by Jason Segel
“Oh yes,” INK said. “It blew the whole place to smithereens.”
“Gee,” said Jack. “That’s terrible.”
“Not really. It happened at night,” INK said, taking another bite of her sandwich. “There was no one inside.”
“Whew,” Jack said, wiping imaginary sweat from his brow. “Well, welcome to Cyprus Creek Elementary! I’m glad you’re here, but I’m kind of surprised. I thought you’d want to go to school in Orville Falls.”
INK stopped chewing. Something about her eyes had changed. “Why would you think that?” she asked.
Jack didn’t let the question throw him for a second. “Oh, just because there’s a big house there that they call Kessog Castle. Since your last name is Kessog, I figured you must be related to the guy who built it. Was he a cousin or something?”
“He was my uncle,” INK said. “But I will never go back to that horrible place again. The people there are the worst I’ve ever met.”
The tone of her voice made it perfectly clear that her uncle and Orville Falls were not subjects she cared to discuss. “Interesting,” Charlie mumbled, wishing he had a pen to take notes. His brother and INK chewed their PB&Js in silence while Jack seemed to think about what to ask next. Suddenly the whispers from the kids at the edges of the cafeteria began to grow louder.
“Oh no,” Rocco groaned. “Things are about to get way too interesting.”
A hulking figure had stepped out of the crowd at the edges of the cafeteria and into the center of the room. A smaller creature scurried behind it, darting among the chairs. The hulk was a girl named Jancy Dare—star linebacker for the Cypress Creek Elementary football team, which Rocco captained. Jancy was taller than Rocco by three full inches, wider than him by at least six—and meaner than a sack of snakes. The nightmare of eighth-grade football players throughout the state, she was legendary for tackling quarterbacks—even those who weren’t on the field. The imp trailing behind her was a kid named Lester. No one could figure out whether he was Jancy’s boyfriend or her servant. His only functions seemed to be lugging Jancy’s backpack around, taking her abuse—and handing it right back out to everyone else.
Jancy stomped up to the table where Jack and INK were sitting. “I know you,” she said.
“I know you too,” Jack said. “We’ve gone to school together for five years. How are you today, Jancy? When does football season start?”
Lester tittered.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Captain America,” Jancy snarled. “I was talking to her.” She pointed a finger directly at INK. Its tip was less than an inch from the red tie tucked primly into the top of INK’s navy-blue pinafore.
“Cute outfit,” Lester said. “What are you? A Halloween-edition American Girl doll?”
INK said nothing. She was staring at Jancy with a look that Charlie would have called scientific—as if there were something about the linebacker’s bright red face that intrigued her.
“I had a million nightmares this summer about a kid who looked just like you,” Jancy said. “She wouldn’t leave me alone or let me get a good night’s sleep. She’d keep popping out from behind things or locking me in dark rooms. Well, now you’re in my world, sister. I don’t know how you got here, but I’m gonna pay you back. And I’m really gonna enjoy it too.”
INK’s eyes hadn’t left Jancy’s face. “I’m sorry. I’ve never seen you before, and I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m afraid you must have me confused with someone else,” she said politely.
Jancy shook her head. “Nope, I’d recognize that weird outfit anywhere. And you’ve got the accent too. So stand up and take your punishment like a woman.”
“You seem quite agitated,” INK observed, rising from her seat. “And you’re perspiring heavily. May I ask you a question? Have you recently been on the front lines of a war?”
“What the…” Jancy looked around to see if anyone else had understood. “Are you threatening me?”
“Not at all,” INK said. She didn’t look afraid.
But Charlie was worried. And he wasn’t scared that INK might get hurt. He was terrified of what was about to happen to Jancy. “I’ve seen enough,” he told Rocco. “Let’s go.”
They rushed toward the group in the center of the cafeteria. As they drew closer, he noticed that Jancy was indeed sweating buckets. There were beads of perspiration across her forehead, and the back of her shirt was soaked.
“What do you want?” Jancy demanded when she spotted Rocco heading her way.
“I want you to stop what you’re doing,” Rocco ordered the linebacker. “May I remind you that you’re still on probation for giving that quarterback a concussion last season?” Charlie recalled the incident. Jancy had been on the field—but the quarterback she’d tackled had been sitting in the stands when she’d attacked. He hadn’t even been involved in the game. “You so much as flick this girl with one finger and you’re off the team for the rest of the year.”
