Dreamless

the fact that she was so tired. Helen righted her clothing, grabbed her school things, and ran down the stairs before her dad could start singing “Kiss” again.
    Jerry had gone hog wild on breakfast. There were eggs, bacon, sausage, oatmeal with nuts and dried cherries, and of course, pumpkin pancakes. Pumpkin pancakes were a favorite of Jerry's and Helen’s, but around Halloween, which was only about a week and a half away, anything with pumpkin in it was on the menu. It was sort of a competition between the two of them. It started with roasted pumpkin seeds and went all the way to soups and gnocchi. Whoever found a way to sneak pumpkin into a dish without getting caught was the winner.
    The whole pumpkin thing had started when Helen was a little girl. One October she’d complained to her dad that pumpkins only got used as decoration, and although she loved jack-o’-lanterns, it was still a big waste of food. Jerry had agreed, and the two of them resolved to start eating pumpkins instead of just carving them up and then throwing them out.
    Unfortunately, they found that pumpkins on their own are so bland they’re practically inedible. If they hadn’t gotten creative with the cooking, they would have given up on their Save the Pumpkins crusade after the first year.
    There were a lot of nauseating creations, of which the pumpkin popsicles were by far the worst, but the pancakes stood out as the biggest success. They instantly became as large a part of the Hamilton family tradition in late October as turkey was on Thanksgiving. Helen noticed that Jerry had even made fresh whipped cream to put on top, and that made her feel so guilty she could barely look at him. He was worried about her.
    “Finally! What were you doing up there? Quilting?” Jerry joked, trying to make light of his worry, as he looked her up and down.
    For a moment, his eyes widened with fear and his lips pressed together in a harsh line, then he turned back to the stove and started serving. Jerry wasn’t a nag, but Helen had gotten skinny over the past three weeks—really scary skinny—and this humongous breakfast was his way of trying to remedy that without having to go into a big, boring lecture. Helen loved the way her dad handled stuff. He didn’t pester her the way other parents would if they saw their daughter turn into a scarecrow, but he still cared enough to try to do something about it.
    Helen tried to smile bravely at her dad, took a plate, and started stuffing the food down her throat. Everything tasted like sawdust, but she pushed the calories in, anyway. The last thing Helen wanted was to make her dad anxious about her health, although to be honest, even she was starting to feel a bit worried.
    She healed quickly from any overt injury she sustained in the Underworld, but every day she felt weaker. Still, she had no choice—she had to keep going until she found the Furies, no matter how ill the Underworld was making her. She’d made a promise. Even if Lucas hated her now, she would fulfill it.
    “You have to chew bacon, Lennie,” her dad said sarcastically. “It doesn’t just dissolve in your mouth.”
    “Is that how it works?” Realizing she had been sitting there stock-still, she forced herself to act normal and crack a joke. “Now he tells me.”
    While her dad chuckled, she wrenched her thoughts away from Lucas and considered all the homework she hadn’t done. She hadn’t even finished reading the Odyssey yet, not because she didn’t want to read it, but because she hadn’t had time.
    It seemed like everything on Helen’s to-do list needed to be done yesterday. On top of that, her favorite teacher, Hergie, kept trying to pressure her into joining the AP classes. Like she needed to expand her reading list.
    Claire cruised up the driveway in the new hybrid car her parents had bought her and yelled, “Honk-honk!” out the window rather than actually honking the horn. As Jerry tried, and failed, not to hover, Helen stuffed the remaining pancake down her throat, nearly choked, and ran out the door with her shoelaces still untied.
    She hurried down the steps, taking a glance back at the widow’s walk on her roof, but she knew it would be empty.
    Lucas had made it painfully clear to Helen that he would not sit on her widow’s walk again. She didn’t know why she bothered to look up there, except that she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
    “Button your coat, it’s cold out,” Claire admonished as soon as