Blue Is for Nightmares

by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  I take the message from my pocket and hand it to her.

  "I guess the culinary arts club doesn't want me to join," she says. "Who wouldn't want to taste these cookies?" "Shall I start the list?" Drea yawns.

  The phone rings again. Drea goes to grab it, but I get there first. "Hello. Hello? I know you're there."

  "Give it to me," Drea says.

  I shake my head and listen. I can hear someone breathing on the other end--thick, even breaths.

  And then he finally hangs up.

  "Drea," I demand, clicking the phone off, "who is this guy?"

  "I told you. He's just someone I've been talking to." "What's his name?" I ask.

  "I don't know," she says. "It's not important anyway" "His name isn't important?"

  "Names are just tags we put on to label ourselves," she says. "They don't mean anything."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Forget it," she says. "I didn't think you'd understand." "Does he go here?" Amber asks.

  She shakes her head.

  "Then how do you know him?" "Well, not that it's any of your business," she says, "but he called here one night by accident, basically a wrong number, and we just started talking."

  "Do you call him?" I ask.

  "No. He says he can't give his number out."

  "Why?"

  "Hey, I'm not on trial here. Enough questions." Drea pulls the diary from her drawer to write.

  "So not smart." Amber extracts a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her pajamas, taps the box against her palm, and lights one with the candle flame. She sucks on the cigarette as though it's an asthma inhaler.

  "Since when do you smoke?" I ask.

  "Since I found an only half-used pack in the lobby"

  "Well, if Madame Discharge smells that, we're all dead."

  "I think it's airy enough in here, don't you?" Amber makes fish faces as she blows 0-shaped puffs of smoke toward the broken window. "Besides, with that stuff you're burning, it smells like skunk piss in here."

  I wave the tendrils of smoke from my face before moving over to the corner window, the one that isn't broken. It's black outside--just a few scattered stars in the distance. I make a wish on one of them, for peace and safety. The glass is chilly, like the room, and the heat of my breath forms a cloud. I draw a peace sign in the middle of it with my finger and then peer down through my print.

  There's a man looking up at me from the lawn. It's hard to see too well in the darkness, but I can tell he's older, maybe forty or fifty-ish, and that he has sort of dark, wispy hair. He's wearing a pair of jeans, I think, and holding a large shopping bag. When he sees that I notice him, he looks away, toward the windows of the other rooms. "Guys, there's somebody out here spying on us."

  6o

  "What?" Drea joins me at the window to look. "Maybe it's a janitor."

  "Maybe we should call security," I say.

  'And tell them what?" Amber says. "That one of the janitors is working outside? Big news flash.

  They'll have us committed."

  "We already called them once tonight," Drea says.

  "You guys are worse than a couple of old ladies." Amber bounces up and in between us to look.

  Her eyes widen. "Jel-l000, Big Boy," she says. "Not bad. Not bad at all. Eat your heart out, Brantley Witherall. Maybe there's hope for me yet."

  'Are you kidding?" Drea says. "He's ancient."

  "Yeah, well, times are tough." Amber combs her hands down the front of her pajama top, all sexylike, then flips the top up, revealing two lacy red demi-cups, her boobs oozing out the top.

  'Amber!" Drea screeches, pulling her away from the glass. "What do you think you're doing?"

  "Lighten up," Amber says. "See, it just goes to show you, don't laugh when Mom tells you to always wear good underwear."

  "Clean underwear," Drea corrects.

  I remain at the window, staring out at the man from behind the curtain. I can tell that he's tall, and from the movement of his body as he walks, searching the other windows, that he's also very strong. He peers in my direction and smiles, somehow able to see me. I panic and pull the shade down.

  "You guys are just too paranoid," Amber says, chomping on Drea's candy bar. "There's enough security around here to keep god away"

  "Easy for you to say," Drea says. "You don't live on the ground floor."

  "Fine, you want me to call campus police?" Before Drea or I can answer, Amber is dialing. "Hi, Officer," she says. "I'm in Room 102 Macomber Center. Yeah, and there's this incredibly hot guy with pecks to die for and the tightest little ass outside our window. Now, he's probably a janitor, but we're not sure, so what do you suggest we do?" Amber dangles the phone away from her ear.

