The Sandman and the War of Dreams (3 page)

And so the remaining Guardians would return, along with all the villagers and children and animals who had joined them on what was intended as a celebratory journey.

It had been a time so full of hope and promise. Peace was coming. A new Golden Age was at hand.

But war and disaster had come instead.

They now boarded Bunnymund’s Eggomotive and made the long trek home. As the wondrous locomotive rose from its tunnel and into the village, they immediately sensed an unfamiliar air of worry.

All who had stayed behind in the village came rushing out to greet them.

In front were Petrov, North’s uncannily smart stallion, and Bear, the most magnificent of his species
to ever walk the forests of Europe. Bear was as gentle as he was powerful. The robot, Djinni, was beside him. This extraordinary metal being, built by North, was capable of untold amazements. Flanking the three were Bunnymund’s Warrior Eggs of all sizes, standing at attention. Hovering above them was the Spirit of the Forest, her robes shimmering in unseen winds. Behind them were all the creatures of the forest and the villagers, each smartly dressed in the customary Santoff Claussen attire. Even the beetles and worms wore dapper vests and hats.

And of course Ombric’s owls were there as well. These mysterious birds had the ability to absorb knowledge from out of the air, so they knew everything that had happened during this fateful trip of the Guardians. Within Big Root, the massive hollow tree that was the center of the village, the owls had
been able to activate the magical screens that hung in Ombric’s laboratory.

From the minds of the owls, the screens had projected to everyone in Santoff Claussen the story of what had happened in Punjam Hy Loo. So everyone in the village had seen the meeting of Queen Toothiana and the twisted Monkey King who had allied with Pitch. They had learned of the battle against the monkey army, in which Pitch’s long-lost daughter had returned and taken Pitch and Katherine. They knew everything except the one detail the owls did not know. It was the one detail that would put all their minds at ease: Where was Katherine?

As the engine of Bunnymund’s Eggomotive stopped and its egg-shaped puffs of smoke cleared, the village and all its citizens came together again.
Cautious hellos and welcomes were exchanged. Parents hugged their children. Old William embraced all his younger Williams. But the joy in this reunion was shadowed. The children who had just returned from the journey broke from their parents’ clutches and clustered around Kailash, the Great Himalayan Snow Goose who had been raised by Katherine. The huge bird’s graceful neck hung low. The villagers had hoped beyond hope that the Guardians might have an answer as to Katherine’s whereabouts, but because they did not, the band of heroes was lowest of all. And when the smallest William raced up to Mr. Qwerty, the former glowworm who’d transformed himself into a magic book in a moment of dire need and whose pages were filled with Katherine’s every story—his pages were Katherine’s pages; her stories, his stories—Mr.
Qwerty opened himself and showed one blank page after another. His life, without her, was on pause. There were no new stories beyond her first ones—no clue as to where Katherine was or if she was all right.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

In Which We See Many Terrors in the Shadows

K
ATHERINE WAS WORRIED AS
well. She was straining to hear the volatile discussion between her captors, but it was difficult. She had no idea where she was, but she was certain it was unlike any place she’d ever been. And she’d seen many amazing places: the enchanted forest that surrounded Santoff Claussen. The eerie majesty of Pitch’s lair at the Earth’s core. The gilded splendor of Bunnymund’s underground city, where everything—right down to the doorknobs—was egg-shaped. Queen Toothiana’s haunting palace at the highest peak of Punjam Hy Loo.

She assumed this densely wooded place where she was being held must be part of Mother Nature’s empire. The ground seemed to be made of an ever-changing mix of earth and water. Oddly, it never became muddy; the elements stayed separate. Spirals of water encircled the trees’ roots like miniature moats, and widened and narrowed whenever Katherine moved. Mist and fog spun through the air in delicate patterns. They looked like layer after layer of glistening lace that heaved and rippled in the constant breeze.

The trees were of every size and sat close together. The high canopy of leaves was so thick that almost no direct sunlight filtered through. The few low-hanging branches curled and swayed with the haunting grace of a dancer’s arms.

It was these armlike branches that held Katherine
tightly at the base of one particularly massive tree. Every time she pulled against them, their grip intensified. If she tried to take even a single step, the moats around the tree would widen and deepen. The water was black and menacing.

So, for the present, she resigned herself to the fact that she could not break loose, and she instead concentrated on eavesdropping. The mist muffled almost all sound, but she could manage to make out the voices of Pitch and Mother Nature. What she heard fascinated and terrified her.

“You saved me,” Pitch was saying, his voice a curious mix of pride and vulnerability.

“No,” Mother Nature replied dismissively. “It was the girl who saved you. The one who
you
would make your Darkling Princess.”

Katherine knew they were talking about her. She
had taken pity on Pitch and stopped the Guardians from killing him. But there was a hardness in Mother Nature’s voice that made Katherine uneasy.

“Had you forgotten me?” Mother Nature demanded. “Your own daughter!”

Katherine was amazed that this magnificent woman of the elements was Pitch’s long-lost child.

The breeze began to strengthen. The air grew considerably colder. Katherine could now see her breath.

“No!” Katherine heard Pitch cry out. “I never for a moment forgot you.”

“Then why did you not come for me?” Mother Nature asked with a chilling calm.

“I tried! I tried. . . . For so long, I tried—” Pitch’s voice broke off in anguish.

