Wait a sec, Phoeb! -- Discuss what? -- I'm going!  

Shaking in her nightdress -- fearing she might throw-up if she didn't sit down -- Phoebe wrapped herself in the blue blanket from the bed, settled herself in the old rocker set in the attic room window. Dawn burned outside in the whispering trees.

Not one more night! -- She would go to Missus Appletree the instant she heard her creaking about.

Phoebe rocked the chair ever so gently, deliberately, as if the action might possibly gentle her jangled mind. She shut her eyes -- only to rest them -- certain she never again could fall asleep in that house.

But she was falling -- and that thing found her.

"Not awake -- not asleep -- here, Phoebe, where I speak."

DREAM! -- Only a dream! -- Can't touch me ...

Other voices then -- garbled, and burbling, it seemed to Phoebe like a laboratory crowded with scientists talking underwater:

"Subject's gone too deep. Doubt she even hears you."

"Tonight, then. Another approach."

"Fear worked."

"Only got her attention."

"Subject nearly arrested. Dead sleepwalker's no use to us."

"Fewer theatrics tonight then."

"If she stays."

Time had passed, Phoebe realized, opening her eyes: golden sunshine forced her eyes shut while she rose from the rocker.

Downstairs, the reassuring clatterings of kitchen pans.

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