Despite Madalynn’s perky tone, or maybe because of it, Sam was suddenly gripped with terror. The last time she remembered feeling such pee-inducing dread was when Jax took her to Hangman’s House of Horrors on one of his torturous Halloween outings. But surely a noose-wielding zombie was not going to pop out of this window, because hey, this was her tribe, right? And your tribe might haze you a bit just to see what kinda stuff you’re made of, but they don’t make you wet yourself and then string you up from a sagging awning, right? Right. Right.
It was a bedroom, as far as she could tell in the dimness, sparsely furnished and drab. Sam could see the lumpy bottom half of a bed, but the top half was hidden behind a smudge of God-knows-what on the filthy window. She shimmied sideways and floated up on her tiptoes. A figure was under the blanket and turned away from view, but even so, a pang of familiarity coursed through Sam’s soul body. In the split second before the girl flipped over in her sleep and confirmed her identity, Sam already knew.
Jaida. Sound asleep, with an unfamiliar soft slackness to her face, but there was no mistaking her. Sam was peering into the lair of the enemy.
“Surprise…” Madalynn cooed behind her.
SAM STUMBLED BACKWARD, NEARLY INVADING Madalynn’s personal soul space by accidental osmosis.
“Why are we here?” It came out angrier than she’d intended, but suddenly this felt like a colossal practical joke, like Sam was on some celestial hidden-camera show and all the SleepWakers were hanging out in front of a cosmic screen somewhere, having a good laugh together at her expense.
Madalynn spoke evenly, softly. “We’re here because this is what the Dreams do. We make things right. We make them even. We use the darkness to avenge the wrongdoing of the light.”
“Whoa. Deep,” Zac grunted.
“Yes, it is deep, Zac,” Madalynn agreed. “Now go stand over there.” She pointed and Zac lumbered away obediently.
“Wait… so your tribe is about revenge?” Sam was trying to process, but everything about this night was overwhelming her brain.
Madalynn’s voice was a warm bath brimming with emotional Epsom salts. “Oh, Sam. Not re-venge. A-venge. A common mistake. All the Dreams want is to see justice done. We don’t want to hurt anyone…” She took just the slightest intermission, just a hiccup really, before continuing, “… without cause.” She let out a heavy sigh and then, conveying all the angsty responsibility of being a highly attractive judge and jury, added, “Unlike Jaida, who went after you from, like, day one, for absolutely no reason.”
Absolutely no reason.
As she had done so many times before, Sam pressed “play” on her mental highlight reel of encounters with Jaida, forcing her mind to reconstruct the scenes with as little revisionist history as possible, trying to find the source of Jaida’s hatred. And as always, she came up with nothing.
Absolutely no reason.
Sam couldn’t even remember the first time they’d met, or interacted, or looked slantways in each other’s general direction, that’s how blah day one must have been. But every day since was the same mental movie: Jaida taunting her, Jaida pranking her, Jaida sitting in the cafeteria, not eating, just staring at Sam to intimidate her. Jaida swooping in like a preteen vulture while Sam tried to play dead, constantly forgetting that death was the most tempting smell of all.
“It’s just so unfair, isn’t it?” Madalynn circled Sam in a smooth loop, tossing out her diamond-sharp questions as she glided along. “Don’t you want her to feel like you did? Like you still do? Don’t you want her to know what it’s like to be attacked for absolutely no reason? Wouldn’t that open her eyes? Wouldn’t that actually help her?”
Now Sam was breathing hard, tingles rippling through her soul body. Help her. This was it. Justice. This was the answer. Make it even. Finally. This is my tribe.
“What do I need to do?”
Her reward was the most luminous smile she’d ever seen on Madalynn’s face, and that was saying something. “Well, that’s what we’re about to tell you, Sam. And that’s why we’re called the Dreams. Because we make them come true.”
Despite herself, Sam winced. That statement was painfully cornball, but she wasn’t about to let it throw her off track. She had a mission now.
“So. Jaida and her…” Madalynn took that smidgen of a pause again. “… friends… have a secret meeting place at school, where I’m assuming they go to plan their little cruelties. And I happen to know where it is.”
“How?” Sam whispered, impressed.