Jancy’s nostrils flared with rage. She was so tall that Charlie could see up her nose and halfway to her brain. “Don’t you know who this is, Marquez?” she demanded. “It’s that creepy girl we all saw in our dreams. And haven’t you and your little friend Laird been going around telling everyone they shouldn’t run from their Nightmares? Well, I’m standing right here until this one hits the road. She’s not even a real kid. She’s some kind of ghost or demon or something! Just watch!”
Jancy darted to the right and delivered a pinch to INK’s upper arm with two of her meaty fingers. Charlie saw the linebacker’s face change the moment she made contact. Whatever Jancy had been expecting, it wasn’t what she’d found. And the yelp of pain that issued from INK’s mouth made it perfectly clear that her arm was made of flesh and blood. For a moment, it seemed as if time had frozen. No one in the cafeteria moved a muscle. Charlie wasn’t even sure he was breathing. Something horrible was about to happen.
“That’s it!” Rocco charged toward Jancy, shoving Lester out of the way and sending him sailing across the cafeteria floor on his rump. “I warned you.” He stood nose to nose with the girl known across the state as the Quarterback Killer. There was no telling what might have happened if Ms. Abbot hadn’t entered the cafeteria at that very moment, searching for Ellie Hopkins’s backpack, which Charlie had completely forgotten.
“You two!” she shouted across the room. “I don’t know what’s going on over there, but you both just won a trip to the principal’s office!” The two football players were still on the verge of blows, each waiting for an excuse to tackle the other. “Now!” Ms. Abbot bellowed at the top of her lungs. It might have been Charlie’s imagination, but the lights overhead seemed to flicker.
As Rocco and Jancy marched across the cafeteria, the sound of a pencil on paper drew Charlie’s attention back to INK. She appeared to be taking notes.
“Remarkable.” INK closed the little book in which she’d been writing. “How long has the girl been like that?” she asked Charlie.
“Forever,” Charlie said. “Come with me.” He took INK by the arm, which was just as solid as any he’d ever felt, and guided her toward the door. Jack rushed after them, leaving his lunch behind on the table.
“Are you okay, India?” Ms. Abbot asked INK as they passed.
“I don’t suppose I’m the one you should be worried about,” INK replied.
Then Ms. Abbot glanced over at Charlie and Jack. “Is your school always so crazy?” she asked.
“Oh, this is nothing,” Jack replied. “You should have been here when we had a monster for a principal.”
—
Out in the deserted hall, Charlie stopped and let go of INK’s arm. He, his brother, and the strange girl stood in a circle. For the first time, Charlie had a chance to study INK up close. Her auburn hair was perfectly parted and pinned back by a tortoiseshell barrette. Her skin was the bluish white of skim milk, and the apples of her cheeks were a delicate pink. With her big brown eyes and long black lashes, she
really did resemble a doll. But not the sort of doll you’d find on a toy store’s shelves. Looking at INK was like opening a forgotten trunk in a dusty attic and discovering a perfectly preserved doll from another time tucked inside.
“I know who you are. Why are you here?” Charlie asked her. “What do you want?”
“Geez, Charlie. Way to break the ice,” Jack muttered sarcastically under his breath.
“I want to go to school,” INK told him. “The world seems to have changed a great deal while I’ve been away. There must be a lot for me to learn.”
Charlie shook his head and laughed. “Nice one. I don’t believe that for a second,” he sneered. He pointed back toward the cafeteria. “The kids in there won’t believe you either. You’ve got something planned. What is it? Are you going to blow up our school, or burn it down, like you did to that lighthouse in Maine?”
Jack gasped at his brother’s rudeness. “Charlie!”
INK stared at him with her giant brown eyes and nodded as if she finally understood. “My sister warned me it would be like this. But that’s all right. I’ll show you all exactly what I have planned.”
Then, without warning, INK bolted. She was faster than she looked, and within seconds, she’d rounded a corner. Charlie and Jack did their best to keep up, but INK had already disappeared.
Charlie and Jack raced through the streets of Cypress Creek, darting around baby carriages and leaping over dogs. Charlie reached Hazel’s Herbarium a split second before Jack did. He stood spread-eagled in the front door, blocking it so his brother couldn’t get into their stepmother’s store. But Jack just dropped to his knees and crawled between Charlie’s legs.
“Boys! What in the—” Charlotte Laird stepped out from behind the cash register and Jack sprinted across the shop to reach her. A customer watched the scene with bulging eyes and growing alarm, clutching a jumbo-sized container of fungus remover to his chest.
“INK is here!” Jack managed to shout before he fell to the floor at Charlotte’s feet, panting like he’d just carried the news over the mountains and all around town. As soon as the secret was out, Charlie’s knees buckled. He collapsed and sucked in as much air as his burning lungs could hold.
