She prepared for bed by following sleep hygiene practices: skipping caffeine and alcohol, leaving the television off, and winding down with a warm bath. Later, when she began to yawn, she placed her new crystals and dream diary within easy reach on her nightstand.
When at last her eyelids became heavy with the need for rest, she slipped under the comforter and rested her head on the pillow. One at a time, she held each crystal against her forehead and concentrated on her intention before setting the crystal carefully back on the nightstand. She would practice her reality checks, seek insight on Andy’s whereabouts, and—most importantly—remember her dreams. After consideration, she kept the quartz crystal necklace in place around her neck.
As she lay in bed with her eyes closed, she allowed herself to relax while gently holding on to the awareness of being awake. Images formed and dissolved behind her eyelids as her consciousness teetered back and forth between the state of wakefulness and the state of sleep.
Then there was nothing, and a sense of time passing.
She found herself in the coffee shop again. Erin looked around. She was supposed to meet Genevieve. She started toward the counter to order coffee, then noticed she already had a mug in her hands. Why was she here again? Hadn’t she already done this?
Her gaze traveled over the coffee shop. Moments ago, it had been full of people. Now it was empty. Disorientation shuddered through her. She looked down, and the coffee mug she’d been holding in her hands seconds before was gone.
Slowly, she pressed one finger into the palm of her other hand. When her hand stretched like taffy, painlessly but with a uniquely discomforting sensation, her excitement nearly popped the dream like a floating soap bubble. She managed to calm herself just in time to maintain the dream state.
As she spun around to look for the door, the coffee shop disappeared entirely, to be replaced by her own living room. Her intentions faded under a haze that settled heavily on her thoughts. She was home. What was she doing at home? Where was Nancy Drew?
The house remained silent, lacking even the sound of Nancy’s skittering paws. Erin realized all over again that she was still dreaming. Holding that thought firmly, Erin walked through the house. Andy’s posters, which she had taken down days ago, hung throughout the house. The groceries he had purchased lay on the counters, untouched, while the full meal he had cooked from those groceries also sat improbably on the table as if waiting for her to sit down to eat.
In the bedroom, she found her little black dress laid out on the bed. Erin reached out one hand to touch the dress, but as soon as she did, she found that it wasn’t on the bed at all.
She was wearing it.
Erin walked to the front door and opened it. In mid-swing, it became a sliding automatic door opening to the fancy grocery store where she and Andy had been shopping. Alongside the groceries, boxes of crystals and wands littered the shelves, interspersed with bottles of Champagne.
Curious, Erin picked up a bottle and examined the ornate label. The words read “Le Nouveau Palmier,” until a second glance revealed them to be meaningless swirls.
The bottle slipped from her hands and struck the floor with a shattering crash. A splash of cold droplets of liquid obscured her vision, and she closed her eyes as the grocery store blurred into nothing.
When she opened them again, the grocery store was gone, replaced by the bare walls of her old classroom. Erin remembered—in a fuzzy, distant kind of way—that the room was not, in fact, completely empty of its furniture. In this dream state, however, it contained nothing at all.
Well, almost nothing.
Erin drew closer to a single object located on the floor in the center of the room. Whatever it was, it trembled in a nonexistent breeze. She knelt with her hand out. Her fingers closed around a soft gray feather flecked with white. She stood and brought the feather to her cheek, feeling the sensation as it traced the line of her cheekbone, the curve of her cheek, and finally her lips.
She smiled.
Holding the feather, she spun in a circle, just as she’d practiced, concentrating on her intentions as the room whirled away into nonexistence.
She opened her eyes to a heavy wooden bookshelf labeled “200” for the Dewey Decimal System, and immediately recognized her location as the school library. Although the silent darkness gave her pause, she gripped the feather more firmly and walked out of the shelves. She almost tripped on an abandoned picnic basket.
Sidestepping the basket, she entered the open seating area to be confronted with an unusual sight.
A white door floated without support in the middle of the room.
Erin approached it carefully. Why would there be a door in the middle of the library? Erin reached out and gingerly placed her hand on the door, finding it cool and smooth to the touch, with no handle or knob to be seen.
A scrap of Scripture came to mind. She spoke it aloud: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” With that, she gripped the feather in one hand, and with the other, formed a fist and knocked on the door, belatedly realizing she’d used the rhythm of the “Ride of the Valkyries” just like her mother.
PART II
ANDROMALIUS
21
There were only a few decorations on the wall, and in his time stuck in the Waiting Room, Andromalius had stared at them all. There was the framed “No One Is Coming to Save You” sampler, cross-stitched with inexpertly formed flowers and vines. Then there was the faded “Hang In There” kitten poster, which could have been considered relatively inoffensive if it weren’t for the fact that if he stared too long at the kitten, it gave the unnerving impression of staring back.
The only other decorative item—if it could be called decorative—was the worn-down “Take A Number” stand, which dispensed little green slips of paper with numbers that were never called.
Andy shifted in his chair, which seemed to have been designed for maximum discomfort, then stood up and charged the service window one more time. “Excuse me,” he said to the woman-shaped creature occupying the booth. “Any estimate on when I can get out of here?”
