“I still have no idea where he comes up with these things,” muttered the old woman. “Your human-niece does not sniff dirty socks, Henri.” She ruffled his gray chest feathers with her knuckle, and he let out a burbling chirp. “What a bird even knows about socks, I can’t imagine. Watch out for that box of bee stingers, dear.”

Even though the box of stingers was closed and sealed with duct tape, Maren gave it a wide berth as she stowed her backpack behind the counter. She peered into Lishta’s bowl and instantly regretted her decision. Beetles floated in a lumpy, cheese-like substance.

“That’s enough bugs now, Henri,” said Lishta. The bird squawked and fluttered up to his food bowl, where he began flinging birdseed in all directions. “Maren, will you hold that cloth?” Lishta pointed to a second bowl, over which she’d draped a checkered square of fabric.

Leaning back as far as possible, Maren held the edges of the cloth while Lishta spooned the beetle-cheese mixture inside. Once it was all in, Maren helped her gather up the edges of the cloth and held them while Lishta tied a string around the bundle. The pungent liquid dripping out through the bottom made Maren’s eyes water.

“I still don’t get why anybody would buy this on purpose,” she said, thinking of her car accident dream the night before.

Lishta carried the bundle to the fireplace in the corner and hung it from a hook in front of the smoking coals. Then she set the bowl under the bundle to catch the drips. “No matter how boring or sad people’s lives are, they always seem better after a nightmare.”

Maren wasn’t sure she agreed. She missed her boring old life, and she wished getting it back were as easy as waking up. She missed the days when the worst thing that happened was having no clean socks because Hallie had stolen hers. Going back even further, she missed the days when she’d been able to walk through the halls of her school without jeers and whispers. The last year had tumbled downhill like a snowball on a mountain, building speed as it rolled. Picking up sticks and rocks and boulders. Crushing trees and people and buildings in its way.

Shuffle toe step shuffle toe step.

“Remember that woman who came into the store yesterday?” said Maren. Lishta nodded, and she continued. “I ran into her at the hospital afterward. In the children’s ward.”

“Oh?” Lishta opened a square glass jar and scattered white grains onto a sheet of paper. It was dreamsalt—dissolvable crystals that Lishta collected from some secret location she hadn’t yet told Maren. Without one of these granules tucked in every sachet, the dreams wouldn’t work. It also helped people to fall asleep and stay asleep for the duration of the dream.