The Last Fairy Tale (5 page)

 “Hurt?” it asked, shocked. “I am in the right place, aren’t I?”

“I don’t know who—what you are or
where
 we are,” Olivia said shakily. “But you’re scaring me, and I want to leave.”

“Oh, but you must know, my child,” said the goat. “This is
your
 dream, after all.” It laughed a low, wheezy laugh and began circling Olivia again. She stared at the goat, still frightened and confused.

If this is a dream, then why does it seem so real
? she thought to herself. Every dream she had ever had before was just a collection of odd scenes that had nothing to do with one another. But this dream was different. She felt herself breathing and was aware that she was thinking and fully conscious. Except for not being able to run when she tried to, which seemed very much dreamlike now that she thought about it, everything else appeared to be real, including the disturbing figure walking around her.

 The goat creature suddenly stopped, looked up at her with its black-socket eyes, and smiled. “Be at ease, my child,” it said calmly. “I am not here to harm you in any way. I am only here to make sure.”

 “Make sure of what? What are you?” asked Olivia.

 “One question at a time,” the goat creature said and then smiled, all the while still circling Olivia. “I believe I will answer your second question first. Of course, if that is okay with you?” It looked up at Olivia, waiting for her approval.

 “Uh, sure,” she said.

 “I…” it began to say before leaping into the air and transforming into black fog and then into a large black rabbit and landing on a tree limb. It hung upside-down from the limb by its back feet, smiled at Olivia, opened its humanlike mouth, and continued, “am a somnivate.”

 “A what?” asked Olivia, even more confused. The smile on the rabbit’s face faded.

 “It’s a pity, really,” it said in a sad, distant voice, crossing its arms. “But it’s not hard to believe, I suppose, what with your realm the way it is these days and everything. How about this…does pooka ring a bell?”

 “What are you talking about?” Olivia asked. She was becoming more and more befuddled the more the creature spoke.

 “Nothing, child,” it said, shaking its head and smiling again. It dropped from the limb and hopped over to Olivia. It was a large rabbit compared to the ones Olivia had seen in Mr. Dewberry’s encyclopedias at the orphanage. “Anyway, I am a somnivate. A shapeshifter. A sailor of dreams. A guide, if you will. I am incredibly curious, and I am here to make sure of something. My name is Ink.”

 Olivia froze. She hadn’t noticed before that the goat creature had resembled the scribbled drawing in her father’s journal. If she had any doubt before that the drawing and the creature were related, she had none now after hearing its name. She had to figure out why this creature was in her dream and why her father had seen it as well.

 “What are you here to make sure of?” Olivia asked.

 “Well, I can’t really tell you that, because then you would know,” Ink said. He laughed and then jumped back up onto the tree limb. “Tell me, child, what are you?”

That’s an odd question,
Olivia thought
. It should be obvious that I’m a human, but perhaps he’s confused because of my eyes
. “A human,” she replied.

“No, I mean, what are you
really
? What do you
feel
 you are?” Ink had become the goat again. He was lying on his stomach along the tree limb, his head propped on one of his hooves.

 “Well, I…” Olivia felt muddled, but she also felt that she needed to answer this question seriously. She had thought frequently about who and what she truly was and had always wondered what her true purpose was ever since Mr. Dewberry had given her the journal, but she had never been asked to explain. In all her years locked up in the orphanage, she never once thought about composing a decent answer to this question. Finally collecting her thoughts into words felt good. “I suppose that I’m a human, but one living a life without direction. I’m confused as to why I must exist in a world that I didn’t corrupt and destroy. But, life must go on, I suppose.”

 Ink’s laugh came as a low and raspy wheeze. “Impressive for such a young one. I have no doubts that you spend much time in deep thought. Very good. Now tell me, if you could have anything, what would it be?”

 Olivia couldn’t determine what point Ink was trying to make with these questions, but she decided to answer anyway, if only to see where he was going with this conversation.

 “I suppose I would like to meet my parents and be with them forever. But even more than that, I want to see the world as it once was, with all the destruction and disease gone forever.”

 “Ah, I see,” Ink said. “You have been raised inside that orphanage and have had to deal with some nasty people, yet you are still selfless and have a good heart.”

