Funny. He could have sworn he was back in the same House he’d shared with his compatriots. It certainly looked and felt that way to him. But he seemed to be completely alone, and he wondered if they’d been trapped somewhere else. In their own pasts, perhaps.

Or if they’d been killed.

He hoped to God that wasn’t the case.

Stormy walked into the dining room, into the kitchen. There were crackers in one of the cupboards, and he took out the box, grabbing a handful. He was hungry, he realized. He felt as though he’d been running a marathon or working out in a gym. He was drained, enervated, and he felt the need to bolster himself with nourishment. He searched through all of the other cupboards as well as the refrigerator, but he found only two other items.

A can of fruit cocktail.

And a hunk of cheddar cheese.

He ate neither, left them in the cupboard and refrigerator, respectively, feeling chilled.

He finished off the box of crackers, poured himself a glass of water.

So what was next?

It was clear that he had done something, accomplished something. He’d been set down in the household of his childhood for a reason, and while that reason was still unclear, the fact that he was back, had been returned, meant that he had completed whatever it was he’d been expected to do.

But the purpose of it was still unknown, even the assumptions behind it nebulous. How could changing the specifics of his own past life affect anything having to do with the Houses and this border that was supposed to protect—what?—the known universe from supernatural forces?

It was the mixture of the cosmic and the personal that he found so hard to accept. He had never bought into the Christian idea that God would ignore wars and atrocities and holocausts yet intervene on behalf of a housewife with marital problems. It seemed absurd and inconsistent to him. Highly illogical, to quote the great Mr. Spock.

But he knew now that the Infinite was illogical, that the epic and the intimate were inexorably intertwined, and while it might be hard to grasp and difficult to adjust to, a missed appointment could have as much consequence as the troop movements of an army a thousand soldiers strong, could lead to the movement of an army a thousand soldiers strong. In the grand scheme of things, individual actions and large-scale events were both equally important. Here in the House and on the Other Side, that truism seemed to be even more pronounced. Feelings and emotions were as tangible as actions, and while he might not understand the specifics of it, he knew that reconnecting with his parents and confronting Donielle had somehow had a profound impact on the House and therefore the world.

He looked out the kitchen windows at the white fog that obscured whatever lay outside.