Mothball sat across from him, folding up her huge legs underneath her. “No offense, lad, but methinks I’ve had enough of yer questions for now. Save them for Master George, and we’ll all be a mite happier indeed.”

Tick knew something amazing was about to happen, and his insides swelled with butterflies, like the last moment before a roller coaster shoots down its first gigantic hill. “Whatever you say, Mothball. I’ll shut up.”

“Now there’s a line I’d wish old Rutger’d learn to say. That wee little fat man could talk the ears off a mammoth, he could.”

Tick laughed, but didn’t say anything, keeping his promise.

“All right, that about does it, I’d say,” Mothball said to herself as she settled her body, growing still. “Just keep yourself nice and comfy there, lad, and good old Master George will wink us away any minute.”

There was that word again. Wink. Tick almost asked about it, but kept quiet, nervously pulling on his scarf.

“Feel a little tingle on yer neck and back, you will,” Mothball whispered. “Things’ll change then, right quick. Try to keep yer pants on straight and don’t go screamin’ like a baby or you might just drown. Come to an understanding, have we?”

Tick nodded, his thrill of anticipation suddenly turning a little sour. Drown?

Before he could dwell on what she meant, he felt cold pinpricks along the back of his spine, a quick wave that he might not have noticed if he hadn’t been waiting for it.

Then, as promised, everything changed.

In less time than it took to form a single conscious thought, Tick found himself thousands of miles from the graveyard. He sat in the same position as before, but now he was sitting inside a small raft, bobbing up and down in the middle of a dark and choppy sea of black water.

And it was raining.

Chapter

39

~

A Lot of Water

Nothing happened to mark their transportation from one place to another. No booming alarm, no bright flash of light, no movement of any kind. Tick and Mothball simply went from sitting across from each other on a small patch of grass in the middle of a cemetery to sitting across from each other on a raft in the middle of the ocean.

Heavy, cold rain fell from a sky Tick couldn’t see, pelting his entire body, sluicing down the inward sides of the small boat and forming a standing pool of water. Mothball still had her flashlight fully ablaze; the light cast an eerie cone of radiance revealing countless pellets of rain and a small circle of angrily churning waters just a few feet from where they floated. The raft rocked back and forth, up and down, already making Tick’s stomach ill.