“It sounds okay. I just want a house,” she said seriously, “with my own room.”

“I think we can do that,” he said, bending down to kiss the top of her head, and breathing in the sweet, freshly washed scent of her hair.

“So we’ve got a house?” Helen asked.

“We’ve got a house. Of course”—he added quickly—“you can change your mind if you don’t like it.”

“I’m sure I’ll love it. We’ll love it,” she corrected herself, looking at Jessie with a smile. “As long as we’re together, we’ll be fine.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jessica was alone in a world of white. She didn’t feel particularly frightened, though it was lonely and unfamiliar.

She felt curiously at ease, like she was floating above the clouds. And yes, here was Johnny Bear at her side, so she wasn’t really alone at all. She felt peaceful and happy, and she didn’t wonder where Daddy or Mommy were, or even where she was. This was enough, this soft white puffiness. It didn’t matter; nothing mattered but the floating.

She reached out for Johnny Bear, and watched her hands swim slowly outward, then her wrists, then her elbows, and it was like they weren’t even attached to her body, didn’t belong to her at all. It was all in slow motion, like the way you felt when you were floating in the pool or the lake and you watched your arms with those big fat floaty things on them push outward, and then you were moving through the water. But slowly, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t go much faster, but it was okay, it was fun.

The change happened so slowly that she didn’t even notice it at first. The bright, soft white around her began to gray, darken, and then she noticed the cold (can you feel cold in a dream ‘cause that’s what this is a dream) and her flesh prickled, her hair stood out from her skin and she got goose bumps. And Johnny Bear was being pulled away, gently but firmly, with a force that was constant and unshakable. She held him as tight as she could but felt his furry arms sliding through her own, then the cool smooth glass of his eyes against her skin for a moment and he was gone. She watched him float into the black clouds, away from her, and felt sad and lonely.

She began to drift downward.