Julia often talks in her sleep, and usually, her words are laced with worry. She speaks things in her dreams that she is afraid to say while conscious. She is quiet, prefers to keep to herself, which is something I’ve always understood, because I was quite the same way. When she was younger, she was the most precocious, talkative child I had ever known, but she’s much more tentative now, as if she no longer believes that her thoughts have worth. I want to soothe her, but that would break the first rule of the Sleepbringers: once the human is asleep, we must make our exit. Quickly, I leave the way I came, but I can’t bring myself to move on to my other charges right away. I sit on a branch and attempt to find her form in the darkened room, but all I can see is my reflection in the glass.
“Hello, my pet,” a voice breathes, tickling my ear.
“Good evening, Chimere,” I whisper. I don’t need to turn to know that it is my mentor. A hundred years has bred a familiarity I didn’t know possible. She is that beautiful young woman I spoke about—well, if one could call her a woman; she is not human, either. Though, the difference between us is that she never has been and never will be. I’ve almost come to take for granted that she will forever be in my life. It’s hard to believe that in another few weeks, I will never see her again.
Chimere peers through the window. “Ah! Of course. This one shall be the hardest for you to part with, no doubt.”
“What makes you say that?” I ask, finally looking at her. She carefully adjusts her white petticoats and absently begins to braid her waist-length black hair. It’s one of her most endearing habits.
She smiles at me, her eyes saying, Must you even ask? “You two have been through much together.”
“That’s of no importance. It’s not as though she realizes that,” I mutter darkly.
“It matters to you, though, does it not? I can always guess where to find you. Most often when I come to check on you, you’re in this very spot.”
I don’t answer. Perhaps I was spending a few extra moments outside Julia’s bedroom, but I hardly felt it noticeable.
She smiles again. “It’s not at all unexpected. This one replaced your beloved, after all.”
I hitch a shoulder. Yes, Gertie was the girl I loved when I was seventeen, though it’s hard to think of her as that. “Beloved” would suggest a closeness I hadn’t achieved with the choirgirl from my church. In fact, we had never touched, or even spoken to one another. I firmly doubt she even knew my name. We only exchanged glances and smiles back and forth across the pews at St. Ann’s Church every Sunday for a year. Before the accident, I’d made plans to ask her to the church social. Since then, I’ve spent a hundred years regretting not following through with those plans. “Beloved” sounds rather presumptuous.
That is one of the reasons I agreed to join Chimere; Chimere had told me that if I joined her for “a spell” and served her well, I could continue my life as a human. She said that every one of us Sandmen had unfinished business, and I was certain that Gertie was mine. She also told me that if I became a Sandman, I could lull dear Gertie to sleep every night. Yes, I could be closer to her than I ever had been as a human. But time passes quickly among our people, and I had no inkling that the “spell” Chimere spoke of was equal to a lifetime in human years. When Gertie died at the age of ninety-six, after being married to another (almost too much for me to bear) and having many children and grandchildren, I mourned her as if she were my beloved, despite my being little more than a glimmer in her vast scrapbook of memories. But I accepted it. After all, that is what we Sleepbringers must learn to do: put the safety and happiness of our charges ahead of our own. It was enough to see her living a good life, even without me in it.
After Gertie’s passing, I was given Julia. She was only a baby when I first met her, a smiling, redheaded little bundle who much preferred chewing on the railing of her crib to my visits.
Chimere says, “Our people always seem to have a fondness for the one who takes our beloved’s place.”
In body, Chimere is only sixteen. But she has thousands of years of wisdom about the Sandmen, enough that I sometimes think of her as a mother hen. I can never argue with her logic. “Yes, I suppose.”
“Well, are you ready?” she says, pouting.
In a few weeks, my obligation to the Sleepbringers will be fulfilled, and I will be able to continue the life I left a hundred years ago. In truth, though I am excited, I am a wreck about the whole thing. Among the countless other worries, I imagine that the world has changed quite a bit since I left it.
“I suppose. Was my replacement called up?”
She nods. “Yes. He agreed. And he is Julia’s beloved, so I think it will work nicely.”
I can’t help bristling. Julia has a beloved? Most often, I learn these things through the dreams of my charges, but Julia has never dreamt consistently enough of one person for me to think she has a special attachment. Julia doesn’t dream often, and when she does, she is usually alone. She dreams of places, of mountainous buildings of steel and glass. Julia is much different from the rest of the women I’ve been charged with. Like me, she feels more content among beautiful works of architecture than around people. I’ve always thought she’d be forever searching—like I was when I was alive—for a kindred spirit, one soul to understand her.
I think of the silver frame she’s holding, and her eyelids, sagging, I realize now, not so much from fatigue but from grief. Her beloved. “And when will I be expected to begin his training?”
“In time. He’s still getting accustomed to his new powers,” she explains.
I look back through the window, at Julia. It’s almost unbelievable that in another few months, I will no longer be in those dreams of hers, beside her, staring up at buildings whose roofs touch the moon. I will be human, like her, and yet she will not know me at all; the gap between us will be immeasurable. Insurmountable. “All right,” I say, trying to keep my nerves quelled.
“You are worried, no doubt, about the training?” Chimere asks, studying my eyes. “Do not be. It’s very rare that a replacement cannot fulfill his duties.”
“But it does happen,” I murmur.
“Well, yes … but so? It’s not as though this life has been all that torturous for you, has it?”
“Of course not, but after one hundred years of the same … it tends to be a bit …”
She grins. “Tedious. I have heard that before.”
“I have no idea how you’ve done it for so many thousands of years.”
“You forget. I was never human. Maybe it is that I do not know what I am missing,” she says. “You do want to be human, do you not? To finish that which has been left undone?”
“Of course. More than anything. Though I still do not know what my unfinished business is.”
“It will become clear to you, in time.” She clasps her hands together and inspects me. “Is there anything else troubling you? As you know, the further you proceed in your training of your replacement, the more human you will become. As he accepts your duties, you will gradually become human. At first you may be human for only a few minutes a day, but eventually that time will stretch, until you are completely human. It will take several days, but that is a positive thing. If you became human all at once, the transition would be a bit jarring, to say the least. After all, becoming human is not easy, nor is becoming a Sleepbringer.”
“Yes, I understand.” I smile. “If anything is troubling me, it is that I will miss you.”
“I’ll still see you. As before. In your dreams.” She blushes, and a slow smile spreads over her lips. “The elders and I will be sorry to see you go. You have served us quite well.”
Chimere is never stingy with her compliments, so I note with some consternation that she says “quite well” instead of “superbly,” or “outstandingly,” or “without fail.” That is the best I can hope for. Nearly a decade has passed, and yet one incident, one transgression, mars my record with Chimere. Originals have never been human, so Chimere doesn’t understand that if given the same chance, I would do things much the same. I suppose if a thousand years passed, she would still not forget it and still not understand.