I only remember collecting stardust on mornings warm enough for Roscoe, my basset hound, to bask in front of the glass door leading from the living room to the backyard. Mom called them eye boogers and found my small jar of stardust revolting. When I was four, Dad told me stardust were good-dream seeds planted by the Sandman. I asked what the Sandman looked like, and Dad said, "He looks different to everybody."

"How will I know it's him?" I asked.

"Some things you just know."

When I was eight, Dad warned me to be careful because, "The Sandman likes to steal his dreams back."

"Doesn't he have his own?" I asked Dad.

He shook his head gravely. "He doesn't know how to dream." Then, he whispered, "Always be ready for the worst," before whisking me off my feet and making the spinning world even more topsy-turvy.

Mom didn't like Dad's tales. "Don't say anything about the Sandman tonight. You'll give her nightmares," she'd scold him before opening my squeaky bedroom door and handing me a mug of microwaved milk. I noticed she'd started changing into her lavender nurse clothes instead of her usual sweatpants and t-shirts. I downed the milk in five gulps while Dad read a chapter of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. Mom rubbed my back until I fell asleep. I was nine then.

Mom and Dad celebrated my tenth birthday a day early because Mom had to work a double shift. She made all my favorites for dinner‒ham, pancakes, and sweet potatoes‒and Dad bought a small, chocolate Costco cake spelling D-A-I-S-Y out in white buttercream cursive. As Dad presented the cake to me, frosting swiped against his baggy, green polo. "Oops," he said, laughing and mashing the frosting further into the fabric.

Mom, still in her day clothes, tutted, and closed the curtains. Dad lit the candles after Mom frantically switched off the kitchen lights. "Quick! Make ten wishes!" Mom cried as she rapidly took pictures on her silver camera. I only had time to wish for a clock radio, for Wendy to move back, for Alex Jeong to like me back, for me to get into Harvard Law School when the time came, and, when I felt Roscoe puttering around my feet, for him to live forever.

The Sandman was the first to wish me a Happy Double-Digits Day. I'd never seen him in my dreams before, but just as Dad had said, I knew instantly it was the Sandman. I'd seen his shadow looming over me as I buried my pirate's loot in crab's nests on Daisy Beach. I couldn't believe he and I were the same age, and I remember exclaiming, "You're a kid too!" The Sandman only grinned, and that's when I knew he'd be the best friend the world would never I had.

The Sandman looked like one of the china dolls in our glass buffet in the dining room. Careful, inky-dark curls sprouted from a powdery-white scalp. His features were delicate, a pebble-like nose and thin eyebrows so black and shiny they looked painted on with oil. If not for his mouth, stretched from bony cheek to bony cheek, braying, I would've written him off as a baby, certainly not best-friend material. The Sandman looked as comfy as a cloud in his silky white pajama shirt and matching bottoms. I didn't notice the intricacies in his pajama set until much later. Someone had sewn sloping lines into the silk, building railway systems and mountain ranges.

I wiped the sand off my hands with my pink tanktop and introduced myself. "I'm Daisy. Should I just call you Sandman?" He hesitated before shaking his head. "No? What's your name?"

He reached into his potato-sack satchel, pulled out a pinch of gold stardust and tilted his head to the side, as if to ask, "Can I sprinkle this into your eyes?"

I remembered Dad's warning, and though I didn't think the Sandman would steal my dreams, I found myself shaking my head. I cupped my hands and offered them to him, and he rubbed the stardust off his fingers into my palms. I swabbed the stardust off with my index finger and swept the gritty particles along the corners of my eyes. It was as if someone had swiftly yanked out my nightlight and turned off the moon before dropping me into whitespace. The Sandman sat next to me, our criss-crossed knees touching. He reached out into the blank air and wrote something with his finger. Shiny grey letters appeared. A-N-D-R-E-W.

"Andrew?" He nodded. "Well, Andrew, it's very nice to meet you. I'm Daisy, in case you forgot."

He wrote. I-R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R.

"You can't talk?"

N-O-T-H-E-R-E.

"Not here. Then where?"

Andrew stood up and gathered all of his words, stacking one on top of the other to make a short wall. "What're you doing?" I asked, using my finger to spell my name. Nothing appeared. "Hey, why can't I do that?"

Andrew grabbed my hand and crudely wrote D-A-I-S-Y. He reached for the "I" and motioned for me to add it to the wall. I yelped at how hot the letter was, but it cooled seconds later. I set my name on top of his.

