I knew Jenny Hanover a long time ago. We were young, or at least young enough that I didn't immediately think she was completely mad. Her hobby, as she put it, was "shadow walking." This slightly ominous name was her term for lucid dreaming, or being aware of dreaming while dreaming. That's how I understood it at first. Since her disappearance, I haven't been able to understand much of anything. All I can do is try to organize the events by the order in which they occurred and keep looking for a pattern; those cause-and-effect moments that let me convince myself I have any control over what happens to me.

And maybe learn enough to keep me out of the insane asylum.

Jenny explained to me that experienced shadow walkers (her term, sometimes just "walkers") mostly spend their sleeping hours dreaming like everyone else. Shadow walking is a controlled process that requires careful preparation and should never be attempted alone.

"Like scuba diving?"

"Not like scuba diving," Jenny snapped. "You can die scuba diving. If something goes wrong after we've crossed the shadows we'll just end up back here." She set her backpack on the floor of my bedroom and began placing its contents in a row.

"Well I feel a lot better," I smiled, leaning across the doorway with my arms crossed. I was trying to look cool. Having a girl stay the night in my apartment was a rare thing in itself, and her backpack full of unusual objects was both intriguing and frightening. I recalled urban myths about stolen kidneys and began to wish I had made my roommate Phil stay in tonight. Then my socks slid on the hardwood floor and I fell backwards into the hallway.

"Ow."

Jenny didn't look up. "Still not cool."

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