I think the nightie has unicorns on it, but they may be ducks. I’m not sure. The girl stares at me, and something in her blue gaze pierces my skin, perhaps reaching places you see only if you can look through people. The music washes up the walls, converges in the middle of the ceiling, and sprinkles down onto my head.

“Did you know that stars could breathe, Maddie?”

For a split second I can sense some movement in Madelyn’s glassy gaze, like a fish swimming from one hiding place to another at the bottom of a deep lake. No, it isn’t a lake—it’s the wind in her eyes, a gust of music, and the movement was a raven taking off and spreading its wings. Madelyn has ravens in her eyes, and I tumble into this sky full of ravens.

“The world is so beautiful when you’re a star looking down on us all,” the nurse continues. “On the cats in the grass, on girls sleeping with open eyes, and on boys standing in the doorway with their jaws on the floor.” With these last words, the nurse turns to face me. She has a face like a leprechaun’s, with laughter lines arcing from the corners of her eyes to the corners of her mouth. The name on the badge pinned to her dark-purple blouse is Marion.

Nurse Marion says, “Hello. Have you come to visit Maddie?”

So what does this smart-ass sidekick do next? I slam the door and run away, even though part of me is left standing there by the door, because at the end of the corridor is a girl who can see through me into other worlds, as if I were made of crystal and all of reality is no more than a glass bubble with her floating inside.

My feet pound the carpet. Her name is Madelyn. Ma-de-lyn. I’m simultaneously happier and sadder than I’ve ever been in my entire life.

Eddie

They work like a team of Formula 1 mechanics. Dr. Foss raises the head of the bed and dabs Henri’s eyelids with a cotton swab, while Dr. Saul taps his patient’s knee, a nurse draws the blue curtains around the bed, and an anesthetist removes the sedative drip from the catheter in the side of Henri’s neck.

I know there’s going to be no “awakening” like in the movies. He’s not going to open his eyes and say, “Hey, Ed, got any decent whiskey in this joint?”

First, his reflexes will return. Spontaneous breathing. Blinking. Swallowing. Then there’ll be pain. Pain will permeate every corner of his being before swelling into a torrent of dread.

For days he will be enveloped in hallucinations like thick smoke, although Dr. Foss claims that they use a mild sedative and tranquilizer at the Wellington, leading to fewer delirious visions. As if that were reassuring: two nightmares instead of three.