Sleepside: The Collected Fantasies by Greg Bear Read Free Book Online

know your mom doesn’t approve of all that fairy-tale stuff,” he said.
    â€œThen no fairy tales. Just a story.”
    â€œI’m out of practice, son,” he confided. He looked very sad. “Your mom says we should concentrate on things that are real and not waste our time with make-believe. Life’s hard. I may have to sell the farm, you know, and work for that feed-mixer in Mitchell.”
    I went to bed and felt like crying. A whole lot of my family had died that night, I didn’t know exactly how, or why. But I was mad.
    I didn’t go to school the next day. During the night I’d had a dream, which came so true and whole to me that I had to rush to the stand of cottonwoods and tell the old people. I took my lunch box and walked rapidly down the road.
    They weren’t there. On a piece of wire bradded to the biggest tree they’d left a note on faded brown paper. It was in a strong feminine hand, sepia-inked, delicately scribed with what could have been a goose-quill pen. It said: “We’re at the old Hauskopf farm. Come if you must.”
    Not “Come if you can.” I felt a twinge. The Hauskopf farm, abandoned fifteen years ago and never sold, was three miles farther down the road and left on a deep-rutted fork. It took me an hour to get there.
    The house still looked deserted. All the white paint was flaking, leaving dead gray wood. The windows stared. I walked up the porch steps and knocked on the heavy oak door. For a moment I thought no one was going to answer. Then I heard what sounded like a gust of wind, but inside the house, and the old woman opened the door. “Hello, boy,” she said. “Come for more stories?”
    She invited me in. Wildflowers were growing along the baseboards, and tiny roses peered from the brambles that covered the walls. A quail led her train of inch-and-a-half fluffball chicks from under the stairs, into the living room. The floor was carpeted, but the flowers in the weave seemed more than patterns. I could stare down and keep picking out detail for minutes. “This way, boy,” the woman said. She took my hand. Hers was smooth and warm, but I had the impression it was also hard as wood.
    A tree stood in the living room, growing out of the floor and sending its branches up to support the ceiling. Rabbits and quail and a lazy-looking brindle cat stared at me from tangles of roots. A wooden bench surrounded the base of the tree. On the side away from us, I heard someone breathing. The old man poked his head around and smiled at me, lifting his long pipe in greeting. “Hello, boy,” he said.
    â€œThe boy looks like he’s ready to tell us a story, this time,” the woman said.
    â€œOf course, Meg. Have a seat, boy. Cup of cider for you? Tea? Herb biscuit?”
    â€œCider, please,” I said.
    The old man stood and went down the hall to the kitchen. He came back with a wooden tray and three steaming cups of mulled cider. The cinnamon tickled my nose as I sipped.
    â€œNow. What’s your story?”
    â€œIt’s about two hawks,” I said, and then hesitated.
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œBrother hawks. Never did like each other. Fought for a strip of land where they could hunt.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œFinally, one hawk met an old crippled bobcat that had set up a place for itself in a rockpile. The bobcat was learning itself magic so it wouldn’t have to go out and catch dinner, which was awful hard for it now. The hawk landed near the bobcat and told it about his brother, and how cruel he was. So the bobcat said, ‘Why not give him the land for the day? Here’s what you can do.’ The bobcat told him how he could turn into a rabbit, but a very strong rabbit no hawk could hurt.”
    â€œWily bobcat,” the old man said, smiling.
    â€œâ€˜You mean, my brother wouldn’t be able to catch me?’ the hawk asked. ‘Course not,’ the bobcat said.