Dreamcatcher

“And they all lived happily ever after.”

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Sparrow jolted awake in her bed, small chest heaving, eyes bugged out wide, sweat pooling in the places where her willowy skin brushed up against the starch linen of her nightgown. Her spindly fingers dug deep into her sheets and clenched the stiff fabric tightly in trembling fists, the words of her latest dream clanging through her head. Like boulders rumbling down a broken mountainside, images tumbled over one another and began a freefall into the pit of her stomach where Sparrow knew they would lodge themselves in her conscience. 

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Doing her best to calm the thrashing of her hummingbird heart, Sparrow let her fingers unclench and unravel from the now twisted sheets. She swung her limber legs out from underneath the sweat-stained blankets and let the cool feeling of moss between her toes and beneath the arches of her feet soothe her enough to push herself out of her cursed bed. Tumbling across the room, Sparrow aimed for the cracking mirror above her stout bureau fingers already flying to her ashen skin to make sure her gaunt face was in one piece.

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Luckily, the mirror confirmed none of her great fears. Her stringy hair still hung in somewhat greasy clumps from the top of her ovular face and down to the backs of her jutting elbows. Her eyes still shone back a single, unaltering shade of tar and, as she blinked away any lingering bits of dream from her eyes, her lashes still limned her stark cheekbones in gentle shadows. Like two twin spiders protruding from her lids and brushing against her flaking skin to grace it with their meager webs. The slight breeze from her open window brushed the fabric of her nightgown against twiggy limbs that ended in slender joints and needle-thin extremities. 

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Sparrow let out a slight sigh of relief at her wholeness. And yet, after such a dream, there was no way she could be entirely whole. 

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“This is the third time this month, Grizz,” Sparrow muttered, Creeping towards the wiry cage by her door in which a rather plump feathered creature sat. At the sound of its name, the thing shook its head and peered into the dark room for the source of it. 

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Sparrow found him when she was young and proclaimed that he was of no particular species but the worm-eating kind and had taken to feeding him the juiciest ones she could find every morning. Because of this habit, Grizz’s unblinking yellow eyes found her own and he cooed expectantly as she approached the rusted bars of his enclosure. 

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“Sorry, Grizz.” She said, not truly sorry, she could not delay her departure any longer. 

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So, Sparrow reached for the patched peacoat hanging from her doorknob and fished around in the pockets for some crumbs before slinging it on. Tossing the meager bits of food she found into Grizz’s cage, a clump of stale breadcrumbs and an apple core, Sparrow fastened the soft wooden buttons into their fraying holes and slipped out the door into the night. 

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Like any night in the Barrow, the air was alive. The sounds of crickets, suspicious rustlings, and nightbirds were almost tangible when Sparrow sludged her way through the tall grasses hiding the front of her house and navigated herself onto the path. Like any sensible creature who lived, feared, and wished to continue living in the Barrow, Sparrow enchanted fibrous grasses to grow directly in front of her house and circling around it to create a sawtoothed perimeter. Clumps of uncharacteristically trusting Barrow residents built their houses inside the same grassy enclosure. Sparrow never saw the point behind that. Solitude and safety was obviously a much wiser choice than foolishness and company. And yet, she would wager none of the other wraiths with doting little neighbors had dreams such as hers. Swallowing the thought with a gulp of musty air, Sparrow hurried down the wending path carved by years of curious feet, racing to her destination.

 

“Who is calling at such an obscene hour?” 

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The door to Doctor Wishrick’s house flew open with a clattering of wood against wood after Sparrow shoved her way through his own spined grass and rapped her little fist on his door. 

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“Sparrow, Doctor Wishrick,” Sparrow replied, staring up at the gangly wisp of a man, “I need help.” She added, surprised at how meek her own rasp sounded.  

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The stick-thin doctor leaned down through his gaping doorway, dragging the eerily warming glow of his lantern down with him. In the uncertain light, Sparrow caught sight of the Doctor’s peeling lips, bulbous eyes, and skin that looked as though it had been stretched across his face only to be folded back into itself the wrong way. Sparrow resisted the sudden urge to cringe at the scarecrow-like wraith before her.

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“You’re the one with the dreaming?” The doctor asked, curiosity seeping into his voice as he pulled himself upright. Limbs crackling like dead saplings as he went. 

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Sparrow nodded and the doctor slipped back into his house, gesturing for her to follow. The door clattered shut behind her at the flick of his surprisingly nimble wrist. He picked his way through the clutter of his own foyer, always bent at the waist as though he was a puppet controlled by a neglectful puppeteer.

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“H-How do you know about my dreams, Doctor?” Sparrow asked, not daring to delve deep into the chasm of the foyer.

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The doctor turned around, a corked flask in hand and a crooked smile on his face. “Word travels fast ‘round the Barrow Miss Sparrow.” He said it in the singsong way wraiths always paired her name with their home, but the unyielding rasp in his voice made Sparrow tremble as he slipped the glass into her outstretched hand. 

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“Besides,” He added, staring right into her pitch eyes with a leering grin, “you know the prophecy. The harbinger of evil who dreams of good will be the end of us all.”