  "What do you know? He hung up on me. That's, like, so rude."

  "I can't believe you just did that," I say. "They're never going to believe us now"

  "Believe what?" she says.

  "Look, Amber," I say, "Drea and I need to talk, and I need to do this spell while the moon is still in position." "Don't let me stop you."

  "I don't care if she stays," Drea says.

  I, on the other hand, am not so sure. But she ends up staying anyway.

  We sit in a triangle on the floor and clasp hands, focusing on the candle in the center of us.

  "Close your eyes," I tell them, "but don't lose sight of the flame. Embrace it--its light, its energy.

  Picture it all around you. Breathe the light's energy in and out, conscious of the action, grateful for it."

  We practice the guided breathing for several minutes, until the energy in the room falls like snow all around us. Until we're ready to begin. "Drea," I say, opening my eyes, "I realize it's going to be hard for you to trust me after I lied to you, but you have to believe me." I break our embrace to reach into my night table drawer for the three cards from her reading. I spread them out in front of her.

  "You saved them?"

  I nod. "Before I tell you what they mean, you have to remember there's a reason we've been given this glimpse into the future. We're destined to change it."

  "0-kay," she says, not okay.

  -The Ace and the Five of Clubs are for a letter and package you're going to receive. The Ace of Spades is the death card. There's a good chance that this letter, this package, or both could be linked by death. Your death."

  "What?!" Drea asks. "What are you saying?"

  "Just be careful," I say. "Be careful of any gifts or packages you receive."

  "What does that mean? I'm going to get a gift and there's going to be a bomb inside?"

  "Drea... " I don't want to say it, but it has to be said, and so I just do. "I think someone might be trying to kill you."

  "What?!" So loud and breathy that it almost extinguishes the candle flame.

  "The recurring nightmare I've been having... it's a premonition. About you."

  -Me?"

  "I've had them before. Three years ago. About Maura, the little girl I used to baby-sit." I look away. I don't want to continue don't want to admit what happened, even though it haunts me every day.

  BecattE it haunts me every day.

  "In the nightmares, she was trapped in a shed. A crammed, dark shed with cracked cement walls.

  I could see her, her 3 ack toward me, lying on a bench, sort of curled up like she was asleep. But she was scared. I could feel how scared she was, like I was living it in a way. And for weeks I had these horrible, aching headaches."

  Drea clutches her pillow. I can tell she believes me. She reaches into her fridge and hands me a fresh can of soda.

  "Thark you," I say. It's just what I need. The artificial sweetness stings the inside of my mouth like icy cold Pop Rocks. as the dreams went on," I continue, "I was tempted to do something, to tell the police, but it just sounded so stupid in my head. So stupid because when you looked outside, there was Maura, playing on her swings, clothes-pinning cards to the spokes of her bike to make that motoring sound. So I just told myself it was a dumb dr
eam, and soon it would pass."

  'And what happened?" Drea asks.

  I bite my lip to steady the shake, and then I just say it. "Someone took her. She was gone."

  "What do you mean, gone?" Amber asks.

  "I mean gone. Missing." I wipe the drizzle from the corner of my eyes.

  "Where?"

  The words about what happened have been building up inside my head for a couple years now, and I know I have to tell them. I've read the books. I've heard the experts on Oprah. If I want to make the horrible thing seem less horrible, less powerful and controlling in my life, I need to face it and tell it to others. As horrible as the memory is, I know it's so much worse just festering inside my head. I take a deep breath in, exhale for three full beats, and then finally say it. -Maura was killed."

  "What? How?" Amber asks.

  I feel the tears drip down the creases of my face. -They found her body in a tool shed just two blocks from our neighborhood. It was this psycho guy who did it. They caught him pretty quickly. People had seen him around. Apparently he used to watch her every morning when her mother walked her to school."

  -Yeah, but it wasn't your fault," Amber pipes. -You couldn't have known. I mean, how many people take their dreams that seriously? Plus, you said you saw her in some shed. You didn't see who took her. Or where the shed was exactly. It probably wouldn't even have helped."

