"The Girl who had No Dreams" by Frances Monro

The Girl who had no Dreams

(C) Che Monro 2002

Many years ago in a village in a distant land there lived a girl called Unissa. She lived in a small cottage with her granny, her mother being long since passed away. The village was a small place, with little huts made of rough grey stone and roofs of thatch. There was no glass in those days, and the few houses that had windows made do with wooden shutters to keep out the winter's chill. Instead of a chimney each house had a little hole in the centre of the roof to let out the smoke. There were two larger buildings in the village, one was the big house where the lord lived, and the other was the little church which stood a short way removed from the rest up on the hillside. A little stream flowed along one side of the village and it was here that the women drew water and gathered to wash their clothes. Around the village and along the stream banks on either side were gardens and fields of grain. Above the village on all sides were the hills, covered in thick forest, which shielded it from the worst of the weather and from the gaze of the outside world.

Unissa was a perfectly normal girl in every way except for one strange thing - she had no dreams. Most people dream every night, whether they remember their dreams or not, and they have waking dreams about the boy they will marry or the dress they will buy at next month's market, but Unissa had no dreams of any kind.

Naturally people began to talk about this, because when you live in a small village talk and gossip are the primary forms of entertainment. When all the stories you knew had been told three times, and you'd sung all the songs you could remember twice there was nothing left to do except to discuss the latest marriages and babies and the peculiarities of your neighbours, and poor Unissa's affliction was, really, quite peculiar. She didn't fit in to village life at all. Others would be talking about their dreams - to meet a handsome traveller or bard and fall in love, or to run away and seek their fortune and have adventures - or the stranger dreams and nightmares they had in their sleep. Unissa couldn't dream at all and she was forced to shrug her shoulders and walk away, feeling very alone.

She felt different from everybody else, strange and ashamed. As she got older the feelings got deeper. Everyone else seemed to be getting on with life, working at a craft, meeting their mates, falling in love, getting married, and trying to make at least some of their dreams come true, but Unissa had no dreams. This meant that she had no goals, no ideal man, no dream job, no idea if she wanted to get married or not. Unissa drifted from task to task, aimless, sad and lost. Dreams might not seem like much - You can't sell them in the marketplace, and they don't weigh anything - but try doing without them, and see how you fare.

Pretty soon the folks around her village started to get tired of Unissa and her endless moping sadness. They said her work suffered, that she had no motivation, that she was useless. They called her names to her face and whispered about her behind her back, and they reported bad things about her to the priest and the lord.

Unissa decided to leave. She wandered out of the village, heading no place in particular, having no dream to follow. It didn't occur to her to say goodbye to her Granny, and she didn't imagine that the old woman might miss her. A lack of dreams meant the loss of the ability to dream herself into another person's shoes, so she often didn't understand how others might be feeling. Unissa ended up living in a cave, eating snakes and grubs and anything else that came to hand, she didn't care. She couldn't dream of anything better. Gradually her clothes fell to dirt and rags, but she didn't dream of washing them.

One day she was digging for things to eat in the soft earth beside a stream in the forest when she looked up and saw a boy watching her. Or at least he looked like a boy, small and thin, dressed in a ragged brown tunic of leather, his hair red and his eyes a startling pale green, his skin as brown as a nut. Something about him and the way he stared at her made her feel afraid. She realized with a shock that he was one of the little people, the Sidhe.

"What are you doing here, girl." His voice was soft, like the sound of water over stones.

"I - I live here."

"And why do you live here?"

"Because I don't have any dreams."

"Indeed, and why don't you have any dreams?" the Sidhe asked.

"Because I lost them."

And then the Fae laughed, a chilling sound, and his green eyes seemed to look right through her as he replied. "You can't lose your dreams, girl. They were stolen from you."

"What?" Unissa asked. "How could anyone steal my dreams?"

The little brown man laughed again. "It wasn't just anyone who stole your dreams, girl, it was the Queen of the Seelie Court of the Sidhe. And she didn't just walk into your head and take them, oh no, she bought them fair and square from your mother."

"My Mother?" Unissa had to sit down, blinking, and almost in tears with the shock of this news. "My mother sold my dreams to the Fae?"

"Indeed she did, girl, and if you want to get them back, you'd best be about it. Go and ask your Granny about the purse."

"What? What purse?" She looked up, but the little brown man had vanished and he was nowhere to be seen.

