be profoundly disappointed.”

“Probably. But you’re in here for a reason, Eeny. You don’t get in here by accident. So why not figure maybe you’re in here to help me in my Quest?”

“I hate it when you call me Eeny.”

“Sorry.”

He knew she’d keep on calling him that, though, until he had done something to earn her respect.

“You in high school?” Enoch asked.

“No. I’m only twelve.” She sounded like she thought twelve was a disgusting age to be.

“Me, too,” said Enoch.

She looked him over. “We are living proof of the fact that girls mature faster.”

“How come I haven’t seen you in seventh grade, then?”

“Because I haven’t
been
yet.”

Enoch understood then. She had been cutting school every day and coming here. “And you said this place wasn’t escape,” he said.

“I don’t
go
to school,” she said. “My father has an educational theory. He teaches me at home. He figures I’m going to grow up Christian if it kills me.”

“It’s obviously working,” Enoch said.

She looked at him with fire in her eyes.

“I mean,” Enoch explained, “you risk your life to do good. That’s Christian, isn’t it?”

“Not his way. Never mind. We’ve only got a few hours to go until dark. We need to get across Drast before nightfall.”

From the orchard it was only a short way to a bare-rock mountain that rose sheer from a broad meadow. It was hard climbing at first, but Enoch soon got the knack of bracing himself against slight outcroppings and skinnying up furrows in the rock. The sun was bright and hot, and he was covered in sweat, but soon the slope began to level out, until gradually it became a flat, broad plain. It was only then, looking across the whole view, that he realized how regular this desert was, ridge after ridge like stone waves, with smooth plateaus in between, then another drop-off. “This Drast is a strange place,” Enoch said.

“It isn’t a place,” Mo answered.

Only then did Enoch remember that Mo had mentioned the name Drast before. It was the name of a dragon.

“This is the
same
Drast?” he asked.

“Sure,” she answered. “We’re walking on his back.”

“Kind of big, isn’t he?”

“Sizes are all mixed up here,” said Mo. “At least it keeps the giants away. They won’t mess with a dragon.”

“So why are
we
messing with him?”

“Us?” Mo laughed. “Do you ever notice the mosquito that bites you, until he’s gone?” She drew her sword and thrust it under a lip of rock. No, not a lip of rock—one of the dragon’s scales. Then she pried upward, and spat into the opening.

“Are you
crazy
?” Enoch demanded.

“It’s what mosquitos do, except I don’t eat anything. I like to think it gives him a little itch. To remember me by. You can see how I got away with the sword, though. I was so little he never even noticed me. The giants, now—he can see them. I like to think that when he flies out at night, he feels out of sorts because he’s itching where I scratched him. I like to think he’s so irritable that he kills a few extra giants, just to ease the itch.”

They laughed about that for a while, then kept walking. The sun was getting low, and they didn’t want to be on Drast’s back when he took off for his evening flight.

They spent the night in a cave. Enoch wanted a fire to frighten off wild animals, but Mo forbade it. Instead they took turns sleeping. Enoch
felt silly sitting there with a sword on his lap, but at least he didn’t disgrace himself by falling asleep on duty.

The next day they came to the Castle of Contempt before noon. “That wasn’t far,” Enoch said.

“Things are quite conveniently located,” Mo said.

Enoch laughed. “You sound like a realtor.”

She only smiled slightly. “My father
is
a realtor.”

“Oh,” Enoch said. “Dowagiac isn’t exactly a hot real estate market right now.”

“I didn’t say my father made any money at it, did I?”

Enoch looked at the castle. It wasn’t much. The walls weren’t particularly high; there was no moat; and there wasn’t a single soldier to defend the place. “Where is everybody?” Enoch asked.

“I’ve never seen a soul here.”

“Then how do you know this is the Castle of Contempt?”

“Isn’t it obvious? No defenders, no moat, the walls are low—and still we can’t get in. Whoever built this castle figured we were too stupid or weak to get inside. And so far he’s been right. He has nothing but contempt for us.”