“It is a strange building to turn into a toy store,” said Samuel. “I know it’s right in the center of town, but it still looks like it should be used for something else.”

“Storing dead bodies,” Tom suggested.

“Storing undead bodies,” Samuel offered.

“A rest home for retired vampires.”

“Kennels for werewolves.”

“Will you two shut up!” said Maria. “Look, I’ve printed off a map of Biddlecombe. I thought we could use it as the centerpiece for the project, and mark the Mould buildings on it. Then we could add a picture of each building, and a little potted history of it. Now that Samuel is going to the grand opening, maybe he can find a way to interview Mr. Grimly. Samuel might have more luck than the local paper has had. How does that sound?”

It was certainly better than anything Samuel or Tom had come up with. There were six Mould buildings in total in Biddlecombe, and they had taken two each to study. Samuel and Tom hadn’t done much more than walk by their buildings, which in Samuel’s case included Wreckit’s, and then move along as quickly as possible, but Maria had already completed her histories and taken her photos. Now, as they sat around the table, she placed dots on the map indicating the locations of the six Mould buildings.

Maria sat back. She appeared troubled.

“What is it?” asked Samuel. “Did you make a mistake?”

“She doesn’t make mistakes,” said Tom, which was kind of true. What Maria did, she did well.

“Don’t you see it?” said Maria.

Samuel and Tom didn’t see anything at all, apart from the names of streets and buildings, and six black dots. Maria picked up her pen again, grabbed a ruler, and began drawing lines on the map, connecting the dots.

“Now do you see it?” she asked.

They did. It might have been a coincidence, but if it was, then it was a very large one. The dots, when joined by lines, made a very distinct pattern. It looked like this, with Wreckit & Sons at the center:

“I could be wrong,” said Maria, “but that looks very like a pentagram.”²⁹

Samuel, Maria, and Tom talked for a long time about the pentagram. Maria was the most worried about it, and Tom the least. Samuel was stranded somewhere in the middle. It was unusual, he had to admit, but so what if weird Hilary Mould had set out to position his awful buildings in the shape of a pentagram? It just confirmed what everyone had always thought: he was as odd as two left shoes.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go to the grand reopening,” said Maria, “not until we know more. In fact, we should try to have the reopening postponed.”

“Are you mad?” said Tom. “The reopening is tomorrow, and it’s the biggest thing to have happened to Biddlecombe in years. Everybody is looking forward to it. Do you really think they’re going to call it off just because you’ve made the shape of a star on a map?”