Dreamless

any sound in the Underworld that she hadn’t made herself—not even the sound of wind on the grass.
    Somehow, the Underworld felt real , and not just part of a terrible nightmare. Helen had experienced this before, if only briefly, when she was miraculously pulled from the pit. As jarring as this new perspective on the Underworld was, it was also a relief at the same time. Hades seemed less hellish for some reason. Looking around now, Helen was reminded of that moment in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy sees in color for the first time.
    She squinted into the distance and saw dancing flashes of gold, coupled with the sound of shrieks, grunts, and clangs. There was a fight going on, and it sounded like a brutal one. At least Helen could be certain of one thing. The guy with the warm hands wasn’t a mirage.
    She ran as fast as she could toward the commotion.
    When she crested a small rise she saw a big guy with an overgrown mop of loose chestnut curls using a long dagger to hack away at the tattered vulture-bat thing that was flapping around his head. As Helen ran closer, she heard the harpy snarl and cuss, trying to rip at the young man with her talons. Even though he was fighting for his life, Helen couldn’t stop herself from noticing that he really needed a haircut.
    “Haircut” got the upper hand for a moment, and Helen saw him grin in a half-surprised, half–self-congratulatory way. Then, as he realized that he was still losing, Helen watched the grin quickly turn into a self-deprecating grimace. Even though he was battling away, he seemed to maintain a good sense of humor.
    “Hey!” Helen shouted as she neared the struggling pair.
    Haircut and the harpy paused awkwardly in the middle of the fight, each of them still clutching the other’s throat. Half of Haircut’s mouth lifted up in a surprised smile.
    “Helen,” he managed to croak out, as if he always had a pair of talons wrapped around his neck. Helen was so taken aback by his nonchalance she almost laughed. Then everything changed again.
    The world started to slow down and thicken around her, and Helen knew that meant that in the regular world her body was waking up. A part of her brain was beginning to register an annoying bleating noise coming from a universe away, and she knew that she would never make it to Haircut before waking. Helen looked around frantically, then bent down and picked up a rock at her feet, straightened up, and chucked it at the monster . . .
     . . . and the rock from the Underworld went right through her bedroom window, breaking it into about a hundred pieces.

CHAPTER THREE
    H elen sat up in bed, listening to the annoying blare of her alarm clock. The one night she actually wanted to stay in the Underworld, and she’d woken up. It was still dark, but even in the predawn gloom she could see the mess she’d made.
    Jerry was going to kill her. No matter how much Kate pleaded with him that Helen had a rare “sleep disorder,” this time Jerry was actually going to murder her.
    Her dad had this thing with conserving heat—like the house’s thermostat had a direct line to his psyche—and chilly gusts were already blasting directly through the gigantic hole she’d made in her window. Helen smacked herself on the forehead and fell back onto her mattress.
    She was as good as grounded, that flying monstrosity had probably eaten Haircut, and it was all because Helen had to wake up at ugly-o’clock-in-the-morning to get to a track meet on the mainland.
    High school sports are complicated for people who live on tiny islands. In order for island athletes to compete with other schools they have to travel by boat or by plane, and for Helen and the rest of her teammates, that meant getting up before the crack of dawn. Sometimes she really hated living on Nantucket.
    Stifling a yawn and trying to push the image of Haircut dying a vicious death from her mind, Helen pulled herself out of bed. She duct-taped a blanket over her broken window, gulped down some instant oatmeal, and left for the island’s airport. Ironically, she flew there. But of course she couldn’t fly all the way to the mainland. Missing the plane and then showing up at the meet on time would raise all kinds of questions, so she did the responsible thing.
    Landing a cautious distance away, she started jogging toward the tarmac just as the sky turned a shy pink. She saw Claire parking her car in the lot and ran over so they could go together to the waiting