The Children of Hypnos

Chapter 14: Grimm

They sprinted for the window, praying it was a gateway.

It wasn't.

Emery knew it before they jumped through, when she got close enough to notice that the pressure of the Dream around them didn't let up, when she felt the Dream clawing at her mind for her memories again. She thought of Edgar and Grandpa Al, of sweaters and tea, of cannons and claymores. Even if it wasn't the Sandman's gateway, it was his subconscious, and she needed to be aware enough to find something helpful inside of it.

She hadn't realized how much she'd miss the poppy fields until she and Wes landed on a cobblestone road in the middle of a dense forest. Night slammed down around them. The forest was hung with fog and chirped with the sounds of hidden insects. A wooden fence lined one side of the road, the way marked by yellow lanterns hanging on spindly rods. Through the trees were the lights of a village, and past the village, the turrets of a vicious-looking stone castle perched atop a stone rise in the distance, its silhouette edged in moonlight. A thin layer of green clouds skittered across the sky, avoiding the moon.

"Wow. This is..." Emery looked behind them, where the road tapered off into a smear of nothingness, the edge of the dream they couldn't cross.

"It looks like a fairytale," Wes said.

"I'm not feeling very Disney right now."

"Less Disney, more Grimm."

"What do you think this guy dreams about?"

Wes sighed through his nose and hefted his hammer onto his shoulder, looking weary but determined. "We're going to find out."

~

It occurred to Emery during the walk to the little village through the trees that she could probably start shooting and do some serious psychological damage to the Sandman by ripping his dreams to shreds. She didn't think the appearance of his dream-window meant he was asleep, necessarily--she was pretty sure the dream-windows were there all the time, regardless of whether their dreamers were currently dreaming--but she did feel as if he was still nearby. She wouldn't have been surprised if he really had been following them the entire time they'd been in the Dream. Watching a couple of rookie dreamhunters stumble through window after window was probably hilarious for him.

Small cottages made up the village. Warm yellow light burned in every window and warmth leaked from every chimney. Muddy boots stood by solid front doors. Emery peeked inside a few as they passed and saw families bundled up by fireplaces, parents putting small children to bed. They wore simple clothing: tunics and dresses and thick socks. Emery wondered vaguely what Grandpa Al and Edgar were doing. Probably looking for her. Hopefully looking for her.

She stopped before one cottage not far from the town square and tried the door.

"What are you doing?" Wes hissed.

She rattled the door handle. The latch didn't budge, and the people sitting before the fireplace inside didn't look up. She rattled it again, then banged on the door. They didn't so much as sneeze.

"We can't interact with them," she said. "They're just here for show."

"Then let's keep moving. Something's got to happen."

The town square was hemmed in by several larger buildings, each identified by rough wooden signs in an alphabet they couldn't read, some muddled dream-language that would probably only make sense to the Sandman himself. The lanterns here hung from high poles staked in the ground around a squat stone well at the center of the square. Boards covered the top of the well. A man stood in front of it, his back to them, a hand resting on the well's lip. In his other he held a rusted scythe, and he leaned on it like a walking stick.