“It’s me.” Maren left the lights off so nobody would see her from outside. Artax bumped against her shin, and she scooped him up, cradling him like a baby against her chest as she threaded her way through the typewriters. He wouldn’t be much protection against whatever might be lurking in the dark, but his soft fur and quiet purring made Maren feel a little safer.

As she turned the doorknob leading to the dream shop, a sledgehammer of guilt hit her. She was stealing from her own grandmother. Lishta had always given Maren any dreams she wanted and probably would have given her the nightmares if she’d asked. But she couldn’t ask.

A night-light plugged into the far wall cast the dream shop in a faint, spooky glow. It smelled vaguely of cheese, and the butter churn still sat in the middle of the floor. Even though Maren knew this shop as well as her own house, everything felt different tonight. She couldn’t shake the thought that the dreams were creeping out of their boxes and jars, floating through the dark, ready to slip inside her mouth or her ear. Maren crept around the butter churn, pressing her nose to the top of Artax’s head.

“I see you,” came a whisper.

Maren stumbled backward and nearly dropped the cat.

“I sssseeeee you,” the voice rasped out again, coming from the top of the shelves. It took Maren several tries to make her voice work.

“H-Henri?”

A whirring of feathers, and the bird landed on the counter. Henri cocked his head and gazed at her with one beady, emotionless eye.

“When did you learn English?” she stammered.

“HOMARD POISSEUX,” he said.

Still shaking, Maren pushed the rolling ladder over to the nightmare cabinet. It was hard to say which dreams were the worst in the shop, since different things were scary to different people. A bathtub full of spiders would be horrifying to most people but probably just inconvenient, or maybe even fascinating, to an arachnologist. Fires were a common fear, as were plane crashes. But Maren needed something utterly terrifying if she wanted to satisfy this woman. She was far too scary herself to be fazed by a standard bad dream.

Maren turned on her flashlight, found the key for the nightmare cabinet in the drawer where Lishta had hidden it, and climbed the ladder. At the top, she dried her sweaty hands carefully, leaned around the ladder’s side, and unlocked the cabinet. She couldn’t see the box of nightmares that she had in mind, but it had to be there somewhere. People rarely asked for this kind of dream. Maren slid canisters and jars out of the way, trying not to think about the nightmares sneaking out.