It was a work in progress, but Gramps would be happy to hear about it, I was certain.

  “Wonderful!” He clapped his hands together with a loud smack of skin against skin. “I’ve already spoken to him, so I was hoping that you would agree. He can start working with you today!”

  And that was that.

  I was released from Mr. Tart’s office with no further fanfare, and he sent me out on my way with a flick of the wrist and a, “I’m sure that you’re going to love working with him, Quinn. He’s a very strong teacher, very—very good. You'll like him.”

  That was yet to be decided, but the decision was made and I was allowed to leave, so I didn’t question it too much. After all, the less time that I spent with Mr. Tart, the less chance he would say something that would rub me the wrong way.

  The less I was rubbed the wrong way, the less risk I would lose my temper. And I really was trying not to lose my temper, but it was difficult lately. I didn’t want to get in trouble, but my emotions were all twisted up. There were just too many of them, and they all felt too strongly.

  By the end of the day, I had officially been roped into working in a creative-writing workshop, after the rest of my classes ended. I guessed that it was a better elective than theater or band, right? At least I was sort of interested in this.

  With any luck, it would also serve to help get my teachers off my back some after last week’s little issue.

  I had already called and left a message on the Hoggwaller home answering machine—because neither of my grandparents owned a cell phone, despite the fact that pretty much everyone owned a cell phone. At least everyone in Maryland owned a cell phone. But whatever. They would get the message at some point.

  Or they had already gotten it and they just hadn’t wanted to pick up when I called in? Who knew?

  Either way, that was done with, and the only thing that was left to be dealt with was the class itself. I found myself hoping like crazy that the teacher wasn’t some pompous nose-in-the-air scholar. I didn’t think that I could take having someone preach about how much better they were just because they had some fancy awards.

  Even worse was the thought that this guy would try and change my whole story so that it fit the high-art horror that was popular these days. My story wasn’t meant to be an Ari Aster project, thank you very much.

  The creative-writing classroom was on the first floor, but it was way far at the opposite end of the building from the lobby, wedged between a storage closet and the door that led down to the boiler room. NO ENTRANCE ALLOWED, read the sign on the boiler-room door. It was covered in glittery flower stickers.

  Weird.

  The door to the creative writing classroom didn’t have any signs on it past the name of the teacher: Mr. Blumshire. That was weird too, because none of my other classes had signs like that one.

  I knocked on the door with bruised knuckles. An almost whispering voice responded, “Come in.”

  Pushing the door open, I was greeted with the sight of… Just another everyday classroom. There were desks and chairs on one side of the room, bookshelves lining all of the walls, and a big dark-wood writing desk at the front of the room. A chalkboard hung on the wall behind the desk.

  “Is this the right room?” I asked as I looked around.

  “Yes,” said the man sitting behind the desk. “It is. And I’m your teacher.”

  “Cool.” I stepped into the room, letting the door click shut behind me.

  Mr. Blumshire was tall and skinny, with a frilled white dress shirt and a black suit coat. He stood up, grabbing hold of an ornate cane with one hand; the dark mahogany wood was topped with an intricate golden mouse, which held a fake—I assumed it was fake, at least—diamond in its carved paws.

  His suit coat actually had tails on it, like people would wear during the Victorian era, and there was a strange gauntness to his face that made it look like he could use a good home-cooked meal…or twenty. Wispy white hair had been combed backward, away from his face, and his scraggly eyebrows sat low on his forehead.

  “You must be Quinn Hoggwaller,” said Mr. Blumshire.

  I nodded. “That’s me. And you’re…the creative-writing teacher?”

  “Sit,” he said, in way of answer. He made a sweeping gesture, not to the line of desks, but to the high-backed chair at the head of the classroom.

  I paused. “Where are you going to sit?”

  “Sit,” he repeated.

  So I did.

  I sat down in his chair, looking over his domain of empty desks, and understood for the first time ever exactly why teachers got such a power trip.

  “Show me your work,” he demanded.

  Pulling out the laptop, I flipped it open and sat it on a slideshow of the images that I had done so far. He bent over the back of the chair, one hand curled around my shoulder, and watched as the images went through.

  First, the pictures of the house from the first two months. The ones from before I realized what the doll world was like. Before I realized how good it felt to kill. Then, the newer pictures. The garden, with its writhing vines and massive roses, with the bloodied leaves and the bird bath that sat empty and dry.

  The girl in the road. The girl in the bees hive. The graves pushed out behind several thick gnarled holly bushes. The Old Woman hailing a taxi. The circus, with its colorful big-top tent. The people inside; most of the audience were just faceless shapes. I was hoping that meant they wouldn’t actually count as characters; they were just an extension of the background.

  Old Lady, sitting in the front row, watching as someone that would become the lion tamer came out in a bright red-and-black-sequined jacket. He bowed. The slideshow started over.

  “That’s all I have so far,” I told him, not really sure what to expect.

  Mr. Blumshire sucked in without opening his mouth. It made a hollow form on either side of his cheeks, which just made the ridge of his cheekbones seem that much more prominent. There was something off about him.

