“I knew he was full of shit.” I attacked my face with the palm of my hand, and hoped that something might make me feel better. It didn’t.

  Fine

  Over the next three weeks, I found that nothing really changed. The art academy was fine. My grandparents were fine. The house was filled with dolls, but that was fine too. Mostly. At night, I would hear the mice creeping all over and making the floorboards creak and squeak. During the day, my grandparents would try to convince me to try their weird red-purple wine, or go out into town with them.

  Gramps kept calling me champ. Grandma kept asking when my ‘little friend’ was going to come back by. The meals were gross. They were bland, and even the fact that everything had the texture of either snot or glue quickly grew boring.

  I only made the mistake of asking about salt once; it got me a half-hour-long lecture on the dangers of high cholesterol. I started trying to bring home little paper packets of salt from the academy lunch hall, and any time they were busy looking at each other, I would dump it hastily onto my pile of otherwise unseasoned mashed potatoes.

  Everything had a routine.

  Monday was beef. Tuesday was casserole. Wednesday was baked chicken, usually in a thick and slimy cranberry sauce. Thursday, we had leftovers. This was the worst day out of the week. Gray beef was bad enough hot and fresh. It was borderline impossible to eat after it had been in the fridge for a few days. Friday was the only night I sort of looked forward to. Spaghetti and meatballs. Then soup of some sort on Saturday. And Sunday was a ‘big dinner night’ where Grandma made lasagna and garlic bread, both of them soggy.

  School had a routine too. Every other week, I would see Mr. Tart and he would tell me about how I needed to push my story harder; if I was talking about a murderer, then I needed to focus on that. I guessed I could see what he meant, but I had never gotten past the fact that he had drawn on my picture.

  His death remained in the story, though I tactfully avoided showing him those pages. I also tactfully avoided Trevor, anytime we weren’t in illustration class. Case in point, he was heading down the hall toward me right then, and I turned and made a curving loop through the dining hall and out the other side just so I didn’t have to talk to him.

  I had managed to totally avoid doing that this whole time. I didn’t want anything to do with him. I didn’t want him near me, I didn’t want him talking to me, and I certainly didn’t want him anywhere near my house again.

  So I went out of my way, literally, to avoid having any kind of a run-in with him on the way out of the school. Gramps had realized that I didn’t have a key chain anymore and had given me one of his, so now a threadbare rooster dangled from the side of the quilt bag that I was still using to carry my books around in.

  Stepping outside, I was instantly assaulted by the Texas heat of a late, cloudless afternoon. I took my time, dragging my feet so that it made a scuffing sound with each step I took. For some reason, I found myself not wanting to go home.

  What day was it?

  Leftover night. That had to be it. My stomach had already told my brain that waiting until after dinner was the way to go. Dinner was served at six each night, so that meant I had to be out at least until seven, and I had to do it without making my grandparents mad.

  Oh! That was it. Grandma wanted me to have my little friend over. I would call and say that I was going to Trevor’s house instead. For dinner and homework, or something!

  Feeling like the problem had been solved, I whipped out my cell phone…and saw that it was dead. Crap. Okay, so. Time to weigh my options. Get in trouble over not showing up and not calling. Eat leftover gray beef.

  Get in trouble over not showing up and not calling. Eat leftover gray beef.

  As it turned out, it was pretty easy to weigh! Get in trouble it was!

  The town was old and weird and quiet. There wasn’t much to do and I didn’t want to open up the laptop while I was standing around outside, either, so I just kind of kicked around until the twilight hour came around.

  It was a full moon out. The big round disc of silver pushed into appearance over the roof of Hoggwaller Manor as I finally made my way up the driveway. Maybe I would get lucky and my grandparents would be asleep already or something.

  It was about time that I had a bit of good luck.

  I skipped the steps and unlocked the front door, carefully closing it behind me so it didn’t make any sounds. There was a radio playing somewhere in the house. Was that upstairs? I held my breath, but no one came to investigate the sound of my coming home.

  So, my next course of action was to sneak into the kitchen and get a granola bar for dinner. I made it into the living room before I realized that my night was not about to go to plan.

  The door to the basement was open. Not all the way. Just three or four inches, enough to let the purple light shimmer out into the otherwise darkened room.

  “Grandma?” I asked into the darkness, the word a whisper.

  No response.

  I stepped over to the door, reaching out and tugging it open. The light swam out and into the air around me. The purple aura wrapped about me, pushing through my bright curls, and leaving me stunned. It felt almost like soft, gentle hands had just curled around my cheeks and started to tug me forward, down the stairs and into the basement.

  I followed them. A tightness settled in my chest. When was the last time I had felt hands like these?

  But—that wasn’t possible, right? It wasn’t. It was totally and completely impossible.

  They felt like my mother’s hands.

  Wide eyed, I let them guide me down the creaky stairs and into the basement. As soon as I hit the last step, the purple light started to fade.

  “Wait,” I said, reaching out and grabbing for it. My fingers went straight through. The light faded, until only the overhead yellow glow remained. “Wait! Come back!”

