AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“They’d want to know,” Coco pointed out. “If we were in danger. They’d want to help.”
“If they even believe us,” retorted Ollie, “how would it go? ‘Hey, Dad, you know that there’s this other world lurking behind mist and behind mirrors? A ghost world? Well, there’s someone out there who wants to trap us there, behind the mist, forever. Got any advice?’?” There was a brittle, fearful edge on her voice. Ollie had lost her mother in a plane crash; Brian was pretty sure that for Ollie the thought of losing her dad too was scarier than any ghost world.
Coco said, “We don’t have to tell them where the riddle is from. Or tell them why we want advice. We could just say it’s a school project. I mean, it wouldn’t even be a stretch. They’ve seen our books about ghosts everywhere . . .” She trailed off. She was still carrying her current book, her place carefully marked. It was only one of the millions they seemed to have read since the winter. In not one of them was there a single clue about how to beat the smiling man.
“Not even then,” said Ollie. “What if they help us without knowing and that’s enough to put the smiling man onto them? We’d be cowards to tell them. Asking for help, putting them in danger, just to make ourselves feel better.”
“But I don’t want to be brave,” said Coco. “I want everything to be all right again. What if we can’t fix it by ourselves?”
“Nothing will be all right if they get hurt,” returned Ollie hotly. “Do you want lights going out and things scratching at our parents’ windows? What if our parents disappear?”
“We can fix it by ourselves,” broke in Brian. “I know we can. Eventually. We just have to keep looking.”
Neither girl said anything.
“We can,” he repeated, a little angrily. The last time they fought the smiling man, Brian hadn’t helped much. Coco and Ollie had outsmarted the bad guy, but Brian hadn’t even been there. He’d been trapped in a lodge that had become a strange, vast hall of doors, none of which led where he expected them to. The endless doors had kept him away from his friends until it was all over. It hadn’t been his fault, it had been the smiling man’s trick, but still. The memory didn’t feel good. Actually, more than a few of his daydreams since then had been of him, Brian, swooping in at the last second and singlehandedly saving Ollie and Coco.
After all, why not? He was smart and brave and strong. His parents were proud of him for a reason. He was strong enough to keep his parents safe, and to keep the girls safe too.
“Ollie’s right,” he said to Coco. “I don’t think we should tell anyone.”
When he took the paper from Ollie, the black circle left sooty smudges on the tips of his fingers.
“I think we should,” said Coco. “It’s all a game, remember? He’s probably expecting us not to tell anyone. We need to do something he won’t expect.” Coco was shy and Coco was gentle, but in the last six months, she’d gotten a lot better at standing up for herself. “We’re not getting anywhere with books. Guys, what just happened? The paper is a warning? A warning about what? We don’t know what he’s planning! We—maybe we can’t do this on our own.”
Ollie had her mouth open on a reply, but a bellow from the great room interrupted. Ollie’s dad, who had an enormous, cheerful voice, was calling, “Hey, you three mice! Are you asleep in there? If you want dinner, now’s the time. Pizza’s getting cold!”
“Um,” said Brian, sidetracked.
“Come on,” said Ollie. “I’m starving.”
Coco scowled. She had taken the black circle, was holding it between her hands. “I still think we should tell them,” she said to Ollie’s back.
“I don’t,” said Ollie, heading decisively for the door.
Coco looked at Brian. “We might not have that much time left,” she said. “We need help, Brian.”
“Yeah,” said Brian. “I do know that. But, Coco, what if—what if telling them just means he nabs them instead of us?”
Coco bit her lip. The two of them exchanged grim looks. They were passing through the great room by then, and Brian turned, half reluctantly, to look at the mirror that Ollie had covered up, the second they were alone.
“I can’t think, otherwise,” Ollie had told them, shuddering. “Sometimes, with mirrors, I
imagine—I’m almost sure I see—things moving in there. At night. I keep thinking, if I go too close, it’ll pull me in.”
How much more of this can we take? Brian wondered.
He followed Coco, clattering, to dinner.
2
BRIAN’S PARENTS AND Ollie’s dad, Roger Adler, were standing around the island of the big, echoing kitchen that produced all the meals for the lodge. The adults had steaming mugs of something spicy-smelling in their hands. They all turned around as the kids walked in. Brian almost stopped in his tracks, because just for a second, the three adults looked at them with identical worried expressions.
“Hey, guys! Zelda’s working late,” said Mr. Adler, smiling. Zelda was Coco’s mom. Just like that, all three worried expressions were gone. Brian wondered if he’d imagined them. Ollie’s dad was wearing a tangerine-colored flannel shirt. He had the same eyes as Ollie: big and dark and kind. “She says to start eating without us,” Mr. Adler added.
“Good,” said Brian’s dad. “You all must be hungry.”
They sat around the kitchen table and helped themselves to pizza. There was pineapple and bacon for Brian’s dad and for Ollie. There was three-cheese for Brian and Coco. All vegetable for Brian’s mom, who liked broccoli on pizza, and a squash-and-mushroom-and-rabbit one for Ollie’s dad, who always got the weirdest pizza on principle.
