I sat up and wiped my face.

“All right, Saint Jonathan. Now what do you do?”

The answer was simple. The creature had to be destroyed.

But what would that mean to me? The creature was part of me, was me, in a way. If I killed it, would I die, too?

Well, saints never hesitated to die for a good cause. Or would this be like committing suicide?

“Jonathan?”

It was Mr. Colella, back with lunch. I took a breath and forced myself to be calm. “Be right there,” I called.

I found a hose and washed the tears and dirt from my face.

“What were you doing?” asked Mr. Colella sharply, when I appeared at the door of the kitchen.

I felt an instant of anger at Mr. Colella’s tone, then felt the anger disappear. This was a sensation I had experienced often over the last several months. At first I had welcomed it. After a while the feeling had become so familiar that I usually ignored it. Now, though, it horrified me, for I finally understood that it meant I had just fed my terrible alter ego.

No more free ride, I thought. I’ve got to teach myself to be calm for real.

Doing so took most of my energy for the rest of the day. By the time I went to bed I was exhausted from trying to control my anger. Even so, sleep would not come, and when the alarm I had set to go off at two began to beep, I was still wide awake.

I reached out and snapped it off. Moving slowly, I climbed from my bed and dressed.

Half an hour later I pulled my bike to a halt in front of the Hubbard house. A cool wind whispered around me, making leaves rustle in the darkness. As I traveled up the sidewalk, the nearly full moon sent a long shadow stretching ahead of me.

I fumbled in my pocket for the key Mr. Colella had given me earlier that day. Once I had it, I paused. It wasn’t too late to turn back.

But the thing waiting inside belonged to me.

So I unlocked the door and stepped into the foyer.

“Hello, brother.”

I caught my breath. The voice came from the mirror. Had the creature known I was coming? Could it read my mind?

I turned on the light and it appeared immediately, a ravaged parody of my own face staring out from the mirror.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Saint Jonathan,” it hissed.

I took a step backward.

The image should have moved back as well, away from me. It didn’t. It stayed exactly where it was.