Chapters (38)
- Front Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Back Cover
“She was standing out in the hall, listening to us in Hallie’s room,” said Maren. “Ms. Malo, right?”
“Maybe Ms. Malo.” Using tweezers, Lishta began adding dreamsalt, one grain at a time, to a row of half-finished sachets. “I’m not certain that’s her real name.”
“Why?”
“She wrote Sophia with a PH when she printed her name on the contract a few months ago, but then signed it Sofia with an F.”
“That’s pretty suspicious,” said Maren.
Lishta blew gently on the dreamsalt to activate it. This was the part that nobody but the members of Maren’s family could do—it was where their dream magic came in. “Many years ago, a girl around your age came into the shop, pale and shaking with rage. She wanted a nightmare—the worst nightmare in the entire shop.”
Goose bumps whispered up Maren’s arms. “What was her name?”
Lishta sighed. “I wish I could remember, dear. I asked her why she needed a nightmare, and she said it was for her brother. She said he’d slipped her something while she slept, and she’d dreamed she was being eaten by a python the size of a crocodile. It slowly swallowed her foot, her ankle, her knee—well, you get the idea—and she couldn’t move or even scream.”
Heel step heel heel went Maren’s feet. She’d never heard of this particular nightmare, but it sounded hideous.
“The girl hadn’t slept in weeks,” said Lishta. “Every time she tried, the dream came back, even though she locked her bedroom door and window. You see, even after the nightmare was gone, its effects on her brain lingered.” Lishta folded her knobby hands over her stomach. “This, my dear, is precisely why we have that rule about dreams and consent.”
To hide her burning cheeks, Maren knocked a walnut off the counter and crouched to pretend to look for it. She hadn’t given Hallie a nightmare, just a harmless flying dream.
“Of course, I couldn’t sell that poor child a nightmare,” said Lishta. “I gave her an eraser dream free of charge, a handful of calming dreams, a funny snake dream to counteract the effects of the nightmare. I reminded her that we never sell nightmares to minors, and I tried to persuade her that revenge wasn’t the way to heal. But she refused to listen. She called me a lot of bad names and stormed out of the shop. I assume her family moved away, because I never saw her again. Until a few months ago.”
“I feel bad about what happened to her,” said Maren.