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Description
I needed neutral dream even more than usual. I usually needed it because I could find Sarah through it. Now I needed it for answers. No one was supposed to be in someone else’s bad dream; Harriet and I were sure about that.

Mr. Hansen was away on business the next morning, which was Saturday. Mrs. Hansen vacuumed through the morning, watched the news at noon, and then ensconced herself in the living room with her books. I fell asleep in the quiet of my room, curled on the carpet. It wasn’t hard. I was always tired.

Neutral dream was like it always was: never the same. I noticed that little things were different as soon as my eyes opened. I’d come to in one of its hallways. It was a long rectangle of glass with solid doors of all colors and materials on either side. Through the panes I saw a blur of color. If I pressed my face against the cold glass and held my breath, sometimes I could sort out the individual shapes of people flying and swimming and laughing and crying. This is how dreamers are, when they don’t know they’re in dream: hurtling through a space that doesn’t follow the laws of real, not realizing that they are shaped by the strangers they press past. I was one of them, once. I know that without remembering it. What I do remember was the peace of anticipating normal sleep instead of the fear that if I’m not careful it will reach out and swallow me.

Sometimes it was hard to find Sarah. Harriet and I didn’t really know how dream brought you together or why. We thought that you might need to be asleep at the same time in real, but this was uncertain. Luke thought that, sometimes, we were at different points in real when we met in dream. I trusted Luke, and so did Harriet, but he spoke so rarely that getting definite opinions from him was impossible.

I studied the doors as I passed them, sometimes reaching out to touch one. I’d been behind plenty of them. Some of them had belonged to me in real. This scarred oak door with the golden handle had hung in front of my closet when I was eleven. This door, painted blue with rainbow stickers’ edges curling, when I was seven. The ones I didn’t touch were the one from fourteen and both of the ones from fifteen. They breathed at me as I walked past them.

An unfamiliar door burst open and a person I didn’t know ducked through it. She looked grown up, and she had long, coarse hair like a horse’s. We looked at one another for a while, searching each other’s faces for something recognizable, but then I sighed and walked past her. I couldn’t know her if she didn’t know me on sight. I hadn’t changed in dream since I’d first come here.

Luke’s door. It was black, with careful images of crude horses and dogs drawn with a fine brush in white and light blue and apricot. Almost trembling with relief, I opened it. A familiar combination of disappointment and relief washed over me at the sight of the two people who looked up at me on its other side.

Harriet stood up and hugged me. Harriet was one of the few truly pretty people I’d ever seen in dream. Most hardly looked human, or only had a few features that weren’t exaggerated. Her face fit together perfectly, and it was perfectly nondescript. She had a band of freckles across her nose as red as her hair and dark brown eyes. She looked the age I was in real, but I knew she was two years older. She’d escaped foster care the second she’d turned eighteen, and it had transformed her in dream from looking adult to looking like a teenager.

“There’s no Sarah,” I said, looking past Harriet at Luke. He had a bowl cut of black hair, gray eyes, and an unsmiling face. I didn’t talk to Luke about himself often enough to know anything except what he looked like in dream. As far as I knew none of us had met him in real. He’d been Harriet’s friend from early in her dreams, and so he was automatically mine. If you could stay together, it was easier.

“We haven’t seen her in a long time, Lacey,” Luke said, in his slow, careful manner. The room was empty, with white walls and dark red carpet. He was sitting cross-legged in the center of it holding a collie puppy that kept changing into an iguana. In both shapes it sat peacefully in Luke’s arms.

“I know,” I said, trying not to let my worry suffocate me. Sarah hadn’t been with us in neutral dream in years of real. I’d seen her in good dream twice during that time, which saved me from despair, but each time I came to neutral I was disappointed not to find her.

“How is the new place?” Harriet asked.

I shrugged. “I’m the only one.” Harriet was so much taller than me that it was awkward to talk to her while we were both standing up. I sat down next to Luke and she sat across from us.

I extended a hand toward the animal, which was a motionless iguana at the moment, glancing questioningly at Luke. He nodded and I traced a finger down the smooth skin over its ribs, feeling the fine bones beneath the pad of my thumb and the warm, dry ripple of its skin.