"So, you're the Sandman, huh?"

Andrew's panicked face was the last thing I saw before jolting awake with my nightlight on, the moon illuminating my room, and stardust in my eyes. I was alone.

***

"Mrs. Park said I could go to their house tomorrow," I said, getting into the backseat of our silver van. "Can I?"

Mom threw the latest issue of OK! magazine in the backseat and waited for me to buckle my seatbelt for speeding out of the school parking lot. "Are you going to get your homework done?" she asked.

"I'll be with Wendy. Of course I am." Wendy loved school more than anyone I knew. Even if she had to pee really badly, she'd hold it until passing time. Mom hoped that Wendy would rub off on me, but in the seven years we'd been friends, but I'd still choose my bladder over class.

"Okay. Are you having dinner there too?"

I shrugged. "Didn't ask."

"Well, I'll just assume you're not then. I'll pick you up at five."

"Five! That's too early!" I protested.

"You have two whole hours."

"Mom, but we have to do homework, and who knows how long that'll take?" I leaned my head against the window and said in a less whiner voice, "Can't I just call you?"

"Daisy, I still have to make dinner and get ready for work."

"But you don't work until eleven."

Mom glanced over at me. "Fine. Six, and that's final."

Wendy found seventh grade easier than I did. "Algebra's easy," she said, closing her math book and putting it back into her blindingly-green backpack. "Need help?"

"I'm almost done," I lied. I was seven problems behind, and I'd only gotten the first ten because I'd glanced at Wendy's work.

"The sooner you finish, the sooner I can tell you my big news." Wendy hopped down from her stool and padded over the fridge for a glass of orange juice. "Want anything to drink?"

"Water." I set my dull pencil down. "Why don't you just tell me your news now?"

"Because I know you won't finish your work if I do." She glanced at the microwave clock. "Come on, Daisy. We only have an hour left."

I frowned and stared at my notebook. It was much easier to concentrate when Wendy was doing work, but now that she was done, I could hear her impatience in her toe taps. I finished the rest of my homework, not caring how correct it was. "Okay, I'm done." I took swig of water and grinned. "What's your big news?"

***

I found out Andrew wasn't actually the Sandman, or even a sandman. He was one of many sandman trainees, and the real Sandman everyone talked about had long retired. I scanned the whitespace to make sure the Sandman wasn't with us. "Where'd he go? Florida?" I laughed at my own joke.

The truth was Andrew didn't know where the Sandman had gone. T-R-A-D-E-S-E-C-R-E-T.

"Don't you want to find out?"

O-N-E-D-A-Y.

"Why not now?"

D-R-E-A-M-S-C-A-P-E.

Andrew brought me to the whitespace almost every night after his sandman duties. On our second night, he put a gold ring on my index finger and motioned for me to draw, and we'd been dreamscape creators ever since. Orange brushstrokes for the sky, blue blotches for the sea, and great sycamore trees everywhere else. We built a stone castle with deep moats and stained-glass windows depicting our adventures together‒surfing down a bubbling volcano on pieces of driftwood, crossing freshwater rivers and alligator-filled swamps with air-straws, and scaling a forty-two foot skyscraper with suction cups.

When I saw that Andrew had recreated Daisy Beach, complete with pirate's loot and crabs' nests, I drew twin pirates with pointy chins with a single black curl, beady green eyes, and red conical hats. I named the shorter, ganglier one Marco. Andrew named his P-O-L-O. The twins made terrible enemies. They couldn't hide because their obnoxiously-loud snickers and strong fish-saucy scent gave them away, and the only treasure they wanted was the silver goblet in the castle kitchen.

T-W-I-N-S-S-U-C-K.

I agreed and told Andrew I didn't watch action movies.

S-T-A-R-T.

"You think you could create a better villain?"

Y-O-U-C-A-L-L-T-H-E-S-E-I-D-I-O-T-S-V-I-L-L-A-I-N-S-?

I laughed. "Okay, let's see it."

Andrew smiled as we walked back to the stone castle. T-O-M-O-R-R-O-W.

"Is it time to go already?"

Andrew nodded and waited me to take the silky tassels off my blue nightgown before taking me home. I loved the dreamscape more than any place in the universe. I was fearless here. I could be anything I wanted, a builder, a princess, an explorer, a truthseeker.

