Chapter One, 2nd draft

Andrea meets Candy as she sleeps, then loses her way.

Andrea stood before the closed door, crimson light bleeding out from beneath, and held her hand on the doorknob without making a sound. Guilt washed over her, and a terrible foreboding. The light from beneath the door seemed to fluctuate and shimmer, not the natural dimming from the shadows of people moving within but an eerie shifting that turned her stomach.

With a monumental force of will, she pulled away from the door and started down the darkened hall. She had opened that door once before, she remembered, but could not recall what lay beyond save the terrible light and the crushing feeling of shame. She did not want to remember, though a curiosity burned within her.

Secrets in the dark, things she was too young to understand. Her stepmother’s glare, hatred like daggers pointed right at her. Daddy’s flushed face, embarrassed, stammering as he tried to explain. Those eyes, those terrible eyes, the last thing she remembered before the door closed. So long ago.

She had not set foot in the house since she was twelve. That thought struck a chord in her. Why am I here? she thought. That had been over fifteen years ago, and her father had divorced the woman not long after.

The night she opened the door, she had been ten or eleven, she could not recall. But from then on, her stepmother’s eyes held no kindness for her, though her voice was sweet enough to convince her father. The dissolution of their marriage had nothing to do with Andrea, though she felt a rush of triumph when she had learned the news. Free of that woman, free of her dreadful eyes, free of her sticky-sweet voice.

She came out of the hallway into the kitchen.

Morning sunlight warmed the hardwood floor in shades of blue and green filtered through the suncatchers hanging in front of the window. Andrea had felt sure it had been night in the hall, though. The red light. She had only noticed it at night, hours after her bedtime when she had woken up to go to the toilet. How many nights had she seen it before she dared to open the door?

The smell of coffee came suddenly, and she sat at the table and waited for her father to pour her a mug.

I didn’t drink coffee when I was twelve. Is this a dream?

The shadowy silhouette of her father set a steaming mug before her, the white porcelain painted with pastel polka dots. Andrea opened her mouth to thank him, but he was gone. She absently sipped from the mug while looking around the kitchen. The suncatchers had been her stepmother’s, but none of the cabinets were right. The shape of the kitchen was wrong. The island where her father had let her cut vegetables was gone, the refrigerator and oven gleamed in stainless steel instead of white. A sliding door led out onto the porch where there had been a single hinged door, its window dressed with a cheery curtain of yellow with butterflies flapping across its surface.

This must be a dream, Andrea thought. Though I’ve never had one as detailed as this. Strange.

She had only known she was dreaming a few times before in her life, and as she did then she tried to exert influence over her unconscious constructions. Her prior attempts invariably ended with her waking, but this time nothing happened.

She tried again, focusing on the window with its collection of suncatchers. Andrea imagined storm clouds rolling in to block out the sun. She smelled the scent of impending rain, felt the chill breeze of the coming downpour. The window remained unchanged, however, the light unwavering.

“No control, but neither am I waking up,” she said aloud to herself. Her father-shadow reappeared at her side, and poured coffee into her already-full mug. No liquid spilled over the side, though the mug was now full to the top and the father-shadow kept pouring. “Thanks, I’m fine,” said Andrea. The father-shadow set the coffeepot on the table and stepped back, fading as he went.

“It’s a wight,” said a voice outside the door. Andrea crossed to it and undid the latch, opening the door to see a tall girl dressed in clothes more befitting a doll than a person. She tipped her flowered bonnet to Andrew with a smile, and said, “It’s just a figment. Nothing to be afraid of, or to pay any mind to. Like wallpaper, really.”

“What are you?” said Andrea. The girl outside wore a puffy dress, all curves and rounds, with a wide skirt and violently bright leggings. Geometric shapes combated with flowers along the surface of the dress. Each wrist was burdened with an absurd abundance of bangles and bracelets in every shade imaginable, in plastic and leather and wood.

“You can call me Candy,” she replied.

Andrea looked around, then stepped outside to join Candy. Her stepmother’s house had not had a porch either, but knowing she dreamed it was easy to recall how the places she visited while asleep were never exactly the same as they were in the waking world. Candy giggled, then skipped down the steps of the porch and hopped onto a tire suspended from the bough of a massive oak.

“Okay, Candy,” said Andrea, “but what are you? Are you a… what was it… a wight?”

“I’m not any wallpaper wight, not me!” she sang as she began to swing back and forth. As Andrea walked down the steps to join her, she noticed a hugely oversized moon rising on the horizon, bringing the night with it. She stared openly at it, then sat on the lower steps and watched the girl swinging.

“But you must be some sort of figment of my imagination. I’m dreaming you. Though I’ve never dreamed anyone like you before.”

“Oho!” cried the girl. “We think we’re dreaming, do we? Better stay inside until we wake up, then, or we’ll be in real trouble, thinking like that.” As if summoned by her ominous words, the ground began to tremble. Candy cackled, leapt from the tire swing and ran up the steps to the porch, grabbing Andrea’s hand and dragging her along with her.

“You mean I’m not dreaming?”

“Not too bright, are we?” taunted Candy. She plopped herself down in a wicker armchair facing the rising moon. “You’re asleep, sure, but this is no dream. Remember that and you may even wake up eventually.”

