“Yes, but as who or what?”
“As myself, of course. I had a peaked cap on because the dream was on a golf course, so I had to wear the right outfit. I’d just brought Charles to the point where he was going to say something about Lottie, only then his stupid smoke—” Horrified, I clapped my hand over my mouth. “Oh, shit! I completely forgot! The smoke alarm! It went off, and all I thought of was how to get out of the dream super fast before Charles woke up. I’m a terrible person! I ought to have woken myself and called the fire department.”
The idea that Charles’s apartment might be on fire didn’t seem to worry Henry. He smiled at me and stroked my cheek with his fingertips. “Liv, surely you realize that in their dreams people don’t necessarily have to be honest, right? In my experience, most of us tell even more lies in dreams than in real life. So if you want to find out the truth about someone, it’s no use just strolling around in his dream and asking questions, because he’ll tell you exactly what he’d say if he was awake.”
That did sound plausible, of course, and to be honest the idea had occurred to me already. Looking at it that way, I’d stumbled into Charles’s dream without any sensible plan, no subtlety in my approach at all, simply because I wanted to protect Lottie. “But how else could I have done it? And don’t tell me I ought to have turned into a moon rocket.”
“Well, it’s always best if they don’t notice you’re there at all. As an invisible observer, you can learn a lot about people in their dreams, just from watching and listening. In fact, with a little patience, you can find out all about them.”
“But I don’t want to know all about Charles,” I said, disgusted at the mere idea. “I only want to know if he’s serious about Lottie. Because if he isn’t, then…” I clenched my fists. No way were Mia and I going to let anyone hurt Lottie, certainly not Charles. Mia already thought it would be better to marry her off to the good-looking veterinarian in Pilgrim’s Lane. “On the other hand—maybe poor Charles is dead of smoke inhalation by now because I didn’t call the fire department, so in that case everything’s settled.”
“I love you,” said Henry abruptly, pulling me closer, and I immediately forgot Charles. Henry didn’t exactly throw those three magic words around lavishly. He’d said them exactly three times in the last eight and a half weeks, and for some reason, every time he did I felt terribly embarrassed. The only proper, universally valid reply to that was I love you too, but somehow I could never get it out. Not because I didn’t love him, far from it, but because I love you too doesn’t carry nearly as much weight as an I love you coming out of the blue.
So instead I replied, “Even though I can’t turn into a moon rocket or make myself invisible?”
Henry nodded. “You’ll learn all that. You’re immensely talented. In every possible way.” Then he leaned forward and began kissing me, so it turned out to be a really nice dream after all.
3
THE DISADVANTAGE OF these lucid dreams by night—dreams when you were fully conscious—was that you never really felt you’d slept well in the morning. However, over the last few months, I’d developed methods of making up for my lack of sleep: a hot shower, then gallons of cold water for my face, and finally a quadruple espresso for my circulation, disguised with a topping of frothed milk so that Lottie wouldn’t go lecturing me on the sensitivity of young people’s stomachs. The Italian coffee machine that ground fresh beans and frothed milk at the touch of a button was one reason why living in the Spencers’ house wasn’t so bad. Lottie might think that no one should drink coffee until they were eighteen at the earliest, but for Mom there were no such age limits, so I had unlimited access to caffeine.
Halfway to the kitchen, I met my sister. She had been out walking our dog, Buttercup, and put her ice-cold hand to my cheek. “Feel that!” she said cheerfully. “They said on the news it might even be a white Christmas this year, and the coldest January for eleven years … and silly me, I’ve gone and lost a glove. One of my gray polka-dot pair. You haven’t seen it anywhere, have you? Those are my favorite gloves.”