***

Uncle Ben said that I was a chatterbox without an off-switch, but Mrs. Walsh, my homeroom teacher, would disagree. After parent-teacher conferences, Mom and Dad told me they were "concerned" because I hadn't made any new friends. Mom spoke first. "I know things aren't the same without Wendy‒"

Mrs. Park getting a new promotion in Seattle was Wendy's big news. I got to call her on the weekends, but she talked about people I didn't know. Being phone-friends sucked.

"‒but you have to make other friends, Daisy."

Eighth grade without Wendy was hard. Did Mom and Dad think high school would be any different? Wendy had been my best friend since kindergarten. She'd seen me through all of my picture-day photos‒from shiny brown pigtails and embroidered overalls to long braids and pink Aeropostale shirts. She'd even sat next to me when I refused to shower for three days to save water for the whales.

"I have friends," I said.

Mom and Dad glanced at each other, pleasantly surprised. "Who?" Dad asked, leaning forward.

"I have Roscoe and Andrew."

My parents let out disappointed sighs. Mom gave me a soft, sympathetic smile and reached out to pat my knee. "Honey, about that...It's just that Roscoe's our dog, and Andrew, well, he's your imaginary friend."

Dad reminded her, "Mel, Dr. Linda said not to call him that."

If looks could slice through skin, Dad would be a package of cold-cuts. Mom hissed, "What else am I supposed to say, David? He's not real. Please do not contradict me in front of our daughter."

I tuned them out because this wasn't the first time I'd heard this conversation‒they'd argue before Mom left for work, when they thought I was asleep. I realized how much of a parent vs. child situation I was in. They'd sat me down in the armchair, and even though that was my go-to seat, I felt so isolated. Daisy Island, party of one. I wondered if Mom and Dad liked having an only child. I'd wished for a sibling when I was four, but I was content after we got Roscoe. The lifespan of a basset hound was ten to twelve years, and Roscoe was nine, and all I hoped was for Roscoe to make it to my high school graduation.

Mom loved hanging framed photos in the living room, most of them silly snaps of me and Roscoe‒sleeping, in the sprinklers, wearing birthday hats. None of the photos were recent. Mom was . always exhausted after work, and during the day she'd run errands and scour through newspaper ads to find Dad a new job after Delfield did a mass layoff. Welders were in low demand.

I snapped to attention at the mention of my name. Dad sounded tired. "Daisy, are you listening?"

I didn't want to have this conversation right now, so I stood up and told my parents I was going to bed. "I stayed up late last night finishing a project."

"Daisy‒"

"Let her go, Mel. You should get some rest too."

***

"Truth or dare?" I asked Andrew, who was perched beside me on a narrow concrete wall surrounding our castle. We had our bows and arrows between us in case someone tried to attack, though no one ever did unless we wanted them to.

T-R-U-T-H.

I kept one hand firmly on my knee to prevent Mom's old nightgown from flying up. Andrew didn't like talking about his sandman duties, but every once in a while, he'd throw me a bone. This was what I knew so far:

Andrew's stardust was significantly weaker than his superiors. He could only transport people between pre-made dreamscapes, but his superiors could control whether the dreams became blissful or nightmarish. It would be years before Andrew became this advanced.

The strongest stardust was round, compact, and came from expert dreamers.

"Am I an expert dreamer?" I'd asked Andrew.

N-O-T-Y-E-T.

"How do I become an expert dreamer?"

D-A-Y-D-R-E-A-M.

His superior sandmen took the strong stardust, leaving Andrew and the rest of the sandman trainees with gooey gunk that needed drying before using.

"Do you want to be a sandman?" I asked.

I thought I saw him hesitate before answering, but his face remained cool and neutral. Reading Andrew was hard. Y-E-S.

"Why?"

M-Y-T-U-R-N.

I wanted to press him further, but rules were rules. "Okay, truth."

D-O-Y-O-U-L-I-K-E-M-E-?

I felt the wind pick up. I braced myself against him, my wild hair cycloning gently. Andrew was safe, a barrier from the elements. "What a waste of truth," I said. "Of course. Okay. Truth or dare?"

"D-A-R-E."

Alex Jeong, my childhood crush, and all of his basketball friends teased me for being a lip virgin, but here was a chance to renounce my title once and for all. If dreamscape Daisy couldn't do it, then what chance would dumpy Daisy have? "I dare you to kiss me."

I heard him suck in a breath and saw his almond-shaped eyes widen. He brought his index finger to his lips, then moved it over to my lips, as if to make sure our definition of kissing aligned. Our kiss lasted two seconds, and in those two seconds, I became Daisy, thirteen, lip conqueror.