Madalynn gave her a “really?” look. Oh, right. This was the Queen Goddess of Wallace Junior High. Some adoring maintenance worker had probably filled her in.
“You’re going to go and gather some intel for us, Sam. Daytime information that will help us set our nighttime strategy.”
Sam gulped. “You mean… spy?” This made her think of Byron, and her mist heart did a flip and sink. Why was Madalynn asking her to do the exact same thing she had criticized the Roamer for?
“Sam, when justice is being served, it’s not called spying, it’s called surveillance. All you’ll be doing is listening for the weaknesses in their nasty little bond so that we’ll know how to use them to our advantage. In the spirit of fairness, our goal is to do to Jaida exactly what she’s done to…” And there was that interesting mini silence again, this time accompanied by the briefest appearance of Madalynn’s pretty pink tongue as she licked her lips. “… you. She made sure you were blackballed. She made sure you were friendless. And that’s exactly what’s going to happen to her. It’s called recompense.”
“Recompense,” a voice echoed. Bree had crept up behind them and was now towering over Sam like an overgrown corn husk that had been left baking in the sun too long.
“Bree understands that word. Don’t you, Bree?” Madalynn sounded downright maternal. “All those people who made you feel invisible in the daytime. We adjusted their eyesight, didn’t we?”
“They got recompensed,” Bree snarled. That word was making Sam a little uneasy. But at the same time, she couldn’t help feeling some pity for the beige behemoth who was now staring longingly at Madalynn’s vibrant pink dressing gown as if it represented all her hopes and dreams.
Madalynn smiled. “Don’t worry, Sam, you’ll do more than monitor, of course. You’ll be a big part of the nighttime avengement, too. We wouldn’t take that away from you.”
Sam grimaced. Busted. She spit out her confession as quickly as possible: “But I don’t know how to be solid yet.”
Madalynn dismissed Sam’s revelation with a wave of her misty hand. “No worries. You’ll be solid when you need to be. It always happens at just the right time.”
“Are you sure? Because Byr—uh, somebody told me that the only way to be solid is to believe in the weight and possibilities of your soul.”
“Really? Interesting.” Madalynn shrugged, then winked at Sam. “Well, if that’s true, you’re in luck. ’Cause nothing weighs down a soul like payback.”
It was already light out, but Sam was still pace-hovering by the bed, where her body slept peacefully. Weezy seemed to be getting used to seeing her in two different places; he glanced back and forth between the Sams with a resigned expression on his pancaked snout.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Sam grumbled. “You’re just a dog; you don’t know what it’s like out there in the real world.” Weezy did a head tilt, which made Sam realize she must be whining. “Oh, come on! Jaida’s been torturing me for months! It’s not right!” Weezy snorfled, a common pug noise that Sam was suddenly taking very personally. “Fine! Be like that! I don’t need your approval! I know what I’m doing!”
“Honey?” Her mother’s voice came from outside the bedroom door, and Soul Sam snapped back into her waking body like a retractable measuring tape. She groaned.
I seriously will never get used to that.
Margie stuck her head in. “Morning! So, guess what? Slight change of plans today. You’re not going to scho
ol, you’re having a follow-up with Dr. Fletcher. I already okayed it with the principal—”
“What?” This news shocked Sam out of her funk, and her reunited selves sat straight up in bed. “Why? What does he want to see me for?”
Margie looked startled. “Oh! I don’t know, exactly, but it must be important because he called at five a.m.—”
“No! No way. I’m not going! I’m—I’m sick!” Sam burbled.
“Oh no, what’s wrong, sweetheart? Do you have a fever?” Margie hustled over and did that Mom-thermometer thing, pressing her lips to Sam’s forehead.
Sam started praying, Please be fire-hot, please be at least 106 degrees, except, no, I have to go to school today because I’m supposed to be gathering intel on Jaida, ohhhhhh, please get me out of this, Fletch knows, I know he knows, I know he knows I met with the Dreams because By the Spy ratted me out—
And that’s when Sam saw it: the fine patch of fuzz in Margie’s bald spot. The evidence of four full days without a trichotillomania episode, the stubble of relief and deep sleep, the bristles of refreshment and renewal.
