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I wipe sweat from my forehead and jump out of my body to heal my shoulder. “You’re a part of me, so that was a freebie,” I tell Pom when I return. I look sheepishly at Asha. “Despite all that fear, I couldn’t stay big for even two seconds.”
My sister manifests a throne for each of us and plops into hers. “Part of the reason staying big is so tricky is that it’s not rooted in everyday experience. On top of that, when you’re big or small, you have to keep worrying about proportions at all times—which is a lot of complicated math. Don’t worry, though. Over the coming days and weeks, we’ll have you practice holding size variations.”
I sit down on my throne. “Will you need to nearly kill me each time?”
She shrugs. “What other emotions do you want to leverage?”
“I don’t know. But you do know actually killing me would be bad, right?”
“Of course,” she says. “You weren’t in any danger. I’m just that good of a dreamwalker.”
“Modest too.” I grin at her. “Can the great dreamwalker master teach the lowly student something else?”
She rubs the diamonds in the armrests of her throne. “Have you ever tried pushing people into REM sleep from inside the dream world? Or across large distances?”
Pom flies onto my lap, lavender eyes wide. “You can do that?”
“Yep,” Asha says. “I can put anyone on Soma to sleep from here.”
“How?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Just focus on the person in question and do what you would do from nearby.”
“Wow,” I say. “Can I try?”
She grins. “Do it to Bebe. That shouldn’t be too challenging. She’s in the same room with us, just in the waking world.”
Rubbing my hands together, I close my eyes and picture my grandmother in enough detail to create a dream construct. But instead of making a fake Bebe, I will the real one to go into REM sleep.
Did that work?
“You girls miss me already?” Bebe’s voice says.
I open my eyes.
Score. My grandmother is here. I can’t believe this worked on the very first try. And it’s even better than I expected—instead of appearing in my dream palace, Bebe is right here.
She shifts her appearance to that of her younger self. “I assume you bothered me because you figured out how to be Two as One?”
Asha and I exchange guilty glances.
“They didn’t really talk about that,” Pom says.
“Traitor,” I mutter.
Asha jumps off her throne. “How about we work on that now?”
“I’m game. What do we do?”
“I have no idea.” Asha quirks an eyebrow. “Bebe, do you have suggestions?”
“I think you should start with the most direct understanding of Two as One,” Bebe says.
“And that is?” Asha asks.
“Become a single being,” Bebe replies.
We gape at her.
“Can that even be done?” Asha asks.
Bebe shrugs. “Your parents tried it.”
“And?” I ask.
She closes her eyes, and a second later, Maxwell joins us.
“Tell them how you and Lia tried to become a single being in the dream world,” Bebe orders.
Maxwell frowns. “It never worked. We’d just get punishingly tired after each attempt.”
“What fun,” Asha says. “Can’t wait to experience that.”
“Where we failed, you two may succeed,” Maxwell says. “After all, at one point in time, you were the same being—a single fertilized egg.”
“That was before we could dream,” Asha says.
“Exactly,” I chime in. “Let’s not forget how that egg split into two separate embryos, and how those embryos eventually ended up living pretty different lives. Even if this is something we did as kids, there’s no reason to think it will still work.”
“Well, I’m curious to see how it goes,” Bebe says.
Asha approaches me. “What do you think?”
“For Mom, I’ll try anything. Even if it seems kind of weird.”
“And creepy,” she says. “But let’s try it.”
“How?” I ask.
“Let’s do that same molecule trick from earlier, but tell yours to mix with mine.”
“You should hug as you do it,” Pom suggests.
Shrugging, I hug her—which feels nice and soothing.
I close my eyes and do my best to imagine us becoming a single person. I visualize the molecules intermixing as Asha suggested, a task made easier by the fact that our DNA is the same.
Nothing happens. That is, until I feel really woozy.
Asha’s arms are no longer around me, and someone audibly gasps.
I open my eyes—or maybe our eyes.
Nope.
Asha is still separate from me. She’s just stepped away and is dry-heaving.
I also feel sick but hold myself together better.
“Did it work?” I ask Maxwell and Bebe when the worst of the nausea passes. “Did we merge even for a moment?”
“No,” he says.
“Not even a little bit,” she says.
“Don’t do that again.” Pom’s fur is a dingy yellow. “It made me sick.”
Asha inhales a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “There’s no way we did that successfully as children.”
A wave of exhaustion hits me. To make sure I don’t fall on my butt, I make a lounge chair and plop into it. Before Asha’s knees buckle, I make a chair appear under her as well.
