The black ink went blurry. The paper rattled in my hands. I couldn’t read. I couldn’t see or breathe. My spine was glass, and all my blood was water. I found myself sitting on the floor beside his empty bottle. My dazed mind noted there was a little milk in it, maybe half an ounce. I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision. But I didn’t need to read more of the note to know what had happened.

I had not dreamed a witch. I’d seen a real person, made of flesh and bone and a secret, dark agenda, peering in my window. I’d seen her again, hurrying through the parking lot toward the fire door that the kids kept propping open. She’d been stalking me.

No. She’d been stalking Robert. And now she had him.

3

As Marshall put the leftover snacks in the greenroom refrigerator, he caught himself hoping Bree would walk in and see him handling this small task for her. It was like a dead mouse he could drop on her doorstep. It made him tired of himself. She was happily married. With three kids. Not to mention her husband was both a nice guy and one of his damn bosses.

He was digging a surprising number of fruit-snack wrappers out of the sofa cushions when Cara found him.

“Need some help?” she asked him, smiling

Every other middle-school human must have vacated the building; he was getting eye contact and everything. He smiled back.

“Thanks,” he said, and then couldn’t resist adding, “Sugar Peep,” just to see her eyes dart around, making sure no lingering teen or tween had heard the silly nickname. God, he wouldn’t be thirteen again for a hundred thousand dollars. Not even for a day. He stopped teasing her and added, serious, “I watched rehearsal from the balcony. You were great. I can’t wait to see the whole show.”

She looked down, tried to wave it away. “I don’t do much in that scene.”

“Are you kidding me? You were all I could look at.” And to think he’d been so worried. At Cara’s old school, drama club had been tiny and underfunded, but it was huge at St. Alban’s. Less than a quarter of the kids who tried out made the casts. Cara’d worked so hard, practicing every afternoon in front of the hall mirror, her heart so clearly set. He’d been praying she’d make the ensemble. Instead she’d landed Marty, a Pink Lady, with a solo and a custom-made satin jacket that she got to keep. “I’m so proud of you. You have a presence that lights up the whole stage. Like your mom.”