Unissa sat there and thought about this encounter for quite a while. It was the first time she'd talked to anyone in months and her first thought was that she must be losing her mind. Eventually however she had to reject this idea because if she were mad then on some level she would have had to make up the little brown man, and that would have been a kind of dream and Unissa couldn't dream. So she had to accept that she really had been visited by one of the Sidhe - what people call the Good Folk, and that what he had told her was true - Her dreams had been stolen from her, unless he was lying to her. Slowly she got to her feet and walked through the forest down a rough path into the village where she was born to her granny's hut.

The people were amazed to see Unissa because she'd been gone so long, and so suddenly that they were sure she was dead like her mother. The children followed her along the street with wide eyes, whispering to one another, half sure she was a ghost. But when she reached her granny's hut the old woman came out and hugged her and cried, which sorely surprised Unissa because she wasn't expecting any such thing. Then Granny hustled her inside and began heating water for her to wash.

Unissa wanted to ask her granny about her mother, and the purse that the sidhe had spoken. However, her grandmother was too excited and busy for Unissa to interrupt. She made her wash completely and change her clothes, discarding the rags which were all that was left of the clothes she had worn in the forest. Then her granny went outside to fetch water and to talk to the villagers who were still gathered around the hut in larger groups than ever. After she had told them what had happened and sent them home, she came back inside and had Unissa make her tea. Then her grandmother told her about the events in the village since she'd left - who had gotten married, who'd had babies, and who'd died. She told of the progress of the feuds and arguments which village folk love to wage and even better love to talk about, and it sounded to Unissa much like the things which had been happening before she left, only with different names.

Finally, as the afternoon was drawing on into night and they sat down to eat bread and cheese for their supper. Unissa had a chance to ask her granny about her mother.

"Grandma, I met a little man today, in the forest," she began. "And I believe that he was one of the Good People who live under the hills. He told me that my dreams had been stolen, and that I should ask you about my mother, and about a purse. Do you know what he was talking about, Gran?"

Granny sighed and nodded. "Aye, lassie, I do, 'tis a sad tale. You see your mother was.. something of a wild girl, not inclined to settling down, she dreamed of leaving the village and making her fortune as a bard or a lady or some such thing. When she was fifteen she fell in love with a wandering bard who came through the village and fell pregnant, with you lass."

Unissa nodded. This much of the tale was familiar to her through village gossip. Children of such love-unions were not unknown, especially eldest children, and brides were frequently in a full, blooming pregnancy when they married, but women were expected to settle down after that and become good wives and mothers.

"Then after that she went into a decline, lass. A good, decent young man from the village came courting but she wouldn't see him, and said she was sick. Well, I gave her a good talking to, I can tell you because she was ruining herself, being so stubborn and wilful like that. Then next morning she was gone, and everyone thought she'd gone off after her Bard man."

The old woman sighed and shook her head, then she continued with her tale. "But oh, it must have been two seasons later that she came back with you, a new born baby girl she'd had all by herself out there in the woods somewhere. And she had the purse."

"A purse, Granny?" Unissa asked. "This was the purse that the man spoke of?"

"Aye, lass, it was." She got up and went over to the wall and pulled out a loose stone. From the gap behind the wall she took an old purse made of leather, plain and old and dusty. She handed the purse to Unissa. "There it is." It was a simple thing - a pouch made of rough, raw hide with a leather cord and there didn't seem to be anything special about it.

Unissa frowned at it. "What is it?"

Granny gave the purse a sour look, then reached out to take it from Unissa. Opening it, she pulled out a handful of coins - gold and silver and copper. Unissa was amazed - she had never seen so much money at one time before.

"This is the cause of all the trouble, lass. When your mother came back she brought this and she said she'd been given it by a Lady of the Fair Folk, in exchange for something that was quite worthless to anyone, and that it would make us all rich." With a derisive sniff the old woman put the coins back into the purse. "I thought that she was talking nonsense, dear, until she showed me that the purse was never empty, but always full of coins whenever you wanted one."

Unissa blinked at this some more. "I understand why you keep such a valuable thing hidden, Granny, but why have we never used it, especially to buy food when there wasn't enough and we were hungry?"

Granny shook her head. "Because as your mother soon found out the purse is worthless. The gold is fairy gold, not real. The day after she returned she bought things from almost everyone in the village and the next day they all came and took the things back again because the coins had vanished, or else turned into old dead leaves. The gold in the purse is fake."

"Oh."

