Jamie Morrigan desperately wished her hospital room had a window.

It had almost everything else. There was a bookcase sagging with young adult novels and magazines and huge hardcover books with big pictures of exotic animals and foreign countries. There was a chest full of toys and dolls and stuffed animals and games you could play by yourself. There was a TV, and though it only played DVDs, there were plenty of those.

But she'd already seen the DVDs and read the books, and when it came to toys, there wasn't anything in the world that could be better than her own imagination. If there had been a window, at least she could have seen something every day that wasn't predictable, wasn't under her - or their - control. At least she would have had something to look at that wasn't an illusion.

She sat cross-legged on the edge of her bed in her pink hospital smock and loooked longingly at the opposite wall where the window might have been. Jamie could see it clearly - a beautiful, tall window with diaphanous (she'd read that word in a book, what a wonderful word) curtains trimmed with lace. They were blowing in a little, because it was a nice day outside, and she had the window open. The breeze was coming in from a valley overgrown with wild forest, and she could hear lively birdsong in the distance...

But, no, wait, it was winter, wasn't it? So there was snow outside in the valley. And a window with lace curtains was something you'd find in her bedroom if she lived in a mansion. And this wasn't a mansion. It was a prison. She knew because she could only leave the room when the nurses came for her, and there were guards outside the door.

So her window shrank and was covered with a cage of iron bars. She jumped off her bed, which had a lumpy straw mattress, and walked solemnly across the dirty stone floor to the narrow window, which overlooked a misty, snowbound hillside. Jamie shivered and pulled her smock tightly around her.

She turned around to take stock of the room. The floor, the walls, and ceiling had all become slimy, rough flagstones, and the toy chest was a pile of straw where the rats nested. But she didn't mind the rats - she always shared her gruel with them and was training them to fetch things for her. And just this morning the largest of the rats, a coal-black rodent with a wedge out of one ear, had brought her a token from a band of adventurers who were coming to rescue her from her dungeon cell and take her to live with her real family.

Jamie grinned secretively as she looked around at her new cell. Yes, this was perfect.

The heavy wooden door opened with a suitably resonant crash, and in walked a dowdy, middle-aged woman in a blue nurse's uniform holding a clipboard and a metal tray. She stood gaping at the gothic dungeon and said, "Jamie Morrigan, what is the meaning of this?"

Jamie scowled, offended that her reverie had been interrupted. "I was just making stuff up, Ms. Harmon," she said.

"Well, this seems like a pretty grim fantasy to me," the nurse said importantly. "You're to put it back at once, young lady. I would hate for Dr. Roken to see something like this."

The girl sighed, and the hospital room's pale yellow wallpaper and razor-thin carpet returned. She hoisted herself back onto the edge of her bed and eyeballed Ms. Harmon's tray uncertainly. "What's that?" she asked.

"Dr. Roken wants some more bloodwork done," Ms. Harmon replied.

Jamie wilted. "Again? What's he do with it all, water his pitcher plants?"

She could tell from the nurse's expression that she had no idea what a pitcher plant was. Ms. Harmon tore open a fresh swab of alcohol as she launched into her favorite mantra. "Jamie, you know you're a sick little girl, and we're doing everything humanly possible to help you get better. But I've got some good news for you."

Jamie stiffened. Ms. Harmon's idea of good news was rarely the same as her own.

"There's a new treatment that's come up," the nurse continued, taking the girl's arm and sponging it clean. "It was invented by a woman named Dr. Zajeda. You're going to fly to Montana tomorrow morning to try it."

Jamie wrinkled her nose at the smell of the alcohol and stared worriedly at the syringe on the tray. The blood sticks were bad enough, but it was worse when they were putting stuff in. "What're they going to do?"

"They're going to make it so your imagination doesn't leak out of your head anymore," Ms. Harmon said brightly. "You're going to be better. Just like all the other little girls. Now, hold still."

Jamie looked away from the needle and focused on something else. She decided to focus on Ms. Harmon. Surreptitiously, her uniform acquired a black cape with a high collar, and pointed fangs grew down from behind her jutting upper lip.

"What are you smiling about?" Ms. Harmon asked.

The girl winced at the prick in her arm and said, "Nothing." Her additions to Ms. Harmon faded away.

The nurse pulled back the filled syringe and laid it on the tray. "There, that wasn't so bad, right? I'll see you get an extra brownie with dinner tonight. Eat up and get your rest. You'll need it tomorrow."

Jamie didn't bother smiling back. Ms. Harmon didn't even look at her on her way out of the hospital room. As the door swung open, she saw the green-uniformed guards with rifles resting on their chestplates, and it shut again, not with a dramatic, metallic crash but a stale, clinical click. She was imprisoned just the same.

With a deep sigh, the girl rubbed her arm and laid back against her pillow, wishing desperately her daydream about heroes coming to her rescue were true.