  It didn’t. Tears burned at my eyes. I blinked them away quickly, stepping further into the basement. This time, I was certain to discover where the light had come from!

  The shelf system was the same, straight down to the dust on all of the dolls and the cobwebs in her curls. The clown doll was gone, but the crib was still there. Was the ballerina?

  I stepped over to the crib. The doll was fully covered by the blanket. I curled my fingers in the fabric and went to pull it back—only for the light bulb above me to explode with a pop of glass shattering and a spray of sparks.

  The sparks caught on something in the air. I didn’t know what, but they sent the room into an explosion of light and life. I screamed, dropping to the ground and throwing my hands up over my face to shield it from the falling glass.

  A sharp shift in pressure occurred. My ears popped. I swayed backward, a wave of dizziness hitting me. The world went black.

  Missing Backpack

  Groaning, I rolled onto my stomach and shoved my face into the pale-yellow pillowcase. It still smelled faintly of moth balls. Sweat from my forehead dampened it. I had a headache, and a stomach ache, and an everything-else ache, too. My joints and my muscles were throbbing in protest, like I had just finished a marathon I didn’t train for.

  My mouth was dry enough that my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. I sat up, rocking back onto my haunches. The world swam into focus. It was night; the full moon still visible through my window. I reached up and rubbed at my face, trying to physically will the light into turning itself on.

  Didn’t work. I had to actually stagger out of the bed and over to the switch, giving it a flip. Click. My room was flooded with light. My belly flipped at the sight of it. Everything looked different. Almost like it was made from digital illustration. My own art style, spilled out into the world around me.

  The room was done up in watercolor splashes, which bled slightly outside of the lines. Even my own hands when I looked down at them had a strange, thick line to them, and little curves over the creases of my knuckles. The same curves that I used on fingers when I was drawing a big scene and not just up-close hand practice.

  “Whoa. I had to have hit my head.” I held up my hand in front of my face. I curled my fingers, one at a time, marveling at the smooth flow of the image before me. The headache was already starting to fade, but that didn’t change the fact that I was thirsty as all get out.

  Or the fact that the last thing I remembered was going into the basement…and blacking out there after the electrical explosion.

  I winced.

  My grandparents were going to be so mad at me. I wonder which one found me. If it was Gramps, I might have been able to get out of this mess without too much of a punishment. But if it was Grandma…

  Alright. Well, putting it off wasn’t going to make me feel any better. I just had to face the music.

  “Grandma,” I called, swinging open the doorway and stepping out into the hall. It was brightly lit for being midnight. There were several strange patches of light that seemed to be coming from nowhere specific; like a scene that was lit from the same place the music came from.

  I took a few steps towards the stairs, but paused at the sight of a strange floral rug just at the top of them. That wasn’t usually there. Neither was the big potted plant in the corner, just to the left of the stairwell, or the massive painting of a creepy forest just across the hall from it.

  “Gramps?” I called his name even louder, hoping he would be the one to hear me.

  No luck. There was still no answer.

  “Hello? Is anyone down there?” I grabbed onto the railing and leaned against it, counting to ten before I started down the stairs. I could hear something moving around down in the living room, but it was out of sight.

  There was a laugh, almost a giggle. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. I hit the bottom step just in time to see the skirt of a white dress vanish into the dining room, the door sliding shut behind it.

  Creepy.

  Really, really creepy.

  Well, okay. So what was the rational excuse for all this? I had hit my head. Or I had a fever. Or…I had hit my head, and now I was dreaming? That one seemed to at least me the most plausible option out there.

  It would also explain why the house looked totally different. The wallpaper was no longer sun-faded but bright and colorful. The pheasant couch in the living room was gone, replaced with a bright orange piece that looked like it came straight out of the seventies. There was no TV and no radio, but a large record player sat on an end table in the living room.

  “Someone else has to be here, right? Someone other than…” My gaze darted toward the living-room door. It was still closed. I let out a heavy exhale, and then turned. If it was a dream, it was probably fine, right?

  I passed through the foyer, taking note of the fact that the creepy cat paintings were now replaced with equally creepy dog paintings. One of them showed a black hound dog, lying in front of a black doorway. It was hard to tell if the dog was dead or not. There were eyes in the doorway. They were not dog eyes.

  The other picture had three identical fuzzy white dogs sitting in a row, out in a field. The town behind them was on fire. For some reason, this did not detract from how absolutely adorable the dogs themselves were.

  I think I prefer the cats, I thought, taking hold of the door to the dining room and pulling it open. Still no sign of my grandparents, but the basement door was sitting open. No purple light, though.

  “I saw you come in here,” I shouted. “You might as well just come out now and we can get this whole mess over with!”

  Someone laughed in the basement. I peeked down the stairs. They were well lit, but the light was blue. I could have sworn that I had drawn a scene just like this in one of the opening house-montage pieces. The blue light helped set the mood of the scene without going the over-the-top, red-means-scary route.

  As it turned out, the blue light was just as unsettling.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I found a totally different basement. There were cardboard boxes all over the place, along with old luggage bags and suitcases. A tent was put up in one corner of the room, and a mirror had been covered with a pale pink sheet. An old, dress-less mannequin sat on the side of the room.

