Night Terrors by Helen Harper Page A

doesn’t seem to care; he’ll do whatever it takes, regardless of what people think of him. For some strange reason that makes me feel slightly better. Brute force is more predictable and it might give me something to work with. All the same, I’m aware that the rooftop stalker is probably still watching me so I do my best to look scared before I skedaddle off in the opposite direction.
    The Department thug’s curiosity at seeing me wandering around wasn’t misplaced. At this time of day, the Dreamlands are remarkably quiet. I see a couple of other people but they scurry past me with their heads down. Clearly no one is in the mood for pleasantries. It feels like they’ve gone from being a band of merry dreamers, grouped together by nothing more negative than their suspicion of someone like me, to everyone being out for themselves. The cold inside me increases.
    After my confrontation, I alter my plans and avoid the square – and the ugly grey Department building. Instead I keep to the outskirts, hurrying along the pretty cobbled streets until I’m on the other side of the town and facing the daberhashery.
    As always, Esme’s little store looks quaint from the outside, the sign in front in curling black script and the old-fashioned panes of glass in the window smoky and dark. I can’t see or hear any signs of activity inside so, after catching my breath, I grasp hold of the wrought-iron doorknob and enter.
    The shop is a tip. Shelves have been overturned. There’s a pile of ripped fabric on one side of the room and old socks scattered everywhere. I take a step forward, my feet crunching on broken glass, and am overtaken by dismay. What on earth has the Department done?
    A shadow appears from the back. I look up to see Esme herself, framed against the doorway. She looks pale but there’s an anger in her eyes that I sympathise with.
    ‘It’s you,’ she says disdainfully and turns to walk away.
    I dart forward before she disappears. ‘Esme, what the hell happened here?’
    Her mouth twists. ‘What do you think happened?’ She throws an arm wide. ‘The Department came and took everything they thought they could use. Everything else they destroyed.’
    I shake my head. ‘But why? It doesn’t make any sense.’ Her shop deals in exchanges: find an item lost in the real world, which somehow makes it way to the dream world, and you can exchange it for whatever you want. Even the Mayor let the place run mostly unimpeded – unless you were trying to arm yourself with a weapon.
    I stare at the grubby socks and the broken ornaments and fripperies. What danger is there in an old clock or a child’s lace-fringed teddy bear?
    ‘Intimidation. Bullying. Everything you’d expect from a bunch of shitheads like them.’ Her lip curls. ‘Ridiculous, isn’t it? For the first time in decades we get a dreamweaver. The one person in the entire world who might be able to stop the Department in its tracks. It’s just our luck that the person we get is you.’ Scorn drips from her, pooling in the atmosphere until it almost suffocates me.
    ‘That’s not fair,’ I say quietly.
    ‘Isn’t it?’ She bends down and starts picking up some of the destroyed items, placing them in a box.
    I sigh and move to help her but she hisses at me to back off. I understand her anger. I managed to release all of the sleepers in the fairy-tale castle round the corner. Each of them was a coma victim, just like Esme. Unlike Esme, however, they remained unconscious which was probably why I was able to wake them and return their souls to the real world and their physical bodies. Although I tried it with her once the Mayor had been dealt with, nothing happened. I’d suspected as much beforehand but it didn’t stop her from thinking that the failure was somehow my fault. Perhaps it was. There is still so much that I need to learn about what I am.
    ‘Where are the Department thugs now?’ I ask softly. Dante seemed to think there were eight of them