Empty Sky

Moving from Michigan's Upper Peninsula to New Hampshire's Upper Valley, Young Jamie McPherson and his aging dog, Shem, battle the NSA's Earl Pangiosi and his dream-stealing Sandman Project even though doing so means he may never see his mother or father again. Jamie's mother has been missing for over a year, and when Jamie's father goes into a mysterious coma, The Moon sends the dark-skinned, long-haired shapeshifter Graywolf to bring Jamie to The Gardens of the Moon. There he meets the Guardians of the Moon, winged wolves who protect their Mistress with a fierce loyalty and are suspicious of modern humans. The Moon tells Jamie he and his mother are the last of the Elpin, creatures the ancients called Hopes. "Your kind helped humans shape futures," she explains and asks Jamie to help her stop Pangiosi before he leaves people with nights of only loss and despair. "A world without dreams is a world without hope, a world already dead." Jamie and Shem begin a quest which takes them into new worlds and new realities. They meet the Gifted Dreamers, people who don't know their dreams shape reality; Nighthorse, a Native American giant and Pangiosi's henchman haunted by his Grandfather's teachings of the DreamWorld; Dr. Lupicen, a brilliant neuroscientist seeking to rescue his brother who was lost in a dream; and ANN, a dreaming supercomputer of unimaginable power who sacrifices all to bring the world hope. Finally, Jamie learns that all things come with a price, and saving the world's dreams means he must give up his own.