Mother Nature’s silence after this pleading admission was telling.

The air became wintery. The lacy mist froze into sheets of stiffened frost. Katherine realized what was happening. As Mother Nature’s voice grew colder, so did the air around her.

“You failed me, Father,” she said, her voice low and dangerous. “I was lost. I had nothing but my rage at you to feed me. I came to your aid only out of . . . curiosity. To see how a once-great man could become so fallen and low.”

It began to snow furiously. Katherine was freezing. She could now faintly see Pitch crawling toward her, as if in agony. Mother Nature walked behind him, calmly and regally.

“You will receive only indifference from me, Father. I will neither hinder nor help you,” she was saying. “I demand only one thing for my neutrality: You cannot make this girl yours. Not ever. Leave her
be, or I will destroy you.
I
am your only daughter, for good or ill.”

By now Pitch was less than a dozen feet from Katherine. The snow was blinding. He looked up at her. The look on his face changed from deepest mourning to calculating evil. He seemed on the verge of laughing.

“Yes, my daughter,” he said with a sneer. “I will not touch her.”

Those were the last words Katherine was to hear for a long, long time.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

Djinnis and Jests

I
T HAD BEEN A
long day for everyone in Santoff Claussen. Unpacking is always wearying, even when using magic.

Without the robot djinni, however, it would have been exhausting. The djinni had been particularly useful when North had summoned it to unload the train. The djinni’s strength was almost unlimited, so it had been able to carry many dozens of large bundles and to give every child in the village a piggyback ride at the same time.

“Thanks, Djinni,” called out the youngest William as the metal robot dropped all the Williams and their belongings at their house.

“It was my pleasure,” said the djinni in its usual way—crisp and exact and with a chimelike quality, as though it were a talking music box.

North, Ombric, Toothiana, and Bunnymund were busy settling into the comforting hollow of Big Root. The interior of the gigantic tree was tidier than they had left it. While they had been gone, the owls had organized the insects and squirrels into a very efficient cleaning brigade.

North, Ombric, and Bunnymund were scouring the library’s newly constituted volumes for any hints that could lead them to Mother Nature’s whereabouts, while Toothiana, who also spoke fluent owl, quizzed the wise birds on many points of mutual
interest. They were desperate to begin their attempt to rescue Katherine.

From the very beginning, the Guardians had the ability to feel the thoughts and emotions of one another when needed. If one Guardian was in the next room or on the other side of the globe from the others, a call for help could be sensed. But that made it all the more strange that they had heard nothing from Katherine. And they were deeply alarmed that the woman who had taken both Katherine and Pitch was, in fact, Pitch’s daughter. Though this Mother Nature clearly possessed enormous power, the Guardians had no clue as to how she had acquired it. They weren’t even certain of the extent of her powers. Or whether she was good, evil, or both.

North was particularly frustrated and echoed
all their thoughts. “We know more about making chocolate milk than we do about Pitch’s daughter and how she came to be this so-called . . . Nature Mother or Mother Nature. We’re supposed to be the wisest men on the—”

Bunnymund felt obliged to interrupt his friend. “The two of you are indeed
men
, and you possess an impressive amount of knowledge for humans of your generations. But, my dear North, must I remind you that I am a Pooka and not a man?”

Sometimes Bunnymund’s precise and exact nature could be inadvertently funny . . . or inadvertently irritating. Often at the same time. North looked at the enormous rabbit, who stood even taller than himself. He poked a single finger at one of Bunnymund’s impressively large ears. “Holy smoke,
you’re right! I’ve never noticed your ears.”

Bunnymund blinked twice. One ear twitched slightly. As did his nose. “Really? You never noticed my ears? Oh. I understand,” he responded. “That was an example of the peculiar human method of communication known as ‘sarcasm.’ ”

“Or a joke.” North smirked. “Someday I’ll make you laugh, Bunnymund.”

“Me, laugh?” The rabbit looked particularly baffled. “That would be historic. Pookas don’t laugh.”

North grinned. “No kidding.”

“Actually, no. I mean, yes. Well, either way, I’m not, as you say, ‘kidding.’ Pookas never laugh, as far as I know, and have difficulty in kidding.”

“I
know
!” said North.

“Then why did you say it? Oh! You were restating
an obvious fact, to underscore your perception that I needn’t have stated the fact in the first place. In other words, you were again being sarcastic and or making a joke.”

“Nope,” North said. “I was just kidding.”

The rabbit’s ears, nose, and whiskers were now twitching like mad. “I . . . you . . . that . . . doesn’t entirely make sense.”

“Really?” asked North. “Are you kidding?”

“No. I mean, yes. Wait. Yes to the first question and no to the second one. But are you kidding or joking with me?”

“Neither,” said North. He was deeply pleased. He had finally discovered a way to confound the brilliant rabbit. “I was just being silly.”

“Look,” said Bunnymund, twitching all over, “I have tried to embrace this thing you call ‘humor,’
but I do not see the difference between ‘kidding’ and ‘joking’ and ‘being silly.’ ”

“Or jesting?” North said.

“That . . . Well . . . it’s . . .”

“Or making a quip?”

“No . . . I mean . . .”

“How about a wisecrack?”

“A crack? In something solid? How can that have wisdom?!” asked the rabbit.