Blue Is for Nightmares

by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  "I guess you didn't have a problem hearing his call," she says.

  'Anyway," Chad continues, "I thought that maybe you guys would be pulling an all-nighter. But then Stacey told me that that freak was pranking her and she couldn't sleep. So I told her I'd come over and we could study"

  "How thoughtful of you," she says.

  "What's wrong with that?" Chad says.

  "Fuck you, too."

  "How about this, Drea," he says, "when you're finished with your tantrum, give me a call." He grabs his cap off the night table and tugs it over his bed-head.

  "Don't hold your breath."

  "Look," he says, "Stacey is a friend of mine and if that bothers you--"

  "What?!"

  "It's not like we're still going out," he says. "We're all just friends."

  "You're no friend," she says. "Neither of you." She turns her back on us to fish into her mini-fridge. She takes out a half-eaten bar of chocolate and tears down the wrapper.

  There's a knock on the door. "Girls?"

  Madame Discharge.

  "There's a lot of noise coming from your room," she says. "Is everything okay?"

  "Fine," Drea says.

  "Is Stacey okay?"

  Chad looks around for someplace to hide, but it's useless; the closets are stuffed to maximum capacity, and there's no way he's getting under my bed.

  "I should let you fry" Drea whispers to him.

  "I'm fine, Ms. LaCharge," I call. "I'm just getting dressed."

  "Well, I need to come in for a sec," she says.

  Chad looks at me one last time before booting it out the window. Two seconds later, Drea opens the door. Madame Discharge looks around the room--her tiny gray eyes swallowed up by a pair of clunky, red glasses. "What's all the noise?"

  !"1111111111 I I I I I I I I I I I '75

  "We were just arguing about whether or not I should cut my hair," Drea says.

  "Oh?" Madame Discharge visually .assesses Drea's locks. "Yeah, a little pixie might be cute on you." She scratches at the thought, her finger rubbing over aLt least five chin hairs.

  "We really need to get dressed." I add a pillow to the pig- pile of bedding on my lap and a wave of Chad's cologne swims across my face.

  "Okay" Madame says. "Just keep it down. We've had a few complaints about you two."

  "We will, Ms. LaCharge. Thank you." Drea closes the door behind her.

  "Drea--" I begin.

  "Don't!"

  "You can't just not talk to me," I say.

  "Why can't I?"

  "Because we're friends."

  "Friends don't shit on one another."

  "You don't believe me that nothing happened?"

  "Oh, I believe it." She stands at the foot of my bed with her arms folded. "But not because you didn't want something to happen."

  "What are you saying?" I press my thighs together, feeling the dampness of her pajamas stick against my skin.

  "I'm saying that you lied to Chad about getting prank calls last night, so he'd feel sorry for- you and come over here."

  "That's not what happened."

  "Then what did happen?" She flips up the end of the covers, exposing my bare feet.

  it

  176

  "Nothing. We already told you that." I kick the covers back down as best I can, feeling now, more than ever, imprisoned in this bed until everyone leaves.

  "Did you kiss him?"

  "Drea

  "Did you?"

  I know it's weak, that it will come back to me threefold, but right now, I'll take it. I just want to be left alone. "No," I say, finally.

  "Liar." She tosses her candy bar down on the bed. "What else did you do with him?" She grabs the end of the comforter and peeks underneath.

  "No, Drea! Please, don't!"

  Drea raises an eyebrow at my response. "What am I not supposed to see?" She yanks the comforter from my legs and the pillows go flying.

  'Aren't those my pajamas?"

  Tears slide down the sides of my face as I wait for her to notice. And when she does, it's even more humiliating than I ever imagined.

  "You wet the bed?"

  "Drea--" I cry, trying to cover my lap with my hands. "Please... don't tell anyone."

  "Oh my god!" She looks like she doesn't know whether to gag or guffaw. "You wet the bed!"

  I bury my face into the pillow, ostrich-style, as though she won't be able to see me, as though I will just disappear.

  twettr-two

  Why did I decide to come to school today? How in the world am I supposed to take a physics test after everything that happened last night?

