THE NIGHT YOU LEFT US

Andrea stared at the bunk bed she and Francis used to share. Or, in the world of this dream, still did. The air in the room was heavy with sadness and perfumed with salty tears—and, Andrea quickly realized, a dreamlike version of herself.

The girl on the top bunk was Andrea three years ago, tall for her age, with feathery blonde hair. She shuffled around under her covers, restless. Glow-in-the-dark stars built into constellations on the ceiling above her head offered an eerie green glow to the girl and her deep blue eyes, which were open wide and staring at the ceiling.

She couldn’t sleep.

The girl braced herself for the yelling that carried through the door to her and Francis in their room each night. The sounds of anger between her parents that she had gotten used to hearing as she fell asleep.

Now the quiet hung heavy against memory-Andrea’s skin, and she tenderly folded her hands together, uncomfortable at the change. Her mom and dad were done with all that now. They wouldn’t be able to yell at each other every night if they fell asleep under different roofs. Their whole family was on the edge of a life that would never look the same, and the house was thunderous with silence.

Memory-Andrea sat upright in her bed at the sound of her parents’ bedroom door clicking open, then closed. She climbed down the ladder, her bare toes silent on the rungs, then walked forward with careful steps, illuminated by the light from the hallway through their cracked bedroom door.

Andrea followed as the memory version of herself stepped into the hallway, blinking in the brightness, and watched as she tiptoed to the top of the stairs. She looked over the memory’s shoulder, down the stairs and toward their front door.

There her father stood, surveying the house, a large suitcase at his side. He fumbled in his pocket, then opened the door and left, the keys clinking in the doorknob as he locked it behind him.

“Dad,” memory-Andrea whimpered, too quiet for anyone to hear her. “Please come back. Please. Come back.”

Real-Andrea’s knees weakened, and she leaned against the railing for support. Watching him leave again now wasn’t any easier than it had been to live it the first time.

In her bedroom, the dream version of her brother lay on the bottom bunk and let out a groan in his sleep. “No, no, no!” he yelled, in a voice edged with panic.

Andrea followed as her memory-self ran back to their room and was on the floor beside Francis in two seconds flat. Real-Andrea’s entire body ached at the sound of her brother’s voice.

“Francis, hey,” the memory whispered. “Don’t cry. It’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe.”

“No, no, no—please!” He writhed on the mattress, and memory-Andrea reached out, trying to shake him awake.

“Hey, Francis!” she said, louder now. “Wake up, buddy. Wake up!”

Memory-Francis sat bolt upright in bed and opened his eyes, milky white in the moonshine peeking in through the blinds. He blinked once, then twice, his chest heaving, his hand clinging tight to his memory-sister.

Andrea, the one built of flesh and bone, couldn’t take it anymore. She lunged forward, her heart surging, reaching out to wrap her arms around this version of her brother. But while the memory bed met her, hard and firm as if it were real, her hand swiped straight through Francis, sending wisps of him sideways like she had brushed through a cloud.

Andrea’s shoulders slumped in exhaustion and disappointment. He looked so real. But of course it wasn’t really him.

“Buddy, you’re okay,” memory-Andrea said. “I’m here. It was only a bad dream.”

Francis shook his head, his eyes still wide with fear, tears pooling in the bottoms, threatening to plummet down his cheeks.

Memory-Andrea pulled in alongside him on the bed and under the covers. “Want to tell me about it?” she asked.

Francis swallowed.

“It was the same one, the one in the park at night,” Francis whispered, flicking his trusting gaze up to meet his sister’s. “There was the playground that looked fun. So I walked to it. But I had to cross a river. A big willow tree was there, and it reached out its branches. I thought it would help me cross. I thought it would carry me if I held on to it, but it didn’t.” He fidgeted with the fabric of the blanket between his fingers. “I reached out to touch its branches, and they pushed me in the river, and I tried to keep going, but the roots of the tree wrapped around me and held me down. I started turning to stone in the river under the water. I started turning into cold, cold stone.”

Memory-Andrea bit her bottom lip, while real-Andrea’s insides flooded so full of love and longing she worried she might break open from the strain. Here he was, so close, yet untouchable. She had always tried so hard to protect him. Keeping Francis safe had been her job since the moment he was born.

Memory-Andrea’s gaze scanned the room before landing on a mason jar sitting on her dresser, filled with beads from a broken bracelet she one day meant to repair. She ran over to it and emptied the beads onto the dresser, where a couple of them rolled to the floor and hid themselves away in the darkness.

“It was just a bad dream, Francis.” Memory-Andrea returned to the bed and wrapped her arm around her brother. “And you’re awake now. You aren’t turning to stone. There’s a lot we can’t fix right now, but I’m going to fix this for you.”

A cloud brushed over the moon outside, and the room grew even dimmer.

Her memory-self held the mason jar out to him. “This is a dream jar,” she said. “You can close your eyes and place your bad dream inside it. I’ll put the cap on tight and trap the nightmare.”

Francis glared at the jar with suspicion.

“It’ll work, I promise. First, you have to remember the bad dream and hold it in your hand and press it into the jar. Do you think you can do that for me?”

Francis was quiet for a moment, staring up at the wooden slats supporting the top bunk. Then he spoke with conviction. “Yes,” he said. “I can.”

Memory-Andrea smiled. “Good. Now close your eyes and press your dream into the jar. I promise, I’ll catch it.”

