Monarch sighed and decided to check with his mate, Leona, to see if her latest dream work had yielded any results that might throw light on this odd anxiety of his. He and Leona were both dream archeologists. But Leona had always been the best dreamer, Monarch thought. Sometimes at the last minute, she had come up with excellent dream data, as if a crisis stimulated her abilities. He frowned. His abilities didn’t work that way; he liked peace and quiet. But there wouldn’t be any until the celebration was over … and as he walked down the museum’s hall, Monarch tried to throw aside the sudden nagging thought that the celebration itself was somehow threatened.

He opened the door to The George’s bedroom; Leona spent her dreaming time there, in the hopes that the location might stimulate new information. She was looking out the windows and turned, almost anxiously, as Monarch entered.

“I’m done,” she said, “and the room is in order—”

“But?” Monarch asked. He knew her so well that her anxiety was apparent, even as she tried to soften its expression by a reassuring smile.

“Well, I may have received some new facts … disturbing ones. Or at least, I may have some information that contradicts other things we think we know. I hate it when that happens.” Her large brown eyes still carried hints of their dream visions. She seemed bathed in the softness of an alternate consciousness; not blurred, but carrying the look a child does when roused from sleep. Even her anxiety was softened by this aura of subjective refreshment. “The dreams are already recorded,” she said. “I taped them at once.” Her toes wiggled in her sandals; she tapped her right foot gently so that her ankle bracelets tinkled, and her short skirt rippled with the graceful motion. “Just think. These windows opened once. Or the originals did.” Again she stared out at the museum’s grounds.

“And let in all the dirt of traffic,” Monarch said, laughing despite himself. It was a game they usually loved to play. They’d stand there, using their inner senses, trying to bring up to awareness’s threshold all of the sounds of the ancient automobiles, the squeal of tires…. “Don’t put me off, though. You’re the best dreamer of the two of us. What did you come up with?”

She swung around. “I am? And whose dreaming led to this dig and resulted in the museum to begin with? Yours!”

“True,” Monarch said. “But I’ve always felt that something was incomplete….”

“Maybe it was,” Leona said seriously. “You can check my dream records later. But there were three separate, clear dreams. In one, I stood in an ancient kitchen, much like the museum’s, and there was a man named Window who was trying to look into our world.”

Monarch’s face almost drained of color.

“What’s wrong?” asked Leona, alarmed.