From the Dream Keeper

My dearest …,

I sit at the foot of the bed from the moment the light goes off until it gets light again, and I do not doze. I have checked the corners of this room, and under it, and the shape by the door that is not a person. All clear. The bed I am sitting at tonight belongs to .

Now, the important thing, and I want to be accurate rather than comforting. I am not going to tell you there is nothing to be afraid of. You already do not believe that, and being told it just makes people stop mentioning when they are frightened. What I will tell you is what is actually true: the dark is the same room. Not a different one. Everything in it is the thing that was there at teatime, and I have been in this room all evening and I watched it not change.

Bad dreams are worth understanding too, . A bad dream is your head sorting through the day and getting a bit carried away with it. It is not a warning and it is not a message. It cannot follow you out. It ends the moment you open your eyes, every single time, without exception.

And if you wake up and it was a bad one: you are allowed to get somebody. That is not being a baby. Grown-ups wake other grown-ups up in the night constantly and nobody ever says a word about it. I heard about — somebody that brave is allowed to be frightened of the dark. Most brave people are frightened of something.

I will be here when you wake up,
and I was here the whole time before that —

The Dream Keeper

Who Sits at the Foot of the Bed

P.S. — Leave a light on if you want one. Nobody outgrows it on a schedule and there is no prize for the dark.