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cleared away whatever thoughts had been bothering her. Her face grew more animated and she replied in a normal voice, “Oh, hi.”
    “You just wake up or something?” he asked.
    She gave a nervous laugh. “I had a bad dream last night. Can’t shake the feeling, you know?”
    Deron nodded, having had his share. “Tell me about it,” he said. “I’ll tell you what it means.” He didn’t have the first clue what dreams really meant, but he was confident he could make a joke on any subject and hopefully put a smile back on her face.
    “It was strange,” she began, her eyes drifting away again. “I was walking in a park or something, at night. There were little lampposts on the sidewalk. Then there was a building, a really old one. It was made of some kind of pink stone. I went inside and it was really quiet.”
    Deron’s mouth opened in amazement. The table under his backpack had begun to shimmer and through it he could see the faint image of an expansive green lawn broken up by a cobblestone path. As Rosalia recounted the dream, the image bent to her narration. He saw the interior of a premodern building where the walls were polished stone instead of reconciled patterns. There was even a wobbly avatar of Rosalia walking through the cavernous rooms like a lost child. When he looked over at her for confirmation, he found that she had closed her eyes.
    A crowd formed as Rosalia crested the stairs. Surprisingly, they all remained quiet, entranced just as Deron was by the scene playing out on the large table. The haze disappeared and everything became a level of crisp that rivaled reality. A window came into view, cut right into the stone walls with smaller bricks forming its outline. It was flat on the bottom and angled to a point on the top. Rosalia’s avatar paused at the window, put her hands on the sill, and stared out into the night.
    In the distance, the ocean swelled with waves too large for the current scale. Above, stars poked out from the black sheet, twinkled in their own carefree way before the brilliance of a full moon blotted them out. It was too close, taking up too much real estate in the infinite sky. Every detail was clear. Every crater and ridge looked dangerously real.
    Deron smiled at Rosalia. There was a look of intense concentration on her face as if she were pushing the memory down through her arms and out her fingers. Then, a tremor appeared at the edge of her mouth, followed by a flaring of her nostrils. Deron looked back at the table in time to see the moon crashing into the ocean, sending up an enormous spray that shook Rosalia free of the window. Her avatar struggled to stay on its feet even as the world moved out from under her.
    Gravity shifted; trees broke free and floated into the void, their roots still clinging to clumps of earth.
    The laws of physics ceased to exist. Staring at the horror in the avatar’s face, Deron suddenly understood. He put a hand on Rosalia’s shoulder to bring her out of the trance. She looked at him, hesitated, and then shrugged his hand away.
    “That was beautiful,” said a girl with a pink bow in her hair. When Rosalia didn’t respond, she pointed to the table. The image was already fading.
    As the crowd dispersed, Deron asked quietly, “How did you do that?”
    “Do what?”
    “You made it look so real.”
    Rosalia pulled her backpack into her lap. “I don’t know. It’s just something I can do.”
    She left him sitting there at the table with the memory of the moon looming in his mind. He had always wanted to ask her about the dream, but never got a chance. Now they had been dating since the winter break and he had almost forgotten all about it.
    A pleasant bell ringing in the distance broke Deron from his reflection. Rosalia was still talking about the story and his eyes locked onto her glistening lips as they came together to form sounds. She always wore some kind of lip gloss; Deron thought the Root Beer flavored one tasted best. Caught up