Tick stared, wondering if anyone in history had ever answered a question as poorly as Rutger just had. “What are you talking about?”

Rutger put two fingers together and swiped them across his lips, the age-old sign for zipping one’s mouth shut.

“Fine,” Tick muttered. “Be back in a minute.”

He walked up the porch steps and opened the front door. Just before he stepped into the house, Tick heard Rutger say something creepy.

“Good. Because when you get back, we need to talk about dead people.”

Chapter

16

~

Nowhere in Between

Tick wasted five minutes searching for the box in the basement where his old clothes were stored—the ones his mom couldn’t bear to part with. He finally spotted it and pulled almost everything out before he found a pile of shoes of varying sizes. He chose three pairs that seemed the closest to Rutger’s size, then rummaged through everything else again, searching for mittens or gloves. He found nothing.

He walked back upstairs, still doing his best to keep quiet, and dove into the closet holding all of their winter clothing. He finally came across a pair of yellow mittens his grandma in Georgia had knitted out of yarn a long time ago. They’d been his once, but Kayla had been wearing them ever since she destroyed her own pair in the fireplace. Tick tried not to laugh at the thought that they should fit Rutger just perfectly.

I can’t believe I have a Hobbit in my own front yard.

Holding in a snicker, he went outside.

~

“Oh, those will do just fine. Just fine! Thank you.” Rutger hurriedly pulled on the mittens, then replaced his worn shoes with a pair of sneakers that Tick must’ve grown out of very quickly because they still looked relatively new.

“Glad to be of service,” Tick said, settling on the step beside his new friend. He shivered from the cold and tightened his scarf around his neck. “Now I think you had a lot to tell me? What was that about dead people?”

The little man rubbed his newly wrapped hands together and leaned against the step behind him. “Ah, yes, dead people. There’s a phrase that Mas—” He caught himself before saying anything else, looking at Tick with guilt written all over his face.

“What?” Tick asked.

“Oh, nothing . . . nothing. I was just going to say that there’s something a good friend of mine always says: ‘Nothing in this world better reflects the difference between life and death than the power of choice.’ Says that all the time, my friend does.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

Rutger looked at him intently. “What’s your name, son?”

“Atticus Higginbottom. Or Tick.”