Chapter 12: The Fractures in the Daylight

Allison woke with a gasp and a neck that immediately filed a formal complaint.

She was in her desk chair. Morning sun flooded the office—too bright. Shafts of light lanced through the blinds, warm on her bare arms and the back of her neck. The glare made her squint; dust motes floated in the air. She’d sent the article last night, so she knew this was early morning light, full and golden, suggesting she’d been out for several solid hours.

Her hands were lying comfortably relaxed in her lap. The monitor's screensaver—a swirl of colors she never changed—glowed softly. The computer fans hummed. Everything was as she'd left it, except she'd apparently spent the night unconscious in her chair, and her body was making sure she knew about every aching moment.

She sat up slowly, wincing as pain shot down her neck and shoulders. Her lower back ached, her mouth was parched, and her eyes burned.

"Oof," she muttered, pressing her palm to the back of her neck. "Note to self—this chair was not made for passing out and spiriting away to some weird imaginary world."

She blinked, rubbed her eyes, and tried to get her bearings. Dreamspace—she ended up there again: Sol calling her a Sparkkeeper, the cracks splintering the canopy, relentless ticking, the scent of Felipe's succulent tacos, her father’s warmth on the futon, Mouse-shed fluff clinging to his sweater—all drifted through her mind. She could still feel her dad's arms around her, vivid but out of place in her office, and for a moment she couldn’t tell whether she was really, truly awake or still lingering in Dreamspace.

Was it real? She looked at her hands—the same hands that had held a freshly made churro dusted in the perfect ratio of cinnamon sugar, picked up an empanada still warm from Felipe's cart, pressed against the cool stones of Dreamspace, and felt it tremble. They looked the same. They felt the same. But some part of her mind stayed firmly planted in Dreamspace, as if part of her hadn't left it entirely and lingered now in waking life.

She glanced behind her. Spud lay in deep sleep in the armchair she kept for reading and comfy, cozy crochet time, because he wanted to be nowhere else while she worked. He curled into a perfect cinnamon roll, his small chest rising and falling with soft, snuffling breaths, paws twitching in his dreams. Morning sunlight flooded through the window. Morning light dancing through the window shade made the edges of his fur look like a glowing halo.

She stared at him and blinked. The effect faded as clouds covered the sun, leaving Spud haloless and sleeping soundly in the chair.

"Oh, to be a dog sleeping in a beam of morning sun shining through an office window," she whispered, careful not to wake him.

Seeing him calm was a relief. Everything was as it should be. If something had been wrong, Spud would have known. He’d be restless, pawing at her leg. Instead, he slept deeply, like a creature who had never had an existential crisis while staring at a computer screen. She leaned out of her chair toward him to run her fingers through his fur. He sighed in his sleep at her touch without waking. Just that—touching her dog—grounded her in a way that nothing else could. It did raise the question, though: what happened to her body while she was in Dreamspace—if Dreamspace were even real, rather than a vivid dream? She'd been in the chair the whole time. Had she just sat there, unmoving, for hours? Was she breathing? Did she look asleep or restless?

"I should really start writing these questions down," she murmured.

She stretched, rolled her shoulders, and started to stand. As she did, her elbow caught the mouse, sending it clattering off the desk. It hit the floor with a sharp crack that cut through the quiet room.

Spud exploded off the chair. He went from sleep to full scramble in a split second. Nails found purchase on the carpet; his body launched sideways at full alert as if he wouldn't sleep through a burglar breaking in. He flung himself off the chair, skittered to the doorway, ears up, eyes wide, tail at half-mast, judging whether this was a threat or just his human's clumsiness.

"Sorry, sorry," Allison said, wincing. "My fault. False alarm, old man."

