The Last Fairy Tale Read Online Free PDF

human impersonation off again? I am truly sorry, young one. It seems that I have been trying for ages to get that one right.” It shook its head as if it had done something wrong before suddenly dropping from the tree limb. Instead of hitting the ground, however, it vanished into a cloud of black fog.
     Olivia looked around, frightened. The creature suddenly reappeared next to her. She noticed that its head and face matched its goat body. Its tail and beard consisted of the same black fog that it had just transformed into, but the rest of the goat’s body was covered in what looked like pitch-black fur. It paced slowly around Olivia, who was shaking in fear by this point. She tried once more to speak.
     “P–please…don’t hurt me,” she said.
     The goat stopped and turned its head sideways, as if confused. When it opened its mouth to speak, Olivia noticed that it still slightly resembled a human’s mouth.
     “Hurt?” it asked, shocked. “I am in the right place, aren’t I?”
    “I don’t know who—what you are or where  we are,” Olivia said shakily. “But you’re scaring me, and I want to leave.”
    “Oh, but you must know, my child,” said the goat. “This is your  dream, after all.” It laughed a low, wheezy laugh and began circling Olivia again. She stared at the goat, still frightened and confused.
    If this is a dream, then why does it seem so real ? she thought to herself. Every dream she had ever had before was just a collection of odd scenes that had nothing to do with one another. But this dream was different. She felt herself breathing and was aware that she was thinking and fully conscious. Except for not being able to run when she tried to, which seemed very much dreamlike now that she thought about it, everything else appeared to be real, including the disturbing figure walking around her.
     The goat creature suddenly stopped, looked up at her with its black-socket eyes, and smiled. “Be at ease, my child,” it said calmly. “I am not here to harm you in any way. I am only here to make sure.”
     “Make sure of what? What are you?” asked Olivia.
     “One question at a time,” the goat creature said and then smiled, all the while still circling Olivia. “I believe I will answer your second question first. Of course, if that is okay with you?” It looked up at Olivia, waiting for her approval.
     “Uh, sure,” she said.
     “I…” it began to say before leaping into the air and transforming into black fog and then into a large black rabbit and landing on a tree limb. It hung upside-down from the limb by its back feet, smiled at Olivia, opened its humanlike mouth, and continued, “am a somnivate.”
     “A what?” asked Olivia, even more confused. The smile on the rabbit’s face faded.
     “It’s a pity, really,” it said in a sad, distant voice, crossing its arms. “But it’s not hard to believe, I suppose, what with your realm the way it is these days and everything. How about this…does pooka ring a bell?”
     “What are you talking about?” Olivia asked. She was becoming more and more befuddled the more the creature spoke.
     “Nothing, child,” it said, shaking its head and smiling again. It dropped from the limb and hopped over to Olivia. It was a large rabbit compared to the ones Olivia had seen in Mr. Dewberry’s encyclopedias at the orphanage. “Anyway, I am a somnivate. A shapeshifter. A sailor of dreams. A guide, if you will. I am incredibly curious, and I am here to make sure of something. My name is Ink.”
     Olivia froze. She hadn’t noticed before that the goat creature had resembled the scribbled drawing in her father’s journal. If she had any doubt before that the drawing and the creature were related, she had none now after hearing its name. She had to figure out why this creature was in her dream and why her father had seen it as well.
     “What are you here to make sure of?” Olivia asked.
     “Well, I can’t really tell you