|| 15 ||

HARRIET’S EYES APPEARED. Those haunting, pale green snake eyes.

Panic hit my chest like a punch. I should have been ready for this! Fortunately for me, she looked shocked to see me standing here, which gave me an extra second. I gathered a flow of influences and prepared to fling them at her, when I caught sight of Sophie’s still form stretched on a cot behind her. I tried to simultaneously push the white vortex at Sophie and the swirl of influences at Harriet.

Harriet flung the door wide, fire replacing the surprise in her eyes.

Harriet’s influences began to pour through me, a blend dominated by green. My nose seemed to fill with the scent of pine and decay. With a sickening rush of dread, I fought to keep a grip on my resolve, but I didn’t know how to resist her. I remembered how Zane had forced the bottle of white liquid into my mind and brought me back from the oblivion of influence. I tried to form the same image. But dizziness hit me and my vision swam.

With one last, desperate effort, I hurled myself forward, hoping to startle her enough to drop her influences. I screeched and charged, and just before I crashed into Harriet, I saw Sophie swinging a massive old book at Harriet’s head.

The book smacked Harriet’s skull with a dull thud, and she crumpled, but I couldn’t stop my own momentum. Tripping over Harriet’s legs, I stumbled forward. Sophie dropped the book and caught my arm before I could go sprawling across the floor.

I shook my head as Harriet’s influence faded and my vision snapped back into focus.

“Something’s . . . different,” Sophie said, staring at her own outstretched arms. “Something’s weird. Not right. Corinne, what’s going on?” She looked at me, fear and confusion pinching her face.

“We’re in the dream world,” I said. I eyed Harriet’s still form on the floor. She was breathing, but clearly down for the count. I formed a green vortex just in case. “Harriet must have kidnapped you or something.”

“Wait, the dream world?” Sophie’s fear intensified and her eyes looked a little wild. “We’re not stuck here, are we? How do we get back?”

“It’s okay. All we have to do is wake up in the regular world.”

“But . . . I don’t know how! I’m awake here. How do I wake myself up there? This feels like my real body. What do I do?” She started breathing in short, shallow gasps. I laid a hand on her arm.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll wake myself up, and then Mason, Ang, and I will wake you up. Just make sure Harriet doesn’t try anything. If she looks like she’s coming to, smack her with the book again. Only . . . don’t, like, kill her or anything. It’s going to be okay, Sophie.”

Sophie looked down at Harriet with loathing that I knew all too well.

I winked out of the hypercosmic realm and bolted upright in the waking world. Ang and Mason had been leaning over me, and they both jumped back. I scrambled to my feet.

“We need to wake Sophie. She’s okay. She just doesn’t know how to wake herself up from the dream world.”

“She’s in the dream world?” Ang’s eyes were wide.

“Ang, try her phone.” I started pounding on the glass door. “Sophie! Wake up!”

Mason joined me, hitting the door with his fist, and Ang pulled out her phone.

After an excruciating minute, Sophie emerged from the back office and made her way a bit unsteadily to the shop’s door. She held a ring of keys, and she tried several until she found one that worked the lock.

Mason, Ang, and I crowded through the doorway.

Ang threw her arms around Sophie. “We were scared to death!”

I headed to the back room with Mason on my heels. Harriet lay heaped on the floor like a sack of potatoes. Her mouth lolled open, and her eyelids parted to show slits of white. I drew back a little. Serious creep fest.

“What the heck are we supposed to do with her?” I said.

Mason regarded Harriet warily. “How ‘bout we call Aunt Dorothy and see what she thinks?”

I dug my phone out of the pocket of my hoodie. It hadn’t even occurred to me to talk to Aunt Dorothy about all of this. I’d been amped up with panic, and there hadn’t exactly been much time to chat with anyone.

Mason knelt on the floor and held the back of his hand near Harriet’s nose. Then he picked up her hand with his thumb and forefinger. “Breathing and pulse seem okay.”

My great-aunt picked up on the first ring. I gave her a quick run-down of the situation.

“What do we do with her? I mean, I don’t want her to die or anything, but I’m not going to hang around if she’s going to attack me again.”

“She cannot hurt you now. She will be very weak when she wakes up, and will remain so for days or even weeks,” Aunt Dorothy said. “You said there’s a cot there?”

“Yeah.” In addition to the cot, there was a mini fridge, a small shelf with a few dishes and some flatware, and a refrigerated water dispenser. It was almost like a little apartment. The thought of anyone sleeping and eating here sent icy fingers walking up and down my spine.

“Move her to the cot, then go home,” Aunt Dorothy instructed. “I will make sure she is taken care of.”

“You’re not going to . . .” What did she mean by “take care” of Harriet?

