The Girl Who Could Not Dream (19 page)

He pushed a cage up to the door of the sandpit. Sophie couldn't see what was inside, but the cage rocked from side to side. Climbing onto the top of the cage, the man brandished the key again, and then with a flourish, stuck it into a lock and raised the door.

“This isn't good,” Monster murmured.

“Behold, Specimen One!” the man cried.

Jumping to his feet, one of the onlookers punched his fists into the air. A woman stamped her feet and whistled, and music suddenly switched on. Heavy drumbeats thudded through the basement, and a guitar wailed as a monster charged out of the cage and into the pit.

Lit by the bulbs overhead, the monster was shriveled and bald. It blinked at the audience with six black eyes that looked like marbles stuck into its bulbous flesh. It had two squat legs and four muscular arms that sprouted out of its back.

“It's scared,” Monster said.

The monster flexed its four arms and roared, and the watchers cheered louder.

“Or maybe angry,” Monster amended.

Behind the four-armed monster, the cage slammed shut and so did the pit door. Roaring again, the monster pivoted and ran on its feet and knuckles like a gorilla toward the cage door. It grabbed the fence and tried to climb it.

“Correction:
very
angry.”

The man in charge poked it with a pole, and as he twisted for another jab, Sophie caught a glimpse of his face—Mr. Nightmare.

“You were right,” Ethan said. “He is a good actor.”

The monster swiped at the pole, but Mr. Nightmare pulled it back fast. He poked again, and the monster fell backward onto the sand.

As the onlookers cheered again, Mr. Nightmare sauntered to the pit door. He shoved a second crate in position in front of it. Facing his audience, he raised his fist and the pole into the air, encouraging them to cheer even louder, and then he lifted the door to the second crate. “Specimen Two!” he cried. “Ready your bids!”

A second monster tumbled into the sandpit. This one had an elongated shark's mouth, a flat face, and spider legs. It was also coated in goo. As it saw the first monster, it hissed.

Sophie leaned forward to see it better. There was something familiar about it . . . and then suddenly she knew why the second monster looked familiar. She'd seen it before: in the somnium. “Monster, I think that's one of ours. Please, tell me I'm wrong.”

He didn't say anything.

The first monster spotted the second one. Roaring, it charged.

The second monster opened its mouth and yellow slime spewed out, covering the first monster. The crowd fell silent for half a second, and then roared their approval.

“It
is
like a gladiator match,” Ethan said.

“With monsters.
Our
monsters.” Shuddering, Monster wrapped his tentacles around Sophie's leg. Below them, snarling and snapping, the two monsters in the ring tore at each other while the crowd howled louder.

S
OPHIE BACKED AWAY FROM THE RAILING.

“What? What's wrong?” Ethan asked in a whisper. “Okay, yes, stupid question. Everything's wrong. But specifically, what's wrong now? You look like you've seen a ghost. Are there ghosts? What about vampires? Werewolves? Never mind. You can tell me later.” He clamped his mouth shut as if he couldn't help the waterfall of words.

As Monster curled around her ankles, Sophie told herself fiercely to
think,
breathe,
and
not panic.
At least she knew why all the bottles were stolen. And she knew for certain who stole them.

“He's making them, from the bottles he stole,” Sophie said. “He's like me.” She'd thought she was the only one who could bring dreams to life. Her parents said they'd never met anyone like her. She'd imagined a dozen times . . . no, a hundred times, or a thousand . . . what it would be like to meet someone like her—to know she wasn't alone; she wasn't a freak. But she'd never imagined anything like this.

Monster hissed and spat. “He's
nothing
like you. You'd never do this.”

Kneeling, Sophie put her arms around Monster. He pressed against her, and she felt his heart beating as fast as a hummingbird's through his fur. “I mean, he can drink dreams and bring them to life. It's the only explanation.”

“Not much of an explanation,” Ethan said. “It doesn't explain why he kidnapped Madison and Lucy, if he did. Or your parents, again if he did. Or why we're still standing here, talking, when there are monsters fighting right down there, instead of running away as fast as we can.” He pointed at the pit so hard that he stabbed the air, and then he pointed in the direction of the window, beyond the cellar doors.

Burrowing his face into her shoulder, Monster said, muffled, “The boy is right. We shouldn't be here. Sophie, this isn't a nice place.”

Ethan nodded vigorously. “Exactly. This is not safe. We should go—”

“Not without looking for my parents.” Releasing Monster, she stood. Below, the onlookers cheered, louder than the thudding music. One of the monsters wailed, a high-pitched screech that made prickles pop up all over Sophie's skin. The only good thing about this fight was that no one looked up to see Sophie, Ethan, and Monster on the balcony. “Mr. Nightmare's distracted. This is my chance to find them, or at least a clue to where they are.”

She didn't wait for them to agree—or try to talk her out of it. She was afraid she'd lose her nerve. Slinking along the wall, she headed toward a door at the end of the balcony. It was gashed with claw marks. The knob had been broken off, leaving only a hole.

Below, one of the monsters howled. A cheer erupted.

Trying hard not to imagine what had made the gashes, Sophie opened the door. She jumped backward, but nothing leaped out at her.

Inside was a stairwell. It was lit by yellow, cobweb-coated lights, and it stank like a dumpster. It looked as if it went one flight up into the house and one flight down toward the fight pit. Up felt safer—there would be windows and doors and light, as well as furniture and carpet and kitchen appliances and other ordinary things. But she wasn't looking for ordinary. Down here was where the secrets were kept. And maybe her parents? Slipping into the stairwell, she crept downstairs. In the stairwell, the music was muffled.

“Sophie, you don't know what's down there,” Ethan said, following her.

