The Chestnut King: Book 3 of the 100 Cupboards by N. D. Wilson Read Free Book Online

were eaten by dandelions. I can tell you no more than that.”
    Henry was confused. “How do I know when a dream means something?”
    His father sighed. “Men rattle bones and bathe in smoke and blink at the stars, hoping for an answer to that question. I will tell you some part of what I know.” Mordecai turned and leaned his side against the wall. “Some dreamings are visions, pictures rooted in reality as it is or as it could be. Your dreams tonight may be of this sort. Others are nothing more than the imaginings of a wandering,uncontrolled mind and are built on exhaustion or wine or overspiced meats. These, too, may have some role in your restless nights.”
    The raggant snored, and his head dipped and sank. Mordecai, smiling, reached in front of Henry and grabbed the loose skin between the animal’s wings, kneading it slowly. A long, low, sputtering groan rumbled in the creature’s chest, and it seemed to go limp, wobbling in enjoyment. Henry wondered if it would fall.
    Still kneading, Mordecai continued. “A dream-walker may study visions of their own, or, if they are strong, they may enter the visions or sausage dreams of another mind. If they do, their own mind tends to meddle and interfere.” Mordecai rubbed the raggant’s ribs, sliding thick skin over the bony washboard, and then he slapped the animal’s side and straightened. “Most difficult, Henry, is what you did in the faeren mound. You dream-walked free of your body around the waking world, listening to the conversations of traitors, and leaving a weed sprouting from the clay of a faerie wall. It is not your mind that wanders. It is your soul, and once wandering, it can be kept out. It is dangerous but powerful. You should not try it again, not unless another danger is greater.”
    Henry shivered once more, and this time, his teeth clacked sharply together before he muffled them with his lips.
    “A cloak?” Mordecai asked. He had none and seemed unaffected by the wind or its bite.
    Henry shook his head and stepped closer to his father, hoping for a shadow in the breeze.
    “I must leave again,” Mordecai said suddenly. “Tonight. I cannot wait for the witch to play her hand. But I will speak to my mother. She will watch your dreams.”
    “What can Grandmother do?” Henry asked.
    Mordecai filled his lungs and slowly released his breath back into the night. “Your grandmother’s eyes are not blind. Her mind is not addled. For twelve years, she sent her soul searching for her son, every night while she slept.” He paused. “In the end, she found me in my prison sleep. She struggled to worm into my walled mind, and she succeeded, but only by tearing away from her own. Your grandmother found me, but could tell no one. She wandered too far, and there are rifts between soul and body that cannot be healed. She stayed with me. I returned, but she could not. She stays with me still. When her eyes are closed, they see. She will be with you now, my son, and she is a true comfort when the night’s mares come calling.” He put his hand on Henry’s head and let it slide down to his shoulder. “A quieter time will come. I would learn your game. I would walk with you in that other world. But now, Caleb and I must hunt on.” He looked down at Henry. “I may miss your birthday. Thirteen next week’s end.”
    “It doesn’t feel like my birthday. I always thought I was born right after Christmas.”
    Reaching down the neck of his shirt, Mordecai lifted something over his head. He held it out in the moonlightfor Henry to see. A polished metal square twisted slowly on the end of a thick string. Diagonal notches had been cut into the square’s corners.
    “The leather thong is from a common cow. As for the rest”—he slipped it over Henry’s head—“the shard is the last remaining piece of a sword carried by the Old King, and after his sleep, carried by our family through the wars of generations. With it, your grandfather took the witch’s eyes