Lair of Dreams

The lights were dimming, as if the dream itself were going to sleep for the night. The hideous growling had returned, though. It made Ling shiver.

“I want to know what’s inside. I need to know,” she said, despite her apprehension.

“We’re just reversing our steps,” Henry agreed. He offered his hand, and Ling took it, and together they stepped across the threshold into the dark.

“Why is it so cold?” Ling whispered, shivering as her breath came out in wispy puffs.

“Don’t know,” Henry said, his teeth chattering slightly. There was something tomblike about the tunnel, as if he and Ling were trespassing on a private crypt, and Henry was relieved to see the station glowing up ahead. “Not too far.” Henry pointed to the distant circle of golden light. “See? ‘Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.’”

“What nonsense are you talking now?” Ling tsked.

“Peter Pan,” Henry said.

“Just keep walking,” Ling said.

Ling stumbled over something in the dark, and when she crouched down to see, the old bricks on the sides of the tunnel flickered, then steadied into a greenish glow, like a mercury-vapor lamp warming up.

“Ling!” Henry whispered urgently, and Ling left whatever lay in the dirt to join him. They drew closer to the wall and the glowing bricks. Something was happening inside the stones, like watching a little show on a nickelodeon screen.

“Is there a film projector?” Henry said, looking around, but it was clearly coming from the wall itself. There were all sorts of stories playing out inside the glowing bricks: A little girl having a tea party with her parents. A soldier laughing around a table with his mates. A man waving to an adoring crowd.

“What is this?” Ling said.

Henry walked from one brick to another and then another, studying the images. “I think… I think these are other people’s dreams,” Henry whispered.

Henry stepped back to take in the whole of the wall. It stretched up and up, glowing screens of dreams as far as he could see. From where he stood, the images reminded him of the circuitry in a vast machine, as if the snippets of lives they watched there were powering the entire dream world—the station; the train; the bayou, forest, and village where Ling and Henry played to their hearts’ content each night. But here and there, a brick would fade out, too, as if all the energy had been drained from it. As if those dreams had died and needed to be replaced by other dreams—more circuitry for the machine.

Something caught Ling’s eye, and she put her face close to the brick to get a better look. Wide-eyed, she turned to Henry, motioning him over. “Do you see it?”

“What am I looking for?”

“Her,” Ling whispered on a puff of cold breath.

Henry got right up on the tunnel wall. In the corner of the flickering image was the veiled woman, watching the dream. She walked from brick to brick, from dream to dream, like a night watchman making sure the factory was safe. The surface of one of the bricks wobbled, as if there were a snag in the film. And in those shards of dark, Ling and Henry saw the nightmare twin of the man’s good dream. In it, he ran from a pack of inhuman creatures through the subway tunnels.

“Hungry ghosts,” Ling said, looking at Henry with frightened eyes.

Suddenly, all the bricks lit up, showing the same image: the veiled woman running into the tunnel, terrified, the bloody knife in her hand, as she crawled into the silent train car. And then there was nothing but darkness.

A shrill, bestial scream echoed the length of tunnel.

“What was…” Ling couldn’t finish. For down at the spot where they’d entered, a figure now appeared, a dark silhouette in a dress, drawing closer.

“Henry…” Ling whispered.

He nodded. “Start walking. We’re just reversing our steps.”

Hand in hand, they walked toward the ring of light and the promise of the station at the end of it. But no matter how fast they walked, the station stayed just out of reach.

“It keeps getting farther away,” Ling said. “Like it wants to keep us here.”

Behind them, there was snarling and scratching in the dark.

“I can wake you up. You know I can.”

“Don’t you dare! We go together or not at all,” Ling said.

“All right. I’m going to give you a suggestion, then. Let’s see if you can imagine us someplace else, in a different dream. Ling, why don’t you dream about… about…” His mind was blank. “Dream about the New Year! Dream about the lion dancers and moon cakes and fireworks.”

Ling shut her eyes tight, but she was too frightened. Her mind couldn’t think of anything but those terrible sounds. It was like a swarm approaching. But a swarm of what?

Henry cried out.

“Henry?” Ling opened her eyes. Henry was nowhere to be seen. “Henry!”

Ling was alone with whatever lurked in the dark.