“You want me to get Dad?” I asked. “I can wake him up.”

Jack’s eyes blazed.

“You cannot, actually.” Blinky’s voice was apologetic. “He will not wake until first light.”

“Why? What did you do to him?”

Blinky fluttered various tentacles. “Posh! Details are unimportant—”

“Tell me.”

“I predict you will find it unappetizing. But as you wish. We have introduced into his digestive system a schmoof. A schmoof is, oh, how shall I put this? I shall just come out with it. It is a fetus. We have a few on generous loan from the Schmooffingers. Seeking a womblike warmth, the young schmoof crawls in through the mouth and down the esophagus and burrows into the stomach lining, where its enzymes release a powerful sedative effect upon its host. Schmooffingers are renowned for their sleeping. They have sixty-six different words for snoring. To catalogue every possible permutation of slumber is their raison d’être. To that end, they sleep for eleven hours a day. The twelfth hour—well, it’s best not to be around then, I’ll leave it at that. Now, do not fret. Being extremely sensitive to sunlight, the schmoof will crawl back up the esophagus at dawn, la-dee-dah, and find its way home through a drain, at which point your father will wake up feeling refreshed and—”

“You put a troll fetus into my dad’s mouth?”

“Jim!” Tub shouted. “What the hell?!”

“Schmoof,” ARRRGH!!! grunted. “Is friend. Good for ache of head.”

She gestured at what looked like a large boulder halfway embedded in her skull.

“We have aspirin for that!” I cried. “Aspirin! Not fetuses!”

“Oh dear,” Blinky said. “I suspected that this was a bad topic with which to begin a friendship.”

“Enough.”

Jack’s young face was twisted into a snarl. The single word, only his second, seemed to have taken a deal of energy. His chest rose and fell beneath his armor of junk. He glared at Tub and I, then glanced at the trolls before jabbing an impatient thumb toward my bedroom.

Blinky’s tentacles spread out in a way that somehow communicated apology. He then explained to me, in sentences that were, for him, remarkably concise, that we all had to go, right now, and then he told me why. I was more afraid of Uncle Jack than these two walking nightmares and found myself nodding agreement to whatever came out of Blinky’s strange mouth.

“What’s it saying, Jim?” Tub pressed. “What’s going on?”

Even before I replied, I could not believe my response.

“We’re going hunting.”

Part III

19.

The floorboards beneath my bed telescoped downward, a whirlpool of wood, the boards cracking and popping as they locked themselves into a new alignment: a spiral staircase of treacherous, uneven steps. The stinky sock Tub had mocked earlier went tumbling down the stairs until it was swallowed by darkness. A few rogue marbles followed suit and we did not hear them land.