Tabitha looked more than unhappy to see me. She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her nose in the air. Paint covered her fingers. She said nothing.

  I didn’t want to spook her away so I did my best to plaster the brightest smile I could, and in a friendly, but soft, voice I asked her, “Where have you been?”

  She still didn’t say anything. She kept her eyes on the key.

  I waited.

  And waited.

  And waited, trying to come across as patient even though all I wanted to do was grab her by the shoulders and shake the answers straight out of her.

  Finally, Tabitha told me, “You got Molly in trouble.”

  “I did?” That wasn’t what I was expecting. “In trouble with who?”

  “You need to be more careful.” Her gaze dropped to the floor. She took a little step backward. “Everyone is getting in trouble these days, and it’s all because of you.”

  “I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. Look, why don’t you just tell me where Molly’s at. I’ll apologize to her or whatever, and she can tell me what’s going on,” I offered.

  Tabitha took a second step back, and then a third step back. She kept her arms tight around her chest. Her eyes were watering and her lower lip wobbled.

  “Hey, don’t cry, Tabitha. Look, if you just answer my questions, I’ll make sure that everything gets fixed,” I tried, hoping that would convince her to at least point me in Molly’s direction. It was strange to me, having shown up here and not having Molly around.

  “That’s what got Molly in so much trouble,” said Tabitha. “She was telling you all sorts of things, and she shouldn’t have been! I don’t want to talk to you ever again, Quinn. I want you to just leave me alone, okay?”

  Tabitha turned and ran out of the door. Frustrated, I gave chase, key in hand—only to trip over myself when the barrier let me out into the foyer, rather than the hallway that I had just come from.

  Just like before, Tabitha had somehow managed to totally vanish.

  “Why do you keep running away from me?” I shouted. “I’ve never even done anything to you!”

  There was no answer.

  Frustrated, I spun around, planning on grabbing one of those stupid paintings and throwing it just to get even with the doll. I froze instead.

  To the left of the end table, there was a painting. It was of a black space, with a single spotlight at the center; the kind that was shining down from above, like you would see at a magic show. A single empty chair sat in the middle of it. In front of the chair was a metal sign, like you would see on a principal’s desk.

  “DAD,” it said.

  Just that.

  Dad. The chair was empty. Looking at it filled me with the sort of grief that curdled milk and cut steel. I could barely force myself to look away from it, gaze sliding over the stretch of bare dark wood wall and then over to the second painting.

  It wasn’t any better.

  Gramps and Grandma. They were in my illustrated style, turned then into oil painting. Just like everything else Tabitha made. They were standing together at the front of the painting, like the farmer and his daughter from that one famous piece by the artist Grant Wood—Gramps’ hand on Grandma’s shoulder, and Grandma holding onto a doll that looked just like me, with pinkish-purple curls and everything.

  Their house, the one from the real world, was in the background. It was on fire. Someone was in the window that would have looked into my bedroom, though the form was obscured by smoke and had no details. The sight wasn’t just grief inducing. It might have been the single most horrific thing I had ever seen.

  I turned and ran to the front door, grabbing the knob.

  Locked.

  But I was in luck. The tooth-covered key fit into the lock perfectly. With a click, the door swung open, and I raced into the front yard. It looked just the same as the last time that I had been here, straight down to the fuzzy pink blanket at the base of the oak tree.

  I slammed the front door shut behind me and leaned against it, eyes closed, as I struggled to catch my breath. I didn’t know how long I stayed there, either, but when my eyes finally peeled open again, they felt dry and crusted over.

  I scrubbed at them with one hand. Keeping track of the passage of time in this dream world was the one thing that had always eluded me.

  “Molly,” I called out. She had been here last time, sitting on the blanket beneath the tree. But the blanket was empty, and there was no sign of Molly. The knots in my stomach couldn’t have gotten any tighter if they tried—and oh boy, they were trying!

  No answer.

  I walked over to the blanket. Her little jar of honey bleach was still sitting there by the blanket, the lid off of it and a line of ants climbing up the side of the glass jar and into it. I bent down and tapped one finger against the jar.

  The ants grew wings and flew away.

  Still, no Molly appeared.

  I walked through the whole front yard, and the side yard, and tried to go into the backyard, too. I had never actually been there before, though I had drawn it. The side yard and the backyard had a massive privacy fence around it, just like Trevor’s backyard had.

  There was a big padlock on the gate leading into the backyard, which needed a heart-shaped key to enter. I tugged on the lock, but it wouldn’t budge. I kicked at the gate and tried to climb it, too, but nothing I did could get me into the backyard.

  “Molly,” I shouted. “If you’re in there, say something back to me!”

  Total silence. This world didn’t even have birds, a fact that I was just now noticing. Was that my fault. Molly said that the color and bigness and brightness, that had only come about because of me. So was it also my fault that they didn’t have these other things? That the birds would have been there if I had made them?

  God, I didn’t have time for that. I needed to focus. Finding Molly and figuring out what was going on was way, way more important than trying to figure out why there weren’t any birds in this world. The sinks spat out wine instead of water. Maybe birds just weren’t a thing! Maybe they lived underground instead!

