Stomping feet and shouting voices come from above us, and Alex and I both look toward the second floor.

“Endsley,” Alex says to me under his breath, as the voices draw nearer. “N. E. Endsley. Nolan. Don’t ask him about that limited copy, either. Please. He’s got enough going on.”

I don’t need the magical wind to blow or Wally to knock me over to feel like I’m being shoved to my knees.

Of course.

“N. E. Endsley,” I say, disbelieving. “Upstairs? Here? I thought he lived in New York!”

“He did,” Alex says, but that’s all he can tell me before our subject comes clomping down the stairs. Where was he? How did I not see him in my second-floor wanderings? Valerie and Wally are close on his heels.

“And another thing,” Valerie is saying. “Your imbecile of a dog managed to wreak havoc on a poor girl visiting the store.”

Endsley seems to be ignoring her, to the point that I wonder if he is deaf. I’m not even the one being yelled at and I am fighting the impulse to duck behind Alex, who is looking agitatedly from me to Endsley, gauging my reaction.

Valerie is significantly shorter than Endsley, but when they reach the bottom of the stairs and she comes to stand toe to toe with him, she somehow looms larger. Endsley’s head is bent, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his sweatshirt, and the only word for his attitude is pouty.

Somewhere the clever wind is chortling—no—screaming with laughter. The pages of Jenna’s manual have dumped me right where I wanted to be only a few chapters ago, standing feet away from the creator of the Orman Chronicles. Here is the N. E. Endsley, not in New York but in a tiny Michigan town off the beaten path to nowhere, which I wouldn’t have known existed except for the package that I know is from my dead best friend.

“No appreciation for responsibility,” Valerie is saying, when I tune back in. “No consideration for others. I’ve had it up to here with you, Nolan Endsley. Up. To. Here.”

With each word, she raises her hand higher until it is level with Endsley’s head, taking his worn red baseball cap from his midnight hair and hitting him across the shoulder with it. Wally is barking and running circles around them, and it seems more chaotic now with only the five of us than it did when the store was crawling with people. Alex sighs beside me and moves to step into the fray while I try to blend in with the counter.

“As much as I am enjoying this,” Alex says, “I have a hundred things to do in the morning to get ready for the bazaar. Can I take him home, Mom?”

Valerie and Alex share a meaningful look, and he darts his eyes toward me. Not in front of her, the look says.