Night Terrors by Helen Harper Page B

altogether but it will be difficult to achieve much until I am sure of their exact numbers.
    Her answer is terse. ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Will they come back?’
    She throws her arms up into the air. ‘Here? Why would they come back here? There’s nothing left to come back for!’
    Shit. It’s taken her years to build up the dabershashery from scratch. No wonder she’s taking it so badly. I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. I don’t want to broach this with her but I’m not sure I have much choice. ‘Listen, Esme, there’s something going on. The dreams I’ve been apparating in have been different, and not in a good way. Lilith is ill. She said something about the Badlands. Do you think the Department has done something to affect them?’
    Esme gives me a dull stare. ‘Who cares?’
    I’m startled. I get that she’s upset with the destruction of the shop but this isn’t like her at all. ‘But the Badlands, well – they’re bad, aren’t they? They’re where nightmares come from.’
    ‘You know more about the mares than anyone else,’ she says tiredly.
    ‘No, I don’t mean the unicorns, although I was told they came from there as well. Don’t real nightmares that people experience all spring from the Badlands?’
    ‘And what is all this,’ she asks, shoulders slumped, ‘if not a nightmare?’
    I stare at her. She seems to have completely given up. ‘Esme…’
    ‘You are not helping, Zoe. Just go. I want to be alone.’
    I search her face. The desire for solitude is something I can empathise with. I don’t want to leave her in this state but I don’t think I’m going to help by sticking around. She starts picking things up again, holding up a shard from what looks like a snow globe and sighing to herself. I reach over and touch her arm as gently as I can. For a moment her eyes meet mine in shared pain, then she pulls away.
    ‘Please.’ Her voice is strained. ‘Just go.’
    I nod and do as she asks.
    I feel like I’m out of options. Everyone is consumed with the Department’s arrival but I can’t help feeling that there are other things we should be worrying about. I bite my lip. If it is something to do with the Badlands that’s causing all these problems, then it’s clear where I ought to go. I just really, really don’t want to.
     
     
     
     

Chapter Five
     
    There’s no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.
    Alfred Hitchcock
     
    I’ve never had cause to come to this part of town before. I’ve seen it from the roof of the Department headquarters but I’ve never been this close. Despite the sunny skies and warm air, looking at the dark grubby mist of the Badlands turns my insides to ice.
    They stretch along the northern side of the Dreamlands and, at this level, are generally obscured by banks of pretty flowers. Even from this distance, though, looking towards them makes my eyeballs prickle. I guess it’s like looking directly at the sun: you know you shouldn’t do it but sometimes you still try. The trouble is that I don’t know the Badlands well enough to tell whether there’s anything different about them.
    Licking my lips nervously, I push ahead. I’ve ruined enough flowers in the last twenty-four hours so this time I pick my way carefully through them to avoid crushing them. They have a sweet heady smell but it’s not pleasant. It reminds me of visiting the morgue to identify my father’s body. All I could smell there was strong disinfectant – and it was obvious what the reason for that was. I wonder if these flowers are here to hide the reek from the Badlands. When I get past the colourful border, I know I’m right. There’s a sulphurous reek which turns my stomach.
    I halt in my tracks. The dark cloud reaches high into the sky, towering over me like a vaporous wall. It’s got to be twenty feet high. As far as I can tell, the entire northern side of the Dreamlands, which I estimate to be a couple of miles long, is bordered by it. I think of the