JASON AND CONNIE watched it all happen from outside of the house. The bedroom windows went fuzzy, and he started screaming, “Bring me back inside! I need to help Lou!”

But Connie blinked, unaffected. “I won’t. Not when you’re like this. Remember what happened last time you drew attention to yourself? You ended up way out there.” Connie looked to the darkness.

“But Lou needs me.” His voice broke. “Marcus … Marcus might hurt her.”

Connie was controlled, her tone even, as if she’d seen it all before. And she had. “Remember what you wanted to tell your sister earlier?” she asked. “The only way to stop the creature that lives in this place is to control your fear. What you’re doing now is only going to make it stronger. Look.” She nodded at the part of the house that had crumbled when Sadie had gone home. The foundation had already re-formed, and the walls had appeared again. “A direct result of what just happened. The house knew that you and the others figured out a way to beat it. It got rid of Cal, knowing how that would affect all of you. Now it’s using your new fear to give itself life. This is exactly what my father’s society wanted to have happen when they marked those objects with the cursed symbols. We mustn’t fall for the trap.”

Jason took a deep breath, trying to find a quiet spot inside his head—somewhere he could hide from his worry. But it was as if his brain had taken away all the secret and safe memories that he usually depended on. All he could think of were his parents fighting about …

1. Money
2. Blaming each other for stupid stuff
3. Lou’s nightmares …

He needed to get Connie to see that he was calm. “Why did Marcus do it?” he asked. “I don’t buy Cal’s horror-movie explanation. Is my cousin evil? Did the house force him? Or was Marcus paying Cal back for betraying Nina?”

Connie stared at him, as if he were a book she were trying to read as pages kept turning on her. “I don’t know what Marcus was doing. I don’t know why he’s still at Larkspur while the others he came with are—”

“Jason!” A voice was calling to him from inside the house.

It was Lou.

Instinct made him tense up again, but Jason knew that Connie would only be angry with him if he flipped out. “She needs me,” he said quietly. “You know it’s true. Or you wouldn’t have brought me here in the first place.”

Connie smiled sadly and then nodded. She held out her hands to him. But before Jason could take them, movement blurred the darkness behind her. A pale face appeared. Dark eyes and red curly hair.

“Marcus,” Jason whispered. “How did you get out here?”