"Aye. Once the word got around nobody would accept the coins anymore and the purse went into that hole in the wall where it's stayed ever since. But worse was yet to come. As you began to grow your mother realised how unhappy you were because of the lack of dreams and she began to fret about it more and more. Finally she said to me - I have done a terrible thing and I must go and put it right. Then she left the village again and she's never been seen since."

"But where did she go, Granny?"

"She went back to the Fair Folk to try and get your dreams back, lass. You see she sold your dreams for this worthless purse."

"Didn't she take the purse with her?"

"Aye, she did lass. But at the next full moon it was back, lying on the step in the morning. But of your mother, lass, nobody has seen her since, and it is the common belief that she's dead."

Unissa frowned and thought over this for a long time. Finally she said. "I must take the purse and go and take it back to the Sidhe and try to get my dreams back."

"But lass, 'tis so dangerous, and you've only so lately returned to me. Can't you give up the business and live here with me? I could not bear to loose two daughters."

"No granny, I cannot. I need my dreams. They are what make life worth living. I must go and get them back."

"Well, if your heart is set on it lass, then you must. but stay here the night and set out in the morning."

And so Unissa slept that night in her own bed at home, and when she set out next morning it was with food and drink from her granny's kitchen and her own cloak about her shoulders, and the magic purse in her belt. She walked up the path out of the village and into the forest and there she found the little brown man waiting for her.

"Well you have taken your time," the brown man said. "But I see you have what I sent you for."

"Yes, I have the purse. Now, will you take it and give me my dreams back?"

"Peace!" the brown man exclaimed. "It is not me you need to deal with. You must seek out the Queen of the Seelie Court beneath the hollow hills. She is the one who has what you want."

"Then where can I find her, and please, what is your name?"

The brown man laughed at this. "Think you to trick me, girl? If so you're childish and clumsy. Just call me Dugan if you need to call me anything at all. Now listen to me closely and I will tell you what you need to do. Half a day's travel from here up on the steep mountainside is a straight cleft which strikes deep into the rock to become a cave which is known as an entrance to our realm."

Unissa nodded. "I know of it." She had been warned many times against going near the place because the Good Folk liked nothing more than to steal children. But now it seemed she had no choice but to trust this Sidhe-man in whatever trickery he might be working.

"Good. Go there and go within and mind this well girl; Once you have entered the cave do not for any reason turn back or turn aside from your task or your quest will be lost. Do you understand? Inside the cave you will see a large black hound set to guard the entrance. This you must do, forsaking all fear - kneel down before it and kiss it. Can you do that?"

"Yes I can."

"Then you must follow the paths I describe to the court of the Seelie Queen." Dugan then gave her straight directions to take her to that place. "When you are there go boldly inside, and this is most important: Eat nothing that is given to you. Drink nothing that is given to you, and tell nobody your name. I charge you this most sternly, for your life depends on it, girl. Do you understand?"

Unissa nodded. "Eat nothing, drink nothing, and keep my name to myself. I can do that."

"Good. Go to the Queen, give her the purse you carry and charge her to return what was taken from you. If you can do all that then you will succeed and your dreams will be returned to you."

"I will do that then. Thank.." she began, but as she had blinked she found that the brown man had vanished once more. Unissa sat and thought over what she had been told. Then she went back down into the village to her Granny's hut again and begged a candle and the means to light it from her, because it seemed to her that in the darkness of the cave she would likely need it.

She left the village a second time and travelled through the forest for several hours. The forest was cool and dark, smelling of earth. There was little undergrowth, just a little bracken fern by the side of the path. The path was only an animal trail damp and muddy as it wound between the trees. Finally she climbed up the shoulder of a mountain and emerged from the forest onto a heath of low, windswept bushes. After a short climb she reached the place the brown man had spoken of, a cleft which went back into the rock, straight as if it had been cut by an axe. She paused there and made a fire and lit her candle. She broke her fast with the food and drink that her granny had provided, then summoning all her courage she took up the candle and entered the cave.

The inside of the cave quickly became pitch black as she walked. Unissa was glad she'd thought to bring the candle. The floor of the cave was bare stone, cold beneath her feet. Here and there were scattered rocks of different sizes which had fallen from the ceiling. Some were pebbles, others were boulders that she had to thread her way around. She crossed over a stream that flowed there inside the mountain, clear and cold as ice, and then she began to hear the howling and barking of a monstrous hound echoing there in the darkness.

Unissa crept forward, fear and darkness seeming to press in around her as she went, even though she was immune from the kind of bone freezing terror which comes from an ability to dream of your own death. Still, she did feel fear as she stepped forward in the darkness.