  I couldn’t pinpoint what exactly rubbed me the wrong way but… He just didn’t seem right. I would have hated to sit in his class for hours on end every week, that was for sure!

  Mr. Blumshire finally said, “It has potential.”

  “Potential,” I echoed, hackles instantly raised.

  He ignored them. “The art. There is no questioning your skill as an illustrator. But it isn’t quite the same as the narrative of the story, now is it?”

  I looked at the images that were slowly sliding over the screen of my computer, and gave a hum. It wasn’t an agreement or a disagreement.

  Mr. Blumshire continued, “It’s just a bit too bright, too…” He searched for the word, those scraggly eyebrows of his pinching together like thorny bushes.. “Er, too happy, no—”

  “Too colorful?” I suggested.

  Mr. Blumshire snapped his fingers. “Exactly.”

  “I like that it’s bright,” I told him, hoping that someone might get my vision. “The world is colorful, because that’s what Ghost Girl wants. But I picked the watercolor brush, because it’s not totally real. It all kind of bleeds together.”

  “But the world,” said Mr. Blumshire. “The circus.”

  “Oh, well.” Okay, so the truth was, I had decided that the weird illustrated doll world just might be real, and I was trying to give everyone their promised location. That way, Molly and the other dolls could leave the house again.

  Not really the explanation that my new teacher was looking for though, right?

  So I told him, “I just thought it would be fun. The ghost is still there, and now all of the kills don’t need to be confined to the house. I mean, how many pizza guys are going to come die at this old lady’s place before they stop showing up, right?”

  He hollowed his cheeks again, and then let out a long whistling breath. “Continue.”

  “I wanted more places like this, different settings and locations they could go,” I told him. “I don’t really know why they sent me here, but I guess because I have this world, right, and I that it could be something.”

  I knew that it already was something.

  “And I guess if I have a storyline to go with it, maybe it could be even better? But I’ve never done stories before, not unless you count middle school English—”

  “I don’t,” interrupted Mr. Blumshire.

  “Right.” I paused. The image had come back to a picture of Molly. I didn’t actually remember making that one, but it must have been from before I knew that the world was real.

  Mr. Blumshire gave a heavy breath, then he said, “Writing is not easy. But stories—they unfold all on their own. A natural existence. A way to… Breathe, almost, new life into a dull world.” His grip on my shoulder tightened, just for several seconds. “And you, you are one of the lucky few that are able to bring that life into being.”

  I wasn’t sure if I would go so far as to say I was lucky, but I supposed that I understood what he was trying to get across.

  I asked him, “Can you help me?”

  His eyes lit up. “Yes, dear heart, I can help you.”

  Dear heart? Okay, talk about massively creepy.

  Mr. Blumshire pulled his hand away from me and reached out, clicking on the computer so that it froze on a picture of Molly. “Look at this. Untapped potential.”

  “Molly?”

  “Molly,” he repeated, as though the name was a sweet dessert that he was savoring. Yeah, creepy.

  “She’s just… One of the older souls,” I said, uncertain how to explain her presence away.

  Mr. Blumshire said, “I’m well aware of who she is.” And then, “I was listening.”

  Did I mention Molly?

  There wasn’t any time to figure it out. Mr. Blumshire was already talking again, telling me, “This is what we call a deuteragonist, and it’s something that you should use more heavily. Quinn, you must explore what she can do—maybe have her do more killing, be more involved with the plot. That would give another layer to this story of yours.”

  Have Molly help do the killing?

  Well… She had been willing to help me with the fishing line, and she was the one that had found the scissors I had used on Nameless Hero. I chewed on my lower lip while I thought things over, and then said, “I hadn’t thought about that. Do you really think it would work?”

  What would it do to Molly, in the world that I was making?

  Mr. Blumshire said, heavy, serious, “Yes, dear heart. I think it’s exactly what this story needs.”

  And… I listened.

  The days passed. Life didn’t really return to usual, but it wasn’t bad either. May and Alice stopped bothering me. Most of the other kids—they just stopped bothering me too. And that was fine. I didn’t like them. I didn’t need them.

  The story though—it had become my world. And the world that I had created, it had my real friend in it. Molly. Maybe Harry, too, after he saw that I had gifted him with the circus, just like I promised.

  I did my best to make the world both bright and haunting. I made the neighborhood around the house. The winding road that led to the circus. The garden that grew bigger and bigger each time I put it into a picture.

  And eventually, the full moon was rising into the sky once again. This time, I watched the silver disc creep up from behind the tree line. When it hit the highest point, and I knew that Grandma and Gramps were fast asleep, I turned and raced down the stairs, into the dining room, and to the partially open door that led to the basement.

  The now familiar purple light was drifting up out of it. It shimmered, shifting in the air around me. Hands took hold of me, invisible, just the pressure of them. They led me down the stairs, to the crib. I didn’t know how it worked, not really. I didn’t know what made this basement into a portal, or why it was linked to my art.

  But as the sensation of being pulled elsewhere washed over me and I crumpled to the ground, I knew this: I was excited to see what changes would have happened in the world, based around the additions I had drawn.