Andrea sat in a wicker chair next to Candy’s, a small table between them bearing a few magazines and a pair of steaming mugs. The one nearest Candy held tea, while Andrea’s was filled with coffee, though it was not the polka dotted mug from before. Andrea noticed that the magazines bore no script she recognized, nor any images that made sense to her mind. “Okay. What is a wight?”

“A wight,” said Candy as she picked up her mug, “is a projection of your mind. They take the form of people you know, or people you imagined. They can’t hurt you unless you forget what they are. Then it’s kinda funny, because you’re hurting yourself. Silly, right?”

Andrea did not find the thought of being harmed by a figment of her imagination funny at all. “And you are not one of those? So what is this?”

“This,” said Candy, gesturing to the area beyond the porch where the rising moon was now nearly out of sight overhead and the sky was mostly the deep blue of full night, “is where wanderers come when they sleep. It is wondrous and mysterious, and many who wander here never wake again.”

“Are you a wanderer?” asked Andrea.

“I used to be. Now I live here.” Candy frowned for a moment as she said this, then brightened again. “It’s much better than where I come from, trust me.”

Andrea lifted the mug of coffee and eyed it critically. “Is this safe to drink?” she asked.

“Good!” said Candy with a grin. “Questioning things will help. And yes, you can drink it. But don’t trust too much once you leave the safety of this house. And don’t leave the house until you’re sure you want to. You can still stay here until you wake up. It’s much less risky than leaving.”

Andrea sipped her coffee; it was exactly as she liked to prepare it, sweet and creamy and strong. “If it’s risky to leave, why would I?”

“Well, you won’t see much if you stay here. Didn’t you hear me say this place is wondrous? Though it’s not a place, strictly speaking.”

Another rumble shook the earth, making the windows rattle in the house behind them. Andrea shot to her feet, looking around for a safe refuge. Should she stand in a doorway or try to get clear of the building? There were no earthquakes where she lived, and she was unsure.

“They’re just trying to scare you!” said Candy. Andrea had already started down the steps. “No!” Candy cried after her.

As her foot left the bottom step, the wood splintered behind her. Andrea shrieked and dove to the ground. A jagged crack spread up and back from the step, dividing the stairs in half, then the porch, then the wall of the house. More cracks spread from the first, forking like lightning, growing and consuming the house until it was more splinters than solid timbers.

Candy leapt over the railing and dashed to Andrea, putting an arm around her and holding her until the trembling subsided. The girl stood first, offering a hand to help Andrea up, then turning her to face the ruined house.

The entirety of the structure was riven and broken, and the roof collapsed as Andrea watched. “You shouldn’t have run,” Candy said with a frown. “The house protected you while you stayed, and you protected it. They wouldn’t have been able to do this if you hadn’t left it.”

“What do you mean? They were already making the ground shake. The house could have fallen apart while we were both having coffee on the porch!”

Candy shook her head mournfully. “No. A wanderer is always safe in her way. Now your way is lost and you have to find another if you want to wake up again. We have to go. They may try to hurt you too.”

“Who is ‘they’?”

“Let’s get away before we find out.”

“Where do we go?” Andrea looked around. The moon was setting behind the pile of rubble that had been the house. Her way, whatever that was. Full dark had come behind it, but it was not the night sky that she would see while awake. Stars twinkled in an infinite variety of size and color, though none larger than the full moon of the waking world. Many of them seemed to move from place to place in an erratic dance, sometimes alone, but more often in chains or other configurations.

“I know a place,” said Candy as she led Andrea away from the wreckage. “I’ll introduce you to some of my friends. We’ll be safe together.”

Candy led her past the tire swing to the edge of the property, an edge ringed with tall trees. A gravel path led out into a dense forest. “Come on!” said Candy as Andrea fell behind. She was staring up at the surreal stars, her eyes catching patterns here and there that unraveled as soon as she focused on them.

The leaves of the trees all around whispered as a wind picked up, and Candy ran back to Andrea, grabbed her hand, and pulled her on faster. “They’re coming! But we’re almost there!”

“The sky…” Andrea began.

“Plenty of time later!” Candy panted. “Come on!”

The whispering rose to a swishing, then a steady roar as the wind rose, a low moan rising with it. The moan was met with shrieks, inhuman cries raising gooseflesh on Andrea’s neck and making her grip Candy’s hand tighter. She pulled her eyes away from the sky and broke into a full jog, coming up alongside her companion.

The leaves blackened and fell from the trees to drift around the fleeing pair like dark rain. Andrea exclaimed in disgust as one touched her; it was not the dry, scratchy feeling of fallen autumn leaves but a sticky, pulpy mess of black ooze. “What is this!” she yelled after Candy, who shook her head and ran faster.

The trees whipped by on either side as the pair tore down the path, their branches now bare and clacking loudly against one another. The moaning and shrieking fell and rose again as if each was answering the other in a terrifying frenzy. Andrea and Candy stumbled, then tumbled head over heels into a clearing, all sounds coming to an abrupt halt behind them.

“We made it,” Candy mumbled into the gravel and dirt beneath her face.

“You are well come to this place,” said a strong, low voice. A firm hand gripped Andrea’s and pulled her to her feet. A man, his face lined with wrinkles, stood before her. His creases were deepest around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. His hair long gone to grey, he bore a close-cropped beard and the practical garb of a traveler. “I am called Edgar,” he said. “Welcome.”

Author's Note

2nd draft, some errors may have slipped by me