  I didn’t know, and I didn’t have time to find out.

  I made my way back into the backyard, but there was still no sign of my friend. My lips pursed, and my hands settled on my hips. I had to figure out a game plan. There was no way I could just spend the whole month wandering around in that house. For one, I might not have been able to find the front door again.

  And for two, I was pretty sure that Molly wasn’t in the house. If she had been, then she would have come and found me like she usually did.

  But if she wasn’t in the house, the narrow strip of the side yard, or the front yard… Where did that leave?

  Molly was nowhere to be seen—but she wouldn’t have left the property, would she? I didn’t have any other options. She must have finally gotten brave enough to go outside and explore.

  Maybe she was waiting for me, right now! It was a thin hope and probably one that wasn’t very possible, but it was all that I had. So I clung to it, and then I stepped outside, got my knife from the mailbox, and headed into the neighborhood.

  Quiet & Empty

  The neighborhood hadn’t changed since the last time that I was here. The houses were all just as strange, some of them squat and others towering; some of them glass and others wood. There was a high-rise apartment building surrounded by little busted-up mobile homes. There was a big road that led to the circus… Only when I got halfway to the Starry Big Top—and yes, I knew that’s what it was now, after reading that book—I came across an orange construction sign in the middle of the road.

  I tried to step around it but it was like an invisible wall had sprung to life, and there was no way for me to move past it. I let out a huff, tapping the tip of my knife against the invisible wall. “At least this means I know that Molly didn’t go to the circus. I wonder… Where is everyone, though?”

  The people I was normally tasked with hunting down and killing were gone, and there was no sign of Harry or Tabitha out here, either. Sure, I didn’t expect to see either of them, not really, but I had been expecting to see the dream versions of the people I had drawn.

  Instead, the town was empty, almost deserted. There was a lawn mower sitting in one front yard and an empty dog house in another, even though I knew that I had put a husky dog and a child there, in one of the background scenes. There was no one playing frisbee, there was no one out bicycling, and there was no one pacing up and down the streets like a wind-up doll.

  The sense of unease within me began to grow even bigger.

  “Molly,” I called out, loud as I could. The town was so empty that the word echoed back at me, and then twisted around and bounced away from me! I frowned, and rubbed at my face, and thought that this whole thing had stopped being strange a while ago and was now creeping steadily toward frightening.

  And I didn’t like that.

  This dream world, it was supposed to be my solace. My sanctuary. My place of peace and comfort, where I could get away from the world no matter what was going on elsewhere. I didn’t have to worry here. I just had to kill. And that was fine, because then I would wake back up and all of the killing would go away.

  But…

  But.

  Whatever forever didn’t feel like it applied here, not anymore. It felt like something had changed, as though the whole dream world had taken an ominous shift. A cold wind blew through the empty street, sending a plastic bag rolling down the empty road.

  I wrapped my arms around myself and shuddered. At some point during my journey, I had taken on Ghost Girl’s appearance, complete with her stars and her tattered dress. That usually only happened right before I killed someone.

  No one was around to kill.

  The world didn’t mean… Molly, did it?

  Just the thought made me want to rebel. Molly and I might not really have been friends, despite all of the times that I called her such, but I didn’t want to kill her. Especially because she was already a doll—so if I killed her, would she be gone forever? I didn’t want to do anything this dream world might have had planned.

  I just wanted to find her, so we could talk!

  And if the circus was blocked off, that meant there was only one place left for me to look.

  The forest.

  I hadn’t actually been inside of the forest, but I had seen Dream Trevor vanish there during my last adventure into this world. I was pretty sure that I remembered the way there…

  It was a long, quiet, empty walk.

  There was literally no one around.

  When the edge of the tree line finally came into view, I let out a breath of fresh air. It was just as discombobulated-looking now as it had been when Dream Trevor ran into it. There were fruit trees, oak trees, redwood trees, mixed together with pine trees, fir trees, and aspen trees. Tall, skinny birch trees were overshadowed by massive weeping willows, and then there were the trees that I knew absolutely didn’t exist in the real world, with their glossy silver leaves and their almost-black bark.

  There was a trail, but it was overgrown, not just with forest plants like ferns and brambles and bracken, but also with the sort of plants you would find in a garden, like aloe vera, spider plants, and even a few flowering Christmas cactus.

  My heart clenched at the sight of those bright pink flowers. Mom had loved Christmas cacti. She had one that she had been carrying around since before I was born. When she died, Dad brought it into the house so nothing could happen to it.

  It burned up in the fire.

  I stopped at the entrance of the forest, reaching out and brushing the tips of my fingers over the glossy, succulent-style branches of the plant. Then I snapped one of the branches off, and tucked it behind my ear, so the big pink flower was always visible.

  Then I started into the forest.

  There were still no birds. Have you ever been in a forest without birds before? It felt unnatural. And sure, there wasn’t actually anything natural about that hodge podge of a forest, but that wasn’t the point. It should have had something in it.

