I gave Hallie dreams after you told me not to. I stole nightmares from the shop and gave them to that woman. I’m pretty sure she gave them to unsuspecting people around town. I broke all of our family’s most precious rules.

In this exact moment in time, her parents were happy—it was so wonderful to hear her mom talk about things that weren’t coma or money related, and Maren knew that spilling the truth would be horrible and shocking and ugly. It would wreck this one perfect evening that they all so desperately needed.

Everyone finished eating, and Maren still hadn’t worked up the courage to let the words out. She washed the dishes while her dad dried.

“Want to put on the dancing show?” Her mom sat on the couch, holding out the remote.

Maren picked up Hallie’s favorite throw pillow and tucked it into the corner of the couch. Then she scrolled through the shows and found the next episode. Her mother was already buried in another brochure.

Imani went first. She wore a yellow dress that made her look like a bird, and her music fluttered and soared, too. As Maren’s favorite dancer slid through a quadruple-pirouette-back-walkover combination, the phone rang.

“Hi, Ma,” said Maren’s mom. “No, it’s fine. What’s up?”

Lishta’s voice sounded shrill, though Maren couldn’t make out the actual words.

“Another one?” said Maren’s mom. “This is getting really weird.”

Maren paused her show. Her mom mouthed the word sorry at her, then stood and gestured for her to continue watching the show. “Hang on a second, Ma. I’m going in the other room.”

Part of Maren wanted to follow her mother and ask what happened. Another part of her already knew. I’m doing this for Hallie and for them, she told herself, but that wasn’t exactly true. Mostly it was for herself. With guilt pinching her insides like tiny crabs, Maren settled uneasily back on the couch and unpaused her show.

Fourteen

“It seems you’ve gotten out of bed on the wrong foot today, sweetheart,” said Lishta.

Maren was supposed to be pouring a jar of muddy tide-pool water through a strainer, but she’d managed to splash it all over the counter three times in less than five minutes.

“VOLEUSE!” yelled Henri.

“Stop that,” said Lishta. “Your human-niece isn’t a thief.”

Maren glared at the bird as she mopped up the dirty water once again. Brown stains covered her T-shirt, and her thumb oozed blood from where she’d stabbed it while sewing up sachets.

“Is something wrong?” Lishta took a saltine cracker from the plate she was sharing with Henri and munched on it while staring thoughtfully at Maren. “Aside from the usual, of course.”