The Dreaming Place by Charles de Lint

Author:Charles de Lint [De Lint, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Novela, Fantástico, Juvenil
Publisher: ePubLibre
Published: 1990-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Nina

Lounging on the sofa, the stranger appeared completely relaxed. He acted as though the house was his and Nina was the intruder. It was a disconcerting sensation for her, but what made Nina feel even more rattled was that, for all the tough leanness of his features, he didn’t seem very threatening at all, just lazing there.

Except for his eyes.

They were dangerous eyes. Spooky lights flickered in their depths, promising menace. They scared Nina so much that she couldn’t move.

Please don’t let him kill me, she thought.

“The dreams,” the stranger said.

“Wh-who are you?”

“That’s not really the question you want answered, is it?” he replied. “Or it’s only part of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You want to know how I know all about you. What I’m doing here. What I want from you.”

Nina nodded uneasily.

“My name’s Alver,” he said. “But you can call me Al—like in the song.” There was a mocking look in his eyes now.

I just want to call you gone, Nina thought. Out of my life.

“Doesn’t help, does it?” Alver said.

She shook her head.

“I was following your cousin because she plays with magic,” he said, “but you are magic.”

“Me?”

Alver nodded.

“It’s the magic that calls us—from the Otherworld. And it’s the magic that made it easier for me to find you.”

“Oh, come on,” Nina said.

Her fear wasn’t forgotten, but this was so preposterous that she couldn’t help but protest.

“I’m about as magic as a piece of celery,” she added.

Alver smiled. “Actually, certain Native People use the roots and seed of the celery plant as a stimulant and tonic, even as a nerve sedative. That’s a sort of magic, wouldn’t you say?” His smile gave Nina the creeps.

“I suppose. But that doesn’t make me magic.”

“No. But what about your dreams?”

“What about them?”

“What do you think they are?”

Nina sighed. “A pain.”

“And if I told you they were real?”

I’d think you were a fruitcake, Nina thought, but she realized she should be more diplomatic.

“I wouldn’t believe you,” she said.

“I see.”

For a long moment then, he sat there without speaking. The mockery died in his eyes, replaced by a remote, almost melancholy look that made Nina think he was looking right through the walls of the house, off into unseen distances. As though he could see things there that nobody else could.

And they weren’t very happy things.

“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “Imagine there’s a place, a faraway place that’s not in this here-and-now, this world of yours, but is . . . someplace else. A valley, hidden from prying eyes even in that hidden otherworld. The people who live there are like the hamadryads of your Greek mythology—they live in the trees. They are literally a part of the trees. Mobile sensory units, if you will, for no matter how far they travel from their home tree, they still remain a part of it—some essential essence of them stays behind in the tree. And unlike the classical interpretation of these beings in your world, both sexes are represented.”

Nina didn’t like the sound of this.

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