Francis sat up and squeezed his eyes closed and clenched his fist, releasing it over the top of the jar. His memory-sister quickly capped it, locking the nightmare inside.

Francis watched as she slid out from the bed, pulled up the blinds, and unlocked the bedroom window, lifting it open and letting a cool breeze rush through.

“Now, I’ll let the dream out here. Where it can’t bother you anymore.”

“Will it really work?” Francis asked, his eyes innocent and eager and desperate for relief.

“You bet it will. No more nightmare. And you’ll be able to sleep.”

Memory-Andrea stuck her hands far out the open window and opened the jar, lifting her eyes as if watching the nightmare float away before turning back and smiling at her brother.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“That’s it.” Memory-Andrea set the mason jar on her brother’s dresser, returned to the bottom bunk, and squeezed Francis’s hand. “There’s space in your head for a new dream now, and we need to fill it with something good. Think about the most perfect dream. One you’d love to have.”

Francis turned to the pictures on his dresser, then lay back down in his bed. His sister rested beside him.

“It would be of our family,” Francis said. “All of us. Together.”

Memory-Andrea and real-Andrea both winced, then closed their eyes and exhaled. Memory-Andrea spoke, a forced steadiness to her voice. “That sounds like a perfect dream. Now close your eyes and imagine the dream from the beginning. The dream where we’re all together. And let it send you off to sleep.”

Francis closed his eyes while his sister ran her fingers gently through his hair. She sang to her brother, soft and low, the lullaby her mother used to sing to them when they were small enough to be cradled in one arm.

“Darling I’m here, I’ll remain beside you,

Rest your head, don’t be afraid . . .”

The boy’s breathing steadied and slowed. Memory-Andrea leaned over her brother, kissed him on the forehead, then returned to the top bunk to fall asleep herself.

And she left the window open.

A gust of wind snaked a path through the bedroom window, nearly knocking real-Andrea sideways as the entire memory accelerated before her eyes. Light and wind and the shadow of tree branches danced wildly on the bedroom walls. The moon arced in the sky over the window and made its way back down to the horizon in a matter of seconds. The night sky lightened, and a hint of dawn turned into full-fledged morning.

Andrea’s memory-self sat up in bed, hair wild and cheek crooked-lined with the imprint of wrinkles from her pillow. The sheer white curtains fluttered in the wind, bringing with it the smell of something sweet edged with bitter. Like burnt sugar.

The sound of police sirens floated in through the window.

Her mother was in the yard, screaming Francis’s name.

Andrea squinted in the harsh light and padded across the room to look outside.

A police car pulled into the drive. Her father’s car pulled in right behind it.

The voice picked up right where it had left off, swimming around in her head like a shark.

Your fault. Your fault. Your fault.

This was it—the reason she’d wanted to forget. She had given up this memory to forget that she was the reason why her brother disappeared. Because she had left the window open, allowing something sinister to take him away in the night. Because of her, her brother was gone.

The pang of guilt twisted at her heart, bruising it, cracking it in a hundred different places.

Andrea almost couldn’t stand to watch anymore. Wild-eyed, she searched the room, hoping the door would appear so she could stumble back out into Reverie’s lanes and attempt to remember to breathe.

But the memory wasn’t quite over yet. Something had caught memory-Andrea’s eye. Something by the window. The final piece she had lost when she gave the memory to Margaret Grace in order to earn her ticket. Eyes burning and lungs compressed tight, real-Andrea stepped forward so she could see it, too.

There, on the windowsill, glittering under the sun, was a small vial of shimmering sand.

Memory-Andrea snatched the vial off the windowsill just as real-Andrea reached into her own pocket. Memory-Andrea stared at the vial in her open palm just as real-Andrea pulled out the vial of remaining sand and held it in her open palm, too. The memory-girl clutched it tightly before walking out of the room to look for the brother she would never find.

This was how she had gotten the vial of sand. Someone had wanted her to find it.

The door to the hallway flickered, a wave of silver light passing through it. The exit to the memory had appeared.

There. Something shuffled behind her again just as it had before she first entered the tent. Something tucked away in the corner.

The hair on the back of Andrea’s neck stood on end.

It could be anything. It could be a dream bug, or a random kid, or Penny.

Andrea hoped it was something—or someone—else entirely, and she couldn’t stop the electric hope that seized her and now pulsed through her veins. The hope that maybe if Andrea knew Francis was in Reverie, maybe he knew she was in Reverie, too. And if he had followed her into her tent, then some part of him must want them to be together. Even if someone else wanted to keep them apart.

She had to let him know it was okay. She had to, as she had on so many sleepless nights, make him feel safe.

Andrea froze in place, the vial of sand clutched in her hand, and cleared her dry throat. Then, voice wavering, she picked up where the lullaby had left off in the dream.

“Darling I’m here, I’ll remain beside you.

Rest your head, don’t be afraid.

You’ll find me,

Shine light to the shadows.

And carry you into the break of day.”

Dust particles floated lazily past the window, but all else in the room stood still. Andrea’s heart sank. Maybe she had imagined the noise. Maybe she had, once again, filled herself with useless hope. The kind of hope she had felt whenever the phone rang with a tip from someone claiming to have seen her brother. Claims that all turned out to be hoaxes. Twisted lies whispered by twisted people.

Lies like the promise of Reverie. The promise of blissful escape.

A voice spoke softly behind her. “Please, don’t be mad,” it said.

Andrea’s heart seized.