But she didn’t take her hand away. Even though his was kind of sweaty.
“Those of you following the recent disappearances in Mesa may recognize a pattern. Each of the five victims—all under the age of thirteen—was wearing expensive jewelry at the time of their abduction. There hasn’t been any word yet from the Silver Springs police about a possible connection, but Maricopa County sheriffs plan to take over the local investigation starting tomorrow….”
“Pao…” Dante said, pointedly not looking at their hands, which were still linked between their chairs. “Did you know that, about the victims and jewelry? Maybe that’s why you saw the ring in your dream….”
“Nah,” Pao said quickly. “I just know Emma’s ring really well, that’s all. It’s only—”
“Electrical impulses. Right.” But Dante didn’t sound fully convinced, and Pao didn’t know if she was, either.
Before they could discuss it further, Señora Mata banged through the front door with a crocheted shopping bag swinging from one arm, her normally well-ordered hair wild and her face red, like she’d been running.
Dante dropped Pao’s hand like it was a too-hot tortilla straight off the griddle, and even in the storm of other emotions coursing through her, Pao surprised herself by wishing he hadn’t.
“¿Dónde estabas?” Dante asked.
His abuela’s eyes flashed. “Oh, you’re the jefe around here now? You make the curfew?”
Dante looked at his lap and mumbled, “No, señora.”
“I needed a few things from the storage. Not that it’s any of your business, hmm?”
He nodded, and Pao kept her eyes on her plate.
For the first time in living memory, Señora Mata strode over to the TV and turned it off, the bag still dangling from her elbow as she looked back at them, her gaze softer now. “Eat. Rest. You don’t need to be watching this.”
At any other time, Pao would have been thrilled to see her turn off the news, but today it made her heart sink.
“Eat,” Dante’s abuela said again. “Worrying is hard work.”
But it was kind of hard for Pao to concentrate on eating when one of her two best friends had just held her hand and the other might have been the latest victim of a notorious kidnapper, and she couldn’t form a sensible hypothesis about either occurrence.
That night, Dante’s abuela made up the couch for Pao to sleep on. When they were younger, Pao and Dante had slept like sardines in his race-car bed, but Señora Mata had put a stop to that a few years ago for reasons she hadn’t bothered to elaborate on.
Well, unless crossing herself and glaring at them counted as elaborating.
Pao was sure she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, but soon enough her thoughts grew fuzzy and disjointed. She was riding Emma’s purple bike, which turned into an eggplant that Pao’s mom had once received as payment for a remedio. The eggplant became a jack-o’-lantern, opening its mouth wide to swallow Pao whole.
She wasn’t surprised to eventually find herself back on the bank of the eerie river, its greenish glow still present, the strange shapes floating under the surface, beckoning….
Pao felt a familiar restlessness build inside her—the same feeling she got when her mom lectured her for too long about candles or intentions or various creatures from folklore. Pao didn’t have time for creepy dreams right then.
“It’s not real,” she said aloud, her voice sounding strange and muffled to her ears.
As if mocking her, the disembodied hand drifted toward her, Emma’s purple-polished finger sporting its ruby ring.
“It’s just a coincidence,” Pao said, though goose bumps chased themselves up and down her arms as the hand came closer. “It’s just a coincidence. Dreams are just dreams. And there’s no such thing as—”
“Ghosts! We know! Don’t you ever get tired of the sound of your own repetitive skepticism? I know I do.”
Pao whirled around, her dream heart pounding, the hand now creeping clumsily toward her like a five-legged spider. “Who said that?”
“It’s always the same inane questions,” said the voice again, but there was no one around.
“I know this is a dream,” Pao said, trying to sound brave even as she kept one eye on the approaching hand. “I’m not really here. I’m on the couch in my friend’s living room. His grandma is snoring. I just have to wake up.”
Beside her, where there had been nothing but strange, dream-dense air a second before, the shape of a bored-looking girl materialized with a pop.
If she hadn’t been mentally reciting her This is all a dream mantra, Pao would have screamed, which would have been so undignified. As it was, all she did was jump back slightly, which, like, anyone would have.
Even if they were totally practical and levelheaded.
And not at all scared.
“Better?” the girl asked, tossing her nearly waist-length black curls behind her.
Pao gaped like a three-headed fish. The girl looked to be about her age. Her heart-shaped face was pale, and her wide, long-lashed eyes glowed eerily in the green light of the bioluminescent dream river. Her dress was black and old-fashioned, with a high collar and lace around the sleeves and hem. Her ankle boots, hovering strangely above the sand, had heels.
“My subconscious has a lot of explaining to do,” Pao finally muttered.
“Please,” said the girl, rolling her eyes, a gesture she seemed to use her whole body to accomplish. “You think you have the imagination to create me? Tell me another one.”
“Stupid, snarky subconscious,” said Pao.
“My name,” said the girl, “is Ondina. Not Subconscious.”
“Please let me wake up now,” Pao said, looking beseechingly at the utterly black sky of her dream world. “I promise I’ll let my mom light candles for protection, or feed me weird tinctures for dreamless sleep, or do whatever else she wants to. Just let me wake up.”
Nothing happened.
“How’s that workin’ for you?” asked Ondina, hand cupping her chin, long, thin fingers tapping impatiently on her elbow.
“Fine,” Pao snapped, looking at her almost without meaning to, this stupid figment of her imagination that she’d probably (hopefully) forget about before breakfast. “If you’re not a dream, what are you?”
“This is booooring,” Ondina said, tossing her hair again. “It doesn’t matter what I am. What matters is that your friend is missing, and you’re obeying your bedtime just like the grown-ups told you to.”
The hand was reaching for her again, the gem on its ring now glinting green just like Ondina’s eyes. Pao’s shoulders slumped. “There’s nothing I can do.”
“Do you really believe that?” Ondina asked, her gaze intense, all traces of boredom gone. “Or is that just what you’ve been told?”
“Now you’re definitely starting to sound like my subconscious.”
But before Ondina could retort, the hand finally reached Pao. It grabbed the toe of her shoe, and instinctively, she tried to shake it off.
“You can’t run,” Ondina said, but her voice sounded farther away now. “She needs you.”