Dreams Underfoot: A Newford Collection by Charles De Lint, John Jude Palencar Page B

backwards as she tried to get us to sing along.
    The rain started as a thin drizzle as were making our way through Crowsea’s narrow streets. Sam’s fingers tightened on my arm and Jilly stopped fooling around as we stepped into Henratty Lane, the rain coming down in earnest now. The ghost was just turning in the far end of the lane.
    “Geordie,” Sam said, her fingers tightening more.
    I nodded. We brushed by Jilly and stepped up our pace, aiming to connect with the ghost before he made his turn and started back towards Stanton Street.
    “This is not a good idea,” Jilly warned us, hurrying to catch up. But by then it was too late.
    We were right in front of the ghost. I could tell he didn’t see Sam or me and I wanted to get out of his way before he walked right through us—I didn’t relish the thought of having a ghost or a timeskip or whatever he was going through me. But Sam wouldn’t move. She put out her hand, and as her fingers brushed the wet tweed of his jacket, everything changed.
    The sense of vertigo was strong. Henratty Lane blurred. I had the feeling of time flipping by like the pages of a calendar in an old movie, except each page was a year, not a day. The sounds of the city around us—sounds we weren’t normally aware of—were no-ticeable by their sudden absence. The ghost jumped at Sam’s touch. There was a bewildered look in his eyes and he backed away. That sensation of vertigo and blurring returned until Sam caught him by the arm and everything settled down again. Quiet, except for the rain and a far-off voice that seemed to be calling my name.
    “Don’t be frightened,” Sam said, keeping her grip on the ghost’s arm. “We want to help you.”
    “You should not be here,” he replied. His voice was stiff and a little formal. “You were only a dream—nothing more. Dreams are to be savoured and remembered, not walking the streets.”

    Underlying their voices I could still hear the faint sound of my own name being called. I tried to ignore it, concentrating on the ghost and our surroundings. The lane was clearer than I remembered it—no trash littered against the walls, no graffiti scrawled across the bricks. It seemed darker, too. It was almost possible to believe that we’d been pulled back into the past by the touch of the ghost.
    I started to get nervous then, remembering what Jilly had told us. Into the past. What if we were in the past and we couldn’t get out again? What if we got trapped in the same timeskip as the ghost and were doomed to follow his routine each time it rained?
    Sam and the ghost were still talking but I could hardly hear what they were saying. I was thinking of Jilly. We’d brushed by her to reach the ghost, but she’d been right behind us. Yet when I looked back, there was no one there. I remembered that sound of my name, calling faintly across some great distance.
    I listened now, but heard only a vague unrecognizable sound. It took me long moments to realize that it was a dog barking.
    I turned to Sam, tried to concentrate on what she was saying to the ghost. She was starting to pull away from him, but now it was his hand that held her arm. As I reached forward to pull her loose, the barking suddenly grew in volume—not one dog’s voice, but those of hun-dreds, echoing across the years that separated us from our own time. Each year caught and sent on its own dog’s voice, the sound building into a cacophonous chorus of yelps and barks and howls.
    The ghost gave Sam’s arm a sharp tug and I lost my grip on her, stumbling as the vertigo hit me again. I fell through the sound of all those barking dogs, through the blurring years, until I dropped to my knees on the wet cobblestones, my hands reaching for Sam. But Sam wasn’t there.
    “Geordie?”
    It was Jilly, kneeling by my side, hand on my shoulder. She took my chin and turned my face to hers, but I pulled free.
    “Sam!” I cried.
    A gust of wind drove rain into my face, blinding me, but not