“Hey, that tickles!” he said, laughing.

She balled the thread in her hand. It squirmed, ever so slightly, as if alive.

Lavinia showed it to her father. “How strange,” he remarked, holding it up to a light.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I’m not sure,” he said, frowning. The thread was wriggling slowly out of his hand toward Lavinia. “I think it likes you, though.”

“Perhaps it’s a new discovery!” she said excitedly.

“I doubt it,” her father said. “In any case, it’s nothing for you to worry about.” He patted her on the head, put the thread into a drawer, and locked it.

“I’d like to examine it, too,” she said.

“It’s time for lunch,” he replied, shooing her out.

She stomped away to her room, annoyed. That might have been the end of it, if not for this: Douglas had no nightmares that night or any night after, and he credited his recovery entirely to Lavinia.

Their father wasn’t so sure. A short time later, though, a patient of his complained of insomnia due to bad dreams, and when nothing the doctor prescribed seemed to help, he reluctantly asked Lavinia to take a look in the patient’s ear. Just eleven and small for her age, she had to stand on a chair to see in. Sure enough, it was clogged with a mass of thready black stuff, which her father had not been able to see. She stuck her pinkie inside, wiggled it around, then wound out a thread from the patient’s ear. It was so long and so thoroughly attached to the inside of his head that, to pull it loose, she had to climb down from her stool, dig her heels into the floor, and yank with both hands. When it finally snapped free of his head, she fell backward onto the floor and the patient tumbled off the examination table.

Her father snatched up the black thread and stuffed it into his drawer with the other batch.

“But it’s mine,” Lavinia protested.

“It’s his, actually,” said her father, helping the man up from the floor. “Now go and play with your brother.”

The man returned three days later. He hadn’t had a single nightmare since Lavinia had removed the thread from his ear.

“Your daughter is a miracle worker!” he declared, speaking to Lavinia’s father but beaming straight at her.

As word of Lavinia’s mysterious talent spread, their house began to receive a steady stream of visitors, all of whom wanted Lavinia to take away their nightmares. Lavinia was thrilled; perhaps this was how she was meant to help people.17

But her father turned them all away, and when she demanded to know why, all he would say was, “It’s unbecoming for a lady to stick her fingers into strangers’ ears.”

Lavinia suspected another reason for his disapproval, however: more people were coming to see Lavinia than her father. He was jealous.

Bitter and frustrated, Lavinia bided her time. As luck would have it, a few weeks later her father was called away on urgent business. It was an unexpected trip and he hadn’t had time to arrange for someone to watch the children.