Page 132 of Sweet Nightmare

Everyone turns to look—everyone except Remy, that is.

“Where?”

“She’s on the side with the boxes. And there’s an old guy sitting on the couch next to Mozart. He’s reading the New York Times from Monday, February 7, 2061. That’s why you keep rubbing your arm.”

Mozart’s eyes go wide, but all she says is, “I keep rubbing my arm because it feels like something’s crawling on it.”

“You do it every time he turns the page on the newspaper.”

“Holy shit!” She jumps off the couch and whirls around to face it, like that’s going to show her something. “There’s really someone sitting there?”

“Not at the moment, but apparently there will be in a little under forty years.”

“Weird. Very, very weird.” She settles back on the couch a lot more gingerly than before. “But why can I feel him when I can’t see him?”

“I don’t know. But I noticed people were acting weird last night after the nightmare attack.”

“I can’t imagine why…” Izzy mutters. I choose to ignore the quip.

“Especially when they were waiting to go into the portal. They were acting like Mozart. They would trip over nothing, swat at a nonexistent pest, itch at something bugging them, but I could see exactly what was provoking the reaction, so…”

“Yeah, but how can you tell they’re not just ghosts?” Luis asks as Ember gets to her feet. “You’ve always been able to see details about them.”

“A ghost from 2061?” Simon sounds skeptical.

“I don’t know, maybe. She sees a lot of weird stuff on the regular,” Luis tells him before turning back to me. “How can you tell?”

“I don’t know how to explain it,” I answer. “I just know. When I look at a place, I can see it in the past and future and the people that belong in those eras. It’s like a movie playing in front of me. Whereas ghosts have a weird kind of mist that they trail, and they tend to be aware of me in a way these people aren’t.”

“What about the little girl?” Ember asks abruptly. “Is she from the past or the future?”

I glance back over at the girl and can’t help smiling as she tosses her yo-yo in the air over and over again. “I think the past—she’s wearing her hair in those big Shirley Temple curls that were popular a long time ago.”

I watch as Ember crosses the room to the spot where I told her the little girl was. And while she’s got the general area, she’s about four feet too far to the left.

“I don’t feel anything,” she calls once she comes to a stop.

I sigh as I tell her, “Move to your right.”

She looks even more skeptical, but she does as I say. “Still don’t feel anything.”

“Keep going,” I answer.

She takes another step, and it’s obvious that she thinks I’m full of shit.

“Take another two steps to the right.”

“Seriously?” she demands.

“What do you want me to say?” I throw my hands up in exasperation. “The kid is where the kid is. I can’t change that to make you believe me.”

“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes and takes another two small steps, which still leaves her several inches from the young girl.

I know Ember’s about to call me on it. But just as she opens her mouth to say something, the little girl throws her yo-yo straight at Ember’s shins.

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

YUZU COULD

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