Harriet didn’t usually have to ask me questions to get her answers. I felt her looking at me, until she sighed. “I could come get you. It’s not so bad alone. A lot of kids run away.”

“No,” I said, without knowing why. I think I felt like there might be something in the future, if I could just tolerate the rules of real’s government, real’s society. This was a point on which Harriet and I consistently disagreed.

“I saw someone in bad dream,” I said, in part to distract her and in part because, aside from finding Sarah, it was my most significant concern. “Has that ever happened to you?” I met Luke’s eyes as I asked, but the question was for Harriet, we all knew. Luke didn’t answer questions he was asked directly.

“No.” She paused. “What kind of a person?”

“A boy, with a crooked nose,” I said. “And I saw five of them, but he did something to them. Hurt them, I think. And then I woke up.” I sat back as the room temperature reptile skin transformed to warm fur beneath my hand. Crossing my arms, I looked at Harriet.

“Hurt them? A whole pack, together? You could have been caught!”

I wondered if Harriet had as much bad dream as she had before she’d gone out on her own, but I didn’t ask. My knowing wouldn’t change anything. “He did something to them,” I said again.

“Threw them?” Luke asked quietly. The puppy was licking his cheek.

”Sort of,” I said, breathless with hesitation. I didn’t push, and I was rewarded.

“Soul mate,” he said, and his face bloomed into an absolutely sweet smile. He buried his face in the puppy’s ruff.

I didn’t know what that meant, so I looked at Harriet. She had her head to one side, studying Luke thoughtfully. Then we all felt the air get a little cooler.

“Not long now,” she said. “Did you recognize him?”

“I only saw him for a second,” I said. “What does Luke mean, Harriet?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed, reaching across to squeeze my hand. “But whatever happened, I’m glad it did. A whole pack! They would have gotten you, for sure.”

All the hair on my skin rose. The puppy disappeared abruptly and was not replaced with an iguana. “Do you think Sarah’s all right?”

“Better than all right,” Harriet said firmly. “If you change your mind about me coming for you…”

But she didn’t complete the thought. The floor fell away and I was pitched into the chaos of neutral dream beyond the glass hallways and empty rooms.

Description
I needed neutral dream even more than usual. I usually needed it because I could find Sarah through it. Now I needed it for answers. No one was supposed to be in someone else’s bad dream; Harriet and I were sure about that.

Mr. Hansen was away on business the next morning, which was Saturday. Mrs. Hansen vacuumed through the morning, watched the news at noon, and then ensconced herself in the living room with her books. I fell asleep in the quiet of my room, curled on the carpet. It wasn’t hard. I was always tired.

Neutral dream was like it always was: never the same. I noticed that little things were different as soon as my eyes opened. I’d come to in one of its hallways. It was a long rectangle of glass with solid doors of all colors and materials on either side. Through the panes I saw a blur of color. If I pressed my face against the cold glass and held my breath, sometimes I could sort out the individual shapes of people flying and swimming and laughing and crying. This is how dreamers are, when they don’t know they’re in dream: hurtling through a space that doesn’t follow the laws of real, not realizing that they are shaped by the strangers they press past. I was one of them, once. I know that without remembering it. What I do remember was the peace of anticipating normal sleep instead of the fear that if I’m not careful it will reach out and swallow me.

Sometimes it was hard to find Sarah. Harriet and I didn’t really know how dream brought you together or why. We thought that you might need to be asleep at the same time in real, but this was uncertain. Luke thought that, sometimes, we were at different points in real when we met in dream. I trusted Luke, and so did Harriet, but he spoke so rarely that getting definite opinions from him was impossible.

I studied the doors as I passed them, sometimes reaching out to touch one. I’d been behind plenty of them. Some of them had belonged to me in real. This scarred oak door with the golden handle had hung in front of my closet when I was eleven. This door, painted blue with rainbow stickers’ edges curling, when I was seven. The ones I didn’t touch were the one from fourteen and both of the ones from fifteen. They breathed at me as I walked past them.

An unfamiliar door burst open and a person I didn’t know ducked through it. She looked grown up, and she had long, coarse hair like a horse’s. We looked at one another for a while, searching each other’s faces for something recognizable, but then I sighed and walked past her. I couldn’t know her if she didn’t know me on sight. I hadn’t changed in dream since I’d first come here.

