It bobbed on the water as Papa lifted me up and set me within its frame. I helped him next, and the boat nearly tipped as he hefted himself up and over with a groan. But we were safe from the flood. I quickly created a paddle from a few floating sticks, propelling us along the streets that had transformed into canals. The water was deep, lapping at second-story windows, and I wondered how much deeper it would become. Would it continue to rise until it reached the mountaintops, until it reached the stars?

“Look for the key, Clem,” my father said.

I didn’t need his reminder, but I held my retort. Every nightmare had a “key” that could appear in a number of forms and be physically claimed. It was the way to break a dream swiftly. If the dreamer could recognize and claim the key while the nightmare was ensnaring them, then they would wake. It was a similar experience on the new moon. I needed to find the weak point of the dream, locate the key in whatever form it took tonight, and wield it before the Vesper brothers.

“First the flood, then the serpents,” I reminded him, because the key to the dream would not appear until all the elements of the nightmare manifested. And so I navigated the boat and wiped rain from my eyes and waited for the snakes to arrive, my body tense as a coil, ready to spring into action.

My boat hit resistance. Frowning, I tried to paddle with deeper strokes, but the boat was hung up on something in the water.

“Can you see what’s impeding us?” I asked Papa, since he was sitting at the bow.

He carefully shifted to peer over the edge. “Lily pads.”

I sighed. Of course, I had forgotten about that one element of the nightmare. Archie was afraid of drowning, afraid of snakes in the water, and afraid of lily pads.

I quickly began to paddle us backward, and I could see the thick knot of lily pads on the water as we retreated. They seemed innocent, perched on the surface with their green leaves and blossoms, but I knew better than to trust them on the new moon.

I rowed to another street, my eyes constantly searching the water, awaiting the serpents. I imagined I saw something slithering through the depths, but it was difficult to tell for certain. The rain eased, the flood line coming to rest right at the eaves of roofs, and the lily pads were multiplying. I bumped into another nest of them and had to reroute yet again, and my shoulders were beginning to smolder from the effort; my hands were pruned.

I had nearly forgotten about the Vesper brothers until I caught a glimpse of them farther up the street, paddling in their own boat. They rounded a corner, slipping away from sight, and I had a strange urge to follow them.