Unfazed, he took my hand. T-R-U-T-H-O-R-D-A-R-E-?

I studied our intertwined fingers, his porcelain and mine tanned leather. The longer I stared, the more I sweat, yet I couldn't help but grinning at this. "Truth."

W-O-U-L-D-Y-O-U-E-V-E-R-S-T-A-Y-F-O-R-E-V-E-R-?

I didn't want to hurt Andrew's feelings, but he had to have known I had a life outside of dreamscape, outside of him. I still had Roscoe to care for, Wendy was visiting in the summer, and who knows what my parents would do without me? "Maybe."

T-R-U-T-H-O-R-D-A-R-E-?

"It's my turn to ask."

T-R-U-T-H-O-R-D-A-R-E-?

"Andrew, it's not your turn."

His grey handwriting became more furious as he scribbled, T-R-U-T-H-O-R-D-A-R-E-? I could barely read it. Sometimes Andrew had a temper. His fuse had been growing shorter and shorter as the nights passed, and he tried not to show it, but his temper made him extremely persistent when he wanted something. To make it through the night, I had to keep telling myself, "Bricks and bones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

I learned how to choose my battles. "Fine. Dare." I smiled slyly, but it fell off once I heard his dare.

S-T-A-Y-F-O-R-E-V-E-R

I had no desire to stay in the dreamscape forever. Even from a young age, I knew locking myself in the dreamscape had profound effects on what happened in the real world. I didn't know how or what exactly would happen, but it was something I knew to be true. Still, I couldn't say explicitly say no.

"You know I can't," I told Andrew, casting my gaze toward the daisies below. Andrew had planted them a few nights after we'd built the castle. Suddenly, I was seeing sepia-tones. Everything felt muddied, as if someone had put a filter on my vision. Andrew.

Andrew reached for his bow and shot an arrow into the murky depths of our moat. "What are you doing?" I asked.

No answer.

"Andrew, come on. Let's talk about this."

Another arrow.

"Andrew, you can't just ignore me like that. Andrew. Andrew. Andrew!"

I woke up in a cold sweat, my heart pounding beneath my rose-printed, powder-blue nightgown. Sometimes Andrew would return me to reality early, so I'd spend four hours before my seven o'clock alarm making shadow puppets and feeling Roscoe's warm, lumpy body against mine. I always made sure to take the stardust from my eyes and slip it into my jar.

***

Although Wendy played along when I told her about my first kiss, I heard her discomfort and knew she was squirming in her seat. I told Alex Jeong and his basketball friends the next time they teased me, but I was outed immediately because a) no picture, no proof and b) there was only one Andrew at our school, and he certainly wasn't going to kiss me. I even told my parents, which is how I ended up seeing Dr. Linda, therapist extraordinaire. I denied knowing Andrew when I went to Dr. Linda, despite her constant assurance of his realness to me. She was just saying that so I'd open up. I learned quickly to stop telling people about Andrew because I couldn't explain who he was without sounding like a lunatic.

When Mom thought I wasn't listening, she'd say, "Her eyes glaze over sometimes," or "I heard her talking in her sleep," or "She's just not there anymore," or worst of all, "What's happened to our daughter?"

Dr. Linda chalked it up puberty, but when that was over, there had to be something else. As my parents and Dr. Linda tried to lure that something out with soothing tones and subtle psychological tests, I thought about the lie I could tell to get me away from the mental-health jargon and the shallow visits to my cardigan-clad therapist.

As soon as I got my license, I went alone to my doctor appointments. If my parents could see my bare skin, they would find tiny bruises, half the size of a clementine wedge, scattered on my shins and upper legs. I wondered briefly if it might be Andrew's fault, but then I remembered, "Bricks and bones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." I only blamed Andrew when I was mad at him and deduced that the bruises were entirely my fault. I must've fallen or accidentally banged my leg on the pale green wall while I was sleeping. I reasoned, if anything, Andrew had mental control of me, not physical. The bruises were entirely my own domain.

***

Andrew had new clothes when I saw him, a sign that he'd advanced in his sandman classes. He still wore a pajama set, but it was darker, silkier, and had less embroidery. It looked like polished slate. "Congratulations," I said. "What can you do now?"

C-O-L-L-E-C-T-A-L-O-N-E.

"You don't have to have anyone with you anymore?"Andrew shook his head, and I threw my arms around his bulky body. When I'd met him, he had a small frame, and now he was on par with the senior football players. "What else can you do?"