  Question number one already has way too many variables. How am I supposed to know what the W of a brick equals under G conditions when I didn't even know bricks had Was or experienced Gs in the first place? I look up from my scrabble of letters at Chad, seated three seats in front of me to the right. I wonder if he knows about the bedwetting, if Drea's already told him.

  I try to blink him out of my mind and instead concentrate on last night's nightmare. On the stalker's face. I know I recognized who it was, but now, fully awake, my memory of the face is just gone. I need to go back to the dorm and try to get it back somehow.

  The bell rings and that's my cue. I scribble my name across the top so the teacher knows who to give the big fat zero to, hand it in first, and dart out the door. But, unfortunately, I'm not quick enough. Chad stops me about two doors down the hallway.

  "I'm sorry about last night," he says, mussing a hand through his hair. "I mean, what happened between you and Drea."

  "It's no big deal."

  "Yeah it is and you know it."

  I look away, wondering what he'd think of me if he knew my secret, if he'd still feel the same way.

  "Has Drea said anything to you?" I ask. "I mean, is she talking to you?" I focus a moment on his lips, remembering their every detail from the night before--the tiny yellow freckle over the vee at the top, the threadlike scar in the left corner at the bottom. Proof that last night really happened.

  That I really kissed him.

  "Yeah, she's talking to me," he says. "She was mad at first in English. You know, played all pouty and standoffish. But then she got over it. I tried to talk to her about not being so mad at you, but she didn't listen. I don't get why she's mad at you and not me."

  "Because you're the guy" I say

  A conversation stopper.

  'Anyway," he says, "I'm kind of glacti last night happened, I mean, aside from getting you two in a fight."

  "You are?"

  "Yeah, I mean, she can't keep thinaking of me like her property Like I said last night, Drea and I make better friends. It's the only time we actually wt along."

  "Glad I was there to help." I throw rmy backpack over my shoulder and turn to walk away.

  "Wait." Chad touches my arm to sttop me.

  "What?" I pull my arm away

  "That's not what I meant."

  "Then what did you mean?"

  "I meant just what I said--I'm glad it happened."

  "Does Drea know how you feel? Hiave you actually told her everything you've told me, about the two of you being just friends?"

  He thinks about it a second. "Well, I haven't actually put it into words, but I'm sure she knows.."

  "Maybe she doesn't know as much as you think she does. Or maybe you don't know what you want."

  "I know what I want," he says.

  I look up at him and now he's the one looking at my mouth, my lips. And I want more t-han anything to bite them, to lick them, to suck them up into my face or cover them with my hand.

  But instead I smiile and he smiles back. And suddenly I feel trapped in some p,-oofy toothpaste commercial, the kind where the actors get all lovey on each other from the sheer glow of each other's teeth.

  i8o

  We linger there for a bit, not quite knowing what to say or how to leave things. In the twenty or so awkward seconds, as we shuffle our feet--mine, a pair of Doc Mar
ten knockoffs, his, shiny black Sketchers with silver buckles--I try to honestly ask myself whether or not I'd erase last night, including Drea finding out about my secret, if I could.

  But the answer is a big, fat, walloping no.

  "I gotta go," he says. "I guess I'll see you around."

  "I guess so," I say, not knowing if I should jump into his arms or high-five him, midair.

  We do neither. Chad stuffs his hands into his pockets and walks off toward his next class. I, on the other hand, feign migraine sickness and get excused from B-Block English. There's really no sense in screwing up any more grades today. Plus, I have way more pressing matters to tend to than a discussion of The Canterbury Tales. I have a stalker's face to conjure up, for god's sake.

  Hopefully a memory spell will help.

  Back in the room, I plop myself down on the bed and take a few seconds to reflect on what I do remember. I know that my nightmares took me into the forest again, and that this time there was some sort of structure waiting for me. I remember the planks of wood, the open doorways, and Drea's name carved in the dirt. I remember the spotlight, hearing the phone ring, and even answering it. But when I try to picture the person standing behind me, whispering in my ear, everything goes fuzzy.

