"Would you like another cup, Liz, dear?" she asked herself. "Why, yes, I would. Thank you very much," she answered, smoothing the skirt of her cupcake dress. She picked up the pot and poured. Three raisins fell through the spout.
Liz wrinkled her brow. Raisins didn't belong in a teapot. And the dress with the cupcakes on it was from when she was in kindergarten. There's no way it would fit her now, but it did. And-and wait, something else was wrong-willow trees didn't belong in the desert.
I'm dreaming, Liz realized. Another one of those dreams where I know I'm dreaming.
Was Max in this dream, too? She scrambled to her feet and used both hands to part the branches of the willow tree wide. She scanned the desert. Was anything out there that could be Max in disguise?
All she saw was earth and sky. She seemed to be the only living creature. The willow tree was the only vegetation.
Liz returned to her place in front of the tea set, leaning back on the tree trunk. It felt soft and smooth beneath her head. Maybe I can call Max to me, she thought. It couldn't hurt to try, anyway.
She stared up at the canopy of jade green leaves over her head. "Max," she whispered. "Can you feel me here? Can you come to me? Please try." A branch of the willow tree brushed against her face. She flicked it away.
"I have two teacups and everything," she added. The branch brushed her cheek again, its leaves warm as flesh against her skin. Liz was struck by the memory of Max's fingers running down her face in exactly the same way.
"It's you!" she cried. "Willow trees don't have leaves this dark. Jade green-that's the color of your aura. It's you, Max!" The branch gently slid over her hair. Max loved to touch Liz's hair. It really was him.
"Okay, communication. That's what we need first," Liz muttered. She tried to send a loud, clear thought message to Max. Are you all right? Is there anything you can tell us about the consciousness that will help us get you free?
She strained for any murmur of a reply in her mind, but none came. "So no tree-to-human telepathy in this dream," she said.
But it was a dream. Yeah, she didn't have the powers that Max and the others did. But inside her own dream, couldn't she sort of create her own reality? Especially since she was aware that she was dreaming and everything?
"Maybe I could get some tree-to-tree telepathy going." Liz concentrated on her feet, willing them to lengthen into roots that stretched into the ground.
The earth lurched beneath her. "It's working!" she cried.
Then with a groaning, crunching sound, the ground cracked open. Liz stumbled backward, barely managing to escape falling into the ravine that had formed-and swallowed the willow tree.
"No!" Liz shouted, staring down at the tree. Before she could take a step, the earth rumbled again, and the ravine began to close itself. In seconds the desert floor was smooth and flat again. As if the tree had never existed.
As if Max had never been there.
"Knock, knock," Maria's mother called, opening the bedroom door without waiting for an answer-one of her many annoying habits.
Maria hit the pause button on the remote and looked over at her mom. She was wearing Maria's black sweater that had shrunk in the wash. That sweater seemed to have moved permanently into her mom's closet. Majorly annoying.
"I might be a little later than usual tonight," Maria's mother announced. She shifted her weight slightly from foot to foot.
"Okay," Maria answered. She glanced at the still frame of the movie frozen on the TV screen-Karen Allen in midfaint. But did her mother take the hint that Maria wanted to get back to watching it? No.
"I'm going out with Daniel again," her mother said.
Maria sat up. "This is what? Like five times?" she asked, giving her mom her full attention.
"Uh-huh. I thought that-I'd heard that-the third date was significant, but…"
Don't go there, oh, please don't go there, Maria silently begged. She couldn't deal with talking about her mother's sex life.
"Or maybe that's just something I read in a magazine," her mom added quickly, seeming to realize that mentioning her surprise at not getting any on date three was way, way inappropriate.
"Maybe," Maria answered, her voice coming out like some weird land of donkey bray.
"You know that perfume you mixed for me? I've been wearing it a lot lately-Daniel really likes it. And I just realized I ran out, and I really wanted to wear it tonight." Maria's mom looked at her hopefully. "He's picking me up in a few minutes."
"There isn't enough time to make a new batch," Maria answered. There really wasn't time, and even if there was, Maria wasn't sure how she felt about helping her mom snag a guy. She'd given up any fantasy of her parents getting back together, but still.
"Oh, okay. Never mind." Maria's mom nervously touched her hair, which Maria noticed was styled in a slightly different way. Tonight's really important to her, she realized.
"Wait," Maria said as her mother turned to leave. "I can get you something close. Sit," she instructed, patting the spot on the bed next to her. Her mother sat with a relieved smile.
Maria plucked two vials of essential oil off her bedside table. She took one of her mothers hands and flipped it palm up, then placed a few drops from each vial on her wrist and rubbed them in. A subcutaneous tremor ran through her mother's arm. Mom's nervous, Maria noticed. She rubbed a little harder, hoping to ease the tension from the muscles, but the quiver kept right on quivering.
"Thanks," Maria's mom said as Maria started working on the other wrist. "I just want to be… perfect." She touched her hair again self-consciously, then gave her midriff-bared by Maria's sweater-a hard poke. "Not that that's even possible."
I know the symptoms, Maria thought. Not only does Mom really, really like this guy, she's not sure how he feels about her. And she's worried that there is some significance, some he-doesn't-really-really-like-me-back significance, to five dates with no-
Maria stopped herself. She extremely did not want to go there.
"I think you look beautiful," she told her mother. "And you smell good, too."
The doorbell rang, and her mother lurched to her feet. "That's him!" She bolted toward the bedroom door.
"Mom!" Maria called, and her mother spun around to face her. "If he doesn't, um…" She decided to start over. "If he doesn't appreciate you, it's his loss."
"Aw, that's so sweet." Maria's mom rushed back over and gave her a fast, lilac-and-vanilla-infused hug, then bolted out of the room.
Maria flopped back down into the nest of pillows on her bed.
"Okay, self, you take that advice, too," she muttered. "It's Michael's loss." She clicked the pause button again, and the movie started back up. A minute later she was entranced.
She was so completely immersed in the world of the movie that she practically flew off the bed when she heard her window slide open nearly an hour later.
"You scared me," she snapped, her heart pounding as Michael climbed into her room.
"It's not like it's the first time I've come in this way," he answered.
"Not lately." It came out sounding a lot more accusatory than she'd intended it to. Well, so what? It was the truth, wasn't it?
"What're you watching?" Michael asked. He took a step toward the bed, then veered off, grabbed the chair next to her dresser, and plopped down on it.
"Um, nothing. Nothing! I wasn't really watching anything. It was just background noise." Oh, God, where was the remote? What had she done with the remote? She scanned the bed, the bedside table, groped under the pillows.
"Looking for this?" Michael picked the remote off the floor but, being Michael, didn't hand it to her.
Maria lunged for the TV set, fumbling for the power button. She had to turn it off.
"Starman," Michael said. Too late. Maria glanced over her shoulder and saw him holding the plastic video rental box. "So you go out and rent stuff for background noise?" he asked, raising one eyebrow.