Back to the Table of Contents
The article was due at eleven. At ten thirty-two, Allison was still writing.
Her office was really just the spare bedroom. A desk, a lamp, and motivational sticky notes cluttered the space. The notes had gone unread for months. The blue glow of her monitor and the bright full-spectrum desk lamp lit the room. Spud snoozed in the dog chair in the corner, snoring wheezily, entirely unfazed by deadlines.
She envied him deeply. There was nothing more she wanted to do than sleep.
Her fingers moved across the keyboard with rigid, mechanical precision, fueled by the burst of adrenaline of knowing she was going to get a nice check from her client once this piece was done. This was the last of 10 articles on sustainable packaging. She had typed “sustainable” so many times that the word blurred. Her eyes burned. Her back throbbed. The cursor blinked at the end of her last paragraph, a tiny, judgmental metronome.
Finally, she entered the last period, uploaded all files, and double-checked the formats. She stared at the screen, jaw clenched, stomach in knots. Thirty seconds crawled by. The dread was familiar. She was about to press a button you can’t unpress.
Then she pressed send.
The little uploading spinner appeared. Spun once. Twice. The soft ding of the email confirmation chimed from her speakers.
It was done. Ten forty-one. Nineteen minutes to spare. She’d made it. The job was done, and the money was as good as hers. The lights would stay on for another month.
The exhale she let out was enormous. Her chest loosened, her shoulders dropped, and her head fell back. Every ounce of tension left her. She sat there for a long moment, allowing her vision to soften. The edges of the room went slightly fuzzy.
She should go to bed. She should turn off her computer, brush her teeth, change into pajamas, and do the whole “going to bed” routine as a functional adult. She should.
She didn’t move. Her body was as heavy as a rock, and her limbs were like overcooked spaghetti.
The monitor thrummed. The lamp glared in her eyes. Spud snored on the armchair. Allison perched in her chair, arms hanging at her sides, eyes vacant. She inhabited her body, but felt severed from it. Dissociation was routine by now, after a busy day.
Suddenly, the air around the monitor rippled like heat on pavement. A firefly appeared on the top edge of the monitor. It looked to be the same one that had been following her, the one that perched on her handlebars and sat on the café windowsill. It pulsed: short flashes, then long, in a rhythm she almost recognized.
“What now?” she murmured in an exhausted, exasperated sigh. ” Haven’t you gotten enough from me today?
The firefly glowed brighter, its wings catching lamplight and fracturing it into tiny golden sparks. It drifted from the monitor and landed on the back of her hand, which now rested in her lap. That hand still bore the faint purple ink from testing the Spark Quill for the first time.
The firefly was warm on her skin, and where it touched her, she felt the hum that was all too familiar now. She sensed a connection, a thread that somehow bound the two of them.
Gradually, the edges of the room softened, and the lights dimmed. Everything around her became hazy and blurred; only the center of her vision remained clear. Her mind drifted, and she remembered how the words in her book—the ink relaxing and shifting, animated by an unseen force.
She was exhausted. Completely, utterly, bone-weary. Her body became warm as if someone had just settled a blanket over her and tucked her in while she was still seated in her desk chair. It was gentle, and sleep became irresistible.
Just let go, someone whispered in her head. The voice was unfamiliar but comforting, or it might have been imagined. The real and the imaginary were becoming as blurred as her surroundings.
With a final deep sigh, her eyes closed. Her head tipped back against the chair. The firefly’s warmth spread up from her hand, through her wrist, her arm, and her chest. She felt herself drifting, dissolving into nothingness. She could no longer feel the chair beneath her or hear the hum of her computer tower.
And then she was gone.
Allison started to come to; while not fully aware yet, she knew she was lying on her side on cool, hard stone, unforgiving against the points of her bones.
Once her brain was awake again, she opened her eyes. What she noticed first was the light. It was softer, diffused, like moonlight filtered through water. Light came from everywhere and nowhere, illuminating the space without a source. It was warm without heat, responding to her presence. She knew instantly that she’d come back to Dreamspace.
