“You idiot!” Leo shouted, nearly spitting in his anger. “That was nothing at all! She’s just a little girl with a dumb goat, and now you scared her away! I might never see her again, and you scared her away!”
“A little girl?” Foxbrush was trembling so hard he had to reach out and support himself against a nearby tree. “So this is what you’ve been doing all summer! This is why you never give anyone a straight answer about anything and run off at cursed hours of the night! You’re bewitched, Leo, that’s what you are. Don’t you know who she is? Don’t you realize that she’s—”
He didn’t have a chance to finish. Leo grabbed Foxbrush by the shirtfront and pinned him up against the tree so that his daintily shod feet kicked several inches above the ground. All the muscles in Leo’s scrawny arms strained to keep his cousin in place, but he was too furious in that moment to care. He spoke through grinding teeth.
“Shut your mouth, Foxbrush. Shut it now, and don’t ever open it on this subject again, or by the Silent Lady’s Guide, I swear I’ll choke you with your own tongue.”
Foxbrush couldn’t speak. His collar was pulled up too tightly under his jaw to allow for it. And by the time Leo let go of him and he slid into a messy heap at the foot of the tree, he’d had just enough time to consider his cousin’s words and decide it best to abide by them. Leo careened wildly down the steep incline back to the deer trail, and Foxbrush was hard-pressed (he’d spent the whole summer over books, after all) to keep up with him. No amount of huffing and puffing convinced his cousin to slow down.
He did not hear Leo’s muttered curses. And he did not see Leo’s tears.
The following day, young Master Leo was piled into a carriage along with his nursemaid and all his belongings (save for a certain beanpole, which was placed in the care of old Mousehand, who was told to guard it until such time as its owner might return for it). Leanbear clucked to the mountain ponies, which started down the road at an easy pace. No one in Hill House stood at the door to wave good-bye. Dame Willowfair had not yet risen, and her fine young son was hiding away in the library, hoping that nobody would decide at the last minute to send him with his cousin.
Leo pressed his nose to the carriage window and looked back, gazing into the higher forest as though somehow he thought he might see something in those deep shadows. But he did not think to look in the topmost branches of the great grandfather tree, so he did not notice the veiled figure clinging there, seeing him off until he was long out of sight.
9
Did he see?”
“I ain’t sure what he saw.”
“You are withholding something from me, princess.”
She sinks her chin down to her chest, but she cannot disappear in this place. “I told you, I don’t know what he saw.”
“He did not see me.”
“No, I don’t think he did.”
“But I saw him. This handsome young friend of yours. This Leo, who makes you forget me.”
She turns away from the pool, and her Dream puts out a hand as though to tilt her face back to him. “Would that I had a corporeal body, sweet princess. Then I should be your playfellow, and I would make you forget him as swiftly as he made you forget me.”
She shivers and refuses to look at him.
“Now,” says he, “things will return to what they were. Your Leo left you, just as you knew he must. But I am here still, and though I may not be so fine to look upon, I will care for you just as I have always done. We will talk together, here in your dreams, and you will know that I am the only friend you need. And someday, sweet princess, you will let me kiss you.”
Here Rose Red straightens her shoulders and draws her head up, for a moment as imperious as the princess he says she is. She looks him in the eye when she speaks in a clear, even tone:
“You ain’t never goin’ to kiss me.”
The Dream watches her rise and slip her veil back over her face. Without another word, she leaves his presence, and though his eyes are full of longing, he does not try to stop her. He watches until her tiny frame disappears through the mouth of the cave.
Then he too leaves.
He steps from one dream to another, then another, spreading his shadow far and caring nothing for the sleepers he disturbs. They moan in their sleep as they watch their dreams burn, then wake up in cold sweats, afraid to close their eyes again.
On he progresses, through the realm of the sleeping, until he crosses into the world where dreams come true. There they cease to be dreams and dissolve into nothingness. No color exists in this land, only shades. Even nightmares dare not venture past its borders for fear of losing themselves. It is a solitary world, wherein only one being can dwell.
She is the Lady of Dreams Realized.
The Lady Life-in-Death.