  And at the very center, right where the crib was supposed to be, was my missing backpack.

  I rushed over to it. “Holy crap!”

  Forget about finding my grandparents, I was way more interested in this! I unzipped the bag and pulled out the keychain, giving it a kiss right on the leather boxing glove.

  “I can’t believe I found you again,” I said to the inanimate object, excitement drenching the words. “I thought you were lost for good.”

  The keychain was promptly shoved into the pockets of my white jeans. I flung the backpack over one shoulder, and then the other. The shelf system that had once held all of the dolls was gone. So was the crib.

  Where could the crib have been moved to?

  Maybe… Wherever Grandma and Gramps were at?

  I decided to give the basement one last look over—there was nothing—and then I made my way back up the stairs. The big, overly long dining-room table was gone, replaced by one that fit the room much better. I checked through the whole bottom floor of the house, calling for my grandparents and hoping that one of them would answer.

  On my third pass through the foyer, and still with no sight of them, I had the idea, Maybe they’re in the back garden!

  I tried to open the door, but it was locked. The key wouldn’t unlock it. That made sense though, right? Gramps said that he was going to have all of the locks replaced. I just didn't know it had already happened.

  Trying not to be frustrated, I made my way to the backdoor instead.

  That one wouldn’t open either. Even worse, the big bay window that was next to the back door? It was...frosted over, almost. Like my eyes worked fine everywhere else in the room, but the moment that they landed on the big blank glass, they just stopped.

  There was nothing out there.

  I stepped over to it, reaching out and putting my hand up onto the glass. It fogged up slightly beneath the touch. I could feel cool glass on my skin. I knew it wasn’t a mirror. It was a window. The backyard should be out there. The heat-yellowed glass, the small garden bed of colorful if slightly wilted and weed-riddled flowers, and the old oak tree that cast shade for whoever happened to be out there working.

  I frowned. My forehead pressed to the glass, too. I squinted hard but couldn’t get anything outside of the glass to come into shape.

  “That’s so weird,” I muttered. My breath fogged up the glass. “Why isn’t anything out there?”

  The giggle again. I spun around, eyes wide.

  And this time, I saw her.

  I saw someone.

  It was a little girl, maybe just a few years younger than I was. She was wearing a white ballet dress. The top of it had feathers on the shoulders, and the tulle of the skirt was made of glittering, sparkling white fabric that was bunched up. The back of the bodice had long silk white ribbons on it, which hung down nearly to her knees.

  “You scared the crap out of me,” I exclaimed, no less scared for finally having seen her. “Wait. I know you from somewhere.”

  The girl giggled again, putting a hand up to her face. “Do you?”

  “Yeah. Who… Who are you?” I asked her, taking a step away from the window.

  The girl tilted her head to the side. “You’re right. You probably have seen me before. But you’ve never met me. And I’ve never met you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because,” said the girl. “That’s how it was meant to be. But you’re here now, so maybe I was wrong. I don’t think you would be here if you weren’t meant to be here.”

  “If you keep talking like that, you’re going to make my headache come back.” I rubbed my temples again. “Do you know where my grandparents are?”

  “Maybe,” said the girl with a laugh. “Maybe I do. Maybe not. Why should I tell you?” She took a step toward me, her eyes bright and mischievous. They shimmered from gray to green to blue, then back again. “You didn’t even say please.”

  “Please.” I was resisting the urge to roll my eyes. Nothing was worse than a goody two-shoes who insisted everyone have prim-and-proper London Lady manners. “Also, this is my house, so maybe you shouldn’t be acting all high and mighty. You aren’t even supposed to be in here.”

  The girl started laughing in earnest at that. Not a soft dainty giggle but the kind of full-body laughter that made her shoulders shake. She turned, walking down the hall. I followed her; and when she threw herself down on the bright orange couch, I draped my arms over the back of it.

  “What’s so funny?” I demanded.

  The girl’s tutu bunched up behind her. She was wearing ballet shoes, white, with glittering ribbons that laced in loops up to just beneath her knee. I hadn’t noticed before, with all the white fabric on her, but now that she was stretched out on the bright orange fabric of the couch, I could see how pale her skin was.

  “Your house?” She pushed herself up onto her elbows. “Do you really not know who I am?”

  I looked at her, hard. She wasn’t anyone I knew from school. And I didn’t do any extracurricular activities, either. My lips pursed. I shifted a little bit, tilting my head to the side.

  It hit me.

  I gasped. “There’s no way!”

  She smiled, showing off her perfect white teeth. “You do recognize me! Oh, goodie! I was starting to worry that I would have to tell you. That wouldn’t have been any fun.”

  “You’re the doll—the one from the basement!” I shook my head, pulling away from the couch. “There’s no way. There’s literally no way that could happen. You’re not real!”

  “I feel real,” said the girl. She sat up fully, one leg sliding so that it was bent at an angle, and the other remaining stretched out on the couch. She held a hand out toward me. “I’m Molly.”