Dreams Underfoot: A Newford Collection by Charles De Lint, John Jude Palencar

ran her finger along the smoothed indentations that covered the sides of the artifact, but didn’t touch the top. It was still marvelous enough—a hollow stone, a mystery, a puzzle. But ...
    She remembered the odd almost-but-not-quite music she’d heard when she first woke, and cocked her ear, listening for it. Nothing.
    Outside, a light drizzle had wet the pavement, making Yoors Street glisten and sparkle with its sheen.
    She knelt down by the windowsill and leaned forward, looking out, feeling lonely. It’d be nice if Geordie were here, even if his brother did write those books that had the Professor so enamoured, but Geordie was out of town this week. Maybe she should get a cat or a dog—just something to keep her company when she got into one of these odd funks—but the problem with pets was that they tied you down. No more gallivanting about whenever and wherever you pleased. Not when the cat needed to be fed. Or the dog had to be walked.
    Sighing, she started to turn from the window, then paused. A flicker of uneasiness stole up her spine as she looked more closely at what had caught her attention—there, across the street. Time dissolved into a pattern as random as that faint music she’d heard when she woke earlier. Minutes and seconds marched sideways; the hands of the old Coors clock on her wall stood still.
    A figure leaned against the wall, there, just to one side of the display window of the Chinese groceteria across the street, a figure as much a patchwork as the disarray in the shop’s window. Pumpkin head under a wide-brimmed hat. A larger pumpkin for the body with what looked like straw spilling out from between the buttons of its too-small jacket. Arms and legs as thin as broom handles. A wide slit for a mouth; eyes like the sharp yellow slits of a jack-o’-lantern with a candle burning inside.
    A Halloween creature. And not alone.
    There was another, there, in the mouth of that alleyway. A third clinging to the wall of the brownstone beside the groceteria. Four more on the rooftop directly across the street—pumpkinheads lined up along the parapet, all in a row.
    Skookin, Jilly thought and she shivered with fear, remembering Christy Riddell’s story.
    Damn Christy for tracking the story down, and damn the Profes-sor for reminding her ofit. And damn the job that had sent her down into Old City in the first place to take photos for the background of the painting she was currently working on.
    Because there shouldn’t be any such thing as skookin. Because ...
    She blinked, then rubbed her eyes. Her gaze darted left and right, up and down, raking the street and the faces of buildings across the way.
    Nothing.
    No pumpkin goblins watching her loft.
    The sound of her clock ticking the seconds away was suddenly loud in her ears. A taxi went by on the street below, spraying a fine sheet of water from its wheels. She waited for it to pass, then studied the street again.
    There were no skookin.
    Ofcourse there wouldn’t be, she told herself, trying to laugh at how she’d let her imagination run away with itself, but she couldn’t muster up even the first hint ofa smile. She looked at the drum, reached a hand towards it, then let her hand fall to her lap, the drum untouched. She turned her attention back to the street, watching it for long moments before she finally had to accept that there was nothing out there, that she had only peopled it with her own night fears.
    Pushing herself up from the sill, she returned to bed and lay down again. The palm of her right hand itched a little, right where she’d managed to poke herself on a small nail or wood sliver while she was down in Old City. She scratched her hand and stared up at the ceiling, trying to go to sleep, but not expecting to have much luck. Surprisingly, she drifted off in moments.
    And dreamed.
    Of Bramley’s study. Except the Professor wasn’t ensconced be-hind his desk as usual. Instead, he was setting out a serving of tea for her and