Spud gave her a look that clearly communicated his irritation with her lack of situational awareness, then shook himself off and trotted to a corner under the desk, by her feet. The monitor blinked on, jolted by the mouse. Allison froze. The screensaver was gone. Her word processor appeared. She'd closed it after sending the article; she remembered clicking the X, saving, and watching it close. She was sure of it. But it was open. It wasn’t her client's draft. Instead, a new document filled the screen. A blank white page—no title, no file name, just "Untitled" in the header. The cursor blinked, waiting for her to act.

She leaned forward, frowning. Checked the taskbar. Only the document was open. She right-clicked the file to check the data pop-up—no save history, no creation date. It had simply appeared.

The cursor blinked across the center of the page. Then it moved, leaving bold black letters in its wake, one by one.

REMEMBER THE SPARK.

Allison stared at the words. Her chest tightened. It was curious that the computer was typing on its own, as if attempting to address her. The computer was a ten-year-old Dell running Windows that crashed when she opened too many browser tabs. It was not a portal, not magical. It was a computer, and for all intents and purposes, it was a potato—mostly useless; it worked just enough to get the job done, but not much more.

She double-checked the network settings. It wasn't even connected to her Wi-Fi because the darned connection had gone down again overnight, as the icon in the lower-right corner of her screen showed. No remote access enabled, and no screen-sharing software running. She opened Task Manager—nothing unusual, no unfamiliar processes. She looked behind the desk, half expecting to find a cable or a device that would explain how words were typing themselves on her screen. Nothing. Just dust bunnies and a charging cable she'd been looking for since February.

She sat back and looked at the words again, bold, black, and centered. 

REMEMBER THE SPARK. 

The cursor blinked after the period, steady as always.

Her father's voice surfaced: You've always had the spark, kiddo. The word "spark" kept coming up, and she didn't know what it meant, or what it related to, well… anything.

Sparkkeeper. The spark remains. You've always had the spark. Remember the spark.

"Oh, I remember," she said aloud, her voice flat with the particular exhaustion of someone the universe has asked the same question one too many times. "I just don't know what I'm supposed to do with it or what it means, in this instance."

She stared at the cursor as if it might write back. No response. Of course. The words sat there, patient and immovable, offering no clarification.

"Helpful," she muttered. "Very helpful. Thank you."

Allison reached for the mouse to close the document. Then she noticed it: coarse, sandy grains on her desk, grit pressing into her fingertips near the keyboard, catching the monitor's light. She frowned, moistened her fingertip, and tapped at the grains, feeling their abrasive texture as she picked them up one by one. She brought them to her lips. Cinnamon. Sugar. It was unmistakable, absurd, and real on her tongue in her office in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, as she tried to reassure herself this wasn't a dream on a weekday morning. 

Impossible. 

She stared at her finger, looked at the desk, and looked at the computer screen where REMEMBER THE SPARK still glowed. Finally, she looked back at the cinnamon sugar. "Really?" she said, a grin cracking through the exhaustion despite herself. "Thanks, Felipe. Think you can keep it in a bowl next time?"

She licked the remaining crystals off her finger—they were delicious, of course; Felipe's food was always delicious, even as residue—and swept the rest into her palm. She stood, tossed them into the wastebasket, and left. As the grains struck the basket bottom, a faint shimmer rose—a thin swirl of gold light that twisted and bent the air before it was gone by the time she blinked. She stopped and looked back at the wastebasket. It sat there, perfectly ordinary, a white plastic office trash can containing used tissues, a granola bar wrapper, and now some enchanted churro crumbs.

"Did you..." she started to say to Spud, who was already trotting toward the door. Then she shook her head. "Nah. I'm so tired I'm seeing things. Never mind. Let's get breakfast."

Spud had already decided it was breakfast time long before Allison even said it. He bounded across the upstairs landing with the frantic energy of a dog who had been waiting for this exact moment his entire life, skidded to a stop at the top of the stairs, yipped once—a sharp, declarative bark that meant FOOD. NOW. MOVE. Then he launched himself down the steps with the confidence of a creature who had never considered falling.

