Lou shook her head. “As strange as it sounds, I’m not sure we’re anywhere right now.” She held out her hand. “I’m Lou. I live in California.”

“Sadie,” said Sadie, keeping her hands to herself. “Toronto.” The girls explained how they’d ended up here—Lou waking inside a giant version of her dollhouse and Sadie’s ukulele sending her into some sort of trance.

Now Cal looked shocked. “In Greencliffe, there are these ruins of an old mansion called Larkspur House. Everyone from my town knows the legends. The place is super-duper haunted. They say that every few years, a group of kids goes missing up at the site. There’re tons of articles about the disappearances online. But I think the ruins are inspiring. In fact, it’s where my friends and I filmed most of my movie. Of course, I had to beg them to come with me.” He glanced at the screen, where the green monster was using a single claw to pin a boy against a tree trunk, then he looked back at Lou. “You think this place looks like your old dollhouse?”

Lou nodded, unsure where he was going with this.

“I’m pretty sure that this house is Larkspur. Or at least it’s how Larkspur used to look, before it burned down.”

“If it burned down,” Sadie began, “then how are we standing inside it?”

Cal shrugged. “All I know is that earlier today, I came back to do more scouting for the final scenes of my movie.” Giddiness shone in his eyes. “When I stepped across the old stone foundation, it was like the ruins had turned back up into a house! I mean … Hello!” He threw his hands in the air. “The walls and floors were solid. They looked brand-new! I had to pinch myself to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming. If I am, it’s a dream come true.”

“So then, this place is Larkspur House,” said Lou. Her mind churned, thinking about her mom and aunt’s conversation. “Since my mom and aunt grew up in Greencliffe, they must have known about the mansion. And all these years later, my cousin disappears around here trying to get to a music academy.”

Cal scowled. “There is no music academy in Greencliffe. Larkspur was once home to an artist and his family, and later, it became an orphanage where a whole bunch of kids died in a fire.”

Lou’s fingers felt numb. The nightmares that had tormented her for the past few months were starting to make sense. Kids trapped in a house, pursued by a monster made of shadow. Or maybe … smoke.

“And you went there?” Sadie asked Cal. “On purpose?”

“I didn’t think anything bad would happen to me.”

“What do you think now?” Sadie gestured to the room in which they were standing.