The nightmare motif features heavily in this narrative, with both Ali and Emma experiencing similar recurring dreams. There is also an oblique allusion that Dulcie is having nightmares as well because she often has trouble sleeping. Sissy, who is responsible for their fitful nights, uses their dreams as a medium through which she can demand justice. Here, Hahn is drawing on the lore of ghosts using dreams to communicate with the living.

While Ali dreams of “three girls in a canoe, paddling out onto the lake” (5), Emma dreams of a ghost who “wants to go home, but [can’t because] she’s down deep, deep, deep in the water” (26). The repetition of these unpleasant dreams contributes to the narrative’s sense of unease and anxiety while also symbolizing the inescapability of the memories of the day Teresa died. Although Emma and Ali were not involved, their haunting brings to mind the Shakespeare quote “the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children” from The Merchant of Venice (Act 3, Scene 5). In Emma and Ali’s case, they are unable to escape the sins of their mothers’ part in Teresa’s death and lying about it for decades after.