I scrubbed the crud in the shower as if it were a flesh-eating disease. The gray water swirled down the drain, and I watched it until I remembered where drains led. I fled from the bathroom, threw on clothes, and after some deliberation brought out the medallion. Menacing though it was, it felt no different in my hand than any earth-built piece of jewelry. There was no more magic in this thing than there was in a class ring, and there was one way to prove that to myself.

I put it on.

Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.

I exhaled in relief—a small victory for common sense. I tucked the medallion beneath my shirt. After a full day of wearing it, maybe the rest of the suffocating fear would go away, too.

My plan was to dart into the kitchen to grab my sweatshirt and be out of the house in seconds. But as I was throwing it over my head, I smelled the strangest thing. I poked my head from the top of the sweatshirt to find my dad putting strips of crispy bacon upon a plate and transferring that plate to the table, where a steaming stack of pancakes awaited. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I hadn’t seen such a feast since before Mom left. Dad sat down and took a satisfied pull of his coffee.

“Great timing, Jimmy. Pull up a chair.”

Dad was whistling. Sure, it was Don and Juan’s “What’s Your Name?” but still—whistling? It was so unprecedented that for a moment I forgot everything else.

“You okay, Dad?”

“Better than okay. Had the best sleep of my life last night. Jimmy, I tell you, I haven’t slept that well since I was little, back when I shared a room with my brother, Jack. Never thought I’d sleep that well again.”

He absently touched his Excalibur Calculator Pocket, as if fantasizing about how he might even find the courage to stand up for himself at work. His fingers moved to the Band-Aid on his glasses, and he nodded as if deciding to fix those frames once and for all. I’d never seen him so happy. I couldn’t help it; I smiled back. He reached across the table for the syrup.

That’s when I saw the little trail of sores leading from the corner of his lip, across his jaw, and down his neck, and remembered that terrible sound coming from his bedroom the night before: Sluuuurp. Sluuuurp. Sluuuurp. Sluuuurp.

He beamed at me and a scab from one of the sores flaked onto his pancakes.

“Have a seat,” he said. “I think things are finally turning up Sturges.”

The tableful of food was left behind. I was out the door and on my bike in seconds. It was the first day of the Festival of the Fallen Leaves, and all sorts of roads were blocked off. I made the mistake of heading straight toward the Kids’ Jubilee on Main Street, but managed to cut across the town square before having to dodge three hundred costumed kids. Ignoring every honked horn and middle finger offered by affronted motorists, I swerved down side roads like my life depended on it, which, at this point, I was pretty sure it did.