“Oh yeah?” he said. “Is that why you’re sent away to learn about knitting while the boys all take science?”

The boys laughed so hard that the teacher lost her temper and made everyone copy from the dictionary. While they were silently working, Lavinia reached into her bag, pulled a single thread from Baxter, and whispered to it. The thread wriggled down the leg of her desk, across the floor, up Glen Farcus’s chair, and into his ear.

He didn’t notice. No one did. But the next day Glen came to school looking shaky and pale.

“What’s the matter, Glen?” Lavinia asked him. “Did you have trouble sleeping last night?”

The boy’s eyes widened. He excused himself from the room and didn’t come back.

That evening, Lavinia and Douglas received word that their father would return the next day. Lavinia knew she had to find a way to hide Baxter from him, at least for a while. Using what she’d learned in her hated home economics class, she teased Baxter apart, knit him into a pair of stockings, and pulled him onto her legs. Though the stockings itched something awful, Father was unlikely to notice.

He returned the following afternoon, dusty and road-worn, and after he’d hugged both children, he sent Douglas away so he could speak with Lavinia in private.

“Have you been good?” her father asked her.

Suddenly and fiercely, Lavinia’s legs began to itch. “Yes, Papa,” she answered, scratching one foot with the other.

“Then I’m proud of you,” said her father. “Especially because, before I left, I didn’t give you a very good reason for why I didn’t want you using your gift. But I think I can explain myself better now.”

“Oh?” said Lavinia. She was terribly distracted; it was taking all her willpower and concentration not to double over and scratch her legs.

“Nightmares aren’t the same as tumors and gangrenous limbs. They’re unpleasant, to be sure, but sometimes unpleasant things can serve a purpose. Perhaps they weren’t all meant to be removed.”

“You think nightmares can be good?” said Lavinia. She had found a small bit of relief by rubbing one of her feet against the hard leg of a chair.

“Not good, exactly,” said her father. “But I think some people deserve their nightmares, and some people don’t—and how are you to know who’s who?”

“I can just tell,” said Lavinia.

“And if you’re wrong?” said her father. “I know you’re bright, Vinni, but nobody’s that bright all the time.”

“Then I can put them back.”

Her father looked startled. “You can put the nightmares back?”

“Yes, I . . .” She nearly told him about Glen Farcus, then thought better of it. “I think I can.”

He took a deep breath. “It’s much too heavy a responsibility for someone your age. Promise me you won’t try to do any of this again until you’re older. Much older.”

She was in such a torment of itching now that she was only half listening. “I promise!” she said, then bolted upstairs to pull off her stockings.