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
Dumping her bag and shoes on the floor, Maren climbed into bed with her clothes on. Her whole body ached with exhaustion and regret. She’d played right into the trap, and she couldn’t begin to think what that woman was doing with those nightmares. But she couldn’t imagine never being allowed to visit her sister again, and she couldn’t stand the thought of getting banned from the dream shop. She’d be stuck all alone while her parents worked, drifting around like a sad little ghost.
Even though it was only midafternoon, Maren opened the wooden box on her bedside table and pulled out a sachet in the palest shade of robin’s egg blue. She’d made this dream when Lishta had first started teaching her to craft memory dreams. It was clumsily made, a beginner’s effort, but it didn’t matter. Maren had made a Hallie dream, crafted from a strand of her hair, a clipping of grass from their backyard, and threads from their mother’s old beach blanket. She tucked the sachet under her tongue, lay back on her pillow, and closed her eyes.
* * *
She sat, braiding her sister’s long blond hair, on a striped blanket in the middle of a wide, green lawn. Everything beyond the grass blurred, but it didn’t matter because the only thing Maren cared about was Hallie, whose back felt warm and solid against her knuckles as she braided. The air smelled of sunshine and freshly mown grass; birds chattered and chirped. Maren gathered and twisted, twisted and gathered, and the braid grew and grew until she had to coil it up in her lap. Still more hair remained to braid, but Maren didn’t mind. She loved her sister, loved sitting here with her under this dazzling sky.
The deep green lawn began to ripple and curl. It formed big, rolling waves, taking Maren and Hallie’s blanket with it. Up and down they drifted, up and down. Maren pulled an elastic from her wrist and tied off the end of Hallie’s braid. Up and down, up and down. She gathered the length of braid that had been coiled in her lap and wrapped it around Hallie’s waist and hers. Then she leaned her cheek against Hallie’s back.
“We’re safe as long as we’re together,” she whispered. Hallie didn’t turn around, but Maren knew she was listening. The braid would keep them safe, no matter what.
* * *
Maren woke to a rich, oniony cooking smell. She pulled the blanket over her head, shut her eyes, and tried to fade back to Hallie, to that sun-bathed dream, but only fragments remained. The softness of Hallie’s shirt under her cheek, which was also the softness of Maren’s pillow. The lingering, ghostlike presence of her sister.