 “Why are you asking me these questions?” asked Olivia. She wasn’t sure how long they had been talking; it had felt like a few minutes and forever at the same time.

 “I am making sure,” Ink replied.

 “Of what?” Olivia was on the verge of becoming angry. Nothing had been explained to her, and the conversation with Ink appeared to be going nowhere in particular.

 “Patience, my child,” insisted Ink. “I see you have a strong curiosity but lack patience. But please, I have one more question. Why?”

 “Why? That’s the question?” asked Olivia.

 “Why, yes…that is the question,” said Ink.

 “Why what?”

 “No. Just, why?”

 Olivia was completely confused now. What was Ink trying to do? How could she just answer a question like that? She looked down at the ground, trying to make sense of it all. After a moment, she decided that she couldn’t figure out any of it and had no answer to Ink’s question.

 “I don’t know,” said Olivia. She looked up, expecting to see Ink, but he wasn’t there. She could hear his raspy laugh all around her, and she turned and looked in every direction, but he was nowhere to be found. She looked back at the tree where he had been sitting and noticed its bark was arranged in the shape of a face that oddly resembled Mr. Dewberry’s. Then the bark of the tree began to crack and move as the face began crying and calling for help. The tree started to bleed from the gaps in its bark, as if it had contracted the DNA Flu. Then, without warning, the tree suddenly and violently shattered, a shower of blood and bark flying in all directions. Olivia cried out in fear and shielded her face with her father’s journal.

 When she slowly lowered the journal from in front of her face, she saw that she was no longer standing in the forest. Instead, she was in the center of her room in the orphanage, wearing her uniform and clutching her father’s journal. She quickly opened the journal and flipped to the page that held her father’s drawing of Ink. It appeared as it always had, except now Olivia had begun to understand. Her father must have seen Ink in his dreams, too. She closed her eyes, trying to remember the dream, but a sudden knock at her door snapped her back to reality.

 “Please get ready and exit your room within the next five minutes,” Ms. Kobayashi said. Olivia opened her eyes, startled. She could hear Ms. Kobayashi knocking on her neighbor’s door to give the same order. For a moment she wondered why Mr. Gloome hadn’t made his morning announcement, but then the events of the previous day came flooding back all at once. She walked to her bed and placed the journal under the mattress.

I’ve gone mad
. She suddenly felt a little embarrassed that she had even considered the idea that her father had seen Ink in his dreams.
My father couldn’t have had these dreams. I saw Ink only because I’ve seen him in this diary. I made him up because of this drawing
. She sighed and walked over to her door. She wasn’t quite sure of what to expect from the day ahead of her, but what she was sure of was that the memory of Ms. Canterbry’s death and Ms. Cooper’s departure was still very vivid. It pushed her thoughts about the dream and Ink to the back of her mind.

 Outside her room, Olivia saw the other children lining up outside their doors. Most of them looked tired, as if they hadn’t slept the night before. Olivia heard some of the children sniffling in a failed attempt to hold back tears. In a way, Olivia respected the children a little more than she previously had. They were showing emotions that she had believed had been all but snuffed out. She walked down the hall and took her place in line. She heard Mr. Schafer waking the boys on the other hall. She thought about Nachton and how weak he had become the day before. It worried her.

 When they had all gotten in line, Ms. Kobayashi led them down the stairs and into the main hallway. A sheet lay over the place where Ms. Canterbry had fallen. The children bowed their heads sadly as they walked past it. Shortly after she reached the main hall, Olivia looked up the stairs to see Mr. Schafer and the boys coming down. She didn’t see Nachton among them.

 “Alban’s boy refuses to leave his room,” Olivia overhead Mr. Schafer mumbling quietly to Ms. Kobayashi. “I told him that I would bring his breakfast up to him.”

 “That will be fine,” she replied, nodding solemnly. “He’s having a tough time dealing with these recent events.”

Olivia was suddenly struck with a sense of dread.
What if something is wrong with Nachton? He can’t be sick. We’re immune to illness
, she thought.
Maybe it’s deeper than a physical illness. Our bodies may fight disease, but our minds
... She turned this thought over in her head as they walked to the dining hall. Olivia was somewhat relieved that Mr. Schafer and Ms. Kobayashi were being as kind to Nachton and the other children as they were. She figured it must have been a result of Mr. Gloome’s absence.

