"I must be," the newly dubbed Peter said skeptically, watching as the dust floated into the wind. The air grew still around them once more and a thrill shot up Rosamund's spine. There was something familiar about this. The only other word she had from the fairy was that if something was familiar it was good. To follow it with all her might.
"Peter." Rosamund tested the name on her tongue. He watched her lips form the word and it became sweeter to him than it had been a minute ago. "What are you painting?"
"I don't know that either. I just keep painting the pictures that I see in my head."
"May I see them?"
He gave a nod and went back to what he was doing. The brush fluttered and stippled across the bottom of the canvas. Rosamund wondered if he had just appeared here with a full art supply in tow. She came around his shoulder and her heart leaped into her throat.
The painting was sharp and clear in the center, the edges gradually got hazier as they spread towards the end of the canvas. The center of the painting was a drawbridge and standing at it was a woman with long blonde hair, a serene but melancholy look on her face.
Her eyes were closed, and her hand was on the lever of the gate, lowering the spiked grate in front of her. As the castle expanded towards the edges of the painting, green and brown ivy, spiked with thorns wound through every window and across every surface, all reaching in towards the woman.
"It looks like you. That's why I asked if you were her."
Rosamund reached out to touch the figure, but he gently caught her wrist in his free hand.
"The paint is still wet." Rosamund didn't know when he had begun talking in such a soft whisper.
"I don't know this place..." She matched his volume, unable to take her eyes off of the figure in the painting.
"I don't know it either. But it's all I can see when I close my eyes or when I fall asleep."
"Fall asleep?" Rosamund's brows knit together.
"Yes, when I dream."
This stranger was stranger than Rosamund had first suspected he would be. He went back to his painting, defining some of the thorns reaching for the woman.
She shuddered looking at them. What did he mean dream? Rosamund knew that she was in a dream world, but that realization didn't always feel like the truth until she remembered the strangest thing about the Dreamland.
No one here slept. There was no sleep in this world.
"I don't know anyone else who sleeps," Rosamund admitted honestly. She wasn't sure how much she should give away to this mysterious new friend. "No one here has slept in over one hundred years."
"Aren't you all tired?"
"No, not at all! We're actually the better for it."
"Maybe that's why Sister Adelaide said they thought that I was dead when they found me."
"Where did they find you?"
"On the bank of the river, I was covered in the water, so no one came near to wake me up until it dried. Everyone here say's its poisoned but it didn't seem to hurt me." He paused and added a few more splashes of brown, then dipped the brush into the white on his palette and used his thumb to flick stars into the dark ominous sky above the castle. They were so tiny, but somehow even that small addition gave her hope.
"You're a curious man, Peter."
It was then that he smiled at her. It was disarming and lopsided and left her feeling weightless, like she could walk up into the clouds. He pushed his brown hair out of his eyes, leaving a smudge of white on his cheek.
"I don't know what sort of man I am, but a curious one doesn't sound bad. I could live with that." He turned back to admire his handiwork on the canvas. Rosamund couldn't deny that it felt...grounded. More real than any of the art in any of the homes that she had visited. She had a silly thought that she wanted him to draw Puff.
"Where are you going to be staying, Peter?" Rosamund liked his name. The sounds that began with a soft pucker of her lips and ended with a flick of her tongue. It was a name she hadn't heard before here.
"Sister Adelaide said I could stay here. The church needs painting, and I could work. I get tired though. I feel tired now. I'm glad you came though." He looked between her and the woman in the painting. "You really do look like her. I hope you are her. I know she's important."
Rosamund smiled. The idea of being important to this strange man made a warmth burn in her chest. Her heart fluttered at the thought.
"I will let you get some...rest..." Rosamund said. Rest was the closest they got to sleeping in this world. It was just where one would sit or lean against something, and they would languidly daydream or count the sky kingdoms floating by until finally they didn't want to anymore.
Some rested longer than others but no one, no one slept. No one closed their eyes except to blink.
So when Peter, without thought to how it might look, laid down on one of the cushioned pews and shut his eyes, Rosamund stared unabashed.
He was beautiful. More beautiful than his thorny painting. The freckles across his nose looked like the dotted stars he had flicked into the night sky. His breathing became a soft steady rhythm and his body relaxed as he fell deeper into a sleep.
What did it mean to sleep in this world? To fall from one dream into another? Rosamund was almost tempted to try it herself, to see if she could see the visions he saw. She looked back toward the painting again and grimaced. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.
Puff was still outside; the sun was setting on the horizon and the first glimmers of sand were sparkling in the last rays of light. The sand was beautiful and every night it lifted up from the earth, the trees, the flowers, the buildings, and turned into skyward constellations that were always blown about by the cloud kingdoms that would breeze on by.
Tonight, the sand was telling a different story. There was a paint brush, there was a rose, there were thorns. Rosamund turned her eyes away from it.
It was so warm here. So safe. She looked at Puff with tears in her eyes that even she couldn't understand.
"Let's head home."
On her way home from the church that night, Rosamund decided to try something foolish...
After making herself comfortable, ready to watch the Sand Stories play out in the sky above her, instead she laid down in the grass beside the gnarled old tree that shaded her tiny home, and she closed her eyes.
At first, she just felt silly. What would someone think if they came up and saw her laying there?
But the longer she let the seconds pass the easier and easier it became to keep her eyes closed. She pictured the painting. Only in her mind's eye it was not a still picture. The vines and thorns were reaching and growing in towards where she stood on the drawbridge. The gates slammed closed with a sense of dark finality and the wind rustled her golden hair around her face.
It was frightening but still Rosamund refused to open her eyes. Even as the thorns reached towards her, tearing at her hair, her dress, until she looked up to the starlit sky and a—
Puff jumped on her just then, licking her face and whining in his sweet voice.
Rosamund sat up, tears on her cheeks, and scooped Puff into her arms. She buried her face in his sweet-smelling fur and with a shudder came back to—reality. It is reality, she thought firmly, even as she watched the aftereffects of the Sand Stories dancing on the edge of the horizon, pirate ships and mermaids made of shimmering golden dust fighting it out for the entertainment of those below.
Where do the stories come from? She decided she was better off not wondering anymore today and went inside with Puff where the two shared a quick and hearty breakfast of fresh mushrooms and scrambled eggs, with tart cheese and bread. She washed the meal down with a rich red fruit wine.
Mystery wasn't the only thing that Peter brought with him to Slumber. The next day the entire town was abuzz.
"How did he survive a dip in the river?"
"Is that why he couldn't remember anything?"
"Of course, there is no doubt something fundamentally wrong. One can't get poisoned without going a little wrong, I'm sure."
"We should ask Doctor Lyle about it."
"What does the doctor say?"
On and on and on the buzzing of the villagers rang in Rosamund's ears as she entered the town early the next morning. She was eager to get Sister Adelaide's opinion on the man and see if there were any new paintings to be looked over.