  And even more than that, I was excited for another chance to kill.

  It was in my skin. Under it. In my veins. My blood. This itching, urging sensation. The fight, it hadn’t been enough. The yelling, the shouting, the art. Nothing compared to the way it felt to sink a blade into someone’s chest with no consequences. None.

  I could kill whoever I wanted, and the next day, it would all just be fine again.

  The realization was enough to make my mouth water. It was even enough to help me get past the headache when I first woke up in the room-that-wasn’t-my-room, threw off the sheets, and rolled out of the bed.

  Molly was nowhere to be seen, but that was fine. I had become far more confident in moving through these changing hallways. I took a moment to stretch and look around. The shelf opposite the bed was empty. The closet was empty too.

  “Well, Molly did say they were… Elsewhere,” I grumbled. “Never did figure out what that meant.”

  I checked under the bed, but there was no mouse and no plate of bleach and honey-soaked bread, either. I crawled back, expecting to find Molly in the room, like last time, but… Nothing.

  I huffed, got up, and stepped into the hallway. It looked almost just like the one in my real house, save for the fact that the walls were made out of a different sort of wood, and a long red carpet stretched through it, toward the stairs.

  It was like they were celebrating the fact that I’d come back!

  Feeling like the big-name Scream Queen at a horror movie premier, I turned and made my way through the hallway. The stairs came into view.

  No one.

  Well, that was fine. I just had to follow the carpet, right? I would find someone eventually.

  Taking the steps two at a time, and jumping down the final one, led me into the living room in no time flat. No sign of Harry. The TV was off. A massive bull’s head had been strangely mounted on the wall above the TV, though. It stared at me with glossy black eyes.

  I pointed two fingers at my face in the shape of a V, and then pointed them back at the bull’s head. It blinked at me. A shudder ran down my spine and I hurried into the foyer instead.

  In the real world, there were two creepy cat paintings hung up on either side of the little end table that was pressed to the wall. Normally, in this version of the world, there were two downright terrifying dog paintings.

  Last time, I had broken them. Then Molly had enlightened me that it was Tabitha, another resident, who had painted them. No wonder that girl didn’t like me, right?

  The dog paintings were still gone. Two new ones had taken their place.

  A house, on the left side. Thick plumes of smoke spilled out of the windows. The building was crumpled inward, so that the windows and the door almost became a mouth and eyes; fire caused the windows to glow. I could almost feel real heat coming from it, and had to jerk my gaze to the other side.

  The picture on the right honestly wasn’t any better. It reminded me a little bit of ‘The Picnic’ by Edouard Manet; a bunch of people wearing elegant clothing, clearly out enjoying the summer afternoon. Except that in the background, the forest was on fire, the smoke blotting out the once-bright summer sun. Also, none of the people had faces. It was just smooth, flesh-colored blobs with elegant curls and braids carefully placed around it.

  Someone needed to tell Tabitha that she could paint pictures and not have everything burn down on them. Weird. Creepy. And even though they were clearly new—I had certainly never seen them before!—the colors were faded in a way that made the painting look old.

  I was sorely tempted to take them down. It was only the fact that I could go get my stress and anger out in other, bloodier ways that kept me from doing that.

  The red carpet went all the way to the front door. Remembering the little stretch of yard that had been out there last time, I flung it open—and was met with the sight of everything I had painted!

  My heart soared! Pure joy rushed through my veins, the sort that I had only ever felt when I finally, finally killed Trevor that first time. With glittering eyes, I stepped out onto the small wraparound front porch of the old manor house.

  The front yard led out into a street. The street wound through a neighborhood, with strange-looking houses; this one so squat and low to the ground you would need to crawl through it all, and that one so thin and tall, it appeared to be singular rooms stacked on top of each other. One house was built at a steep slant, and another one had weeds growing so thick in the front yard, it looked like a jungle.

  In the distance, on the horizon line, a great blue-and-white star-spotted big-top tent could just barely be seen poking up above the roofs of the buildings.

  “Whoa.”

  “You made a lot!” Molly sat on a fluffy pink blanket at the base of the oak tree, eating from a jar of honey with a spoon.

  “I know!” Excited, I ran over to join her, dropping onto my knees with the blanket beneath them. “Isn’t it amazing? I made the circus, just like Harry wanted! Is that where he’s at?”

  Molly nodded. “He doesn’t come to the house anymore.”

  “What, he lives there now? Why?”

  “There are too many people out there, Quinn.” She used her honey-coated spoon to gesture to the neighborhood. “They scare him. He tried to come home, but they were all watching him.”

  I laughed. “Well, that’s not really a problem. I’ll thin out the crowd today for you all.”

  “You made a lot of people.”

  “And I’ll unmake them all now, too.” I remembered what Mr. Blumshire had said, and the one picture I had drawn of Molly. I hadn’t wanted to force her hand without talking to her, so I hadn’t just drawn her in the act of killing someone.

  Just… In the aftermath. She had been standing in the garden, with blood on her pretty pink ballet outfit, and a knife in hand. Ruby red had dripped from the tip of the blade.