  Birds. Squirrels. Rats. I would have even settled for a mouse! Well, maybe not a mouse, actually, but the point was still there. I saw no rabbits, no deer, and no stray cats. There were no hunting dogs, there were no lizards, and no bright-green tree frogs.

  Not a single animal was to be found anywhere nearby.

  There were, however, bundles and bundles of fruit. Glossy red apples hung heavy from low-hanging branches, surrounded by peach blossoms and fresh, ripe apricot. There were citrus trees by the dozens, the lemons and oranges growing right there beside the long hanging branches of the weeping willows.

  An oak tree butted up against a plum tree, and the fruit was so heavy there that the plum branches were nearly hanging on the ground. There wasn’t a single rotten piece on the forest floor or on any of the branches.

  Everything was perfectly ripe.

  I was almost tempted to pluck one from the branches and eat it—because when was the last time I had fresh fruit? The prunes that Gramps always snacked on totally didn’t count, and neither did the grapefruit that Grandma occasionally had for a midday snack, sans sugar.

  But before I could pluck a pear from the nearby branch, a strange, soft, lilting sound greeted my ears.

  The sound of crying.

  “Molly,” I gasped, knowing without a doubt that it must have been her. Abandoning my fruity pleasures, I turned and threw myself away from the path and deeper into the woods, looking for her… And for some actual, real answers.

  No Mouth

  The forest beyond the path was actually not all that different from the forest with the path. The ground was a little bit more overgrown, but the snake plants were easy to crunch under my feet, and even the brambles magically avoided snagging me. I was pretty sure that I couldn’t actually get hurt in this world, at least partially on account of the fact that I was a ghost.

  Technically.

  Playing a ghost? Taking the role of a ghost? Pretending to be a ghost?

  Dream logic. That’s what it was. And it was dream logic that kept the plants from snagging my tender skin. The crying stopped. Then it started again. Then it stopped. I had to follow it in bursts. I wondered how much time had passed since I woke up.

  The fact that I didn’t need to eat or drink in this world meant that I couldn’t even use that as a means of measurement, and while the world itself was brightly lit as though the sun were out, it always looked like that. The sky above, beyond the thick canopy of tree branches, was still the same black void that Dream May had been shoved out into, way back at the start of all this…whatever this was.

  Another sound joined the crying. Running water. Was there a river? I didn’t draw one, but that seemed par for the course. I had given the world the bare bones of ‘forest in the background’ and it had filled it in with every sort of tree that grew and several that didn’t.

  I supposed that it made sense it had filled the forest in with other things, and rivers were at least somewhat normal to find out in forests. When the crying stopped and didn’t start back up, I followed my instincts and continued chasing after the sound of running water.

  It got louder and louder and louder. Soon enough, the foliage around my feet began to change. It was spongier and mossier. The spider plants were traded out for succulents of all sorts, and some of the ferns started to shimmer with silver light, as though they had gotten so much to drink they were partially turning into water themselves.

  My shoes made sucking sounds with each step, as the earth turned to mud and the mud sucked at the soles of my foot. My dress was thankfully short enough that I didn’t have to worry about the hem of it getting caked down with mud, and could just barrel forward unhindered by the creepy crawly sensation of wet fabric brushing over the shin.

  The river came into view, the trees parting around it like the strip of scalp between two tightly drawn braids. The ferns stayed, and so did the succulents. The river was about ten feet wide, but only two feet deep. It was flowing gently, big rocks jutting up in spots along the far bank and even a few places just there randomly in the middle of the water.

  It was dappled with light despite the fact that the sun didn’t exist out here. The water was so clean and clear looking, it made me instantly want to jump into it feet first. I hadn’t gone for a swim since before my father died, namely because there was nowhere to go for one.

  This stupid town didn’t even have a public pool!

  But this wasn’t the time for taking a dip, no matter how tempting those clear, crystalline waters happened to be.

  After all, I wasn’t the only one out there.

  My intuition had been right. Molly was sitting at the bank of the river, on the ground with her knees bent and her legs to the side. Her back was toward me; one hand pressed to the ground and the other up toward her face. It didn’t matter that she had fallen in a heap by the riverside. Molly was graceful in everything that she did.

  She could have been carved from porcelain right then and I wouldn’t have been surprised.

  Her leotard was black. Her tutu was made from white glittering crinoline. Black and white ribbons were woven through her hair. With each inhale and exhale, her shoulders shook and she gave great big sniffs like she was trying so very hard to stop herself from crying again.

  I took a step forward, suddenly silent again. Though I stood on the ground, my feet made no sound. This happened right before I killed someone, too. The world gifted me with the same silence that Ghost Girl got. No one would realize I was there until it was much, much too late.

  But I didn’t want to kill Molly. I just wanted to talk to her.

  Slowly, I laid the knife down in the grass. The sunlight caught on the blade, glittering like crystal. It was like the knife was trying to tempt me into picking it up again. The bad thing was, it almost worked.

  It just looked so pretty! And I felt way more comfortable when I was carrying the knife around then I did when I was empty-handed. But this wasn’t about my comfort, I had to remind myself. This was about figuring out what was going on with the world around me.