  I made up excuses like that when it happened, but excuses don't take away anything, especially blame. I wasn't the one to make those kinds of judgments, to say that my dreams probably wouldn't have helped.

  Maybe they would have saved Maura's life.

  'Anyway" I breathe, -now I'm having nightmares about Drea."

  "So, is Chad still gonna ask me out someplace and then cancel?"

  I nod and wipe at my face. "Probably the next time you talk to him."

  Amber rests a hand on Drea's back to comfort her. I can tell Drea's scared. I'm scared too. Scared for Drea. Scared that history will repeat itself. I mean, sure, my mother was there to comfort me after Maura's death, was there to wrap her arms around my shoulders and try and make the shaking stop, but she just didn't understand the way Gram would have. She didn't understand the nightmares or guilt.

  Or why, being her daughter, I was so much like Gram in the first place.

  I take a deep breath, unscrew the bottle of lavender oil, and pour two drops into the mixing pot.

  "To purity and to clarity" I say. "This spell is to help make my dreams more clear, so I can predict the future before it happens." I unclasp the sterling silver chain from around my neck and dip it into the oil. With a finger, I spiral it around the bottom of the pot three times, making sure it gets fully submerged.

  "What does that do?" Amber asks.

  -The color silver will help give me insight as I travel in the astral."

  "Sounds kinky" Amber says.

  "The astral is our dreams." I close my eyes and concentrate on it. "Silver chain, as each link binds the next and forms a string around my neck, so may the links of my psychic dreams bind to unify the visions of my subconscious mind." I open my eyes and, with the yellow crayon, write the question WHAT ARE MY NIGHTMARES TRYING TO WARN ME? across Drea's diary page. "Yellow is for clarity of thought," I say, folding the page up into a palm sized square and slipping it into the pencil case that I use for a dream bag. I glance a moment at Drea, at the dark, grayish aura that cloaks her hair and shoulders.

  "What's that?" Amber asks, pointing at the branch of rosemary.

  I pick up the sprig, its fresh, pointed needles like a Christmas tree branch. "This will help purify the energy around me so I can remember." I pluck twenty-eight needles from the branch, the number of days in a moon's full cycle, and sprinkle them into the pot. "Rosemary, hold strong my dreams all full of wonder, as I lay me down to slumber."

  I concentrate on the mixture and then pull the silver necklace from the pot. "Will you help me?" I hand the necklace to Drea and gesture for her to fasten it. The chain hangs around my neck at the collarbones, the lavender oil drooling down my skin, a few stray rosemary needles at my throat.

  "So, are we done?" Amber asks.

  -Not quite," I say, diffusing the candle with a snuffer. "Why don't you blow it out?" Amber asks.

  "Because that would confuse the energies and cause a negative backlash."

  "Oh, yeah, right," Amber says, rolling her eyes.

  I mix the oil and rosemary in the pot with my fingers, and then pour the mixture into the dream bag. I wait a few seconds for the candle to cool a bit, for the pool of liquid wax around the wick to solidify. Then I scoop the clump out and plant it inside the dream bag.

  'And you said / had weird habits," Amber says.

  I zip the bag back up and slide it into my pillowcase. "Repeat after me," I say, clasping their hands. "With the strength of the moon and stars and sun, as I do, it shall be done. Blessed be the way!"

  Drea and Amber repeat the chant and we unclench hands. I lay down in bed and touch the silver chain around my neck, the sweet, flowery smell of rosemary lingering on my skin and the nubs of my fingers. "Good night," I say.

  I pull the covers up to my chin and concentrate on the dream bag inside my pillow and the question inside, confidant that they will soon help reveal the truth behind my nightmares.

  They have to.

  Nine

  Before I'm able to nod off to sleep, Amber announces she's crashing in our room, claiming that all my nightmare-talk has wigged her out. I'm nervous at first. It's hard enough trying to hide my bedwetting from Drea, never mind Amber, who'll be sleeping on a futon wedged in between our beds. But sleeping isn't even an issue because as soon as her head skims the pillow, Amber starts snoring--chestheaving, wide-mouthed, nostril-flaring snores.

