Page 160 of Sweet Nightmare

“You won’t be alone this time, Jude.” I close the distance between us so I can wrap an arm around his waist. “We’ll all be there to help make sure none of the nightmares go anywhere.”

“And how exactly do you think we can do that?” Luis asks.

I shrug. “In the last two days, we’ve fought off squidzilla, an angry snake monster, and a bunch of mutant chricklers—all of which are made from a ton of nightmares. How hard could a few more nightmares be?”

Jude still doesn’t look impressed, but Simon is definitely coming around. “You know, she’s got a point, Jude.”

“Do you have any idea how many threads make up a tapestry?” Ember says. “It has to be thousands. So how is he going to store them all? I mean, he’s big, but I’m pretty sure they won’t all fit on his body.”

“Good point,” I say. “But there has to be a way.”

“How do you store them now?” Luis asks.

“In jars,” Jude tells him reluctantly.

“Jars?” I repeat as things start to become clear to me.

“Yeah, jars,” he answers, looking even more wary.

“Like canning jars?”

“Canning jars?” Mozart says. “There’s no way—”

“Yes,” Jude finally admits with a sigh. “I store them in canning jars.”

“That’s what you were doing at the root cellar yesterday. Channeling nightmares into the jars there.” I shake my head. “How did I never think of that…”

“To be fair, most people don’t see a jar of jelly and think, Oh, that’s my worst nightmare,” Luis says dryly.

“So we need to go to the cellar,” I tell them. “You can pull the tapestry apart as slowly as you want and store the nightmares in the jars there. Then, when you’re ready to weave them back into the tapestry, you can pull them out the same way. You’ll be in total control.”

Jude doesn’t immediately jump at my suggestion, but I can tell he’s thinking about it.

Even as Ember asks, “What happens if you’re wrong?”

I don’t like to think about that, because if I’m wrong, we’re fucked. But we’re also fucked right now, like Izzy said. Plus, I don’t know if it’s the being able to see the past and the future thing I’ve got going on or what, but I have a really, really strong feeling that I’m right.

“Then we come up with a new plan,” I tell her after a second. “But unless anyone else has a better plan right now, I think this is the one we go with. Does anyone else have a different idea?”

I look around, but none of them volunteers anything. So then I turn to Jude and say, “I know this sucks. But I promise, whatever happens, you’re not in it alone. I’ll be there, and so will everyone else. I swear, we’ll figure it out.”

“Okay.” He nods.

“Okay?” I repeat, because I really didn’t think it would be that easy.

“You said you’ve got me, right?” His eyes search mine.

“I’ve definitely got you.”

“All right, then,” Jude says, sounding anything but enthusiastic. “Let’s go unravel some nightmares.”

“You sound like a damn psychologist.” Simon snorts. “Maybe we should all start calling you Dr. Abernathy-Lee. You can tell us what our dreams mean.”

“Or I can make sure that the first nightmare I accidentally let slip is directed straight at you.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of an accident,” Simon protests.

Jude smiles thinly in response. “Exactly.” Then he turns to me and says, “You ready to do this thing?”

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