It doesn’t matter.

That’s what I kept telling myself.

* * *

Incubation.

Despite its sinister undertones, the word describes a straightforward fact: the dreams we have are influenced by the real world. Our subconscious takes everyday experiences and shatters them on the floor like a vase, then picks up a handful of pieces to form something random and new to show us while we sleep. We might recognize a few fragments, but they’re joined together oddly and separated by strange cracks. Dreams are a patchwork, stitched together from the things that happen to us in our waking lives.

But sometimes the opposite can be true.

One lunchtime, James and I were in the playground, heading to Room C5b. I wasn’t relishing more of the usual activity, and the feeling grew stronger as we walked, but I couldn’t think of an excuse not to go.

Then I glanced behind me.

Jenny was at the far edge of the playground, walking off in the direction of the construction site. She looked as confident and self-contained as always—alone, but never lonely—and the way she moved, it was as though she’d somehow plotted a route between the other kids that allowed her to walk in a straight line without having to stop.

I watched as she continued down the small road alongside the building site. Where was she going? There was little that way apart from the tennis courts, a few outside teaching huts, and the staff parking lot, and yet she was walking with quiet assurance, some destination clearly in mind.

“What?” James said.

I didn’t reply for a second. Seeing Jenny reminded me of that first lucid dream I’d had. And just as our dreams are shaped by our reality, there are times like these when our lives can be changed by the dreams we’ve had.

“I’ll catch up with you,” I said.

“Why?”

“I just need to talk to someone.”

“Okay.”

He shrugged slightly and then headed off.

I hesitated, but then set off back the way we’d come. Up close, the tarps were transparent enough to see the mud spattered on the far side. The raised arm of a digger hung in the air above, its thick metal teeth misshapen and rusted, and I could smell the faint scent of tar in the air. Presumably something was happening in there, but the site was so quiet that it was easy to imagine it was all an illusion: that eventually the tarps would be pulled aside like a handkerchief in a magic trick to reveal that nothing had changed.

There was nobody else around, and the world grew quieter as I walked. The tennis courts on the left were locked away behind wire mesh, while the teaching cabins on the right looked like corrugated caravans abandoned in a rough line. Up ahead, a little way past them, there was a lone wooden bench. Jenny was sitting there. She had been a minute ahead of me at most, but she was already scribbling furiously in a notebook on her lap.

I stopped a short distance away, unsure of myself now, and feeling a little stupid. This was clearly her place, and she was so absorbed in what she was doing that it seemed wrong to intrude. And while I’d spoken to her a handful of times since she loaned me the book, it had always been accidental: conversations after the creative writing club, or fleeting exchanges when we bumped into each other in the corridor. I’d never sought her out like this before. I had no idea what I was going to say. A dream might have brought me here, but reality found me speechless. So I was about to turn around when she looked up and saw me.

She stopped writing immediately, her face blank for a moment.

Then she called out.

“Hey.”

I shifted my bag on my shoulder. “Hey.”

Another beat of silence.

“Well,” she said. “Are you coming or going?”

Again, I felt stupid. At the same time, turning around and leaving would make me look even more ridiculous. I walked up to the bench.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You looked busy.”

“Busy?” She glanced down at the notebook. “Oh. No. Just messing around with ideas.”

“Story ideas?”

She closed the book.

“Kind of. Do you want to sit down, or are you planning to stand?”

Another question that, now I was here, had only one possible answer. I sat down at one end of the bench, leaving a careful gap between us. She looked at me expectantly.

Yes, I realized. I probably need a reason to be here, don’t I?

Inspiration struck.

“I saw you and realized I’d been meaning to apologize,” I said. “I’ve kept that book you gave me for so long.”

“Oh. Don’t worry about it.”

“I just had the impression it was important to you.”

“Yeah, but I’ve had it for ages. Have you read all the stories yet?”

“Not quite.”

“Then you should keep it a bit longer, then. Get your homework done. Because they’re all good. There are some real classics in there—ones you should definitely read.”

I smiled.

“To educate myself?”

“Yeah. If you’re going to be a writer, you’ve got to know the field, haven’t you? Have a bit of respect for history. As awesome as he is, I can’t leave you just reading Stephen King for the rest of your life.”

“I guess.”

I felt even more awkward now. If you’re going to be a writer. I wanted to be, but with recent distractions I’d barely managed to write a thing for weeks. I’d jotted down a few ideas, but they seemed flat and lifeless. It felt like I had nothing to write about. No stories to tell.

“What are you working on?” I said.

“A horror story, of course.” Her face lit up with an appealing kind of glee. “Sort of, anyway. A ghost story, so it’s more sad than anything else.”

“Why sad?”

“Because ghost stories should be sad. Don’t you think?”

Ghost stories generally made me imagine white sheets and clanking chains, and dark corridors with figures jumping out at you. But, thinking about it, I could see what Jenny meant.

“Yeah, I guess so. It must be sad to be a ghost.”

“Exactly. If there’s a ghost it means that someone’s died. A person’s been left behind and isn’t at peace. Other people are grieving. And so on.”

“No gory bits in this one, then?”

“No.” She sniffed. “Well—not many.”

I smiled as I remembered “Good Boy,” the gruesome story she’d read out about the dog that had eaten its owner after he died. It made me think of Goodbold, strutting through the streets with his own pet, and a part of me hoped the same thing would happen to him one day. Except that, for all his faults when it came to us, he seemed to treat the animal well.

“The dog story was ace,” I said.

“Thanks.”

“You said it was based on a real thing. How did you even hear about that?”

“Marie told me.”

“Who’s Marie?” I said.

“A friend of mine.” Jenny put the notebook on the bench between us. “Which reminds me, actually—I’ve got something for you. I don’t know if you’ll be interested, but Marie gave it to me, and it made me think of you. Hang on.”

She bent over and rummaged around in the bag at her feet, eventually retrieving a tattered magazine. She passed it to me.