Free Dandelion Fire by N. D. Wilson

smiled.
    Suddenly, in the panicked fury of an animal trapped, Henry's body quivered. He'd managed to move. He'd leaned forward, still staring up into the eyes, and they no longer smiled.
    Henry's teeth ground. “Leave,” he said, and his mind snapped free, painting a new dream.
    Darius's arm slipped off his shoulder as the big man stepped back. The arm jerked up and removed hishat. He spoke. At least a voice like his did. His enormous jaw was clamped shut.
    “I'm a Pilgrim,” he said, “off to Plymouth. April showers bring May flowers.” He turned and stepped toward the cliff. “And …” He was fighting it, trying to shake the pressure of Henry's imagining.
“Mayflowers
bring …” He was off the cliff. “Me.”
    But he didn't fall. The dream quaked, and sky and sea and crawling clouds all disappeared around him. He stood in blackness, turned, and stared into Henry's eyes.
    “Your dreaming is sealed. A way has been prepared. You come.”
    “I can wake up!” Henry yelled. “I can.”
    “You will,” Darius said. “But where?”
    He was gone, and all of Badon Hill with him.
    For a moment, Henry held the moss. Blackness surrounded him, but the cool, wet green beneath his feet, the beginning of his dream, remained.
    A crack echoed through space, followed by Richard's whispering voice. “Henry? Henry? Are you ready? Are you okay?”
    The voice faded. The echo died. The moss was gone. And still, Henry slept.
    Richard had never fallen asleep. He had tagged along after Henry before, but this was the first time he had been included by invitation.
    He lay in his sleeping bag on top of a small pile ofblankets that served as a mattress, and he listened for Henry to call him.
    Henry was a loud sleeper. He moaned and hummed and occasionally kicked. The kicking made the floor shake. Richard got up twice to check on him. Both times, he'd cracked the doors just a bit and peeked in. He couldn't see anything, but he could hear better. Henry wasn't awake.
    The third time, Henry sounded angry. Angry and in pain. And there was a crack. He'd kicked something maybe. Hurt his foot.
    “Henry?” Richard whispered. “Henry? Are you ready? Are you okay?”
    Nothing.
    Richard slid quietly into the room and shut the doors behind him. The room was stuffy, but perfectly silent. Henry had stopped his mumbling. He'd stopped moving.
    Richard switched on the lamp and looked down at his friend. Henry was clutching the backpack to his chest, and his eyes were clamped shut. They were oozing a bit again, but they weren't swollen. Richard bent over and touched them carefully and was glad that they seemed normal.
    The air was moving. Blowing past him toward the cupboards, harder, faster, almost whistling. The post-office box was open.
    With a sudden throbbing surge, the room blurred.Richard felt like he'd left his stomach somewhere far behind as he flew toward the cupboard wall, too fast to even throw up his arms, though he tried.
    He needn't have. He was unconscious before he hit it. Only he didn't really hit it. He went beyond it, into another room, and hit another wall, someplace else.
    In a swirl of dust, his body piled limply onto Henry's, and the two of them lay, unaware, in a yellow room.
    Henrietta worked very hard to help her sisters fall asleep. She didn't respond to any of Anastasia's comments or questions or whispers. She'd even ignored an old rag doll that her younger sister had lobbed across the room from her bottom bunk.
    When Anastasia had given up, Henrietta tried to work on Penelope. She used her tiredest voice.
    “Pen, how long are you going to keep your reading light on?”
    “It's not that bright,” Penelope said. “Roll over or something.”
    Henrietta sighed and rolled over, thumping heavily. “But how long?” she asked. “You're not going to stay up till four again, are you? I remember when you did that reading that old
Black Rose
book. You were a total crab for days.”
    “That's because the book was