  I grab the family scrapbook and ruin a finger down the partial list of contents at the beginninig.

  There are several spells for memory, but only one that specifies it can help reveal the person you dreamed about. Itt was written by my great-great aunt Delia. I turn the fragille pages until I reach the spell, and notice right away that a ctouple of the ingredients are covered with droplets of wax. I try to scrape the clumps away, but it doesn't work. I'll have to piece things together as best I can.

  I remove the few beauty items I own--a nude lipstick, a mauve eye shadow, and a tube of body glitter (a stocking stuffer from my mother two Christmases ago)--from the circular mirror on my dresser. I place the mirror flat on the floor and unscrew the lid off a jar of bllack poster paint.

  The reflection of myself as I look down into the mirror reminds me of Gram. I move my hair aaway from my face in a hand-held ponytail and notice for the first time that I have her golden-brown eyes--not just the color, but the way they sit deep in the sockets, sort of bedlroom-sexy like Bette Davis--and how the lashes curl up at the ends.

  I light a thick blue candle and plac:e it on a silver dish. Gram used to light one just like it, every night before bed, but it wasn't until I was twelve that I inquired about the color. I remember her looking up at me, her eyes heavy like tiny hammocks sagged in the skin pockets underneath. She extinguished the candle with a snuffer and frowned at my question. Still, she answered it--an answer that to this day makes me wonder: "Because blue is for nightmares," she said. "To make them go away or bring them closer, depending on how you use it."

  "You get nightmares?"

  She nodded.

  "Every night?"

  She pushed the dish of sugar cookies toward me. "Eat the last couple," she said. "They'll just go to waste."

  I nodded and took one. I chewed it slowly, wondering if she could hear the crunching in my mouth, waiting for her to tell me more--to tell me for what purpose she used the blue candle--but she didn't. She looked tired and deflated, as though those eye-hammocks might collapse at any moment. I watched her curl up on the sofa her body like a flannel-covered g--and waited until she slept. I wondered if the blue candle really helped, or if there were nightmares alive in her mind at that moment.

  Unfortunately, I never asked.

  The flame flickers three times after I light it. And I feel a chill pass over my shoulders, almost as if the temperature in the room has suddenly dropped. But instead of freaking me out, the feeling comforts me. Because I know in my heart that Gram is here, watching over me, guiding me just like old times.

  I dip a paintbrush into the jar and begin making sideways strokes, west to east, across the mirror's surface, until the glass is completely covered in black""The spirit of dreams is everlasting," I whisper. "It lives within my mind."

  I fill a mug with water from the sink and place it in Drea's mini-microwave. The directions say I'm supposed to

  drink a full cup of chamomile tea, rotating the cup counterclockwise with each sip.

  When the water's ready, I dangle the tea bag inside, allowing the curls of steam to drift up into my face and fill me with the chamomile flower's ability to soothe.

  I crack open four cardamom seeds and group their tiny, brown, pelletlike contents into my palm.

  "The spirit of dreams is everlasting," I say, sprinkling them into the tea. "It lives within my soul."

  I reflect a moment on the missing ingredients, and decide to use a teaspoon of mashed banana for prophecy and a sprinkling of thyme for strength and courage. I add these to the mug and stir counterclockwise with a freshly washed spoon. "The spirit of dreams is everlasting. It lives within my heart."

  I take a sip, concentrating on the flavors inside and their ability to help grant me the vision I need. "May the spirit within my dreams show itself in my mind, my soul, and my heart." I rotate the mug with each sip until there's nothing left, then place the mirror in my lap and stare down into it. "Vision of darkness. Vision of light. Vision in daytime. Vision in night. To the north, south, east, and west, may my vision of you come out of rest."

  The spell says the face of the person I dreamed about will begin to appear out of the blackness. I stare hard at the mirror for several minutes, trying to make shapes and features where there's just plain nothing. I look over every inch, wondering if maybe I should try wiping at the blackness to see the face underneath.

