The Grace of Wild Things by Heather Fawcett

Author:Heather Fawcett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

19

The Land of Sleep

Sing to us, cedars; the twilight is creeping

With shadowy garments, the wilderness through;

All day we have carolled, and now would be sleeping,

So echo the anthems we warbled to you . . .

—E. Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake), “The Birds’ Lullaby”

When Grace opened her eyes again, everything was foggy. It was as if the world had been turned into a pencil drawing with a lot of smudges in it.

She gave a cry of surprise and fell out of bed. When she looked up, she screamed, for there was her body, lying on the bed, snoring away.

She had fallen out of her body.

She stood up. Her body mumbled something and rolled over. Grace was afraid for a moment, but then her fear faded. Like the world, she felt a little foggy.

“Psst,” she said. “Windweaver, wake up.”

Windweaver lifted his head, blinking. Oh, he said. You’re in the Land of Sleep.

“The Land of Sleep?” Grace squeaked. “What’s that?”

It’s another world. He sounded irritated. Where people dream.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

I don’t tell you lots of things, Windweaver said. All crows know about other worlds. We pay attention, unlike humans. Now hush, I’m trying to sleep.

Grace’s mouth hung open. How he could be so nonchalant about other worlds and Grace falling out of her body was beyond her. But that was crows for you, she supposed.

She poked her body, and it grumbled in its sleep. She had a sudden horrified fear that her body’s eyes would open and stare at her, but then that calming fog settled over her again.

Well, she had dreams to gather, didn’t she? She might as well get started.

She walked through the wall of her bedroom and into the witch’s room. She was quite calm about it, for the fog had her firm in its grip. Anyone would have thought she walked through walls all the time.

The witch’s room was full of souvenirs from her travels, mostly in the form of oddly shaped vases and colorful rugs. On the mantelpiece was a skull with a crown perched on it in a mocking sort of way, and there was also a sword mounted on the wall that was clearly cursed, for every few seconds it would drip blood onto the floor and whisper, “So this is how it ends.” Grace decided that she would not be visiting the witch’s room again.

Her gaze was caught by a photo propped up on the witch’s desk, which was otherwise empty. It was turned so that the witch would be able to see it when she sat there. The photo was very old, made from a sheet of copper and tarnished round the edges. A man gazed boldly out from it—he had thinning hair and an impressive mustache and wore a dashing neckerchief. Scrawled in ink at the top of the photo were the words, From Freddy, with love.

With love? Grace thought, astonished. Who would give anything to the witch—let alone their photograph—with love? She wondered if the witch had taken the photograph from one of her victims.

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