She glanced toward a window. "No, it's still before dawn."
"I have to get to Trader Mike's and find Mr. Smith."
"You're not going anywhere for a day at least," Meghan said, coming across the room with a steaming cup of something minty in one hand.
"I have to. It's to help my dad." And to find out what my mom is up to with those deadly spells of hers, I thought.
"That's not the entire truth," Ryland said, his nose wrinkling.
"No, it's a guess. I have my doubts about this guy, but I hope he can help."
"You stink like rubbish," Stacey said, her imperious Victorian-era British accent lashing out at Ryland like a whip.
"You smell rather nice," Ryland said with a wolfish grin. "And you taste even better."
Stacey sniffed and looked away from him, nose held high. "Stinking dogs. Why don't you go sit like a good boy, preferably far from me?"
Ryland's grin grew even larger. "You got it, kitten."
Stacey sniffed again.
"You're going to pull a nose muscle if you keep sniffing like that," I told her. "And stop being such a bitch to him."
Her eyes grew wide. "A bitch? How could you insult me so?"
"Give it a rest. He helped me save your life. He killed one of the hellhounds."
Disbelief narrowed her eyes. "I find that rather hard to believe."
"How did they get you?" I asked. "Couldn't you outrun them?"
"They demolished the building right out from beneath me before I could recover from the shock of seeing them murder Marmalade and Dots. I was dazed but managed to morph as they came in for the attack." Tears pooled and ran down her cheeks. "One of them had me by the throat. But it didn't kill me, Justin. It was as if the vicious creature wanted me to suffer from my wounds before I died."
Anger built inside me, pounding against my ribcage and demanding revenge on these things for hurting her. But I felt so weak a mouse could probably whip my tail in a fair fight. I looked up at Meghan. A battle raged in her eyes and I could tell she wasn't over her hatred for my kind. She still didn't like having me here. Maybe I could use her disgust to my advantage.
"Can you at least get me on my feet?" I asked her. "I'll get out of your house and your life. I promise."
She remained silent for a moment, her eyes seeming to search my face for something. "You said a lot while you were under, including some things I couldn't believe. But now that I look at you, I see your mother's spirit burning bright in those eyes of yours. She was never one to let the threat of death stop her from anything."
"Everyone tells me I look more like my dad."
She gave a nod. "True. But inside, you're like Alice. Determined. Stubborn. But she's a planner. She would never rush into danger, especially not weak like you are now."
"It's not exactly danger. It's a nerd who likes comic books who may also be able to decipher something for me."
"Danger seems to enjoy following you from what I've heard."
How did she know my mom so well? Her face sparked a sudden onslaught of memories.
A young girl opens the red door. A woman screams. A roar. Crimson-streaked concrete. Blood soaking into the earth. A woman draws ragged breaths as her life's blood leaks from torn and shredded legs. "They must be stopped. But the others don't want to stop them," a female voice whispers in my ear.
I squeezed my eyes shut as the images faded and understanding replaced my confusion. "My mom used to bring me here sometimes," I said. "I was little and so were you."
She nodded, her face a careful mask. "Are you remembering too?"
"Yes. Something hurt your mother badly."
"Killed her." A tear broke through her brave façade. "And your mother would never tell me why. Only that she would set things right."
"Why didn't I remember this until now?"
"She blocked your memories. Blurred them from your mind. You were too young to understand and she didn't wish you to be scarred with such pain."
"Your father?"
"He died two years before my mom."
"Who raised you? Why do you still live in this place?"
"My aunt. She's dead now, too." Meghan knelt by my side, her lips trembling. "They all die, I'm afraid." She reached the flat of her palm for my forehead, her face grimacing with what might be revulsion. When she touched me, she flinched, as if expecting to feel the slimy skin of an eel. "I'll help you remember."
White light flashed before my eyes and a dozen scrambled scenes ran backwards through the theater of my mind. Colors, sounds, and my sense of touch ran together in a churning mess. I couldn't make heads or tails of anything. Then a hand seemed to wave across my face, clearing my unfocused senses like windshield wipers across foggy glass.
Someone held my hand. I looked up into the blue eyes of my mom as she towered over me like a giant. She focused on the red door ahead. Walked to it and knocked. A girl a few years old than me answered.