  With a finger, I clear away a tiny circle of the wet paint in the center. I look down. Still nothing.

  Using my palms, I start wiping away the black, my hands and arms getting completely covered in paint as I struggle to make the glass clear again.

  I look down into the mirror one last time, but the only face that appears is my own. And the only one I can't seem to get out of my stupid, stupid head is Chad's.

  The whole idea of it--of not getting the spell to work, of preoccupying myself with thoughts of Chad at a time like this--makes me want to toss the mirror right out the window, breaking the glass all over again. Instead, in one last pathetic attempt at trying to see something, I pick up the tea mug and study the glob inside--the mixture of banana and spices sitting at the bottom with the tea bag--now soiled with my negative energy and impatience. Still, I wait several moments, as if the mixture will change in some way and reveal information, but it only seems to get muddier.

  I fish a towel from the dirty pile on the floor and wipe the paint from my hands and arms. I look at the directions again, trying to make out the words hidden beneath the clumps of wax. But it's no use. It will take me years to experiment with different ingredients and get the spell right, and maybe even longer than that to actually make it work.

  I dump the contents of the mug into the trash, spring back onto my bed, and curl up into a ball inside my covers. Tears roll down my cheeks, sliding onto the pillow. I don't understand it. I thought Gram was with me; I thought she was going to help me. And now I feel more alone than ever.

  I wipe my eyes and look at my amethyst ring. As much as I hate to admit it, I know exactly what Gram would say right now, what she always used to say about spells when they didn't work--

  how it isn't the spell that fails the witch, it's the witch that fails the spell.

  When things like this happened to her, she would try and go back to the root of the spell, the reason she was conducting it in the first place. She would try to figure out what she could on her own, reminding herself, reminding me, that spells aid us in what we want to do or know; they don't do the work for us.

  I drag the covers up over my chin, wondering if I already have all I need to figure this whole thing out. If maybe I'm just not thinking hard enough. Or maybe I'm thinking too much. I glance over at the clock. It's a little after four--just an hour before
dinner time. I'm anything but hungry, but I know I have to face them all--to see if Drea said anything, to tell Veronica that we should work on a plan tonight.

  And to see Chad again.

  twenty-thr-ce.

  Dinner time. I spot Veronica by the condiment table, busy picking the egg slices out of her salad.

  I wave, but she ignores me--like last night in the café, when she made the great transformation from Veronica the Villain to Veronica the Victim, never even existed.

  I take a plate piled high with the dinner du jour--turkey fricassee: perfect cubes of mystery meat smothered in a

  gray and chunky cream sauce over a sticky ball of rice. Indigestible. I trade it for a wrapped tuna sandwich and walk over to the condiment table. Veronica's still there, still working on ridding all the evil yolk bits from the lettuce leaves. She notices me and takes a step away, like it's grade school all over again and I have cooties.

  "Why don't you come sit with us?" I say. "You know, so we can talk about tomorrow."

  "I don't think so," she says, waving her red acrylic nails in my face.

  "Why? We agreed yesterday that we'd come up with a plan. Tomorrow's the day"

  "Oh, that. I guess I was tweaked out at first. But after talking it out with my real friends, I know exactly who the stalker is."

  "You do?"

  "Think about it. This isn't a slasher movie, it's a prep school. Obviously someone who doesn't like me--" She pauses as Drea walks by. "Someone who's probably jealous of me, who can't hold onto her man, is trying pretty hard to scare me. Not gonna work."

  "Don't you think--"

  "What I think is that it seems pretty obvious who that person is, seeing that she's been supposedly getting stalked too."

  "You think Drea made this up?"

  "What else am I supposed to think? She hates me. Hates that I talk to Chad. Is jealous whenever I go near him."

  "Wait," I say. "This has absolutely nothing to do with Drea being jealous over Chad."

  'Are you kidding?" She takes a step closer to me. "This has everything to do with her being jealous. Just you wait. One day, very soon, Chad and I will be together. What will Drea do then?"