“Yes, you will,” said Sadie. “Just pay attention to what looks familiar. If I ever lose my focus while playing music, I just think back to the song’s chorus and then start again from there. Most times, my brain will reset, and I’ll be able to keep going.”

Lou pressed her lips together and nodded.

Sadie leaned closer and whispered, “I think it was a song that brought me here.”

“A song brought you here?” Lou echoed. “How?”

Sadie blinked and bit her lip. “When I was on the talent show, the judges loved me. And the audience kept voting for me to continue. Then, during my last live performance, something weird happened. My ukulele kept going out of tune. I asked if I could start over. I was sooo nervous. I played the intro again, but after a few notes, the strings snapped.”

“Oh my goodness!”

“They hit me in the face, cutting my cheek and scratching my cornea.”

Lou wished she could hug the girl, but Sadie looked stiff, like she didn’t want to be touched.

“I had to leave the show. And by the time I recovered, they’d already crowned a winner. He deserved it, I guess. But I swore I’d never play that ukulele again. My mom was furious, because she thought I was throwing away my future, but also, her own mom had given me the ukulele as a gift. It was an antique and very expensive.”

“But it hurt you. So that’s understandable.”

“Is it?” Sadie asked. “For months I had a feeling that the ukulele itself wanted me to fail. But inanimate objects don’t have feelings. Do they?”

Lou thought of her dollhouse and wasn’t sure how to answer.

“Anyway, I shut the ukulele up in its case and put it in my closet. Then, earlier this month, a song kept getting stuck in my head. It was something that I don’t remember ever hearing before. But I’d wake up in the morning with it already running through my mind, over and over. It was driving me crazy. I finally went online to look up ways to make it stop. One site recommended just playing the song until it goes away. I couldn’t think of anything better, so I grabbed my ukulele and sat down to figure out the notes.” Sadie paused, trying to catch her breath. “The next thing I knew, I was sitting in an unfamiliar room. My ukulele was gone. I was so sleepy, I could barely keep my head up. I felt like I’d just woken from a bad dream. I went off exploring, and a few minutes later, the house began to shake. And then … I found you.”

Lou trembled. “You think your ukulele had something to do with this?”