Free Prism by Faye Kellerman

space had undergone changes depending on my whims. It started when I was seven. I went through a color-on-walls phase. I had filled my room with doodles—stick figures, houses with oversized trees, lots of scribbling. It all got painted away when I went through my next phase: the coffee-shop décor with a red-checked bedspread and white shelves with a soda counter for a desk. That lasted until about a year ago when I painted my room orange. Now my space was just messy with posters and pictures, a silver lamé bedspread, and a boring desk.
    I sat on my white tile floor left over from the coffee-shop days, and Joy sat next to me. Zeke closed my door and sat in the chair by my junk-covered desk.
    “No nine-one-one, no smoking prohibition.” Zeke ticked down a finger at each fact. “And Moose thinks I’m hitting on his girl when I successfully did a Heimlich on her. I saved her life, and no one said a word! All I got was a bruise on my chest!”
    “What’s going on?” Joy asked. After Zeke explained thecafeteria incident to her, she pulled out a pack of Marlboros and said, “Anarchist society?”
    “Open the window if you’re going to do that,” I told her. “And whisper.”
    “Why?” Joy’s voice was reptilian dry. “No one cares anymore. It sure isn’t illegal to buy them if you’re under eighteen. I got these at the supermarket.”
    “Legal or not, I don’t want to breathe in your smoke,” I snapped. “We have a baby, for God’s sakes!”
    “Sorry, Kaida, I didn’t know.” Joy jumped up to open my window before lighting a thin, white cigarette.
    “Maybe it’s not bad for you anymore,” Zeke proposed. “Maybe that’s what it is. Tobacco doesn’t cause cancer.”
    “So maybe there’s no such thing as cancer,” Joy said.
    “Or no such thing as disease.”
    “That can’t be it,” I said as I played with the ends of my hair.
    Joy blew out a ribbon of smoke. “Why not?”
    “Maria was coughing this morning. She was sick, although she didn’t want to admit it. She didn’t even know what a nurse was. Or maybe she did and was making fun of me. It’s hard to tell with her. There has to be disease if she was sick.”
    Zeke said, “Maybe it’s not the same kind of disease. Maybe bad things don’t happen. Like maybe…choking isn’t so bad…or something.”
    “She was beet red, Zeke. It looked pretty serious to me.” I paused. “Can we talk about Carlsbad for a minute?”
    “The upcoming trip,” Joy said. “Whoopdy-do.”
    “Upcoming trip…” I repeated. “So I guess you didn’t have a weird dream?”
    She was silent, but her eyes darted from side to side. It was the most animation I’d ever seen from her. Zeke and I exchanged glances. He said, “I had a weird dream.”
    “Tell me about it,” I said.
    “No, you go first.”
    “I dreamed we were on our way to Carlsbad and we were in a car crash—”
    “Oh, God!” Joy started to cry. “No, no, no!”
    “Shhh!” I told her. “My brother will hear you.”
    Joy clamped her hand over her mouth. Then she spoke in hushed tones. “It can’t be real.”
    “Sure as hell seemed real to me,” Zeke whispered. “There was a terrible storm and the three of us went hiding in a cave.” He turned to Joy. “You hurt your arm.”
    “I didn’t!” She sobbed without tears. “It’s fine!”
    “Then why are you clutching it?” Zeke asked her.
    “Leave her alone!” I whispered fiercely. “And keep your voice down.”
    “Sorry….” Zeke turned to Joy. “Sorry.”
    “We all had the same dream,” I said. “I’m sure of it. The good news is that we’re probably not crazy. The bad news is something’s going on, and we don’t know what it is.”
    “It has to be a dream,” Joy said. “Mr. Addison is still alive.”
    I had no answer to that one, and neither did Zeke.
    I said, “The last thing I remember before waking up is falling.”
    “Me, too,” Zeke said. “We got lost in the cave and we were struggling to find