Book: The Dreaming, Volume 3 by Queenie Chan

Pages: 192 (Paperback)

What Did I Think? This is my favorite volume in the trilogy.  I was thoroughly creeped out by the end of the book!

We learn about the fairy king, which is told to Amber by Millie, the girl who died in the first book.  There was an orphan girl, who lived in a house with her stepmother and stepsister, and they’d look her into a small cupboard whenever she did something wrong.  To escape from them, she would take long walks into the woods, but her stepmother and stepsisters didn’t like the forest, so they never followed her.  One time, she came across the fairy king, who made her his queen, gave her the same powers he did, and she got her wish of revenge.  She went back home, and transformed them into creatures like herself.  It’s a warning that Amber’s possessed, just like Millie was.  We also learn about the Quinkan, who are shape-shifters who can walk through walls and take on the form of people that they have possessed before.  This is how all of the girls have gone missing, and smoke drives the Quinkan away.  We finally see Mrs. Skeener, who tells Jeanie that the school board decided to close down the school.  Mrs. Skeener gets sent to her aunt’s school, and Mary travels to Australia with her.  However, when they get there, they find that their aunt has disappeared.  The students at the school think Mrs. Skeener and her sister should suffer because their aunt got what she deserved.  Mrs. Skeener attacked the other girls after a trip into the bushlands, but her sister disappears days later.  Mrs. Skeener is eventually rescued, and spends years in a sanatorium, until she learns that her father has died, and the school has been left to her.  The school catches on fire, the students and Mrs. Anu escape, but Mrs. Skeener dies in the school that was her home.  Amber suffers from some permanent memory loss, took up painting, and moved to England, while Jeanie went to college and became a paralegal secretary.

The only thing I didn’t like was the epilogue at the end.  I would have been fine with it out, and it certainly wasn’t the ending I expected.  I expected something more creepy and dramatic than what the epilogue gave.  As much as I love horror (and I really need to start reading it again), I don’t feel creeped out very often.  And this book was definitely creepy.  I liked the artwork, and you could feel that there was something hiding in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to pounce.

Rating: 4 out of 5.  Really creepy, and I felt like it finally lived up to the horror genre.