Gossamer

Thin Elderly recognizes his student’s cleverness and creativity as positive traits. As Littlest One’s training continues, she learns more about the woman who owns their assigned house. For example, touching the dishes the woman inherited from her mother reveals a memory of a time when her mother indulged her refusal to eat her vegetables.

In another colony, a dream-giver named Strapping is assigned to a sad woman who lives in a dilapidated apartment and chain-smokes. The assignment is meant to be a punishment for inattentiveness and complaining, but Strapping grows fond of the woman and scrounges up positive memories so that he can give her pleasant dreams. Dream-givers are taught that dishes are a good place to gather happy memories, but the woman’s dishes contain “fear fragments that involved smashing and breaking, tears and threats” (38). He often returns to a chipped seashell that contains some of the woman’s happiest memories, and he strains to gather as many details from the object as possible. One night, he learns that a boy named John found the shell. The woman cries out the boy’s name in her sleep in a voice that suggests she has suffered “a terrible loss” (41).

John takes an instant dislike to the woman when he arrives because she calls him Johnny, but he’s learned how to hide his feelings behind an expressionless mask. The furnishings of her home look ugly and old-fashioned to him, and he’s annoyed to see that she doesn’t own a television. When he pokes at the piano’s keys, the woman says that she used to give music lessons and offers to teach him, but he responds with a shrug. He corrects her when she calls him by the nickname again, and she apologizes and calls him John. He’s had negative experiences at his previous foster placements, including being hit by adults and bullied by other children. As a result, he expects the woman to hit him and try to make him cry.

Toby shies away from John, and the boy likes this reaction because instilling fear gives him a feeling of power. The woman gives him a biscuit for Toby and then goes to say goodbye to the social worker who brought John. While she’s distracted, John offers the biscuit to the dog and then pulls it away. He puts the biscuit in his pocket so that he can continue toying with Toby’s trust later.

Unlike dream-givers, Sinisteeds have no rules and rarely need to sleep. The merciless equine entities select John as a target. Most Ancient calls a meeting and warns the Heap that the Sinisteeds are on the prowl and may converge on a single victim as a Horde. This calamity occurs so rarely that he is the only one in the colony old enough to remember the last time it happened. Other dream-givers have detected ominous signs as well, such as nightmares and scorch marks in their assigned houses. Particularly strong dream-givers, such as the muscular Trooper and the formidable Dowager, can ward off a Sinisteed, and Most Ancient encourages the members of his colony to be vigilant and ask for backup as needed. As the dream-givers disperse to begin their work for the night, Littlest One whispers, “Sinisteeeeed.” Thin Elderly shakes his head at her, and she nervously holds onto his hand as they leave the Heap.

John complains about the lack of television and video games in the woman’s house, and he threatens to run away when she suggests that they read or play board games together. She tells him that she won’t force him to stay, reminds him that it’s storming, and encourages him to spend the night so that he can have “a nice dinner and a warm bed” (51). He agrees to stay because she has meatloaf and ice cream, and he begrudgingly suggests that they play a card game called “war” together.

Thin Elderly and Littlest One hide in a hallway as a Sinisteed approaches their assigned house. Thin Elderly explains that Sinisteeds burn entrances into homes with their scorching breath, and he tells his student that they have no choice but to let the menacing creature inflict a nightmare on one of the humans because they are not strong enough to fight it. Littlest One heard the boy crying earlier in the night, so she hopes that the Sinisteed will spare him. The Sinisteed looks like a massive horse with bloodshot eyes and a filthy coat, and it goes into John’s room without paying any heed to the dream-givers. Its hissing breath envelops the sleeping boy’s head like steam, and then it leaves with a triumphant whinny. Thin Elderly hopes to undo the damage with a calming dream, but he’s too late. The sleeping boy cries out, “Don’t let him get me!” (57). The two dream-givers dissolve into invisibility as the woman hurries down the hall. She awakens the boy from his nightmare and reassures him that he’s safe. To soothe him back to sleep, she takes inspiration from the pink seashell he brought with him and tells him a story about a beautiful day at the beach. Thin Elderly urges Littlest One, “Gather your best fragments. We must strengthen him” (58).

The morning after the Sinisteed gives him a nightmare, John complains about the cereal the woman gives him for breakfast, so she makes him toast instead. He asks her about the framed photograph of a soldier she keeps on the piano. She explains that the man was a friend of hers when she was very young and that he died in France during the war. During this conversation, John asks purposely hurtful questions, such as whether the man grew to hate her or was murdered. He says that he knows someone who was murdered, expresses interest in acquiring a gun, and kicks Toby when the woman isn’t looking. Their conversation shifts to the dog, and the woman says that Toby still has several years left to live and that she will always want him. John takes a dimmer view, suggesting that she beats the dog when he misbehaves and that one day he’ll make her so angry that she’ll “give him to some jerk with no TV” (63).