I opened and closed my mouth – he’s unreal. ‘How d’you know that?’

‘Dad told me. We’ve got one.’

The noise went high and then low as the wind climbed and fell like a bunch of witches moaning. Then it came closer and whined through the top of the hedge, high and screechy, like someone had set it free. Then silence.

‘Ha!’ I said. ‘This place is creep city. How can the wind come from nowhere so fast? Maybe he’s got a weather machine.’

‘If there’s even any such thing …’ Sam’s eyebrows went frowny and surprised. ‘Look at that.’

A bunch of seagulls had been picking over the soil in the field next to the Strider’s trees. I’d noticed them out of the corner of my eye – bending their heads to the ground, pecking at things – but now every single seagull head was upright and looking around.

‘See that?’ Sam said. ‘Like it was a plan.’

The back of my neck tingled. ‘What’ve they heard?’

All together, the seagulls took one step towards the trees and lifted their heads to the sky. They took another step, and bowed their heads down low, shaking their tail feathers, all still heading for one tree.

I felt the hairs at the back of my neck rising. But then the seagulls took off. They flew towards that one tree, then glided around in the air above it, easily, as if they were surfing on something invisible that was pouring from it.

My breath came out in a squeak. ‘Yo. Time to ride air currents.’

The wind stopped and the branches dropped, like someone big had let them go.

And then the seagulls flew away in different directions, leaving us staring at nothing but empty treetops.

We biked up to the main gateway and looked across the front garden at the house. My heart still thudded from the seagulls, but there was no car, no sign of anyone home. Dark windows with nothing moving behind them. Dirty grey cracks running down the white walls like lightning streaks. A plant had grown up as far as the roof, then died. Brown strings of it hung like a mouldy beard.

I inched towards the gateway. Sam didn’t move.

‘Hey, come on,’ I said. ‘I know you’ve heard freaky stories, but we won’t find out anything till we investigate. All that Cloaked Strider junk might be a trick. He keeps everyone out – he gets to do whatever he’s doing in secret.’

That didn’t explain the seagulls. Sam looked like he was thinking that exact thought.

I took a deep breath, said, ‘Yay, nobody in!’ then ditched my bike and did football-celebration moves in the gateway.

‘Stop it, twit,’ Sam snapped.

‘What’s wrong? There’s nobody to see us. Weather machines and weird beasts, remember? Just a quick look in case we can see something working.’