  When the alarm clock vibrates beneath my pillow, alerting me that it's 5 A.M., I sit up, fish a sweatshirt from the growing pile of dirty clothes on the floor, yank it over my head, and head out to the laundry room to retrieve my stuff.

  The campus is still asleep as I make my way over there, but the woods are not. I can hear birds chirping away from the tops of trees and the nests of bushes as the morning dew lifts itself from trunks and branches and stretches out into the morning air. It's almost peaceful, almost worth getting up so early on a school day after not having slept all night. Almost.

  When I get to the washroom, I'm filled with this delicious sense of peace, of being one with nature. But then I swing the door open and everything changes. There's no laundry in sight.

  I hurry across the speckled linoleum floor to the machine I used last night. I hold my breath and flip the lid open.

  Empty.

  I begin flinging open and slamming shut the lids of all the other washers and dryers, hoping that maybe someone merely moved my stuff. But it's nowhere.

  Someone must have taken it.

  I pick up the campus phone on the wall and call security, thinking that maybe someone turned my laundry in to lostand-found. No luck. They ask me if I want to make a formal complaint, but considering how that would sound, I politely decline. I'm hoping someone just made an innocent mistake and grabbed my laundry by accident. Hoping that whoever that is doesn't recognize the stuff as mine.

  When I get back to the dorm, it's 5:30, and Drea and Amber are still asleep. I crawl back into bed and drag a pillow over my ear. But it isn't enough to block out Amber's snoring, and it isn't enough to muffle the blare of the phone.

  "Hello?" I say, dragging the receiver up to my ear. Silence.

  "Hel-lo?" I repeat.

  Still nothing, so I hang up.

  "Who was it?" Drea asks, rolling over in bed.

  "Probably that freakazoid you've been talking to. Who the hell is he, Drea? And why is he so psycho?"

  Amber lets out this pain-filled moan. She scooches up in bed, her orange pigtails sticking out like Pippi Longstocking. "What's all the drama?"

  The phone rings again. Drea goes to answer it, but Amber intercepts. "Hello? Dre
a and Stacey's Love Shack."

  I have never seen anyone wake up so fast. There's already a wide and cheeky smile stretched across her freckly cheeks. "Queue coincidence, monsieur," she says into the phone. "We were just talking about you last night." She winks overtly at the two of us. "Funny you should call at this early hour, though. Couldn't sleep? Something keeping you up?"

  "Who is it?" I mouth.

  "It's Chad." She fans her eyebrows up and down and blows kisses in Drea's direction. "What am I doing here?" she says into the phone. "Couldn't tell you. I've been known to sleepwalk on occasion."

  Drea extends her hand for the phone, but Amber avoids it. "Never know where I'll end up," she continues. "Better keep your door locked."

  "Give it to me. Now!" Drea tries snatching the phone, but Amber's too quick. She jumps up and scurries to the opposite side of the room.

  "Huh?" Amber covers her non-receiver ear to block us out. She turns to Drea. "He wants to know if you got his email."

  Drea springs from her bed to check.

  "He wants to know if you did your psychology homework," Amber says.

  Drea nods.

  "Well, then, can he, like, borrow it? It's due first period." Drea's smile wilts, but she nods anyway. She turns away to click on his e-mail.

  "Get out!" Amber laughs into the phone. "You guys are too funny"

  Drea spins around, her white-knuckled fists digging into the groove below her rib cage. "Give me the phone, now!"

  "Breakfast, huh?" Amber repeats into the phone. "Is that what they're calling it these days? Drea, he wants you to meet him for breakfast this morning to study. How's your schedule, babe?"

  Amber shoots Drea an exaggerated wink.

  Drea claps in silence. She plunges into her closet in search of the most perfectly ironed uniform.

  She pulls one out and holds it up for show. I give her the okay sign with my fingers. Navy blue and green plaid bib-jumpers, white collar-blouses underneath, and navy-blue knee socks. How good could they be?

  "She's already picking out her clothes," Amber tells Chad. She coils the phone cord around her feet; one sock decorated with cow spots, the other with scattered pictures of various types of cheese. "She just can't wait till senior