Isabel nodded. "Turn to Liz's picture." Max did so. Once more Isabel ran her fingers lightly over the picture's surface, then leaned back and closed her eyes. Then she wondered if her brother had turned to the wrong picture because she found herself in a place that was totally unfamiliar to her. No, wait, not totally unfamiliar. There was a table with a lamp on it, and beside the lamp there was a picture of a man and woman smiling at the camera and holding a broadly grinning little toddler. Of course, Jeff and Nancy Parker with little Liz. Isabel couldn't help smiling. It was odd picturing the science whiz and would-be Harvard grad she knew with that little girl. No wonder people are so embarassed by their baby pictures, she thought. It was then that she heard the singing. Someone was singing or humming very softly. It wasn't a song that Isabel recognized, but she definitely liked it. She glanced around the room, trying to locate the person. Liz's parents in the picture with her. This must be Liz's dream she was walking, but this house seemed different somehow. She saw different pieces of furniture here, a sofa and chair that she didn't remember seeing in Liz's house when she'd visited her in the past three years. And the walls were different. They were painted a pale blue in this dream; in reality they were papered in a floral pattern. Why are things so different? Isabel wondered. Then she saw the armchair. It was another one of those pieces that was unfamiliar to Isabel, made of read leather. It was moving very slowly with its back to her, and the singing was coming from it.

"I never knew Liz was such a good singer." Isabel whispered to herself as she moved around to the front of the armchair. Then she stopped dead. The girl in the chair was not Liz; it was someone Isabel had never seen before! She was holding a baby, a little girl from the look of it. Liz! Isabel looked again at the girl holding the child. She was very young, no more than fifteen, and strangely beautiful with dark hair and luminous grey eyes set far apart. They seemed to be staring straight at her, widening with fear. Was this girl aware of her? This was something new. Isabel had never walked in a dream where the dreamer was aware of her. Maybe Liz's dream was becoming a lucid dream where the dreamer realizes he is dreaming. But, wait! Isabel couldn't see Liz anywhere except as the child in that stranger's arms, and Liz the child was asleep. Wait, she was stirring, sensing the stranger's fear, perhaps. Isabel gazed into that child's familiar face, followed her gaze . . .and realized that she, they were not looking at her, Isabel, but at something or someone else. Someone else was there! Isabel had half-turned in the direction that they were looking when she heard a "No!" from the girl, and she rose from the chair with her arms protectively around the child. Then Isabel heard a terrifying wail and saw the girl covering the child's left arm. Another cry caused Isabel to break the connection, and she sat bolt upright, her teeth chattering. She felt a hand on her arm. Max was beside her. She felt him put an arm about her, and she rested her head on his shoulder. "Funny." she said shakily. "Times like these, I feel like the younger one." "I'll never ask this of you again." he told her. "I never knew it to take so much out of you like this."

"It usually doesn't affect me so much. It was just . . . the dream, Max. It wasn't anything like I thought it would be. She wasn't dreaming about the changes at all. I think it was about her childhood. Or maybe not. Her house looked so different from the way it does now . . . and there was this girl holding her and rocking her."

"What girl?" Max asked. Isabel summarized the dream as best she could. Max looked especially interested when Isabel described the stranger. She halted in the middle of her narrative when she saw the look on his face.

"What is it, Max? Did I say something?" Max materialized a pad of paper and pencil and began to draw. Isabel felt a creepy sensation crawling down her spine as she looked at the face appearing on the paper. It was the girl! Definitely her though Max was aging her like those men did with pictures of missing children. Max added color to the picture.

"That's her, isn't it?"

Isabel nodded. "Well, she's looks older there, but it is her, no mistake. Who is she? Do you know?"

"Liz's godmother, Nell Troyer. The one I met tonight at the hospital. "

"Her godmother?" Max quickly filled Isabel in on the rest of the story.

"I've a funny feeling, Iz. I think there's more to Nell than meets the eye."

"You think she's a Skin or something? I don't think so. In that dream she was trying to protect Liz. That's the impression I got."

"You said that the girl, that Nell was frightened?"

Isabel nodded. "She certainly seemed to be. I thought that maybe she was aware of me, afraid of me, but then I remembered that she wasn't the dreamer; LIZ was, and the only Liz I saw in the dream was a sleeping child."

"You didn't see any other children?" Max asked. Isabel shook her head. "Well," Max said, "it seems that my feeling was right. Liz's is in danger. If you really saw her dream clearly, she suspects it too, and it all has something to do with Nell." Max gave Isabel a kiss on the cheek and got up. "Thanks, Iz. I owe you major time."

"Where are you going? To talk to Liz?"

"No, not yet. She might get angry at me for this dreamwalking and refuse to tell me anything. No, I'd better go to the next best source on the life of Liz Parker. Outside of her family, that is."