held. Behind her the old man wheezed and coughed and laughed a little.
“No matter,” he said. “Both bones broken, and all the music leaked out from the fractures. Can’t make any kind of flute from either leg. How did you break them both?”
Ana turned around to watch him. He sat back on his stool, wheezing, and he seemed to want to stay there. “I jumped off the roof.”
“And what flying thing were you fleeing from?” he asked.
“Nothing. Rico dared me to jump, so I did. I didn’t tell on him, either. He still owes me for that.”
“Well,” the old man said, “I hope you can collect what he owes when you find him. Such a shame that your bones were broken. There are a great many children, and there isn’t enough music. There isn’t nearly enough.”
“So how do I get out?” She hated admitting that she didn’t already know.
The old man smiled, and widened up his eyes. “Boo,” he said, puffing out his thin beard.
Ana took a step backwards, and passed through the stone.
Her face was inches away from her brother’s graffiti. It was dark, and she could barely see the colors by moonlight. She looked around. She was alone. Her backpack was gone.
“I told it not to wander off,” she said.
There was only one forest path she could find. Ana took a walking stick from a pile of broken branches near the edge of the woods, and took a deep breath, and set out. She wished she had her flashlight. She wished she had her backpack. In her head she promised to give it a scratch behind the ears if it would come back, and to never again hang it up on a dresser drawer knob. It had looked uncomfortable there. The air smelled like wet leaves, heavy and rich. She followed the path uphill and downhill and around sudden corners cut into the sides of hills. She passed trees that looked like tall, twisted people until she looked at them directly. Ana hoped she was following the right trail. She saw a wispy orange light between the tree trunks and decided to follow that instead.
The orange light brightened as Garth inhaled cigarette smoke. He was leaning on a boulder. He looked up and blew smoke at the moon.
Half of his face was swollen.
“Hey,” said Ana. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Waiting for little girls, maybe.”
“Your infection’s worse.”
“True,” he said. “But this bit of silver is keeping me from gnawing on your bones.”
“Oh,” said Ana. “Good. Everybody should stay away from my bones.”
He took another drag, brightening up the wispy orange light, and tugged his hat down to cover more of the swollen half of his face. Ana held on to her stick.
“Do you know where Rico is?” she asked.
“Maybe. He plays tonight.”
“Can you take me to him?”
“Maybe.” Garth dropped the cigarette and stepped on it, crushing the little orange flame. He walked off, away from the path. Ana waited for some signal from him that she should follow. She didn’t get one. She followed.
Garth took long strides, and his boots hit the ground like he was trying to punish it for something. Ana tried to keep up, and she tried to keep a little bit behind him at the same time. She didn’t want to be too close. He hunched, staring at the ground, and she thought he was moping more than usual until he dove, snarling. He came up holding a lanky thing covered in short, spiky fur.
“Where does the Guard keep watch tonight?” he asked.
The lanky thing shrugged and grinned many teeth.
“Where does the Guard watch the Glen?” He shook the thing in his hand.
It snickered.
“Please?” Ana asked, very sweetly.
The lanky thing blew her a kiss. “Tonight there is no waking Guard,” it said. “Tonight he is sleeping and dreaming that he guards, and he crosses no one unless they cross into his dreaming while he sleeps at his post, which is easy to do and see to it that you don’t. Everything within a pebble’s toss of him in all directions is only the substance of his dream, and inside it the Guard is a much better guard than he ever was awake. He guards the Western Arch.”
“How many arches are there?” Garth asked.
“Tonight there is only the Western Arch. All others are overgrown. It rained today.”
“Thank you,” Ana said.
The lanky thing bowed, which was difficult to do while Garth held it up by the scruff of its neck. Then it bit him hard on the wrist and dropped to the ground. Garth howled. The lanky thing snickered from somewhere nearby.
“Let me see your wrist,” Ana said. She had band-aids in her backpack. Then she remembered that she didn’t have her backpack.
Garth looked at her. Garth never made eye contact, but he did so now, and he held it, and he also made a little rumbling noise in the back of his throat.
“No,” he said.
“Okay,” she said.
“You should know that I’m not interested in dying for your brother. He’s alright. I like him. But I’m not interested in death on his behalf. I’m not interested in any of the things so close to death that the distinction makes no difference. This is something you should know before we go any further.”
“Okay,” she said again.
He walked away. She followed. She wondered where her backpack was.
They found an enormous figure in full plate armor, asleep. The Guard was dreaming a desert the size of a pebble’s throw. All around it was sunlight and sand and nowhere to hide.
“That’s the Western Gate,” Garth said
“Where?” Ana whispered.
“Behind the desert. Cut into the wall of thorns, there.” He pointed. Ana stood at the very edge of the desert and squinted. She could only see sand and sun in front of them.
Garth dropped another finished cigarette, driving it further into the dirt than he really needed to. “Good luck,” he said.
“Wait,” Ana told him. “Don’t go yet. I’m going to try something.”
She picked up a pebble, took aim, and threw it at the precise moment that she stepped forward into desert sand. For just a instant she knew what it was like to be an unimportant part of someone else’s dream. Then the pebble struck the Guard’s gold helmet, clanging loudly and waking it up.
The desert vanished. Ana ducked behind a tree that hadn’t been there before and leaned against the trunk. She could hear the metal movements of plate armor on the other side. She didn’t know where Garth was.
“I am a pirate king,” Ana whispered to herself. “It’s a glorious thing to be a pirate king.”
She ran, and switched directions twice, and tried to circle back towards the Western Gate. She almost stumbled in the dark, but she didn’t. The Guard almost caught her anyway. She felt gauntleted fingers snatch at her shoulder. Then she heard it clang and crash against the ground. She stopped, panting, and turned around to look.
Garth stood over the Guard, who was much shorter and less impressive than it had dreamed itself earlier. Garth looked at Ana, snarled and jerked his chin towards the Gate. Then he spit on the Guard’s golden armor.
Ana backed further away. She watched the Guard pull itself up off the ground. It plucked out Garth’s silver piercing with a little spray of blood.
Garth howled, and his face began to change.
Ana turned away and slipped inside.
The Glen was at least as big as a cornfield, and covered over with a dome of branches high overhead. Inside the branches were orange wisps of light, glowing and fading again.
