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Sylvia has been sleeping peacefully for most of her life.  She's had a good home, loving parents, and little in the way of mental or emotional stress.  All that changed when she moved to Oak Park.  It changed more when her powers began to take shape.  It's still changing.

The living room was dark.  Sylvia knew it was her living room because of the moonlight coming from the front windows.  The drapes were open just enough to let the shaft of silver light in.  She could hear water running from the kitchen, and she was drawn there.  Never leave a facet on, her moms were very strict about that.

The kitchen was a mess.  Things were strewn about, there was flour all over the floor, and the counters.  There was a man standing at the sink.  He had the facet on and water was pouring out of the sink onto the floor.  He Turns to look at Sylvia when she walks in.  His face has no features.  When he speaks his jaw moves, but there is no opening for a mouth.  No nose.  No eyes.  "I've decided to help you."  He says clearly.

Mitzi would tell Sylvia not to judge someone by appearances, but scary is as scary does.  Sylvia finds herself coiling up the strength of her will and getting ready to run.  Where's her mother? her revving heart asks.  Mitzi would never leave the kitchen like this unless something were wrong.

"Who are you?"  The words are an illusion with which Sylvia tricks herself--telepathy cast as speech, remote in her dream ears as if they aren't coming from her mouth but from source outside herself.

"This place is a mess.  Stuff is everywhere, and the sink is overflowing.  YOU'RE WASTING WATER!"  His last comment is screamed as his head gets enormous and zooms closer to Sylvia.  "WHY HAVE YOU LEFT THE SINK ON?"

Sylvia backs away, slamming into the wall under the cuckoo clock and sending its pine-cone-shaped counterweights rattling against one another.  "I didn't!  Who are you?  What are you doing here?  Where's my mother?"  In dreams, in telepathy, the questions don't emerge sequentially.  They're more like a cacophony of simultaneous thought, the kind of parallel processing that speech doesn't allow.  "Mom!"

Sylvia sits bolt upright in bed, and it's only a couple of seconds before Mitzi and Carolyn are in the room with her.  Mitzi sits on the edge of the bed holding her.  "Honey, it's ok, I'm here.  It was just a dream."

Sylvia feels dopey.  The transition from dreaming to waking is always a hard one in the middle of the night.  It takes her a minute to convince herself of the reality around her.  "I'm sorry," she says, trying to find her way to alertness.  "Did I make noise?  There was someone in the kitchen.  Is the water on?"

Mitzi looks up at Carolyn, who quietly leaves the room.  "You called out honey.  You yelled mom."  Carolyn returns a few moments later, the shake of her head tells Mitzi there is nothing amiss in the house.

"It was just a dream," Sylvia says, feeling sheepish.  "Some weird-looking guy in the kitchen and the water running and a big mess all over the place.  I shouldn't have watched Saw last night."

Carolyn chuckles and pats Sylvia on the shoulder, "We all have then sweetie.  You go back to sleep."  Then she waits for Mitzi to disengage herself from Sylvia and they return to bed.

Sylvia lies awake for a while, staring at the ceiling and the shadows.  She's thinking about the dream, but what strikes her isn't the creepy detail of it but the way in which she's changed since the beginning of the school year.  In September she might have been rattled.  Now she finds herself thinking about how she'd react if she saw some monstrous creep in the kitchen.  She's a little disappointed in herself for panicking, even in a dream, and she spends the time before sleep retakes her thinking about alternative tactics.

She drifts off to the memory of Jack's voice.  "First ice, then heat."