"Hello, Meghan. Your mother is expecting me."
"Yes, of course, Mistress Conroy."
"Meghan, you are to never call me that. I am Ms. Case. Do you understand?"
"My apologies Mistress—Ms. Case."
"Thanks, sweetie."
"Alice," said a woman's voice from within. "Is it true?"
Mom stepped inside as she replied. "Yes, Sandy. I'm pregnant." The door shut behind her, leaving me outside. I stooped to inspect a toad as it appeared from under a rotted tree stump in the front yard.
"That's Alfred," Meghan said, squatting next to me. "His family lives in there."
"I like toads. I wish I could hop like a toad," I said.
"You can!" Meghan's eyes lit up. She held out a hand. "Here, take my hand."
I followed her to the side of the house to a large trampoline beneath a huge tree. I'd never jumped on one before and excitement raced through me. Meghan helped me up and we jumped and giggled, trying to make one another bounce even higher. But I was much smaller than she was and ended up being bounced uncontrollably while I squealed with joy.
"Meghan!" a woman called from the front of the house. "I need you for a moment."
"I'll be right back," Meghan promised as she hopped down to the ground and ran to the front.
I jumped up high as I could and landed on my back, thrilling at how it didn't hurt a bit to fall on the bouncy black surface. Something rustled and squeaked. I turned on my stomach and looked toward the back of the house. A man in a gray suit was pulling open double wooden doors at the bottom of the house. If it was anything like our house, I knew they led to the crawlspace underneath. Scary things like spiders and huge brown camo-crickets lived in there, and I hated it even though Dad had told me they were more afraid of us.
I didn't believe him for a minute.
The man held a round piece of plywood upon which was a complicated pattern of bare copper wires strung around nails. It looked kind of like a drawing I'd seen in one of mom's picture books she kept hidden in her office. I'd found them when she'd left me with Dad one day and looked through them all, fascinated by the strange patterns and wondering what the odd words next to them meant. I knew how to read most things, but those words hadn't looked familiar at all.
Another man in gray trudged up the hill behind the first one who was now putting the plywood under the house. The two looked like identical twins. The other man had a thick cable with sharp alligator clips on the ends. The men looked normal but something was very strange about them. Their faces seemed to be set in stone because they didn't smile or frown or make any expressions for that matter. Even their sickly pale skin looked grayish. Something about that scared me, so I stayed very still and very flat on the trampoline, using the big tree next to it to stay hidden, curious to see why they were putting the plywood under the house and running the cables to it.
I thought back to the pictures in Mom's books, trying to remember which one looked like the pattern on the plywood. There had been the image of a shiny green shark monster next to it, I thought. Or was it the one with the big swirly pattern? No, that one had a picture of a huge red man next to it. This one was like a bunch of squares with a zig-zag running through it. Definitely the one with the green shark picture.
The man who'd gone under the crawlspace emerged, his gray suit covered with reddish dust from the dry clay underneath. A large black spider ran up his shoulder and across his face. I clamped both hands on my mouth in horror, but the man didn't make a sound. Quick as lightning, his hand plucked the spider off his face and dropped it to the ground. Then the two men started back down the steep hill. I waited until their heads vanished from sight and then got off the trampoline and sneaked to the edge of the decline, hiding behind some bushes.
A bright red machine sat at the bottom of the hill. The cables ran from the crawlspace and into it. One of the men jerked on a string, and with a thrum, the machine came to life, sounding a little like a lawnmower. I heard a crackling noise like static popping off wool socks. Some squirrels in a nearby tree chittered, looked at the house, and then leapt down, dashing across the street. The sides of the house seemed to move. And then I realized the house wasn't moving—it was crawling with bugs.
"Gross!" I said, watching in disgust as spiders, crickets, and insects I didn't recognize squirmed, crawled, and buzzed away from the house, until the ground and air seemed alive with them. Thankfully, they didn't come near me.
I smelled a burning odor, like the time I'd stuck a hairpin into the electrical socket and blown out the kitchen lights. Light crackled through the crawlspace vents built into the bricks at the base of the house. A loud pop sounded and a sudden wind blew leaves and other debris against the house, forming a vortex at the door to the crawlspace.
Thunder exploded just as a blinding light flashed. Windows shattered on the house.
