Kaley blinked in surprise, the tension melting from her face. “Oh, Helen. You know I’ve always got your back.”

Moisture filmed my eyes. “Good. Because we need to stop Nightflesh. He knows about you. He knows what you look like.”

Kaley glanced at my stack of papers again, and this time she nodded. “I know.” She reached across the table and took my hand. “Tell me your plan.”

I started to feel the buzzing of the changing winds and the cold calling me from the other side three days later, when downtown Waterloo had transformed itself into a ribbon-covered city, ready for the Christmas hustle. And finally, that trickle of warmth I had missed beyond measure began to fill the terrible, hollow gap in my heart, telling me it was almost time to see him again. Zane was almost here.

THE SECOND

The sign taped to the door of Grandma’s old house was starting to crisp at the edges. That awful word I’d hated since the day it was spoken over our home stared back at me with no mercy:

CONDEMNED

I smooshed myself against the front door, but it didn’t budge. Kaley burst out laughing.

“That was really pathetic,” she said and took a step back. “Move.” She twisted and thrust her boot against the door. Flakes of wood shattered around the handle and the door swung open.

“Show off,” I muttered, clunking in and yanking down that horrid sign from the door as I did. I tossed my leather book bag inside the door.

Wafts of rotting wood and chilly air overtook my senses as I entered the small kitchen with peeling wallpaper. Four chairs rested around the rustic wood table where we once sat: Grandma, Kaley, Winston, and me. A table that used to host plates of muffins every Sunday afternoon and pancakes during every holiday breakfast since we were kids.

I realized Kaley had stopped beside me. She let out a heavy breath, staring at the empty chairs too. This place still smelled of Grandma’s love and a thousand warm memories, along with a few cold ones.

“Do you remember when we first came to live here?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t remember anything before this house.”

My heart throbbed a little as I was reminded Kaley didn’t remember our mother. I cleared my throat and tugged off my hat, knowing my hair was standing on end—adding to my madwoman allure.

Kaley kicked through the dust on the creaky floorboards and stopped in front of the hall closet. When she opened the door, some of Grandma’s old, abandoned coats still clung to hangers. I looked away.

The sound of my sister shoving the coats aside and tugging the false closet wall free echoed through the empty house. When she came out, she had a smile on her face and my late grandfather’s rusty shotgun in her grip. “Now we wait,” she said.