Dreamland Read Free Page B

was she by the list of rules, especially the fact that she was forbidden from entering Mira’s dreams again.
    â€œWhy can’t I go back?” Dea had asked.
    Dea’s mom reached out and took Dea’s chin. “I won’t let them find you,” she said. Her eyes were very wide; she was looking at Dea as if trying to beam a secret message to her, and Dea knew her mom was afraid.
    Then Dea was afraid. “Who?” she asked, although she felt she already knew the answer.
    â€œThe monsters,” Miriam said simply.

THREE
    At six o’clock and every six hours afterward, even on Saturday, the clocks started. First a half dozen, then a few more, then a handful more. Dea and her mom had more than two dozen clocks, at last count, many of them fitted with chimes and bells, gongs and whistles. Miriam liked them, said they comforted her. She liked how they pulled her into morning with a song of gears and mechanics.
    Dea was used to them. The clocks had come with them to all the houses they’d lived in. Often, Dea managed to sleep through them. Today she was jerked awake and, for one confused second, couldn’t remember where she was, which house, in which town,in which part of the country. As soon as the last clock stopped chattering, she rolled over, pulled the sheet over her head, and went back to sleep: deep and dreamless, like always. Like how she imagined it would be to swim, to sink into dark water.
    When she woke up again, sun was streaming through the paper blinds. It was after eleven a.m. She could hear her mom padding around the kitchen downstairs. She loved that about this house: the space, the sense of separation. She hated Fielding, and missed living in cities like Chicago and even Houston—but there they’d lived on top of each other, sometimes sharing a single bedroom.
    She pulled on clothes without paying attention to what she was wearing, then moved to the closet and extracted a small mirror from behind the jumble of sneakers and boots and flip-flops worn down to paper. Her mom allowed absolutely no mirrors in the house. Whenever they moved, the first thing Miriam did was dismantle the bathroom cabinets. Dea had a growing collection of forbidden mirrors, all purchased from yard sales: tarnished silver handhelds, makeup compacts obscured with a thick coat of ancient powder. Sometime in the spring she’d told Gollum in passing that she collected mirrors, and for Dea’s birthday Gollum had presented her with a pretty chrome handheld, obviously antique, so heavy it hurt Dea’s bicep to lift it. Dea had nearly cried, especially since she knew Gollum’s family had hardly any money.
    â€œDon’t worry,” Gollum had said, in that ridiculous way she had of being able to read Dea’s mind. “I stole it.”
    She was kidding, obviously. Dea was embarrassed and humbled by Gollum’s generosity, especially since for Gollum’sbirthday Dea had just gotten her a leopard-print Snuggie (to be fair, Gollum was obsessed with Snuggies, or at least the idea of them). The chrome mirror, along with the picture of her father displayed in the living room, was one of the few physical possessions she actually cared about.
    She checked her reflection. Hair: enormous. Skin: clear. Her one good feature. Eyes: pale blue, the color of ice. She made a monster face, then put away the mirror.
    â€œFeeling better?” her mother said, as soon as she came downstairs. As usual, Miriam could tell that Dea had walked.
    â€œA little.” Dea nudged Toby out of the way and moved toward the coffeepot.
    A week earlier she’d pocketed a cheap plastic hair clip Shawna McGregor had left on a bench after gym. She knew it would be difficult to use—the best doorway objects were the ones that were cherished and closely guarded, like jewelry or wallets. Her mom speculated that it had something to do with the way that the mind transforms the objects we love best into