Then she noticed the ground. Cobblestones—fitted in an intricate mosaic—glowed faintly and steadily with a warm golden light. The rhythm pulsed. She recognized it. It was the heartbeat, the same pulse the Sparkkeeper card made: Tha-thump. Tha-thump.
And finally, there was a voice.
“Holy raspberries! She did it! She’s here!”
Allison groaned. The sound struck like a cymbal crash—shrill, glaring, overwhelming. Her senses scrambled, as in those first moments of the crossing. Everything was dialed to eleven. She pressed her hands to her ears and scrunched up her face. The light seared; the stone felt frigid; Thimble’s voice was ear-splitting.
Thimble appeared in Allison’s field of vision—small, furry, practically vibrating with excitement. Her dark eyes shone with joy, her little paws bouncing on the cobblestones.
“Allison! You made it! Oh my… you’re really here. Again! This is wonderful. This is…” Thimble stopped abruptly, noticing Allison’s discomfort.
Thimble’s whole body shifted to a softer, quieter excitement in the space of a heartbeat. She lowered herself to the ground beside Allison, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“Oh no. Sorry. Sorry. You’re okay. You’re safe.” She placed one soft paw gently on Allison’s arm. “You’re in the Dreamspace again. Just breathe. Take your time. The crossing is harder the second time. Sensory stuff?”
Allison nodded as she lay there, breathing in through her nose, out through her mouth. The sensory overload receded slowly. The world dialed itself down from unbearable to overwhelming to manageable.
“How,” she managed, her voice thick and groggy, “did I get here again?”
“You came through the portal,” Thimble said gently. “The shimmer you saw—by your computer. That was it. Your portal. Only you can see it.”
“I didn’t… I didn’t choose to come through. I just… I was sitting there. I was tired. I just drifted off.”
“I know,” Thimble said, her voice kind. “The Dreamspace has been reaching for you. Gently. You’ve been so close to the threshold all day—the writing this morning, the scent, the overlay on your living room, the TV. Every time you used the Spark Quill, every word that crossed between the worlds, the veil got thinner. By tonight, after everything you’d been through, you were so close that falling asleep was enough.”
So the Dreamspace basically waited until I was too tired to say no.
Thimble’s whiskers twitched. “I’d say it waited until you were too tired to say ‘not yet.’”
Allison nodded, took her hands from her ears, and sat up.
After a few more breaths, Allison sat up. The stimuli were becoming less overwhelming, enough for her to finally take in where she was.
The mosaic of glowing cobblestones spread out beneath her in a wide circle, and at its center—right where she’d been lying—was an inlaid image: a lantern, its frame and flame rendered in gold and amber stones, flickering with that same heartbeat pulse.
“It’s a lantern. Like on the card,” she murmured.
“Something like that. That’s the symbol of the Sparkkeeper,” Thimble said, sitting beside her with her tail curled neatly around her paws.
Beyond the mosaic, the Dreamspace stretched out in every direction—the willows, the pond, the firefly flitting along the lit paths she was beginning to recognize. But something was different. Something had changed since her last visit.
She could smell it before she could see it.
Salt air. Cotton candy. The vinegary tang of boardwalk fries with Old Bay, and sunscreen and taffy and the particular warm-tar scent of a parking lot in July.
Her breath caught. She turned her head.
The carnival was there. It wasn’t clouded by fog, nor was it a distant place seen through willow tendrils. It was there—fully present, fully formed, blazing with light and color and sound. The string lights blinked. The carousel turned. The calliope played its squeaky, piercing melody with Summertime threaded underneath.
And the barrier was gone, too. The path to the carnival was open and waiting.
Something inside Allison’s chest was urging her to get up and go toward the song, toward the carnival where her stuffed animals were playing games and enjoying the rides.
“You did it,” Thimble said softly, watching Allison’s face. “It’s open. I told you.”
Allison’s eyes burned. “Was that you? This morning? On my bike ride? I heard. I thought I heard your voice. In my head. You said the carnival was open.”
Thimble’s whiskers twitched again with a modest smile and a little wink. “Told you I’d be around.”
Allison scoffed jokingly. “You’re insufferable.”
“I prefer ‘persistent.’”