The regrowth that was going to guilt Sam into a follow-up appointment with a maniac sleep doctor and his assistant, Mole Mother.
Dr. Fletcher was waiting at the door to the clinic when Margie dropped her off, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet. “By St. Dymphna, you made it! Wonderful! How do you feel? Did you eat? I can have Jo run over to the Seven-Eleven and get you a muffin! Or we have some granola bars from the Super Dollar close-out that are only just expired and still quite tasty!”
Jeez, Fletch, did you take a bath in coffee this morning? It wasn’t until Sam had turned down the toxic breakfast offer and was safely inside the dimly lit office that she realized the real reason he was motormouthing.
Joanne was there, but there were also four new faces gazing at her apprehensively.
“Yes, well, you’re probably wondering what’s going on and who all these people are and why I called you in and took you out of school and what we’re going to ask you,” prattled Fletch. “Sam… meet the SSSS.” He said it like a snake hiss, gesturing grandly to the four strangers sitting in a semicircle.
Sam was pretty well flummoxed, but she made an attempt. “The… ssssssss?”
“No, the SSSS.” Fletch chuckled at her mistake.
Seriously, dude, I’m making the same sound you are. It was a little early in the day to feel this annoyed.
She was rescued by a handsome elderly gentleman wearing glasses with greenish-tinted lenses. “It’s our code name, Samantha. The S-S-S-S.” Green Glasses Guy said the letters separately, followed by a somewhat weary sigh. “Dr. Fletcher feels that an acronym just isn’t clandestine enough.”
“And he’s right! Our work is too important to be upended by a clumsy cryptograph!” This from a middle-aged man who was chewing gum so strenuously, his jaw muscles should have been rocking a six-pack.
“I really think we’re fine,” said a kind-faced woman shyly, pushing back her hair with a wrist full of extremely jingly bracelets. “Who in the world could figure out that S.S.S.S. stands for ‘Secret Society of Sweet Sleep’?”
“Well, someone has, obviously.” Delivered dramatically by a heavyset man with a lumberjack beard, the statement threw the room into a bit of an uproar.
“We don’t know that,” chided Green Glasses Guy.
“It’s the only logical explanation!” barked Gum Man.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” soothed Bracelet Lady.
“We should jump to conclusions! All of us, jump, now!” thundered Lumberjack Beard.
As usual, it was Joanne who took control of the room. “SSSS! Shhh!” she hiss-hushed. “You’re scaring Samantha.”
Necks snapped as the S.S.S.S. turned to look at Sam. “I don’t know,” mused Green Glasses. “I think she looks more angry than scared.”
“That can’t be right,” Fletcher said, peering into her face with his oblivious sclerae. “Why would she be mad?”
“For real? Why would she be mad?” Sam was outraged. “Okay, let’s see. How about you talking about me in the third person like I’m not even here, dragging me in for a ‘follow-up’ with a room full of people I don’t know, who are yelling about stuff I don’t understand, and”—she pointed at Joanne—“siccing her hunky son on me!”
Joanne’s stern face melted into a goofy smile. “He is good-looking, isn’t he? Takes after his father.”
“Yeah, a good-looking snoop!” Sam cried. “Why are you spying on me, anyway?! I didn’t ask to have my soul cut loose, so I’m probably not gonna be out there plotting an evil takeover of the world!”
“No, Sam, you’re not. But you’ve put yourself in league with someone who might be.” Bracelet Lady stated this so directly and yet so gently that it had the effect of shutting Sam right the heck up. She gawked at Bracelets, unable to complete her rant.
“This is Dr. Karen Hopkins, Samantha,” said Fletcher, and then—Sam would have sworn it—he blushed. “From Bismarck, North Dakota, sector of the Clutch, and a very fine polysomnographist. One of the best, really.”
“Oh, you’re too generous, Dr. Fletcher.” Sure enough, Dr. Hopkins also turned as red as an heirloom tomato. “I can’t hold a candle to your circadian rhythm research!”
Sorry to interrupt your parasomnia sweet talk, but— “What’s the Clutch?” Sam really wanted to know, but she also wanted to steer the conversation away from the topic of just who might be planning to take over the world, since she already had an uneasy inkling.
