THE SANDMAN ☞ TRAVIS STOLL

THREE

JULY, 2016

    THE FIVE GREENWOOD GIRLS were everything a mother could wish for: intelligent, beautiful, funny, loving. Josslyn, Valerie, Eloise, Clara, and Noelle were Melissa Greenwood's pride and joy and the darlings of the Manhattan socialite scene.

    They did everything together. Despite the fact that it was heavily rumored that they all had different fathers—Josslyn, with her blonde hair and blue eyes, Valerie, brunette and brown eyed, Eloise and her tan skin and black hair, and the twins, freckled redheads with green eyes—there was nothing that separated them, except for death.

    It had started with the nightmares. Valerie had been having them her entire life, so often that they were more normal than good dreams. But when Noelle, the youngest of the five, started having night terrors and climbing into the beds of her older sisters in the middle of the night, Valerie knew something was wrong.

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    Hair tickled Valerie's nose, and a warm, sweaty hand gripped her own like a vice.

    "Val." A shaky, terrified whisper.

    Valerie found Noelle staring at her when she opened her eyes, the littlest Greenwood staring up at her with tears streaming down her face.

    "Hey, lady." Valerie said, using the pads of her fingers to wipe away Noelle's tears. "What's wrong? Did you have a bad dream?"

    Noelle sniffled and took a gasping breath. "There was a scary man in my room. He was screaming. And Clara didn't hear him. She didn't hear me. And I was gonna get Mama, but she would tell me I'm just dreaming." She spoke in a single stream of words, barely pausing to breathe. "And you're always in my dreams when I'm scared. You protect me from the bad dreams. But you weren't there."

    Heart sinking, Valerie wrapped her arms around her sister. "I'm sorry, Noey. I should've been there. Do you want to talk about it?"

    "The man was mean. He was tall and his hair was white and he was scary." Noelle said, and she buried her head in Valerie's shoulder.

    "It's okay, you're okay." Valerie murmured. "Go back to sleep. I got you from here, ladybug. I'm right here."

    Her fingers traced along Noelle's forehead, brushing the fine red hair away from her temples, and her free hand pulled the blankets up to make sure her little sister was enveloped in warmth and comfort.

    "Will you sing me a song?"

    Noelle's voice was so quiet, so soft and sweet that Valerie felt her heart nearly crack in two. "Okay."

    Valerie hummed the opening notes to Speak Now by Taylor Swift, Noelle's favorite song, watching intently as the little girl's eyelids began to droop shut, and by the time she'd finished singing the song, Noelle was asleep, safe in the arms of Hypnos.

    Noelle's dreams tasted especially sour that night, like bile, or a rotten lemon. Bad dreams always tasted awful, sitting in the back of Valerie's throat and refusing to leave her mouth. She was so used to Noelle having good dreams, happy dreams that tasted like cotton candy and chocolate cake and ice cream.

    Gritting her teeth, Valerie slipped into her little sister's dreams, quickly and easily and painlessly.

    Unlike the candyland dreams Noelle always had up until recently, this dream was dark, with shadows that writhed and moved like the monsters that haunted demigods.

    The man that Noelle had been terrified of—the scary, tall man with white hair—was in the corner, hidden within the murky darkness. He wore a robe of inkly black fabric, so dark that it blended into the shadows behind him and around him.