There was something else that worried her: she could no longer be sure that the dreams were rising from the rooms below; it seemed possible that they came from anywhere at all. If what was happening to her was unrelated to the hotel and her room in the sky, she might never stop dreaming other people’s dreams. That thought led to others, until she finally went out into the street to walk aimlessly. The avenues were like her head when she was asleep, when her mental processes were besieged by invading beings. She couldn’t say which streets she’d chosen to walk down and which had chosen her. When she got to the hotel, she had no idea if she’d consciously made her way there or if her arrival was a matter of chance. And she didn’t know how long she’d been walking. The assistant manager was waiting for her with his arms folded across his chest. She gazed at her reflection in the mirror, searching for some clue in her hair, the blackened hem of her shirt, the slender blade of grass right in the center of her chest. Perhaps she’d spent days wandering in the open air and her face was aglow. Her cheeks might be smudged with dirt and her arms purple with bruises. What she saw in the mirror was a very pale complexion, hair like steel wool, as though she’d been walking face first into a cierzo of incredible strength. The color had fled from her skin, it was almost transparent; three buttons were missing from her shirt and her jeans looked like they had been trampled into the dance floor of a nightclub. She didn’t remember any cierzo. In fact, she didn’t remember anything. She felt hungry and faint.

“Do that once more and you’re out,” said the assistant manager. “You’re only getting away with it this time because there’s no fair and Trini managed on her own. How did you get in such a state?”