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brush. She pulled it from its pouch.
    “A Berkeley Number Seven,” Becky’s voice said from out of nowhere. “Special order and not exactly cheap.”
    In front of her was her mother’s easel. A rectangle of brown hardboard sat at the easel’s center mast.
    What was I wearing at the start of the dream? Kristin wondered. Was the easel here the entire time?
    Why didn’t she know?
    None of this was familiar to her. It was only one more reason to hate dreams: The Dream Master’s world played by its own set of rules. The rules weren’t fair. Things popped in and out of existence and she had no control over any of it.
    She didn’t even get to pick where she was. Holyford Creek? It was her mother’s worst painting. If she stayed here any longer, she’d get sick from its sugar-sweet artificiality.
    “You couldn’t stick me in a Davidson print, instead?” she asked the Dream Master.
    No answer.
    Somehow, she knew she’d never again get an answer to any of the questions in her dreams. She no longer expected one. But one time, years ago, someone had responded to her. In her first dream – the first one she remembered, anyway – she was standing barefoot on a beach.
    “What are you doing here?” she asked the only other person to be seen, a round-bellied, golden-haired child.
    “Playing,” the girl told her.
    Around them, gray sand was colored with empty cans and bits of debris. The tiny blonde lifted a handful of sand over her head and released it. For a second, the grains formed the image of a seagull before scattering into the wind.
    Kristin was only a girl herself, then. “Can I play, too?”
    “Uh-huh,” said the girl. “Only I get to play.”
    Suddenly, the stranger reached over and pinched her arm. Hard.
    Crying out, she moved away from this mean creature. “What’s your name?” she demanded.
    “The Dream Master,” the little girl said. Giggling, she vanished.
    When Kristin woke up, her arm was bruised.
    Still playing with me, aren’t you?
    She tried to drop the paintbrush but her fist remained resolutely closed. Trying to walk, her feet refused to move. From the waist down, she felt frozen.
    Crap.
    Atop the easel’s fold-out holder was a painter’s palette. Feeling compelled to act, she held it as she’d seen her mother do, a thousand times before.
    Two fresh circles of paint lay on the palette’s melamine surface. The first of the circles was deep red in color. The second oil was stark white and shaped as perfectly as a full moon.
    She pushed the brush’s bristles into the white paint then carried its color over to the red. Mushing them together, she created a sloppy oblong of fleshy pink paint.
    Not knowing why, she slapped her brush against the hardboard. Flecks of paint splashed over her clothing.
    She paused, considering what she’d done. She nibbled at the brush’s nub.
    “I like it,” Susannah Guitierrez whispered in her ear.
    Shifting her gaze, Kristin didn’t see Susannah or anyone else. Taking her brush, she ground it into the pink oblong. Suddenly angry – Let me wake up! – she stabbed at the hardboard. Drops of paint flew in the air, spattering her face and neck.
    Touching a finger to one of the globules, it felt as wet as water. Its color seeped beneath the tip of her fingernail, staining it. The paint wasn’t pink as she expected. Under the white edge of her nail, it was a deep, dark red.
    The color of blood.
    A rasping noise scraped from the sky overhead. The sound grew, metal grinding over metal, becoming so loud and so harsh she cupped her hands over her ears.
    Above her, the sky was flawless except for two cotton-white clouds. The upper atmosphere was every bit as perfect as the rest of Holyford Creek.
    Abruptly, the rasping noise ended.
    “I like it.” This time, the voice came from behind her. Kristin whirled around, finding her mirror-image twin staring back at her.
    A lavender bed sheet wrapped around her body, the Kristin-clone smiled. Her teeth were uneven and