“The bear dream. That’s the project I’m working on.” She scooches up a little higher. “Nature turns to chaos. In New Orleans we have a werewolf, the rougarou. But up here, people see a bear in their sleep—”

Maeve shivers. She had so many dreams the night she arrived. She’d almost forgotten—the animal smell, the rush of something coming into her room. She looks to Anna, nodding.

“The first night—” she says. Now that she’s talking about it, the dream seems so intimate, so close. Almost sexual. It embarrasses her.

“See? I knew it! Damn, I’ve been here twice, and nothing! You know, when I was here in the spring, there was one night where everyone had it. Everyone! Except me, goddamn it.”

“Maybe it’s just part of being an artist,” Maeve tries. “Wild dreams. Your brain on overdrive, kinda.”

Anna looks skeptical. “The problem is you can’t control it,” she says. “Go ahead and tell me it’s about art when you’re crying in your bed.” She winks, then slips away to the far side of her own pool, wading along with her camera case in hand.

Maeve turns away herself and stretches out with both arms, heart lifting. There’s the murmur of conversation on the deck and high laughter, Anna or Justin putting on a show for Dan; she can hear him laughing too. She pushes up toward the pool’s edge, legs trailing—alarmed when her toe brushes something behind her. She sets her feet down in a hurry and spins.

But it’s only Sim—and an almost respectable distance away. The raw line of his shoulder rising out of the water. Steam or sweat in beads at his brow.

“Better put those things away,” he says, nodding to where her legs are hidden down in the cloudy water. “I don’t want to get clobbered. Even by accident.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Always sneaking up behind me, aren’t you?”

He holds a hand up like a shield. “Just trying to avoid injury. Lot of power in a dancer’s legs, I’ll bet.”

She plays at the water with her fingers, the color rising in her cheeks.

“I should really head back,” she says. “I feel like every moment out here is a moment wasted. Lazy, you know? Swimming instead of dancing.”

“Ah,” he says. “A worker bee.”

“I’m only here for a short time.”

“Don’t be so proscriptive.” When she doesn’t respond, he steps a little closer. “Trust your instincts. You came here, didn’t you? It was a choice. You have to honor that.”

His body, the line of his collarbone, distracting her.

On the other side of the pool, Dan takes a few steps toward them. Maeve watches him, then she moves closer to Sim. She’s not sure why she does it; it’s a little coy.