The Dream Thief Read Online Free PDF Page B

wasn't a tactic I'd planned on using, but he'd given me an opportunity I wasn't about to pass up. "You're a bully, Marsh. You turned mean and broke something special."
    "I know, I'm sorry. God, Jesse—what are you going to do to me?"
    "I don't need to do anything to you. You're already under a curse."
    That stopped him, froze him cold with his mouth hanging open. The small, rebel part of me that wasn't actively engaged with shock and horror over what I'd done wanted to snap a picture to post on the internet somewhere, but it was a small part, easily kept under control.
    "A curse. Like from a witch, you mean?"
    "Right. Like from a witch. The stuff in the bottle wasn't meant for you, but you spilled it all over yourself and that made you go crazy."
    "Like—I’m hallucinating?"
    "Pure loony tunes."
    "Oh my God. Jesse, please." He sank down onto his knees and clasped his hands. "I don't want to go to a loony bin place. Fix me. Make me back. I'll be good, I swear."
    I acted like I had to think about it, when all I wanted was for him to get out of my sight. Finally, I sighed. "Well, okay. I guess maybe you've had enough. Here's how you break the curse—are you listening?"
    He nodded.
    "Go home. Put all of the clothes you're wearing in the woodstove and burn them. Scrub yourself off in the shower. That will fix it."
    "That's it? Just like that?"
    "Well—almost. After the ashes have cooled from burning your clothes, double bag them and bury them in the backyard. And then—donate a thousand bucks to the DV shelter. Can you do all that?"
    "Anything." He grabbed my hands and kissed them, not in the expected Marsh way, highly suggestive and sexually charged, but like I was a priest who had just granted him absolution from hell, which maybe I had. But the revulsion was pretty much crawling all over my skin by now and I had no patience left for him.
    "Get up. Go home. Do as I have said."
    Internally, I rolled my eyes at myself and added, "and you shall be healed," as I watched him run down the sidewalk and across the street without any regard for traffic.
    "Do I need a hazmat suit?" Will asked, beside me. The sensation of his skin crawling in addition to what I was already dealing with was almost enough to send me running down the street in the opposite direction. Which of course I couldn't do unless Will came with me, which would be defeating the point.
    "I doubt that it would help."
    "I'm not hungry anymore. You?"
    My stomach roiled at the thought and he apparently felt that and took it for answer, because without another word he turned and headed for the truck.

Chapter Five
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    W e stopped at Will's house so he could grab a sleeping bag and a change of clothes. At my request, he also scrounged up an old sleeping bag for me. He had questions about why I traveled without one and I let him think I was scattered and stupid, rather than tell him I'd burned mine when the dream got spilled.
    I was not invited in and waited on the porch, feeling the bond between us stretch and ease as he moved about inside. When he emerged he shoved a jug of milk and a box of dry cereal into my hands, then turned around for the sleeping bags and a daypack.
    "Don't you want to bring your guitar?"
    Will had never gone anywhere without his guitar since he was ten and bought the first one at a yard sale. It rode in the car with us to school. It came up into his climbing tree where he'd sit and play for hours—bits of songs from the radio, tunes he'd painstakingly learned off a chart, stuff he made up himself.
    Now he looked at me blankly.
    "Why?"
    "Well, why do you ever?"
    His expression mirrored my confusion. "Sometimes you're more than a little freaky, Jesse. I found a guitar in my house, but I can't for the life of me figure what it's doing there. It's not like I can play the thing. If this is a joke, I'm missing the punch line."
    "It's not a joke. You…" There were no words for this, and I was still fumbling, trying to