Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe

by Thomas Ligotti

“I’ll tell you what I do with puppets who’ve been naughty,” the witch continued half-sweetly. “I make them touch the fire. I burn them from the legs up.” Then, unexpectedly, the puppet smiled. “And what will you do,” the puppet asked, “with all those old dresses, gloves, veils, and capes when I’m gone? What will you do in your low-rent castle with no one to stare, his brow of glittering silver, into the windows of your dreams?” Perhaps the puppet was perspiring after all, for his brow was now glistening with tiny flecks of starlight. The witch stepped back and whipped off her hood, exposing the blond hair beneath it. She wanted to know how I knew about all that stuff, which she had never divulged to anyone. She accused me of peeping-tomism, of breaking and entering, and of illicit curiosity in general. “Let me out of these chains and I’ll tell you everything,” I said. “Forget it,” she answered. “I’m going to get someone to throw you out of here.” “Then I’ll just have to release myself.” At these words, the manacles around my ankles, my wrists, and my throat opened by themselves . . . and the chains fell away. “You can’t pretend,” I continued, “that there isn’t something familiar about me. After all we’ve meant to each other, after all we’ve done together, over and over and over. You see, I also know the desires of my clients, or so I might call them. Newscasters call them victims. They show their faces on television. I make them famous, though my part in their renown is a ...