The Nightmare lashes out, sending Quill flying. It goes to squash you, but suddenly Tim has blinked beside you, moving you by half a meter to avoid the crushing weight of darkness. Quill leaps up behind it and brings two flaming fists down onto its back, but the Nightmare of darkness merely absorbs the flames and snuffs them out.
You keep moving, burrowing through the brambles and bushes of the Memory Bank as Tim and Quill fight to keep the impossibly black Nightmare off of you for long enough to find what you need.
There! Amid one bush is a berry glowing with warm, yellow light, and you can feel that, just like Mort’s trick with Cassidy’s Nightmare all that time ago, this is the key to weakening your foe. You reach down through the vines and snag the berry, and in an instant you are in a bedroom you recognise as Carmen’s, the nine-year-old receptive you are helping, yet nonetheless you feel as if the room is your own. Light spills from a night lamp by the bed, but that is not the source of warmth you detect. Instead, the sense of unbreachable safety you feel comes squarely from the voice of your mother as she sings you to sleep, her voice twirling through the air like yellow dancers.
You understand. Gently, you whisper to Carmen, knowing she can hear you. “I know the world can be scary sometimes. I know it’s terrifying to not know what’s in the places you can’t see. But that doesn’t mean you have to face them alone. Your family will always look out for you. You don’t have to be afraid of anything so long as you have them.”
You blink, and you are back in the Memory Bank, berry clutched in your hand. But now its glow has spread up your arm and through your body, infusing you with light, growing brighter and brighter. From nearby, you hear the Nightmare shriek in panic, its black tendrils burning up as your light touches it. It shrinks away, growing smaller and weaker, right as Quill winds back with an enlarged fist–
When you return to Breadspace, you can see Carmen is hugging both her parents. You smile at Quill and Tim, and silently the three of you rise to leave.
But just as you reach the front door, Carmen comes running up and hugs you fiercely from behind, her arms wrapped tightly around your waist. “Thank you,” she mumbles into your back. You laugh, and swivel around to hug her back.
“That’s one Americano, one Cappuccino, and two slices of carrot cake. Enjoy.”
You wipe your brow with your apron before taking it off and emerging from the kitchen into the café area, smiling at the drink-sipping patrons as you squeeze through their chairs. You walk through the well-organised bookshelves, nod to the author signing books at her desk (a big name one too! What luck you had in securing her for today), and wave to Jake, who now mans the front desk. They wave back, before starting to sort through a large pile of books an elderly gentleman would like to purchase.
Finally you get to the children’s corner and find your sister narrating a children’s book for the assembled crowd of awed toddlers and their grateful mothers. You watch her for a moment, enjoying the easy relaxation with which she reads, now a veteran of the kiddie hour she suggested you implement to get younger children interested in reading.
Once she finishes, you let the mothers collect up their toddlers, offering their thanks to your sister as they take their kids to explore the multi-coloured books surrounding them, then approach Calla, who is pulling on a coat and rucksack.
“Who needs help today?” you ask.
“Mehmet Onder,” answers Calla, “a Lawn Darts team captain. They want to visualise some new strategies and have asked us to check on their feasibility. I should be back before closing time to unload that new order of books.”
“Take your time,” you wave off. “I can get Jake to stay another twenty minutes to help, and Roshni will probably be back by then too.” You don’t fail to notice the glimmer of gratitude in Calla’s eyes. She pulled enough shifts getting the bookstore up to where it is now. You owe her a few nights out with friends. “Go on, have fun.”
Calla pulls you in for a hug, then departs, waving goodbye. As the door tinkles shut, you feel something soft pressing insistently at your thighs. You look down at your shoes, seeing the ginger face of Delphi the cat glancing up pleadingly.
Now, when Calla is here, you make a very careful point of complaining about the ginger hair everywhere, and the disturbances in the night, and the smell of the cat food. But now that Calla has gone…
“Awww, did Cawwa not give you enough wuve this morning?”
“Meow,” affirms Delphi.
Bending down to scoop up the not-so-little kitten, you turn and head deeper into the bookshop Calla has helped to ensure resembles your dream a little more every day, crooning into Delphi’s belly as she purrs contently all the way.