Foreverland Is Dead

these.”
    “Those from a bottle,” Mad says. “The other pills must be old or you’re allergic to the medicine. That’s why you puked. Girl, you’ve got a fever and your wounds smell like road kill. You going to take every medicine in that cabinet if you got to.”
    Cyn can’t get warm. Can’t stop sweating. This could be it. It’s all over. If the old man isn’t lying, then I’ll just wake up wondering what all those lines on the wall are for.
    She puts the pills on her tongue, chases it with chicken broth. Mad brings another spoonful to her lips and sneaks a look toward the back where Roc is sleeping. “More of those clear bags are gone,” she whispers. “I started a count.”
    “What bags?” Kat asks.
    Mad tells her about the plastic bags in the cabinet. Chills storm Cyn’s body with renewed force. Now she wants to forget about them, wants to forget the ink. I’m stealing them. I’m the one who’s been going to the little house in the woods, taking those bags with me. And I don’t remember doing it.
    The dead woman on the path—she’d had one in her hand. Was she the one taking them before they awoke? What’s in the cabin? What could make Cyn sleepwalk almost two miles through the night until the flesh wore off of her feet?
    I wish this would end.
    “Is the old man crazy?” Mad tips the bowl for the last couple spoonfuls. “He thinks this is all a dream and you believe him?”
    “You ever go hungry in a dream?” Cyn says.
    “He said we were part of an experiment,” Kat says.
    Kat admits she went around the barn and listened, heard all the nonsense. Cyn wishes she didn’t do that; now she’s got to explain everything when all she wants to do is sleep.
    “This ain’t a dream—we’d know it,” Cyn says. “He’s just saying things, Kat. He’s crazy.”
    “Maybe we’re crazy,” Roc says. “We just don’t know it.”
    “Shut up,” Kat snaps.
    “You’d better hope I don’t get loose, horse girl.” The bed creaks. “You’re the first one I’ll break in half.”
    Kat shakes her head, arms crossed.
    Cyn rests with her eyes closed. At first, she’d wanted to punch the old man in the throat for such a lie. Their days are numbered and he thought they’d believe anything, like children. But she’s sleepwalking plastic bags to a little cabin, so he could say anything and it might be true.
    “I’ll talk to him,” Kat says. “Figure out what he’s up to.”
    “You do that,” Roc says. “I feel better already.”
    “Get some sleep, Cyn.” Mad runs her finger around the bowl and licks it. “More medicine later, if you don’t puke those pills up. There’s plenty more soup, too. Miranda probably has more.”
    “Miranda?” Roc chuckles. “Proof you are dreaming.”
    The girls go to the door, ready to get away from Roc, whose only enjoyment is getting under their skin. She’s good at it.
    “Mad.” Cyn, already half-buried in sleep, croaks out her name. She holds out her keycard. “Take this. I don’t need it.”
    “I’ll give it to Kat.”
    “No. Just…for now, hang on to it. Keep it safe. All right?”
    Mad puts it around her neck, tucks it under her shirt. She puts her hand on Cyn’s forehead, her palm clammy and cold.
    Cyn fades into a soft haze. I can’t steal the bags if I don’t have a key. The front door closes. The bunkhouse is quiet except for the creaks and pops as the wind pushes against it.
    “You asleep?” Roc says.
    Cyn’s couldn’t care less if Roc talks. They’re just words. Besides, stampeding elephants couldn’t keep her from sleeping.
    “I lied to Kat,” Roc whispers, cackling like she’s lost her mind. “If I get loose, you’re the first one I break in half.”
    “You’d better kill me, if you escape,” Cyn mutters. “You’re a dead body if you don’t.”
    The dark laughter follows Cyn into the gray.

36

    The dream is endless.
    Feverish.
    As always, she’s on the ledge, staring into the abyss of eternal fog. Where the memories are. Memories of the lost boys from Foreverland, dissolved in misty gray. Reduced to thoughts scattered in space.
    But how did my memories get into the gray?
    She feels them coming for her. She runs every time. She turns, races from the chasm into the trees. She’d rather suffer in the dream than face life.
    Rather than have those memories inside her.
    Sometimes she wakes long enough to feel someone put dry pills onto her lips, cool water washing them down.
    Feels the sweat on her