Luke’s door. It was black, with careful images of crude horses and dogs drawn with a fine brush in white and light blue and apricot. Almost trembling with relief, I opened it. A familiar combination of disappointment and relief washed over me at the sight of the two people who looked up at me on its other side.

Harriet stood up and hugged me. Harriet was one of the few truly pretty people I’d ever seen in dream. Most hardly looked human, or only had a few features that weren’t exaggerated. Her face fit together perfectly, and it was perfectly nondescript. She had a band of freckles across her nose as red as her hair and dark brown eyes. She looked the age I was in real, but I knew she was two years older. She’d escaped foster care the second she’d turned eighteen, and it had transformed her in dream from looking adult to looking like a teenager.

“There’s no Sarah,” I said, looking past Harriet at Luke. He had a bowl cut of black hair, gray eyes, and an unsmiling face. I didn’t talk to Luke about himself often enough to know anything except what he looked like in dream. As far as I knew none of us had met him in real. He’d been Harriet’s friend from early in her dreams, and so he was automatically mine. If you could stay together, it was easier.

“We haven’t seen her in a long time, Lacey,” Luke said, in his slow, careful manner. The room was empty, with white walls and dark red carpet. He was sitting cross-legged in the center of it holding a collie puppy that kept changing into an iguana. In both shapes it sat peacefully in Luke’s arms.

“I know,” I said, trying not to let my worry suffocate me. Sarah hadn’t been with us in neutral dream in years of real. I’d seen her in good dream twice during that time, which saved me from despair, but each time I came to neutral I was disappointed not to find her.

“How is the new place?” Harriet asked.

I shrugged. “I’m the only one.” Harriet was so much taller than me that it was awkward to talk to her while we were both standing up. I sat down next to Luke and she sat across from us.

I extended a hand toward the animal, which was a motionless iguana at the moment, glancing questioningly at Luke. He nodded and I traced a finger down the smooth skin over its ribs, feeling the fine bones beneath the pad of my thumb and the warm, dry ripple of its skin.

Harriet didn’t usually have to ask me questions to get her answers. I felt her looking at me, until she sighed. “I could come get you. It’s not so bad alone. A lot of kids run away.”

“No,” I said, without knowing why. I think I felt like there might be something in the future, if I could just tolerate the rules of real’s government, real’s society. This was a point on which Harriet and I consistently disagreed.

“I saw someone in bad dream,” I said, in part to distract her and in part because, aside from finding Sarah, it was my most significant concern. “Has that ever happened to you?” I met Luke’s eyes as I asked, but the question was for Harriet, we all knew. Luke didn’t answer questions he was asked directly.

“No.” She paused. “What kind of a person?”

“A boy, with a crooked nose,” I said. “And I saw five of them, but he did something to them. Hurt them, I think. And then I woke up.” I sat back as the room temperature reptile skin transformed to warm fur beneath my hand. Crossing my arms, I looked at Harriet.

“Hurt them? A whole pack, together? You could have been caught!”

I wondered if Harriet had as much bad dream as she had before she’d gone out on her own, but I didn’t ask. My knowing wouldn’t change anything. “He did something to them,” I said again.

“Threw them?” Luke asked quietly. The puppy was licking his cheek.

”Sort of,” I said, breathless with hesitation. I didn’t push, and I was rewarded.

“Soul mate,” he said, and his face bloomed into an absolutely sweet smile. He buried his face in the puppy’s ruff.

I didn’t know what that meant, so I looked at Harriet. She had her head to one side, studying Luke thoughtfully. Then we all felt the air get a little cooler.

“Not long now,” she said. “Did you recognize him?”

“I only saw him for a second,” I said. “What does Luke mean, Harriet?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed, reaching across to squeeze my hand. “But whatever happened, I’m glad it did. A whole pack! They would have gotten you, for sure.”

All the hair on my skin rose. The puppy disappeared abruptly and was not replaced with an iguana. “Do you think Sarah’s all right?”

“Better than all right,” Harriet said firmly. “If you change your mind about me coming for you…”

But she didn’t complete the thought. The floor fell away and I was pitched into the chaos of neutral dream beyond the glass hallways and empty rooms.