Then she saw the dog. It was a great, black furred brute with a long muzzle, black lips and sharp teeth. Its feet were big things, round like horses' hooves. When it caught sight of her it let out a great howl and rose up on its hind legs and began barking furiously, leaping and plunging, only the great bronze collar and chain that it wore preventing it from falling upon her bodily.

Unissa froze in fright, staring the ferocious looking beast, seeming much bigger in the darkness than any hound she had ever seen. She recalled the brown man's words - She was supposed to kneel before this slavering monster and kiss it? Still, unable to bear the thought of returning home to a life without hope or dreams she closed her eyes and fell to her knees before the chained animal, setting down the candle beside her. At this a change came over the beast and it fell down on its belly before her and whimpered. Stooping, Unissa put her arms around the black dog's great shoulders and kissed it, first on top of its head between its ears, and then on its muzzle.

The hound whimpered, and its whimper rose to become a sobbing shriek. The body beneath Unissa's hands seemed to melt and flow like water, bones creaking as they stretched and changed, the animal all the while crying out as if in agony. Then Unissa found in her arms not a beast at all but an ancient grey haired woman, her face lined with pain and loss.

"Unissa, my daughter, I am so sorry..." the woman whispered.

"Mother?" Unissa realised that her mouth was hanging open. She was amazed to realize that she had found her mother who had been missing for so many years, chained to a wall inside a cave, enchanted in the form of a dog.

"Yes. Can you forgive me? I never meant to harm you." Her mother's body was thin and frail, made old before her time, and her breath came in gasps.

"But... Why did you sell my dreams?"

"I'm sorry, child... I thought they were valueless things. I thought we could all be rich... eat fine food and... wear fine gowns. The Queen wouldn't take mine... It was a mistake. I'm sorry. Forgive me."

"Oh, mother, of course I forgive you. But what's wrong? Are you sick?"

"Dying," her mother whispered. "I.... I.. love you." And with those words her mother fell silent for the last time.

Unissa held her mother in her arms and wept for a long time, grieving for a mother she had never known, but always longed for. Then she took up a rock and hammered on the bronze peg which chained her mother's body to the wall, finally succeeding in breaking the chain free. Removing her cloak, she wrapped it around her mother's still form. Then she laid the body out, and, unable to dig in the stone floor she found rocks and covered the body with them to form a cairn. Then she knelt and said a prayer for her mother's soul. It was hardly a Christian burial, but it was the best that Unissa could do at the time.

With sadness in her heart she moved on deeper into the cave, and soon she was moving between pillars which, it seemed to her were made not of stone but of wood. A sudden gust of wind blew out her candle but to her surprise she found that a dim light shone down from above like moonlight and she could make out the shape of a dark, ancient wood all around her. She didn't know if she had somehow walked all the way through the mountain, which seemed unlikely, or if the forest was somehow inside the mountain, which seemed almost impossible, but she concluded that she must accept the evidence of her senses and proceed. The directions that the brown man had provided guided her through the forest until she came to a vast, splendid house, all lit up with torches and lamps, with the sound of laughter and merriment coming from within.

She crept up to the doorway of the hall, which stood open, and peeked inside. The hall was filled a large crowd of finely dressed and beautiful people, all laughing and talking while music was played and food was served. This, she assumed must be the Seelie Court and the place that she had been directed to. Hesitantly she stepped within and as soon as her foot touched the floor the entire crowd fell utterly silent and every eye turned to look at her

"Yes?" A single voice belonging to a very grand and beautiful lady rang out in the now silent hall. The lady had hair dark as night and eyes the colour of moonlight. Her dress was of some strange, shining silver material which Unissa had never seen before, and about her head she wore a band of gold. She sat at the centre of the table at the far end of the hall and Unissa had no doubt at all that she was the Queen of all those assembled. The Queen regarded her, and then a friendly, inviting smile lit up her face. "Why, it's a human child. How sweet. Tell me, girl, what is your name?"

Unissa was on the point of answering her when the brown man's words came to her, and she paused. Then she shook her head, walking towards the Lady and curtsying, she replied. "I may not tell you, Lady."

The Queen looked vexed at this, however she managed another smile. "Well it is of no matter. Here, come, sit by me and eat and drink with us."

"No, Lady, I may not."

At this the Queen did begin to look annoyed, and her manner grew cold and terrible. "Have a care, mortal child, for you go close to angering me. Who are you to intrude thus on our festivities and refuse our hospitality in this way? What do you want? And have a care to speak courteously lest I should become angry in truth."

