Sometimes my dreams feel so real it’s hard to believe they’re just the subconscious’s stroll across a whimsical map that has no true north. Sometimes it seems like Dreaming must be a land that really exists somewhere, at a concrete latitude and longitude, with its own rules and laws, treacherous terrains, and dangerous inhabitants.

They say if you die in a dream, your heart stops in real life. I don’t know if that’s true. I’ve never known anyone who died in a dream to ask. Maybe because they’re all dead.

The hot spray cleansed my skin but left my psyche coated. I couldn’t soap away the feeling that it was going to be a truly sucky day.

I had no idea just how sucky.

_____

I learned in one of my college psych courses about comfort zones.

People like to find them and stay in them. A comfort zone can be a mental state: belief in God is a lot of people’s comfort zone. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking faith; I just don’t think you should have it because it makes you feel safe. I think you should have it because you do. Because somewhere deep inside you, you know beyond equivocating that something greater, wiser, and infinitely more loving than we’re capable of understanding has a vested interest in the Universe, in the way things turn out. Because you can feel that, as much as the forces of darkness might try to gain the upper hand, there is an Upper Hand.

That’s my comfort zone.

But comfort zones can be physical places, too: like your dad’s favorite recliner that your mom keeps threatening to send to Goodwill, with those sagging springs, the torn upholstery, and some kind of no-worry guarantee because the moment he settles into it every night, he relaxes; or your mom’s breakfast nook, where the sun shines in at the perfect angle every morning as she sips her coffee, and she kind of glows sitting there; or the rose garden your elderly neighbor prunes to perfection, despite the sweltering summer heat, smiling the day away.

Mine is the bookstore.

I’m safe inside. As long as the lights are on, no Shades can get in. Barrons warded the building against my enemies: the Lord Master; Derek O’Bannion, who wants me dead for stealing the spear and killing his brother; the terrifyingly Satanic Unseelie Hunters that track and kill sidhe-seers on general principle; all of the Fae, even V’lane—and if by some bizarre fluke something did get in, I’ve got an arsenal plastered to my body and I’ve hidden weapons, flashlights, even holy water and garlic in strategic locations throughout the store.