A year has passed since Stacey Brown saved her best friend from a horrible death. Now she's having nightmares again, haunted by ghosts of the brutally murdered . . . and by a crazed stalker. As she desperately casts healing spells, a new student named Jacob enters her world. Beautiful and mysterious, he reveals that he is also having dreams. To stop a killer, they must join together. But can Jacob be trusted? Or will this new love cause her darkest dreams to come true? Don't miss a single book in the series: Blue is for Nightmares White is for Magic Silver is for Secrets Red is for Remembrance Laurie Faria Stolarz (Massachusetts) has a great interest in teen culture, and admires young adults for their passion, energy, and creativity. Blue is for Nightmares is the product of her desire to write a novel that would have appealed to herself at that age, namely one that has a blending of suspense, romance, and the art of keeping secrets. Stolarz has an MFA in Creative Writing with a concentration in Young Adult Literature from Emerson College in Boston. She currently teaches writing and is a member of the SCBWI as well as several professional writing groups. One It's happening again. The bile at the back of my throat burns. I swallow it down and wipe my bottom lip. My head feels like it's cracking open, like an archeologist is trapped inside, chipping away at the bones of my skull. I lean back against the cold ceramic wall tiles and try to hold it all together-the puking, the headaches, the nightmares, my sanity. My world is falling apart. I stand up from the toilet and stumble over to the mirror. My eyes are red, the skin beneath them a dark, smoky color. I reknot my hair with a rubber band, noticing my chin-wet from puke spooge. I wipe the goo with my fingers as best I can and tuck the stray strands of dark hair behind my ears. What I really need right now is a hot bath, but the knocking in my head is so intense I want nothing more than to just lie down. After a thorough toothbrushing and several gargles of mouthwash, I stagger my way back through the common area and into the room. Drea and Amber, my roommates, are asleep. I know I could wake them up, that they'd want to know what's going on-especially after last time-but I almost don't even want to know myself. Not tonight, anyway. I grab a lipstick from Drea's vanity table and the notepad from beside my bed. I flip the notepad open to a fresh sheet and write the letter M across it in the dark-red lipstick, trying my best to make it look smudged, messy-the way it did in my nightmare. I rip the page free of the pad and stuff it into the pocket of my pajamas. Then I lie back on my bed and pull the covers up over my ears to block out Amber's snoring. But I still feel sick, the juices in my stomach churning away, bubbling up like molten lava. There's only one way I'm going to get any rest tonight. From my spell drawer, a.k.a. the bottom drawer of my dresser, I pull out a stick of incense, a virgin black candle, a razor blade, and some other assorted spell supplies, includ- ing a bunch of red grapes courtesy of Drea's mini-fridge. I collect it all inside my terra-cotta pot and stand up to leave. Except my head is throbbing. I sit back down and peek over at Amber and Drea, in their bunkbeds, the light of the waxing moon casting a shadow over Amber on the top bunk. She turns over, but she's still snoring-her mouth arched open, chest heaving, six cherry-red ponytails sticking out from her head. Drea moves her forearm up over her ear in response, her golden-blond hair separated into two perfectly frumpled braids. I wonder if I should even bother telling them anything. If maybe I'm just overreacting. It's only happened twice now. And Maura's birthday is a week from Saturday. So, maybe that's what's causing it. Or maybe I'm just coming down with the flu. The terra-cotta pot tucked under my arm, I grab a pocket flashlight from the drawer and make my way out of the room and through the common area. The door to the boiler room is just out in the lobby. I travel down the dusty wooden steps using the slender beam of the flashlight to guide my way. I know I could flip on the light switch, but the sudden blast of artificial light would only make my head pound more. Instead, I try to make peace with the darkness; I try to imagine it like crushed velvet, enveloping my skin, inviting me further down the creaking stairs and into the boiler room. It smells musty down here, like leaking pipes. I try to focus on my breath, but for some reason I'm feeling a bit disconnected. Maybe it's because I don't feel well. Or maybe it's because it's been a year since my last bout of nightmares, and a part of me is afraid that, this time, I won't be able to stop it. I take a deep breath and make my way across the cement floor. There isn't much down here-an old and rattling boiler, a rusty water tank, dorm room furniture in need of repair, and lots of copper