Trembling, but steadfast in her resolve, Unissa untied the purse from her belt and held it out to the Queen of the Fairy Court. "Your Majesty, take back what was given, and return what was taken from me."

The Queen shrieked with rage, but it seemed as if she had no choice but to take the purse which Unissa held out to her. "Take it then!" she shrieked and she threw something that glowed at Unissa's head. Unissa blinked, but nothing hit her. Instead she could feel the inside of her filling with new dreams and emotions which knitted into her being to mend holes that she had never known were there. Even as she felt this happen, she noticed that a curious thing was happening to the Queen. She was getting older, her youth and beauty were fading as the colours fade from a leaf in autumn. Soon an ancient, ancient crone sat in her place, dark eyes filled with malice.

Then abrupt and terrible laughter rang through the hall and suddenly there was the brown man standing beside her. "So, my Queen," he said mockingly. "You have lost the beautiful dreams you sup upon. My, how careless." And he laughed once more.

The Queen's expression of fury and hatred grew deeper "You!" she screamed "You dare! I will have my vengeance on you brown Dugan, I swear it by everything I own!"

The brown man only laughed even more. He turned to Unissa, still laughing. "Run!" he said. "Run! If you value your life! Run!" Then suddenly he wasn't there any more.

Unissa turned and did just that. She ran from the hall and out into the forest, then, when she began to think she might be safe she heard the sound of horns and the thunder of hooves behind her. She picked up her skirts in her hands and ran for all she was worth, not looking back, for she knew what she would see behind her. The dark hunters of the Wild Hunt on their black and silver horses, the men with antlered helmets and the women in shining gowns on their tall fairy horses. With spears and bows and arrows they were coming to hunt her down like a deer or a fox.

So she ran through the dark woods. Perhaps the trees hampered the fairy riders, or perhaps they were playing with her, darting in so that their spears nipped at her heels, and then drawing off a way to let her run, as a cat plays with a mouse. She ran for all she was worth, panting and dodging and in the process got turned around and lost so that she didn't know which way she was going, or where she was running, only knowing that she had to get away from the terrible death which was pursuing her.

Soon she was spent and her breath came in ragged gasps. She knew that the end was near and soon she would have to turn and face them, and she began to loose heart. Then there was a cry from behind her and Fairy arrows buzzed past her head, and she was suddenly splashing through water and she fell hard on the stone and closed her eyes and waited for the end.

After an endless time she rose to her knees and looked back. There they were, gathered along the bank on the opposite side of the stream, their horses steaming and panting from the chase. She scrambled away from them, away from their eerie light, but for some reason they would not cross the flowing water. The Queen screamed at her then, a wordless scream of rage and frustration, her form gaunt and ancient. Then the entire company wheeled and disappeared into the darkness.

Unissa fell again and lay in the darkness for a long time, until her breathing eased and her wits returned to her. They had run her down like a deer or a vixen, and only something she didn't understand, the length of stream, some law or border unknown to her had saved her from an animal's death at the end of their spears.

Finally she got to her knees once more and looked around, or tried to. With the departure of the fairy host all light had fled and it was completely black. She could close her eyes and it made no difference, there was simply no light at all. She had lost her candle. Her only refrence point was the sound of the stream, so she crawled away from it, feeling her way on her hands and knees. She bumped into a wall and followed it, knocking knees and elbows painfully on outcrops of stone. Then she saw a grey light in the darkness, and approaching it, she saw the entrance of the cave, a straight cleft shining in the darkness.

She stumbled forth from the cave and stood blinking in the light of morning. The ashes of her fire were cold. Somehow, although it hadn't seemed so long, she had been under the mountain all night. She sat by the ashes, blinking as her eyes adjusted, shivering in the morning chill. She was overwhelmed with reaction to what had happened to her and she hid her face in her hands and began to sob uncontrollably. After a while she stopped crying and wiped her eyes and sighed. She could scarcely believe what had occurred, and the changes in the way she thought and felt about things. Most of all she was shocked by what she'd learnt of her mother, and for the first time in her life she was able to grieve for what they had both lost. But she realized that there was nothing to be done, except to ask the Father to say a Mass for her mother's soul.

Sighing, she stood and brushed the grass from her skirts and hair. She squared her shoulders and began to trudge down the hill towards the woods. Granny would be waiting for her, pleased to see her. The thought made her smile. She went on with a lighter heart, already beginning to dream of the welcome she would receive when she arrived home.