The only present you ever gave me was a bead bracelet. It wasn’t a particularly beautiful one. The beads were dull shades of green, like the color of moss on a rock. In the sunlight, it could only provide shadows. Dull green never gleamed in the light. But still, it was a gift from you and that’s what made it valuable.
“They’re power beads,” you told me. “They’re supposed to make you feel good.” You smiled at me, two front teeth missing from your grin. And I smiled back as if I was trying to make up for your loss of baby teeth with my fully-grown ones.
“Thank you,” I said. I didn’t tell you that I’d already outgrown the “magic” of power beads. Back then, it was silly to think that good things could come out of a strand of colored stones wrapped around your wrist.

Our houses stood side by side and our bedroom windows faced each other perfectly. That’s how I saw you with your head sticking out of it one morning. You were shaking a dreamcatcher.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Shaking out the bad dreams. You’re supposed to shake them out every morning so good dreams can still come through.”
I had a dreamcatcher put away in my closet. I stopped believing in it after I had a week of nonstop nightmares. It just didn’t work for me.
I took it out once again and went to my window. You weren’t there to see me (you had already gone back inside your room) but I shook my dreamcatcher anyways trying to imagine all the bad dreams being blown away in the wind.
That night I got the best sleep of my life and every morning after that, I shook my dreamcatcher along with you.
It must’ve been some sight for the neighbors: two girls shaking dreamcatchers early in the morning.

I used to come over to your house after school. We played together even though I was nearly five years older. I always wore the power beads around you because I knew it would make you happy. When you saw it on my wrist, you showed me the ones on yours. Grays and browns gathered across your tiny arm.
You loved to play hide and seek. I was always the seeker. As I counted down from twenty, I would hear you giggling behind me. I would pretend not to know where you were but eventually I would find you. You loved hiding, but you liked being found more.  

I didn’t know you were sick. I didn’t know you had to be home schooled because you were too ill to be in a classroom. I didn’t know I was your only friend.

I found out by accident. My mom had been talking to another neighbor when your family’s name came up.
“It’s so sad. She doesn’t have much left,” I overheard them say.
“Doesn’t have much of what?”
“Time.”

After a while, you didn’t shake dreamcatchers with me anymore. I almost got worried that the bad dreams would overflow in yours if you didn’t shake it soon.

I remember my last visit to you. You were too weak to even get out of bed.
“Can you do something for me please?” Your voice was so small and fragile I thought it would break.
“What?”
“Can you shake the dreamcatcher for me?”
It was such an innocent request. All you wanted was a good night sleep. When I shook your dreamcatcher, I made sure no bad dreams were left in its net.
After the dreamcatcher was back on your wall, I sat down next to you.
“Are you going to be okay?” I asked.
“Of course I’ll be,” you said. “I have these.”
You lifted your arm to reveal the power beads still around your wrist.
“They’ll make me feel better.”
For a minute there, I believed it too.

You never did get better. The next morning, I took down my dreamcatcher. Since our windows faced each other I could see through yours. I saw your mother try to wake you up. When you didn’t, she cried. And at that moment I threw my dreamcatcher out the window. I took the power beads from my wrist and threw that out too. If they couldn’t work for you, they weren’t going to work for me.

The mourners came. Most of them were adults that I didn’t think you had even met. I wanted to go to your funeral. I wanted to be able to say goodbye. But I couldn’t stand the thought of you being buried at seven years old.

A couple of weeks after you were gone, I had a dream about you. You were shaking a dreamcatcher like you used to. Then you looked at me and said, “You have to shake away the bad dreams, or else you won’t get any good dreams.” That night, I woke up at one in the morning. It was pitch black outside but I couldn’t go back to sleep. So instead, I waited until there was just enough sunlight for me to go outside. As the first rays of a sunrise broke through the darkness, I stepped onto the dewy grass and searched for the dreamcatcher I’d thrown out. I found it with the power beads forming a perfect “O” around its center.
I waited until I got back into my room to shake the dreamcatcher. As I shook away the bad dreams, the bracelet was wrapped around my wrist, its dull green stones gleaming in the light..  

It’s been a couple years and things have changed. Your parents moved away after you died, and I moved on too. I never had another dream about you since that night. I don’t think I’m going to either. But I still shake my dreamcatcher every morning. I still wear those beads you gave me. I wear them every day now. My friends think it’s silly that I believe in things like dreamcatchers and power beads. They’ve outgrown magic. And because of you, I’ve grown back into it.