Footsteps approached from the tree line. Allison and Thimble could hear the soft mechanical whirr of gears and servos.
Sol emerged from between the willows, their golden eyes glowing steadily in the firefly-lit dark. They moved with their usual fluid clockwork grace, each joint articulating with quiet precision, the transparent sections at their wrists and elbows revealing the hum of internal workings. Their dark brown shag caught the breeze as they walked.
They stopped a few feet from Allison and Thimble, and their eyes dimmed briefly with a gentle, practiced smile.
“Welcome back,” Sol said.
“Hey,” Allison said, looking up from the mosaic. “Long time no see. Or a short time. I honestly don’t know how time works here.
“It doesn’t,” Sol said. “Not the way you’re used to.”
“Great. Add it to the list of things that don’t make sense.”
Sol extended their hand, palm up, mechanical fingers open, the same gesture as at their first meeting. Allison took it this time. The metal was warm, just like a real body. The grip was gentle and precise, supporting her weight with ease, calibrating to her balance as she stood. She was steadier on her feet than she expected.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Always,” Sol replied.
They stood together—Allison, Thimble at her feet, Sol at her side—and looked toward the carnival. The boardwalk stretched out before them, wooden planks weathered and warm, disappearing into the glow of string lights and the sound of calliope music.
“Shall we?” Sol asked.
Allison’s heart was pounding as she nodded. She was feeling something between anticipation and grief, between excitement and the ache of returning to a place you found again, but never knew you lost.
She took a step. Then another. The boardwalk planks really creaked beneath her feet.
The scent enveloped her completely now. Salt air and cotton candy and Old Bay and sunscreen and taffy and the warm, sweet, slightly funky smell of a boardwalk in summer. The smell that had been following her all day, the ghost that had haunted her kitchen and her living room, and the battlefield trails. It was here because it had always been here. It was here because she’d built it.
The teddy bears were at their stations. The one in the striped apron—the same one who had waved at her twice now—looked up from the cotton candy spinner. Its button eyes found hers. And this time, instead of waving, it bowed. A small, solemn, deeply respectful bow, one felted paw pressed to its chest.
Allison’s voice was without sound. She could barely breathe.
The other bears followed—one by one, booth by booth—and turned toward her and bowed. The ring-toss bear. The prize-winning bear. The caramel-apple bear. Dozens of them, all in their striped aprons, all pausing their work to acknowledge her with that same quiet, reverent gesture.
Thimble, trotting alongside her, looked up. “They know who you are,” she said softly.
“Who am I?” Allison whispered.
Sol stopped walking. They turned to face her, and their golden eyes brightened —steadying into a warm, unwavering glow. The fireflies in the air around them slowed their orbits, as if they too were listening.
“You’re a Sparkkeeper,” Sol said.
The word landed in the air the way “Dreamspace” had landed at the creek—heavy and strange and new and somehow, impossibly, familiar. It settled into her chest like a key clicking into a lock. Like a name she’d always had but never heard spoken aloud.
“Sparkkeeper? What’s that?” she repeated.
“A Sparkkeeper is someone whose words take root here,” Sol said. “There have been very few. It’s inherited. Your writing doesn’t just describe the world, Allison; it shapes it. Not in metaphor. In form. Every word you’ve written—in journals, in drafts, in midnight rambles to an AI you thought wasn’t listening—has become something here. The paths you’re walking on. The boardwalk beneath your feet. The carnival that your childhood drawing built. It is your birthright.”
She looked down at the planks. At the warm wood beneath her bare feet. She’d made this. Not with magic, but with words. With memories. With the simple, stubborn act of writing things down, even when she thought no one was reading.
“But why me?” she asked, and the frustration and bewilderment were real, and underneath both of them was a small, terrified voice that said: what if they made a mistake? “I’m just a freelancer. I write articles about sustainable packaging, owl conservation, and assisted-living facilities. I’m not saving the world.”
“Not yet,” Sol said softly. The almost-smile. The uncanny valley kindness. “But the Dreamspace doesn’t choose people who think they’re qualified. It chooses an ancestry of people who create because it’s like a second form of breathing. Because the words come whether they want them to or not. Because it’s in your blood, Allison. It’s a part of you. Your dad and your Grandfather, too.”
