We sat in frozen silence for a moment, staring at each other. Waiting. Until we heard it again. A man’s voice. Loud and angry. Bellowing in the rain. And then, at the padlocked front door, the sound of someone knocking. A fist, banging on wood.

“Oh no,” I said. “It’s him. That man.”

Jasper’s eyes were wide. “Who?”

“That guy,” I said. “The one I told you about, with the tooth and the tattoos and the gun. He’s here. I knew he would be. He saw the path to the Vine Realm!”

Jasper’s eyes went wide. I nodded at her silently. We both waited, staring at each other. I counted the seconds. 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . Until the sound came again.

BANG!

Only now he was at the back door, just behind my head, here. He was here, and I hadn’t even bothered to replace the cinder blocks when I came in.

“Oh, God,” said Jasper.

BANG!

BANG! BANG!

The pounding shook the little house, rattled the windows and walls. And we sat frozen. There was nowhere to go. What could we do? Jasper reached for an empty root beer bottle and cocked it behind her head, as if she might throw it if someone tried to come in. We both stared at the door as the knob turned.

The rickety old door burst open with a crash that shook the room and shattered the cracked pane of glass all over us. Like diamonds, the shards twinkled everywhere. All across the floor, the bedding. Probably in my hair. I shook my head and looked up. My heart stopped pounding. My heart stopped. Or it felt that way.

A man stepped into the dimly lit room. He was tall and dripping wet and his eyes were wild.

“Leah!” he shouted.

A flashlight beam found me.

“Dad!” I cried.

The cold, white light found Jasper next, beside me on her mattress, huddled in her blue blanket.

“And you must be Jasper,” said my dad. He tossed back the hood of his raincoat and rubbed at his hair until it stood on end. Then he closed his eyes for a minute and just stood there above us. He was wearing his big black rainboots, but I saw that his old plaid pajamas were tucked inside them.

Jasper nodded. Bits of glass fell to the blanket. “Oh, Leah,” she whispered, trembling. “What did you do?”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Then my dad opened his eyes, and I watched him take in everything as the flashlight beam darted around the room. Jasper, under the blanket I’d brought from our house. Mom’s tablecloth. The sad assortment of cans and boxes that lined the counter. The bouquet of dead roses in their pickle jar. I saw it all through my father’s eyes, and everything looked different.

Everything was different.