Bookweird by Paul Glennon Page A

How’s my boy?” the Prince asked, lowering his voice. Up close, the stoat’s eyes and snout were more expressive. His bushy eyebrows were knitted close together, and his mouth twitched just slightly.
    â€œStill asleep,” Norman answered. He worried that the small animal might be slipping into unconsciousness. The boy’s father bared a fang. It worried him too, but he took pains not to show it.
    â€œWise lad,” he muttered gruffly. “Best we should all be asleep. Though where we’ll find a stoat hole big enough for you, I don’t know.”
    It was all right by Norman if they didn’t. He didn’t think he could sleep in a hole if he tried. Not too far into the woods, the stoats found a large oak tree whose roots had been undermined by some long-dried-up stream. Below the tangle of roots were more than enough hiding places for the stoats. Norman curled up on a sheet of canvas at the foot of the tree and covered himself with another one, placing the still sleeping Malcolm beside him on the inside, nearer the tree. Duncan posted two sentries, who were to change every three hours, but he stood the first watch himself.
    They were still too close to the edge of the forest to risk a fire for warmth, but Norman hardly minded. He was exhausted. The fight and the long trek had been more exercise than he was used to. He felt it in his bones as soon as he lay down.
    It should have been easy to fall asleep, despite the awkwardness of his bed, but the stillness finally allowed him to think about the strangeness of the surroundings and of the day’s events. If this was not a dream, how did he get here, and how would he get back home? What were his parents doing now? Had they been looking for him all day? Had they called the police? The image of his mother crying at the kitchen table occurred to him—like a sudden, unpredictable memory. These thoughts, the thoughts that hehad not let himself think all day, sent a shiver through him. He wrapped his arms around himself and pretended that it was the cold that made his body tremble.
    The murmur of conversation from the resting stoats slowly died down, and all Norman could hear were the hoots and cracklings of the forest. He rolled onto his back and stared at the moon, careful not to crush the little stoat sleeping at his side. Only by imagining himself back in his own room could he coax himself to sleep. He had done the opposite so many times before, closed his eyes and imagined himself in a book with a forest or a castle just outside his closed eyelids. Tonight he closed his eyes and imagined himself in his own bed, imagined that if he opened them, the blinking amber lights of his computer would be there. He visualized a book laying splayed open on the bedside table next to his bed and pretended he could hear the indistinct ebb and flow of his parents’ conversation downstairs.
    Very gradually sleep overtook him, but not before, in a second of lucidity, he realized that falling asleep was as good a proof as any that he was not dreaming. You don’t fall asleep in dreams.

 
    The Woods

    T he friction of his dad’s scruffy chin against his cheek woke Norman, irritating yet somehow comforting, the way he leaned in to give him a hug and whisper that it was time to get up. But the scrape against his cheek seemed more focused, perhaps softer, and just a little bit…wet. He opened his eyes with a start, and the stoat that had been licking his face jumped back too, emitting a little squeak of surprise. Neither could help breaking down into laughter that they’d managed to startle each other.
    â€œYou’re awake,” Norman said to the little stoat. His relief surprised him.
    â€œAnd so are you, foignally,” Malcolm teased.
    Norman scoffed at the little animal’s boldness. “ I didn’t sleep all yesterday afternoon. And I didn’t get carried over the top of the mountain, either.”
    â€œI