 The children ate breakfast in silence. Olivia noted that Mr. Dewberry was looking increasingly worse with each passing day. He appeared to be in pain as he slowly helped the nannies pass the trays out to the children. Olivia wasn’t hungry, but she knew that she needed to eat. She watched as Mr. Schafer explained to Mr. Dewberry that his son wouldn’t come out of his room. Mr. Dewberry shook his head and wiped a tear from his face. He thanked Mr. Schafer repeatedly for offering to take a tray up to Nachton’s room. Then he walked slowly back into the kitchen.

* * * * *

 They spent the remainder of the day in the physical education room, where the children halfheartedly threw balls back and forth and jumped rope in silence. Olivia spent the time worrying about Nachton and Mr. Dewberry, wishing that she could go and talk to them. She was relieved when Ms. Kobayashi announced that they would be returning to their rooms after dinner. Olivia wanted to be alone, to use the solitude to think.

 After dinner, Ms. Kobayashi and Mr. Schafer led the children to their rooms. Just as they made it to the doors, one child asked the question everyone wanted the answer to. “Where is Mr. Gloome?”

 “He is...” Mr. Schafer said. He glanced over at Ms. Kobayashi.

 “In his office,” she finished. She said no more on the subject.

* * * * *

After she was in her room, Olivia pulled the journal from under her mattress and lay on her bed. She felt a strange need to help everyone. She wanted to walk out of her room and reassure everyone that everything would be just fine, despite how it appeared. But she knew it wasn’t true.
No matter how hard we try, we are always going to be doomed here
. The thought weighed heavily on her mind. She felt like crying, but she had already done so much of that lately. Suddenly a knock on her door jarred her. She jumped up and scrambled to tuck the journal under her mattress. “C-come in.”

 The door opened and Mr. Dewberry stepped into her room. He carried a tray of Crud and had a few papers tucked underneath one massive arm. Despite his sickly state, Mr. Dewberry was still a hefty man and dwarfed Olivia as he stepped closer. Olivia didn’t know what to think, but she was happy to see him. She offered to let him sit on her bed, because he was bent slightly forward from pain.

 “No, no, lass,” he said softly. “If I sit, I may never get back up.” He tried to laugh, but he stopped suddenly with a grimace. “As ye can see, I’m not in the best o’ shape. Wanted to come up here to give ye a little somethin’.”

 Olivia felt tears forming in her eyes. She could tell that he wasn’t planning on living much longer.

 “Thought ye might be interested in seein’ these,” he said, handing her the stack of papers. “They were torn from yer father’s journal. I’m so sorry that I didn’t give ‘em to ye before. Thought ye’d get the wrong idea about yer parents if ye read those papers at such a young age.”

 Olivia looked down at the papers and saw they were filled with what must have been her father’s handwriting. She couldn’t wait to read them.

 “Thank you,” she said, looking up at Mr. Dewberry. He was smiling at her, his usually jolly red cheeks now just as pale as her own skin. She laid the papers on her bed, walked over to him, opened her arms as wide as they would go, and threw them around his waist. She had never done something like that before, because contact with staff was against the rules, but she knew she needed to do it now. Mr. Dewberry was like a father to her, and she felt close to him.

 “Oho! Look at ye,” he said, patting her back with his free hand. “Ye’ve gone and made me cry.” He sniffed loudly, and Olivia felt a warm tear fall onto her face. “I love ye, lass. Just like ye were one o’ my own. Don’t ye forget that.”

Olivia was stunned. She had never heard the word
love
 in her entire life, except when she had read about it in an encyclopedia article that explained the concept of human affection. She began to weep as she felt a new sense of belonging. Her heart ached almost unbearably at the fact that she would soon lose Mr. Dewberry. However, no matter how painful the ache seemed, it was tolerable knowing that he loved her. Mr. Dewberry backed away and looked at her, tears streaming down his cheeks and into his beard. A wide smile spread across his face.

 “Yer lookin’ more an’ more like yer mum, Olivia. Tore her apart to give ye up to this place.” He sighed and shook his head.