“That's kind of the point,” Sophie whispered back. “Hey, didn't you say you wanted to be a hero?”

“Monster said that.”

“Was he wrong?”

“Well . . . no.”

“If it matters,” she said, “I think you're brave.”

He paused midstep. “Really?”

He'd had impossibilities shoved down his throat one after another for the past few hours, and he hadn't panicked once. He'd even cracked jokes. If their positions had been reversed, Sophie wasn't sure she'd have stuck around. “Yes, really.”

Near the bottom of the stairs, the lights flickered, plunging the stairwell into darkness for a few seconds, then blinked back on. Sophie felt as if her heart was beating louder than the shouts from the pit.

The stairs ended in a narrow hallway. One wall was yellowed and stained plaster, and the other was chunky rock that looked like it had been gouged out by claws. She wondered if Mr. Nightmare had used the monsters to make this hall. There were two doors: one red, and one yellow. Both had windows in the middle.

Crossing to the red door, Sophie peeked through and saw the fight pit. Mr. Nightmare's back was toward her, and he was standing on the crate and shouting over the howls and cries of the fight and the wailing music. “Look at the speed and skill! Consider the detail, with the teeth and claws . . .” He continued describing the monsters, as if they were used cars he wanted to sell.

Sophie peered through the window of the yellow door. It was smeared with dirt, but she could make out what looked like a storage room. She didn't see any people. “Ready?” she whispered.

“You think I'm brave. Can't say no after that.”

She opened the door and slipped in. The storage room was stuffed with cages, stacked one on top of another. The lights were dim and flickering, as in the stairwell, with just a few bare bulbs strung through the steel beams in the ceiling. Shadows crisscrossed the narrow cement corridors.

Monster stuck close to Sophie's ankles. “Sophie, this is
really
not a nice place.”

Nodding, she walked forward between the cages. Most of them were empty. But a few weren't. One cage held a three-headed turtle with spikes on its shell. Beyond it was a half snake, half ostrich. Above it was a scarlet-colored monkey with eyes that looked like flames dancing inside his skull.

“Okay, interesting,” Ethan said, his voice shaking. “Don't see your parents.”

On the other end of the storage room was a thick steel door, like a bank vault door or a supermarket freezer. It had a metal bar across it, locking it, and a window like a porthole. “What do you think is in there?” Sophie whispered.

“Worse monsters?” Ethan suggested. “Come on, Sophie. This is well beyond freaky, and as someone with nightmare issues, I feel fully qualified to say that. Your parents aren't here. Let's look somewhere else.”

“But we don't know what's in there.” Sophie started forward.

As soon as she reached them, the monsters in the cages reacted. Screaming and howling, they bashed against their cages. The turtle-like monster roared, the ostrich kicked, and the monkey shook the bars so hard that the metal rattled like a thousand cans crashing together.

Sophie shot a look back at the yellow door that led to the stairs. For an instant, she was torn—stay or run?
You've come this far,
she told herself. She had to at least see what was on the other side of the steel door. If she didn't look and her parents were there . . . She hurried toward it, hoping the fight in the pit and the thunderous music were loud enough to drown these monsters out.

The monkey with flame eyes swiped at her. “Stop!”

She slowed. “You can talk?”

“Better than you,” the monkey snarled.

She looked from the monkey to the turtle to the snake-ostrich. The other two quieted. “Are you from a dream?” she asked.

“Oh yes, I had a nice tropical dream with sandy white beaches, palm trees, and the scent of scared tourists for dinner, but I left it for the promise of tastier prey. But instead of the freedom to hunt, I was thrown into a cage like a . . . a . . .”

“Monster?” Monster supplied helpfully.

“You must let us out, before we're sold. Let us find our sandy beaches and our freedom!” He crooked his finger toward Sophie. “Come on, set us free, little girl.”

“What do you mean, ‘before we're sold'?” Sophie asked.

“You know what goes on out there! He drags us in, two at a time—the dumb brutes fight, and then he sells the winner to the highest bidder. We're his performing monkeys, parading our prowess on the auction block.”

“He sells you? Who does he sell you to?” Ethan asked.

“Don't know. Don't care. But he lies to them. Oh yes, he lies. Tells them he created us in a laboratory. Trained us. ‘Genetically engineered fighting machines,' he says. Good for defense. Or offense. Or whatever you need.” The monkey twisted upside down inside his cage. “His customers want proven champions, he says. Winners command the highest prices. Losers . . . no one sees again. He calls it his fight club, as if it's all a game. But we have no choice. We fight in the pit or we rot in our cages.”

Monster shuddered. “That's horrible.”

“Precisely. But you can save us. You can free us!”

The turtle howled, and the ostrich kicked the cage again.

“Shh, if you want us to free you, we can't be caught!” Sophie whisper-cried.

The monkey snarled at the others. “Shut up, you idiots!” To Sophie, he said, “This lot is no brighter than animals. Can't even talk. Their dreams were short and blurry. Bad distillation,” he said. “But I . . .
I
was made by the best.”

Sophie rushed to the cage. “My parents? Are they here? Where are they?”

“Don't know. Don't care,” he said again, singsong.

“How about two kids? Two girls, one older and one younger?” Ethan asked.

“I said I don't know,” the monkey growled. “Set us free.”

Maybe her parents and the missing kids weren't the only ones who needed rescuing. These creatures had been lured out of their dreams, promised something better, and then suddenly, they were here, stuck in a basement, without light, without hope, waiting to be sold. She imagined if it were Monster behind these bars . . .

Ethan caught her arm and pulled her back, away from the bars of the cage and the monkey's reach. “Sophie, tell me you aren't thinking of letting them out.”