My stomach lurches, thinking of Mason searching for his mother and not finding her.

Simon adds, “Most kids try to run back home, but Mason doesn’t have a home to go back to…” He trails off, and now I’m sure we’re all thinking the same thing. Mason could be headed anywhere, which makes this search so much scarier.

Emma wraps her arms around herself. “We know he came home around eleven, because I heard him come inside. But I don’t know how soon he left after that. His window was slightly open, so I think that’s how he left.”

“That was right after he left the house.” I look at my phone. It’s almost six, which means about seven hours have passed since I saw him last. How far could he have gone? A line from his star log comes back to me. The Earth is traveling at thirty kilometers per second. Very, very far. Especially if he could have radiated out in any direction.

“What were you kids doing at the house?” Emma asks.

All the adults eyes turn to me and my face burns. “We were looking for letters. My aunt… she left this trail of letters that we had to follow clues to find. They were all about my family’s history. Mason was helping me.”

My mom has gone completely still beside me. I’m careful not to look at her. “We couldn’t find the last letter, so last night we did a magic spell up on the roof. My great-aunts wrote it for us.”

Emma and Simon stare at me in confusion, but my mom’s voice comes clear and steady. “What kind of spell?”

“It was called a spell for lost things. We were supposed to make lists of things we’d lost.”

“What did he list?” my mom asks.

“Lots of things. Shoes and books and stuff. And then he told me about his mom. He said he didn’t know where she was and he’d been trying to find her. He said he was researching jail databases and looking anywhere he could online for information about her. And earlier this week he found an envelope with an address of a rehab facility, so he’d e-mailed the director.” My fuzzy brain is piecing it together now. “But he said the director hadn’t e-mailed him back.”

Emma and Simon exchange a long look.

“Do you know where he is?” I ask, hope pulling up the edges of my voice.

“No. But my guess is that he found her. We’d better do the same. Thank you, Willow.” Emma hesitates. “He left something for you.”

My spine snaps straight. “What is it?”