“The tribe that seems to have mysteriously gravitated to my sector,” said Dr. Hopkins, attempting to nonchalantly cool her burning face by pressing the metal of her approximately twenty-five noisy manacles against her cheeks. “During the day, they’re loners and keep to themselves, but their Waker souls desperately want to be in relationship; they spend the whole night hugging and talking and trying to make emotional contact.” She peeked at Fletch and then ducked her head shyly.
Hmmm, wonder why they’re drawn to you, Doc. Sam’s inner sarcasm seemed to have backup in Gum Guy’s barely audible mumble “Yeah, big mystery.”
“That’s Dr. Gopal Madhav, guardian of the Pranks and the Numbs,” Dr. Fletcher said pointedly at Gum Guy, who waved as he jammed another piece of Hubba Bubba in his mouth. “Dr. Joseph Thomas, New York City, keeper of the Broadways.” Fletch gestured to Lumberjack, who was gloomily stroking his massive beard into a sharp point. “And my mentor, overseer of the Roamers and the Extremes in New Rochelle, and foremost expert on the silver cord, although nobody knows it because we are a secret society after all… Dr. Richard Knavish.” Fletcher beamed at Green Glasses Guy, who received the praise with a gracious nod. “And we called this special SSSS meeting because we have reason to believe, Samantha, that you’ve fallen in with a dangerous element.”
Sam only had a split second to decide if she was going to play dumb or play defense; she settled for “neutral silence.” Which immediately backfired.
“See? She admits it!” cried Dr. Thomas, trembling with indignation.
“Admits what? I didn’t say anything!” Sam responded angrily.
“Joseph, calm down,” said Fletch. He gently took Sam’s shoulders in his hands and spoke softly. “Samantha, listen. I know you’re a loyal person. But we feel the need to tell you that the MeanDreams are not what you think, and Madalynn Sucret, while being a very lovely girl, is also Satan’s handmaiden.”
“Oh, come on!” Sam wriggled away in exasperation.
“You may have hit that a little hard,” Dr. Hopkins murmured to Fletch.
“You think?” Fletch murmured back.
“Why are you bashing Madalynn? She’s been, like, my only friend,” Sam said with the vehemence that comes from trying to convince oneself of a shaky truth. “And what the Dreams are doing isn’t dangerous, it’s just—just—” She couldn’t really find the word, but she knew it was in her head somewhere and it was just going to be sooo
o, uh, definite. No, definitive! Yeah!
Dr. Knavish had been silent so far, even yawning at one point, but now he leaned in and said with relish, “You see, everyone? There it is. If a Helper can be swayed, then any SleepWaker can. There’s no nefarious physician out there detaching the enemy! The enemy is within. It always has been.”
“What?” Sam was more confused than ever, and also a bit terrified; she wasn’t sure what “nefarious” meant, but it sounded pretty darn dastardly. “What’s a Helper? And who’s the enemy?”
Dr. Mahdhav stood up and removed his gum for emphasis. “With all due respect, Richard, that is bogus bullhockey. We have a running tally of the souls we’ve detached and the numbers just don’t add up! There is a devious detaching doctor out there and we all know it!”
“ ‘Devious detaching’… are you people serious?” Sam’s voice had risen to a hysteria octave. She grabbed the handset of Fletcher’s rotary phone and held it up by the spiraling cord, the blaring dial tone adding to the drama. “Somebody better explain exactly what’s going on or I swear I’m calling the cops! Or, or, the FBI! Or, like, the AASM!”
“NO!” The doctors all yelled simultaneously; apparently, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine was a far more serious threat than the feds.
Dr. Hopkins stood and carefully removed the phone from Sam’s kung fu grip. “Samantha… I know how overwhelming all of this must be. And we’ll get to the topic of the, uh, devious detaching doctor.” She snuck a mildly disapproving look at Madhav, who defiantly stuck his gum back in his mouth and commenced mastication. “But first and foremost, you must trust that Dr. Fletcher is deeply committed to the happiness and well-being of his patients, of all sleepwalkers, actually. That’s why the S.S.S.S. even exists. He reached out to each one of us at great personal and professional risk because he could recognize that we cared deeply, as well.”
Sam Saves the Night Page 9