Everything was ruined. My shaky peace was destroyed by the knowledge that Laura saw me as little more than a servant. Why couldn’t she have just treated me with cold disinterest instead of making me think we were friends? Instead of pretending she cared about me? And worse was the fact that Barrett knew how Laura felt. Any time we were together, he would be looking at me and thinking, She’s a needy child.

My eyelids grew heavy and my vision began to swim. It was probably too early to go to sleep, but I was exhausted. So when my eyes closed, I let them.

I guess it was only natural, after such emotional turmoil, that my brain would take that darkness and use it to create the first nightmare I’d had in weeks. I’d forgotten that the things that seemed horrible in the light of day became monsters when I let my guard down.

And that was how I found myself sinking into the dark layers of a dream world that was as black as charcoal, where I was trapped in a windowless, doorless room between walls that seemed to move closer and farther away from me at random. A person stood in the corner with a veil over her face and hair, and as I walked closer, she hunched down, cowering away from me.

“Agatha?” I asked.

There was no answer, and it dawned on me that this wasn’t Agatha at all. It was someone else, someone I wasn’t sure I wanted to be locked alone in a dark room with. So I stopped and looked for a way out, and while I was facing away, a hand came to rest on my shoulder. I could see the fingers, grayish and lined with dirt, with bulging knuckles and shredded fingernails.

“I’m here,” whispered a soft voice. “I’m always here.”

In the dream I held my breath and tried not to move, hoping this would make her leave me alone.

“Margot,” the voice said more insistently. And the hand clamped onto my shoulder. “Margot.”

But I couldn’t look, because if I looked I would see her face, and I didn’t want to see her face.

“Margot?”

With a gasp, I opened my eyes and found myself staring up at Laura, who was watching me with concern.

“Are you all right?” she asked. She reached her hand down as if to press it on my forehead, and I jerked away.

I started to catch my breath.

“Was it a nightmare?” she asked. “You look pale.”

I nodded, my eyes darting around the room, taking stock of reality. More than once I’d thought I had awakened from a dream only to find myself in a second layer of unreality, and I didn’t want to take any chances.