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“Sisters of Mercy offered me a full-time position. So…maybe. Yes.”

  A beat of silence, one she didn’t want to analyze, hovered between them. “What sort of house are you looking for?”

  “Something I can afford.” He laughed. “I’ve got med school bills to pay.”

  The image of Richards’s card, tacked onto Tovah’s bulletin board, rose in her mind. She thought about plucking it down and offering it to him. She said nothing. Coincidence didn’t exist in the Ephemeros. You dreamed what you were meant to, or you shaped what you desired. In the waking world meeting a man wanting to buy a house mere days after meeting a Realtor trying to sell one was simple serendipity, nothing more. She shouldn’t read into it. She wouldn’t.

  “What brought you to Pennsylvania?” Tovah stirred sweetener into her coffee, though she knew it wouldn’t help. How a facility whose staff relied so heavily on caffeine could consistently ruin coffee, she didn’t know.

  “A chance to work in one of the premier long-term psychiatric facilities in a tri-state area.”

  She laughed, thinking he was joking, but stopped at the look on his face. “You’re kidding.”

  Dr. Goodfellow smiled. “Nope.”

  She looked around at the dimly lit room. “This place?”

  He nodded. “When the Harrisburg State Hospital shut down, there were fewer options for patients like Henry. Private facilities can’t or don’t want to handle an indigent population. Hospital programs are designed for short-term treatment, and beds are limited. Sisters of Mercy is one of the last long-term-care facilities that take patients on a pro-bono basis.”

  “You mean people who can’t pay and have no other place to go.”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “And those are the sorts of patients you want to treat?”

  He smiled slightly. “Someone has to.”

  His answer was true, but she wasn’t sure she liked the way he’d said it. “Where were you before you came here?”

  “In a twenty-bed private facility in New Hampshire. Full of wealthy bulimics and casual drug addicts with the money to rest for a little while. Tennis and golf were considered therapy.”

  Tovah watched him as he described the place to her. “Sounds like a dream job, actually.”

  “Not my kind of dream.” His gaze caught hers. Held it. The moment broke a second later. “Tell me about Henry.”

  “He used to be lucid more often than not. The meds were working. He wasn’t hallucinating. He was coherent.” When she’d met him, Henry had spent hours talking to her. It had taken her weeks to realize that most of those conversations were happening in the Ephemeros. The lines between the waking and dream worlds had blurred so much for her she hadn’t been able to distinguish them until Henry helped her. She owed him a lot. Maybe even her life.

  She watched Dr. Goodfellow stir sugar and cream into his third cup of coffee. “Aside from the fact that stuff is foul, how can you stand the caffeine?”

  He looked up with a smile. “I guess I’ve built up a tolerance.”

  “I’d be afraid I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep.” She indicated her cup. “I can’t have any caffeine after about three in the afternoon.”

  His smile faltered, just a bit. “I’d be more concerned if, like your friend, I had trouble staying awake.”

  Another moment passed between them before he spoke again. “His records are sporadic, but show he’s spent a lot of time in shelters or on the streets.”

  “From what I understand, his parents tossed him out when he was fifteen or so. He lived with grandparents, on and off. When they died…” Tovah shrugged. Henry didn’t talk much about his past. Once, while putting away his pajamas, she’d found a sheaf of letters rubber-banded together. The return address had all been from the same place in New Jersey. She thought they might have been from a sister, but had never asked.

  “His situation isn’t uncommon. He’s lucky to have a friend like you.”

  Tovah shook her head, demurring. Her own coffee was growing cold, but she couldn’t stomach the bitterness. “Spider is—I mean, Henry is a great guy when he’s awake.”

  “And not bashing in television sets.”

  The doctor’s smile tempted her own. He didn’t seem to have noticed she’d called Henry by his Ephemeros name, not that it would’ve mattered. Sitting with him felt comfortable in a way she hadn’t expected. It was his apologetic manner. He was a good-looking man who didn’t act like he knew it. She wondered if he liked to dance.

  Of course, since this was the waking world—and she’d checked, to make sure, by looking again and again at the clock to be certain the numbers didn’t change—she didn’t ask him.

  “It’s the meds,” she said abruptly. “The pills and shots mess with his brain. When he wakes up, he’s disoriented and confused, that’s all.”

  “Disoriented, confused and violent.” Dr. Goodfellow studied the inside of his coffee cup, then tossed back the rest of its contents and put the empty mug back on the table. “Which means he needs to be medicated for his protection and the staff’s.”

  “Well, what do I know? I’m not a doctor.”

  Dr. Goodfellow sighed. “I want to help your friend. I really do.”

  “Really? You’d be one of the first, I think.” She sipped cold coffee to cover the bitterness in her tone. “Most of the doctors who come through here see him as a case in a textbook. He doesn’t fit the profiles or the protocols, so they don’t know what to do with him. They want to pump him full of drugs and free up a bed, that’s all.”

  His silence filled the space between them, but she didn’t regret what she’d said. Spider was a person, not just a patient, and she was as equally frustrated with him for his unwillingness to function in the waking world as she was with the medical professionals, family and friends who’d given up on him.

  “Miss Connelly,” he said softly. “I’m different.”

  Tovah looked up, into his eyes, expecting now to see a hint of smarmy smugness. A doctor’s arrogance. Or maybe even condescending pity. But as she studied Martin Goodfellow’s face, she saw only sincerity.

  “I believe you,” she said.

  Chapter Four

  Television didn’t interest her, and she’d finished all her library books. She’d fed Max, completed all she could stand to do on her latest assignment for work, and folded all her laundry. Tovah thought with longing of her bed and darkness, the sweet temptation of slipping into a world where she could put aside the problems of her waking life. Where she could run and dance, or fly if she chose. She wanted to be asleep.

  It was only 8:00 p.m.

  She would force herself to wait until at least nine and try not to count the minutes. She’d take a long shower and deep condition her hair. Maybe change the sheets. Surely those tasks would make the time go faster.

  She stopped herself.

  She would not allow herself to be like an alcoholic counting the minutes until she could have another drink, or an anorexic measuring every bite. She would not allow this craving to become an addiction. Not again. Yet even as she tried to convince herself, she knew it was too late. Denying herself the pleasures of sleep was as much, if not more, a sign of her unhealthy dependence on the Ephemeros. She’d told Henry he couldn’t sleep all the time, but she knew too well how tempting it would be to do just that.

  She would stay awake until ten, now, to prove she could. She would organize her computer files, or scrub her toilets. She would—

  The phone rang, and she jerked at the sudden shrill. Caller ID showed a familiar number, and though normally she’d have let the machine pick up, she was grateful for the distraction now. She answered, bracing herself for the leap of her heart that refused to go away, no matter how many times she remembered she was supposed to hate him. Her throat had closed a bit, but he spoke before she could, giving her time to ease herself into speech.

  “Tovah? It’s me. Kevin,” he added, as though once upon a time his voice hadn’t been the first thing she