Chapters (38)
- Front Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Back Cover
“Go away, bug,” Maren’s voice came out a squeak, and she couldn’t get her hand to stop shaking as she held it up to the insect’s huge, furry snout. “Shoo. Shoo.”
The caterpillar sprang at Maren, its jaws wide enough to swallow her head. With a scream, she covered her face.
And lurched sideways.
Someone had pulled her inside the building. It was so dark she couldn’t see a thing.
“Amos,” she gasped.
Someone’s arm slid around her waist, urging her farther inside the building. Maren wrenched away and ran toward a rectangle of dim, gray light.
A cavernous space opened up in front of her. A theater filled with gilded chairs and wine-red carpets on a slanting floor that led to a broad stage with its velvet curtains closed. The domed ceiling was painted like a sky, and the marble columns supporting it were carved with angels and demons and fairies and monsters. As Maren ran down the aisle, the theater began to flicker, its colors washing in and out, and she caught glimpses of gray and dirt under the burgundy and brocade. Flashes of rusty pipes and wires, rotten carpet, and broken glass.
Somewhere in the theater, a piano began to play. An eerie, tinkling tune like something out of a music box in a horror movie.
“Amos!” She’d forgotten him again—she couldn’t think straight. Maren whirled around and tried to run up the incline, but the carpet began to slide under her feet. It grew softer and deeper, and her feet disappeared into it. Down, down, down Maren sank until the carpet came up to her hips. At the back of the theater, two figures appeared, one holding the other up. A boy and a tall, thin woman.
“Amos!”
The carpet snuck up to Maren’s chin. It trapped her arms, and her feet kicked uselessly against its scratchy softness. Down she sank until the carpet closed over her head, and she didn’t know which way was up or down, and everything was scratchy and stifling.
Then it all went black.
Twenty-One
Maren’s eyes drifted open. She sat slumped on a metal chair with her face on a table and a string of drool trailing down her cheek. The dim light hurt her eyes. Gingerly, she eased her head up and wiped crust from the corner of her lips. As her vision adjusted, her surroundings began to take shape.