R-I-N-G.

I took my gold ring off and set it in his open palm. "Are you taking me somewhere?" He motioned for me to rub my eyes. "But the stardust‒"

N-O-N-E-E-D.

"Where are we going?"

Andrew pocketed my ring and took my hand. H-O-M-E.

I thought I was awake when I saw Roscoe whimpering beneath my cluttered desk, but then I realized I was still holding Andrew's hand. "How can you be here right now?" I asked him.

S-T-A-R-D-U-S-T.

"Stardust. Hey, wait a second. Look at this." I held up my stardust jar. "I know it's not much, but it something." I chortled and squeezed his hand. "I can't believe it. You're real. You're in my house. You...you can meet my parents and my classmates and my therapist‒well, maybe not her, but...But this is great. We can be together now."

N-O-T-Y-E-T.

My face fell as my body dropped onto my bed. "What do you mean?"

N-O-T-O-N-T-O-P-Y-E-T.

"Not on top yet? Are you still trying to be the Sandman? Andrew, you don't need that anymore. You're already here. This is what we wanted, remember?" I held up our intertwined hands. "You can be with me now."

N-O-T-E-N-O-U-G-H.

"What more do you want?"

A-L-L-D-R-E-A-M-S.

I shook my head and let go of his hand. "Stop being like this. I know this isn't you."

He took the gold ring out of his pocket and slipped it back onto my finger. The ring tightened around my finger, and I tried to pry it off, but it wouldn't budge.

T-R-U-T-H-O-R-D-A-R-E-?

"No, Andrew, I don't want to play this. I don't want this ring anymore. Take it off! Take it off now!"

Roscoe, alarmed by my raised, on-the-verge-of-tears voice, started barking and growling at Andrew.

T-R-U-T-H-O-R-D-A-R-E-?

I shook my head.

T-R-U-T-H-O-R-D-A-R-E-?

I clamped my eyes shut and shook my head again.

T-R-U-T-H-O-R-D-A-R-E-?

"If I play, will you take my ring off?" Andrew nodded. "Fine. Truth."

S-T-A-Y-W-I-T-H-M-E.

"That's not a truth," I said. He drew a question mark at the end. "No."

Andrew glanced at my ring. T-H-E-N-N-O. He vanished, leaving a hardened and dull S-O-R-R-Y floating in the middle of my room.

Dad ran into my room with his body pillow, shouting, "What's wrong? Daisy, are you okay? Why're your eyes red?"

When he was sure there were no intruders, he wrapped his arms around me and let me cry into his soft sleep shirt. "Shh," he said, rubbing my back. "What happened?"

Even though I swore not to mention Andrew again, I told Dad about Andrew's dark pajamas and the invisible ring on my finger. "Please don't tell, Mom," I whispered.

"Okay," Dad whispered back. "This'll stay between us."

***

By eighteen, I became the sole reason for Mom's unhappiness. Constant therapist visits. My lack of social life. My lack of adventure. My lack of interest in anything but sleep. I heard hushed voices in the kitchen at night. "It has to be depression," Dad said. "Dr. Linda‒"

"I don't care what Dr. Linda says," Mom said, raising her voice. "I know my own daughter. She still laughs and smiles."

My parents couldn't figure out what had gone wrong, and I couldn't even help them because I didn't know. I woke up happy, but sometime during the day, dread swallowed me and wouldn't let go until I slept.

"Mel, she doesn't even talk to Wendy anymore. How blind can you be? Look at her."

Mom let out a dejected sigh. She'd taken pride in my hair when I was younger, and now it was lackluster frizz, withering straw that could catch fire at any time. Even though I got an insane amount of sleep each night, I woke up with red eyes every morning, and I needed eye drops for my eyes to return to normal. No one knew what had happened to kindergarten Daisy, the girl with shiny brown pigtails and embroidered overalls. Mom stopped framing my school photos after ninth grade. She claimed there was no wall space, but everyone knew that current Daisy was not to be remembered.

Mom and Dad were scared to send me off to college and insisted on visiting every weekend to "take me out to lunch" even though I lived an hour away. They just wanted something to report to Dr. Linda. I couldn't blame my parents for worrying. Unlike senior-year Daisy, I spent nights tossing and turning and turning and tossing. Carly, my roommate, was sympathetic because she had insomnia in high school, but by Halloween, she'd set a bottle of Restoril on my desk with a note that said, "Do us both a favor." Restoril were shiny blue and red pills that had "For Sleep" written on them. They didn't seem safe in the slightest, but I felt guilty and desperate, so I took them anyway.