Allison followed more carefully, gripping the railing, her legs stiff from a night in the desk chair. The house was quiet, like it usually was in the morning—the A/C, the hum from the bedroom fan, the morning street traffic. It was boring, normal, and Allison liked it that way. That quiet was grounding, predictable; it meant she was home and the world was behaving itself.

She got Spud’s happy tippy-tappy claws on the floor as she scooped the wet food into his bowl, and he impatiently waited for it to be placed beside his bowl of water. Spud attacked it like a starving wolf. Then she turned to the coffee machine—pod in, cup under the spout. The machine hissed and gurgled, producing its offering: dark, steaming magical bean juice. Once it was done, she grabbed it, immediately wrapped both hands around the mug, and inhaled, smiling.

Coffee. It was real, actual, non-magical, sanity-preserving coffee—the most important substance on earth. The first sip grounded her—hot and bitter. She winced; she’d forgotten her creamer, then remembered she was out, and sighed, accepting her fate.

She leaned against the counter, mug in both hands, and stared out the kitchen window. Morning sunlight streamed through the glass. She'd opened the back door, closed the screen, and let in fresh air and the dog. The backyard was green, bright, and peaceful. Birds sang. A breeze carried the scent of cut grass and warming earth. Everything was fine. Everything was perfectly normal, boring, real, and fine.

And then, she heard it. The tick-clunk of the broken clock from Dreamspace. She flinched. The sound came from nowhere, but felt like it was everywhere. It was not from the kitchen, outside, or any physical source she could point to. It rippled through the air like a stone dropped in still water, and for one terrible second, the glass in the kitchen window trembled. She felt it in her teeth—a tiny metallic tang, vibrating against her incisors.

Then it was gone. The window was still. The air was still. The coffee steamed in her hands as if nothing had happened.

She stood very still, holding her breath, waiting.

Nothing.

"Okay," she whispered. "That was... probably nothing. Leftover Dreamspace weirdness, I guess. It's fading. It's fine."

She took another sip of coffee, let Spud out the back door, and watched him trot into the yard to begin his morning forensic analysis of every square inch of grass.

She was halfway through her second cup, leaning against the counter, actually starting to believe her own reassurances, when it came again. Louder.

Tick. Clunk. Tick. Clunk.

Each tick landed like a small hammer in her head. Each clunk vibrated through her sternum; she felt it in her bones. It sounded like a grandfather clock in every scary movie she’d ever seen. It was eerie, spooky, warped—too slow, then too fast, then dragging again, like a clock whose mechanism was failing, grinding, fighting to keep time against something that was trying to stop it.

Allison's breath hitched. She set the coffee down on the counter because her hands were shaking. "Okay," she said, her voice higher than she wanted it to be. "Now this is getting super weird."

The clock didn't care what she thought. It continued—tick, clunk; tick, clunk—each beat a little louder, a little closer, a little more off-key. The air in the kitchen felt heavier, like it had in Dreamspace when the smell of ozone crept in.

And then Spud was at the back door, looking in from the patio, standing perfectly still, ears pricked forward, body starting to shake. He let out a low whine—a thin, anxious sound she'd only heard him make during thunderstorms and fireworks. This time, he heard it too. It was no longer just affecting her.

He pushed through the screen door, padded across the kitchen floor, and pressed himself against Allison's shin. His nose twitched as he sniffed the air around her—around the kitchen wall, down the hall, past the laundry room, toward the front of the house. He whined again, louder this time. His dark, wide eyes flicked from Allison to the empty living room to something—some invisible point on the closed, locked front door that she couldn't see.

Allison went to see what he found. He was laser-focused on the front door. When she looked over, she nearly forgot to breathe. She knelt, her hand finding Spud's head, fingers curling into his fur as she looked toward the front door, where Spud was staring. Because, ultimately, if Spud was sensing it now...

Then it was no longer just in her head.