“Do not be ridiculous, my dear.” Aunt Dorothy made a disapproving sound. “What I mean to say is that I will make sure she is okay and gets medical attention if she requires it.”

“Oh! Right.” My great-aunt wasn’t a murderer. Duh.

“Let’s move her to the cot. Aunt Dorothy said we should go, and she’ll make sure everything’s okay with Harriet,” I said to Mason.

“Don’t you think we should stay? In case she wakes up and tries to go all nutballs? I don’t want Aunt Dorothy to get hurt.”

I shook my head. “She said Harriet will be really weak now.”

“Wish we could just do something with her so she can’t pull anything like this again,” Mason muttered. He stood with his hands on his hips, frowning down at Harriet. “Is it illegal to keep someone doped up on sleeping pills? I mean, I’m not serious, of course. I just want to do something so she’s not dangerous anymore.”

“Yeah, I know.” I sighed. The rush of adrenaline was long past, and my limbs were dead weights. “We better get out of here.”

Mason slid his hands under Harriet’s shoulders, and I lifted her feet. I hated touching her, even through her olive green pants. I had to keep reminding myself she wasn’t going to wake up and attack me. But if her eyelids popped open, I’d probably run screaming from the room.

We joined Ang and Sophie on the landing outside the shop’s door. Sophie wore Ang’s jacket, her arms wrapped tightly around her body. She looked pale.

“If she tries that again, I’m taking her down. I don’t care if she’s an old lady!” Sophie sounded confident, but she kept nervously glancing into the shop.

“She won’t be bothering us. Not for a while, at least,” I said. I repeated my conversation with Aunt Dorothy for Ang and Sophie’s benefit.

Mason’s face pinched with concern as he tilted his head to look down at Sophie. “How did this happen?”

“Can we get out of here first?” Sophie hugged herself tighter.

The four of us turned toward the dark staircase, Sophie in the lead. Ang touched my arm and paused, holding me back a couple of steps. She dipped her chin and leaned toward me, her blonde hair swinging forward. “Sophie’s pretty freaked out,” she whispered. “She wouldn’t go back in there.”

I nodded. Sophie’s anxiety poured through our link. I couldn’t read her exact thoughts, but they were jumping around like crazy.

Ang drove us back to my house, and she, Mason, and I formed a protective little group around Sophie as we walked up the driveway. We didn’t say much, but we all kept shooting vigilant looks up and down the street.

Down in my room, Mason settled on the chair of purple velvetiness, and the girls and I sat in a row on my bed. Sophie pulled a decorative lavender silk pillow onto her lap.

“Okay, how did all of this happen?” Mason asked. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, and watched Sophie with a worried, unblinking gaze.

Sophie picked at a loose thread on the edge of the pillow and drew a deep breath. “I drove home from school and went in the house. My aunt is always paranoid about weirdoes pulling off the highway and, I don’t know, ransacking our house or something. She insists we always keep the doors locked. Usually, I do lock the door when I come in, but I had dance team stuff in my car and I wanted to bring it in. So I dumped my bag on the sofa. I heard the door open, but before I could turn around everything just went all . . . slack and foggy.” She paused and bit her lip.

“Did you pass out?” I asked.

“No, I was conscious, just. . . . It’s hard to explain. Remember that hypnotist at Summer Solstice Carnival when we were in sixth grade? It was a little like that, but not fun at all. I felt like I was under her spell. She made me get in her car.” Sophie frowned and her foot started jiggling like crazy. “I was in the backseat and the windows were tinted, so I’m sure no one saw me. She took me to her shop and made me lay down in that room. I was totally . . . powerless. I couldn’t move, and I didn’t even want to.” Her frown clouded to anger, and for a moment I thought she might start crying.

“She did the same thing to me,” I said, my voice soft. “I know exactly what you mean. All I cared about was whatever she wanted me to do next. It was . . . horrible.” I shuddered at the memory.

If she ever tries anything on me again, I’ll do way worse than a book to the head, Sophie said. Her words were fierce, but her fear swept through our link so strongly that for a second it felt like my own.

I’ll do everything I can to make sure she doesn’t, I said to her. A mixture of guilt and sympathy flowed through me. I should have realized sooner that Sophie needed me, before Harriet had dragged her away.

“Did she do anything to you while you were there?” Mason asked.

Sophie shook her head. “Just kept me helpless.”

I cringed and Ang shivered.

“There’s, um, something else,” Sophie said. She cleared her throat and her eyes met mine, then she looked down at the pillow in her lap. “I think she took over my link with you. She wasn’t just controlling me, she was in my mind. She called me her Guardian.”

Mason looked as grim as I felt. “She’s trying to form her own pyramidal union, isn’t she?” I said.