***

I recognized Andrew immediately despite not remembering the last I'd seen him. He still had the same inky curls and prominent pink cheeks. I thought he might look more different, but the only changes were his height and his clothes. His pajamas were a deep black, slick as oil, and he now wore gloves.

I didn't know what to say to him.

D-A-I-S-Y.

"Andrew. Long time no see. How've you been?"

I-M-I-S-S-E-D-Y-O-U.

"I missed you too."

He was stiffer than usual as he wrote to me. His gloves smudged the letters. 

Y-O-U-H-A-V-E-B-E-E-N-A-V-O-I-D-I-N-G-M-E.

"Not avoid. Never avoid. You know that."

Y-O-U-A-R-E-N-O-T-O-K-A-Y.

"How can you tell?"

I-J-U-S-T-K-N-O-W.

"Let's do something," I said. "We haven't done anything in a while. I want to do something stained-glass worthy."

I-W-A-N-T-Y-O-U-H-E-R-E.

"Andrew, stop. We've been over this. I can't. You know I can't."

S-T-A-Y-W-I-T-H-M-E.

"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't even know how."

I-W-I-L-L-W-A-I-T.

"I don't want you to wait. I...I don't want to be here anymore."

I demolished the stone castle, drained the moat of its murky waters, washed away Daisy Beach, unrooted the Sycamore trees, and erased the orange brushstrokes and blue blotches. I shattered every single stained-glass window and watched it all cascade to bright pieces. They looked like lemondrops and rubies and ocean glass. Andrew wrote furiously. I couldn't read his messages. I didn't want to read them. I was ready to leave the dreamscape, ready to return to reality, ready to be better. I wanted to be a better roommate, better patient, better friend, better daughter, better Daisy. I wanted my photo to be on the living room again.

Andrew sensed the changes in me and tried desperately to keep his smoky rage under control. His scribbled grey prison bars around me and tightened the gold ring around my finger. I shrieked and begged before remembering, "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

The last phrase I read before leaving the dreamscape forever was this:

I-A-M-T-H-E-S-A-N-D-M-A-N.

***

All the house lights were off when I walked into the house. Dad had driven me home for Thanksgiving break and was still bringing my suitcase in. "Where's Mom?" I asked, my chest feeling tight. My parents couldn't be separating, not when I was still finding Daisy 2.0.

"At the hospital," Dad said, setting my blue carry-on beside our neat shoe rack.

"Is she okay?"

"Yeah, she's just working." He touched my head. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just‒she doesn't normally work afternoons."

His eyes softened. "She'll be home in an hour. She works the day shift now."

Dad and I sat idly watching Full House reruns, snacking on popcorn despite Mom's warning not to ruin Thanksgiving dinner. "When did your hair get so grey, Dad?" I asked, leaning affectionately into him.

He beamed sheepishly and rubbed his head. "Not too sure. It's been a couple of years, though."

Guilt struck me. Had I been that inattentive to not notice? Now that I was looking, his wrinkles were deeper and his jawbone was pudgier. Did Mom age too?

"Can I ask you something?" I said.

"Hm? Anything, Dais."

"Do you remember that story you told me when I was younger? About the Sandman?"

He furrowed his eyebrows, puzzled that I brought up a story he'd told fourteen years ago. "What about it?"

"You said he stole dreams. What sorts of dreams were they? What about nightmares?"

"Oh, I don't know..." He stayed in deep concentration and confusion before his eyes widened, as if coming to a sudden and profound realization. Had Dad connected Andrew to the Sandman? "Oh, that was just a story, Daisy. You know, I should've listened to your mother. She always told me the Sandman would give you nightmares."

"Yeah, you're right. It's just a silly bedtime story. I'm going to unpack."

I gave Dad another hug before padding across our small house and into my room. The alien-green lights of my clock radio blinked 9:35. There must've been a power outage, and no one had bothered to rest my clock. I unzipped my suitcase and pulled out a half-filled glass jar. I walked out into the kitchen and dumped the jar's contents into the trash. Whose dreams had Andrew given me? Had he stolen any of mine?

Mom came in through the backdoor just as I was drying my jar. "Daisy, you're home!" she exclaimed, drawing me in for a hospital-scented hug. She glanced at my hands. "What are you doing? That's your stardust."

"No," I said. "It's just fourteen years of eye boogers."