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  Ben smiled. “Last time I checked.”

  Tovah didn’t smile. “I’m sort of busy, Ben.”

  “I see that. I just thought I’d say hello.”

  “You didn’t say hello, you said octopuses don’t have bones.”

  “They don’t.”

  Tovah gave him a narrow, sideways glance. “Are you stalking me?”

  “Maybe.”

  Tovah’s mouth wanted to curl, but she forced it downward instead of upward. He didn’t seem perturbed.

  Without her attention, the mountain had dissolved into a sand dune. She looked around. The beach scene had grown more detailed, mostly from Ben, but her will was automatically filling in the empty places, too. It was interesting, that her sand was golden brown and his was white. Together they made a patchwork quilt of sand. Farther down, the beach faded into smooth black stones. A few people were fishing, some with rods and some with nets.

  “Why the beach?” she asked.

  “Why not? Don’t you like the beach?”

  She looked around again. “It’s all right.”

  In the waking world, she hadn’t been to the beach in a long time. She didn’t want to think about what sand would do to her leg, how it would be impossible to keep the joints clean or how walking would be even more of a challenge.

  She had no problems now and wiggled her toes deeper into the sand. A wave curled toward her feet, wetting them. The water was as warm as bath water.

  “I thought it would be cold,” she said with a small laugh.

  “I don’t like cold water.”

  She nodded, watching him. “This place still surprises me.”

  “It probably always will. That’s the nature of it. But it gets easier, the longer you’re here.”

  “Most things do.”

  They’d begun walking while they talked, toward the rocks and the fishermen. A small red crab scuttled out of the water, directly beneath her foot, and Tovah automatically sidestepped. More crabs appeared, each as tiny and perfect as someone’s will could shape them. They merged, becoming one, and crept back beneath the water.

  “You like crabs?” Tovah gave Ben another sideways glance.

  “That wasn’t me.” He laughed, pointing at the water. “There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of wills working here. Someone has a crab fetish, I guess.”

  No matter how far they walked, they weren’t getting closer to the rocks and the fishermen. “I don’t see hundreds of people.”

  “You don’t have to see them. It’s not about seeing anything.”

  “Yeah. Right, right.” Even now it was still a hard concept around which to wrap her mind. That the Ephemeros, the dream world, was formed from the collective subconscious of the world. That it was a genuine, alternate plane of reality, existing simultaneously in the minds of every person on earth and accessible only in sleep.

  “How many people are sleeping right now?” she asked suddenly.

  Ben bent to pick up a flat stone and, turning, skipped it out across the water. “A lot.”

  “I read once that on average, we spend a third of our lives sleeping. I had a roommate in college who hated to sleep. She said she’d rather be awake all the time and just take her third all at once, at the end of her life. Just close her eyes when she was done and spend the rest of it asleep, but give her every moment she could take right now.”

  Ben picked up another stone. A breeze ruffled his hair. “She wouldn’t have really wanted that. People need to sleep.”

  “And dream.” Tovah found her own smooth stone and attempted skipping it. She wasn’t as successful. “People who don’t dream get sick.”

  “So do people who dream too much.” Ben turned to her. “There has to be a balance.”

  “That’s what I keep trying to tell Spider.” This time, when she took a step, Tovah shaped less distance between them and the rocks.

  “You’re good.”

  The appreciation in his tone made her turn to look at him. “What makes you say that?”

  “You want something. You make it happen, but it’s not jarring. It’s nice being around you.”

  She shot him a look that clearly said she thought he was yanking her chain. “Uh-huh.”

  “I mean it.”

  She shrugged. “You’re better than I am. Stronger. Way smoother.”

  Ben shook his head, staring off toward the sea. “Only because I spend more time here than you. That’s all.”

  “Well, believe me, if it weren’t for this freaky shit that’s been going on here lately, I’d be happier to spend more time here.”

  “No.” Ben looked at her sharply. “You think that, but you don’t mean it.”

  “You can read my mind?” She tossed a pebble toward the water. “Relax. I’m only teasing you, Ben.”

  Now she could see that the group of people on the rocks were really a family. Mother, Father, Son. She wondered which one of them was dreaming. Or if all of them were.

  “Can I ask you something, Tovah?”

  Tovah paused. The sea swirled around their ankles and she cherished the sensation, even if the water wasn’t cold like she’d have shaped it. She looked over at Ben. “Sure.”

  Ben looked out over the ocean, itself a patchwork of color and texture. It was, she realized, a perfect representation of the Ephemeros itself. A patchwork sea.

  “Why don’t you want to be a guide? Really?”

  Tovah studied him. He wasn’t looking at her. His face was also pleasant in profile. The curve of his forehead met the swoop of the bridge of his nose, and his chin anchored everything together. Ben had a good face.

  He couldn’t know her thoughts on that were changing. “The Ephemeros is a playground. I wanted to swing on the monkey bars, not be the monitor.”

  Son had cast his net into the ocean. His dream then, she guessed. He pulled in the net, empty, and cast it out again while his parents encouraged him.

  He brought up a net full of shining silver fishes, glittering like they’d been covered by sequins. Some of them wore tiny top hats. Some of them were singing.

  Ben stopped walking. His hands thrust deep into his pockets, he steadfastly didn’t look at her. He lifted his chin a bit toward the kid casting out his net again. “What do you think he’s trying to catch?”

  Tovah studied the scene in front of them. The waves had gotten bigger, rising higher on the sand. Mother and Father faced into the wind whipping off the sea. Tovah had thought they were encouraging Son in his fishing, but now that she was closer she could hear what they were saying. All of it was spoken in fond, loving tones almost syrupy in sweetness. None of it was nice.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Son cast out his net again. His small shoulders hunched with the effort of drawing it in. When it arrived empty, the taunting of Mother and Father got a little louder.

  “Do you think he’s just trying to make them happy?” Ben asked. “Or is he doing this for himself? What do you think he wants to find in that net, Tovah? Is he wishing that just once he’ll pull in something bright and magic that will change his life?”

  Tovah looked at him. This speech was like nothing she’d ever heard from Ben before, and yet it sounded truer than anything he’d ever said. She looked again at the family trio dredging the ocean for something unknown.

  “Is that what you’re always hoping for? Something bright and magic?”

  Ben’s smile only made it to half of his mouth. “Tell me you don’t.”

  She could feel soft sand between all ten of her toes. She could walk without losing her balance, climb and run without fear of falling. She was here and whole, in dreams.

  “I know the difference between this life and my waking one, Ben. Nothing that happens in here changes anything about my life when I’m awake. Hoping to make a change from something I do in here is a waste of time.”

  Ben nodded, looking down at the line he drew in the sand with his foot. She’d never seen his bare feet before, the long, strong toes and smo