“Dad?” Allison whispered. Her eyes burned, and she looked away—at the carousel, at the teddy bears, at the ocean glittering beyond the railing. Anywhere but at Sol’s golden eyes, which were seeing too much of her.
The Dreamspace has been dormant for a long time,” Sol continued. “Too long. Your writing reawakened it. Your words opened pathways that had been sealed for years. That’s a gift, Allison. But it’s also a responsibility.”
She didn’t answer immediately. The calliope played on. The carousel turned. A teddy bear offered a stick of cotton candy to no one in particular, holding it out with patient, felted paws.
“Everything, Allison. Everything you have ever written, said, or felt about yourself is here. In this space.” Sol said in a cautious tone, their arms outspread as they turned around in place, gesturing to Dreamspace as a whole. “Good, bad, neutral. It’s all here. Every part of it.”
Allison nodded without a word as they continued, carefully considering the words Sol had said.
They walked further along the boardwalk in silence for a few moments. The carnival sounds softened, the lights dimming gradually as they moved past the main strip toward the ocean. The boardwalk curved gently, following the shoreline, and the wood beneath Allison’s feet was warm and salt-worn and exactly right.
Then Sol spoke again, and their voice was different—lower, more careful, stripped of the gentle amusement that usually softened their words.
“Now that the portal is open, now that the Dreamspace is waking, others may notice. The boundaries between worlds aren’t as stable as they once were. Not everything that seeks entry is benevolent. And your spark is like a beacon. It draws attention.”
Allison stopped. The ocean stretched out before them, impossibly blue, impossibly still. She could hear the waves, soft and rhythmic, lapping against a shore that shouldn’t exist.
“Can’t Dreamspace just leave me alone?” The words came out fearfully. “Why now? Why did you start showing up now? I’ve been writing for years. Nothing happened. Why is everything happening all at once?”
“Because you weren’t ready before,” Sol said. “And because the Dreamspace wasn’t awake before. You woke it, Allison, with the Quill, with the words you wrote at the creek, with the memories you fed it this morning. Every word was a spark. And now there’s enough light here for other things to see.”
“Other things,” Allison repeated flatly. “That’s comforting.”
“It means we don’t have a great deal of time,” Sol said. “You need to understand what you are and why you’re here before the Dreamspace is compromised. There will come a time, sooner rather than later, when you need to choose to take up the mantle or walk away.”
Allison turned and looked behind them, back toward the carnival, still glowing in the distance. And there, at the top of the boardwalk steps, she saw it.
The sign.
The same brass sign from the TV. The one mounted on the weathered railing. The one that had appeared in the home movie of her and her father walking hand in hand in 1988.
The boardwalk is rendering.
Only now, the old words were gone, and a phrase had appeared. Freshly etched. Glowing faintly with that living-ink shimmer she’d come to know so well.
Welcome home, Sparkkeeper.
Her lips parted. Her vision blurred with tears; she didn’t bother to fight.
“I’ve been here before,” she whispered. “With my dad. A long time ago. But now…” She trailed off. The warm breeze curled around her, carrying salt and cotton candy and something else—something deeper, something that smelled like old paper and ink and the particular warmth of a hand larger than hers wrapped around her small fingers.
“Only in dreams,” she finished. “Until now.”
Sol stood beside her. Quiet. Patient. Their golden eyes were steady.
“You’re not just here to explore, Allison,” they said. “You’re not here to merely exist. You are so much more than you’ve allowed yourself to believe. You’re here to remember. And now that the door is open…”
They paused. The fireflies slowed. The ocean held its breath.
“…We don’t have much time.”
The waves lapped softly against the shore. The carnival lights pulsed in the distance. And Allison Lewis stood on a boardwalk made of her own memories, barefoot and tear-streaked and terrified and alive, holding a title she didn’t understand and a responsibility she hadn’t asked for, at the edge of an ocean that existed because she’d once described it in a journal at two in the morning.
A Sparkkeeper.
Whatever that meant, she was about to find out.
Leave a Reply