RALPH’S THRIFT SHOP

Andrea startled awake on the floor of her room, her head pressed into the gray star pillow. Harsh morning light from the window hit her face, along with the repetitive beeps of a truck backing up outside.

She still wore the jeans and T-shirt she had been wearing the previous night. She must have fallen asleep instead of slipping out into the garage.

But, man, had she had a weird dream.

Reverie. Penny. Its magical circus tents. She had been certain it was real. A wave of disappointment rushed through her, sinking her stomach. The end of the dream had been bad, but most of it—the beauty, the wonder, the magic—had been so, so good.

And it had been all in her head.

Andrea walked to the window, blinking slowly. The room was empty. Francis must have already gone downstairs.

A white truck that read Ralph’s Thrift Shop was parked in front of the yard, the back open, the ramp pulled down. Her dad’s car sat in the driveway along with a stack of boxes. Her mom stood on the grass, her robe wrapped tightly around her, her arms folded across her chest.

Andrea walked down the stairs and out the front door.

“What’s going on?” she asked. She figured that the man, who must be Ralph, was probably picking up a bunch of items her mom had intended to sell at the garage sale she could never organize herself enough to have. But that wouldn’t explain why her dad was here, too.

He carried another box out of the garage and set it on the driveway. Ralph picked it up and carried it to the truck.

The sun briefly flickered before Andrea, like a lightbulb threatening to go out. Her mother turned to Andrea with tired eyes brimming with tears that wouldn’t quite fall.

“We told you last night, sweetie. It’s time to let go of Francis’s things.”

Andrea’s blood grew hot. “What? Why? Where is he?” Andrea marched to the garage, searching wildly for his mop of sand-colored hair. “Francis?”

Her father froze, a fresh box cradled in his hands. “Andrea, this isn’t the time.”

“The time for what? Where is my brother?!” Andrea’s body pumped with heat. Her skin burned like she was on fire. She hated how they looked at her. Her mom, her dad, Ralph from Ralph’s stupid thrift shop.

Her parents shot each other a look that said: What am I supposed to do with her?

Andrea clenched her fists and tensed her arms, certain if she yelled loudly enough her brother would hear her. That he would come running and explain what was going on. Why they were putting his things on the back of a truck.

“FRANCIS!!!” Her words tore through the air as she yelled his name one, two, ten more times until she had scratched her voice raw and tasted iron at the back of her throat.

Ralph stared, a mix of pity and confusion on his round, red-cheeked face. He pulled out his phone, checking the time, then walked back to the boxes and picked up another—

—like heck he was going to drive away with Francis’s things.

Anger raging through her, Andrea ran full speed toward the man, smacking the box out of his hands and spilling it open all over the grass next to the drive. She fell to the ground and pulled together the fallen items, scooping them into her arms and nestling them close. Hoping that by holding them near her, she’d be able to figure out why her brother’s things were being taken.

The box that had spilled contained all of Francis’s precious items. The things he displayed proudly on his dresser. Andrea had caught him, on more than one occasion, rearranging his valuables, trying to get the perfect effect.

There was his Batman figurine and some plastic dinosaurs. An empty mason jar. A shining, smooth brown stone they had picked up at the gift shop in a museum. And pictures. So many pictures of their family all together: standing in front of the swing set with Francis after their father spent the whole day putting it together; smiling up from a dining table filled with platters of food and a steaming turkey; sitting around a Christmas tree, with wrapping paper strewn all over the floor; and a selfie of the family at story time, snuggled on their parents’ bed, days before they split.

“He’s gone,” her mother said, kneeling on the earth next to her daughter, her face streaked with tears. She smoothed down Andrea’s straggly hair in pressured, repetitive motions and kissed the top of her head. “He’s been gone for three years. Andrea, I’m so sorry, but you can’t do this. It’s time to let go.”

Tension flooded from Andrea’s body as she leaned into the softness of her mother’s chest, inhaling the faint floral notes of her perfume with each shaky, shallow breath. In and out, in and out. Andrea’s mind slowed after a few moments, small spaces forming between her frenzied thoughts.

The bright sun slipped behind a cloud, erasing Andrea’s shadow. And there, in the silent beat between breaths, she remembered.

The flyers taped all over town. The news stories. The phone calls from horrible people pretending to know where he was.

Family dinners with two empty seats at the table most nights. Her father’s. And Francis’s. Christmases with fewer gifts under the tree. An empty lower bunk. The endless hours Andrea had spent alone. Brotherless.

She had lost her shadow.

Francis was gone.

Andrea doubled over, the remembering sucker punching her in the gut, making her fragile heart shudder. She wrenched herself away from her mom’s embrace and crawled back to the box, confusion weighing her down, pushing her toward the earth.

“Francis!” the world flickered again as she screamed, over and over again, pulling more and more of the items from the box into her arms, each muscle in her body stiff as wood, fighting against each and every attempt to bend.

He was gone, but she couldn’t remember how it had happened. The life with Francis and the life without him felt like the beginning and the ending of a story that was missing its middle.

She clutched the empty mason jar as the entire world around her stopped moving, like she had pressed the pause button on her life. A single mosquito hovered, frozen midair, inches in front of Andrea’s face.

She had wanted to forget what happened the night he disappeared. And inside the gates of Reverie, she had. But if Reverie was only a dream, why would she still not be able to remember that night now that she was awake?

Andrea let Francis’s items fall to the ground with clanks and clashes as she fished inside her pocket and set the world to moving again. The sun reappeared and reflected off the glass from one of the pictures, sending searing light into Andrea’s eyes. Three objects met her hungry fingers. Andrea pulled them out and held them in her open palm.

A soft bright red feather. A smooth golden coin. And the trinket she had kept for such a long time: a small yet weighty vial of shimmering sand. Sand exactly like Margaret Grace had used to put her to sleep after she rode her bike off into the woods and arrived at Reverie’s gates. Where she pinched herself and learned that Reverie was real.

And if it was real, Reverie couldn’t have been something she had only dreamt last night. It had to be a place she had actually been. Maybe it was still there, waiting for her, out in the abandoned field. Maybe she could escape there now.

Andrea didn’t want to think anymore. Didn’t want to remember anymore. She wanted to go back to when the sharp edges of the past softened and she hid herself away in a world built of dreams. She was sure she wouldn’t mess it up this time. She would let the sweet release of escape and forgetfulness take over. She’d run from tent to tent and never stop. She’d run so fast the pain couldn’t catch her.

She needed to go back.

So there on the ground, with her mom and her dad and Ralph staring at her in pity like she was some sort of lost puppy, Andrea tucked the feather and the coin back into her pocket. She opened the vial of sand and poured a bit into her palm. She closed her eyes, sprinkled the sand over them, and said the words that had taken her away from all this horror in the first place.

“I ask the Sandman to take me away, to a land of dreams in which I can play.”

“Andrea, what are you doing?” her mother asked, her voice coming from far away, like she spoke to Andrea across a great distance.

“I ask the Sandman to take me away, to a land of dreams in which I can play.”

The ground beneath her began to tilt. Hope leapt up in Andrea’s heart.

“I ask the Sandman to take me away, to a land of dreams in which I can play.”

The smell of fresh-popped corn curled beneath Andrea’s nose.