Charlotte left the boys on the floor and hurried over to her customer. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Hainey,” she said, taking him by the arm and guiding him toward the front door. “I’m afraid we have a little emergency here. Would you mind excusing us? Your fungus remover is on the house today. But please don’t forget the two rules we discussed—use it only on your feet, and a little goes a long way. Let’s avoid making the same mistake three times, shall we?”
“Of course,” the man assured her, stepping over Charlie on his way out of the shop. “Thank you for understanding, Mrs. Laird.”
As soon as he was out the door, Charlotte locked it and flipped the sign in the window to CLOSED.
When she spun around, the coils of her curly red hair were writhing like snakes. “What in the blazes is going on?” she demanded. “I’m trying to run a business here!”
Charlie began the painful work of peeling his body off the floor. “INK was at school today.”
“No!” Charlotte grabbed a table to steady herself. She looked like she’d just jammed a fork in a toaster. “At Cypress Creek Elementary?”
“Yeah, and Charlie chased her away!” Jack added.
“I did not!” Charlie growled as he stood up and brushed himself off.
Jack jumped to his feet. “Did too!” he shouted at his brother. “Charlie was rude to her and she disappeared.”
“Well, what was I supposed to do?” Charlie shouted back. “Offer her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”
“Boys!” Charlotte shouted, and the arguing stopped. “Both of you! Take a seat at the counter this instant.”
Charlie and Jack swapped snarls as they pulled stools up to the counter. Then a strange sight caught Charlie’s eye. More than two dozen potted plants sat on the floor in a corner of the room. His stepmom’s herbarium was wild and green, but she never left plants on the floor, where they might get knocked over. The pots always stayed in the windows or on the shelves. Someone had purchased these and was coming to pick them up, Charlie figured. They were packaged in clear plastic bags, and a receipt was pinned to the largest one. None of this would have been all that remarkable if it hadn’t been for the plants themselves. Charlie worked for his stepmom every weekend, and he knew the plants in the bags weren’t species Charlotte usually sold. He recognized devil’s breath, jimsonweed, foxglove, and wolfsbane among them. There were a couple of tropical specimens he couldn’t identify. But he was willing to bet that they shared one thing in common with every other plant on the floor: they were all poisonous.
Charlie heard the sound of Charlotte’s stool legs scraping across the floor. His stepmother had taken a seat across from the boys. “So INK’s finally here,” she said with a sigh.
“You knew she’d come to Cypress Creek?” Jack asked.
“I had a hunch. Where else would she go now that she’s stuck on this side?” Charlotte asked. “Her lighthouse in Maine burned down. And Kessog Castle in Orville Falls is being demolished. I saw it on the news this morning.”
Charlie shouldn’t have been so surprised to hear it. Over the summer, Kessog Castle had been home to the goblins that helped ICK and INK sell Tranquility Tonic. Once the tonic had turned the people of Orville Falls into Walkers, the goblins forced them to work at the castle as slaves. Charlie didn’t blame the town’s citizens for wanting to knock the whole place to the ground.
“INK told me today that the castle belonged to her uncle,” Jack said. “And I don’t think she liked him very much.”
“So Alfred Kessog was ICK and INK’s uncle. How interesting…” For several seconds, Charlotte seemed lost in thought. Her eyes darted from side to side, her eyebrows were knitted, and her lips formed silent words. She was on to something, Charlie could tell.
Finally he couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. “Charlotte?” he said.
Hearing her name brought her out of her trance. “What?” She looked startled to find them still sitting across from her.
Jack giggled and Charlotte broke into a grin. “Sorry, boys. I was just thinking about Alfred Kessog. They were talking about him on the news this morning. It sounds like he was a really weird dude.”
“Well, he sure did build a creepy-looking castle,” Jack said.
“Yeah, and then he locked himself up inside it,” Charlie added.
Charlotte nodded. “But the funny thing is, that’s pretty much all anyone seems to know about Alfred Kessog. The reporter said Kessog wasn’t even from Orville Falls. He paid for the castle to be built, and then he showed up one day, closed the door behind him, and refused to come out. The people in the town rarely saw him. They say he had groceries and supplies delivered and left on the doorstep.”
“He sounds a lot like…,” Charlie started.
“Silas DeChant,” his stepmother finished the sentence for him. “I thought so too.” One of Charlotte’s ancestors, Silas DeChant, had built the purple mansion they lived in as a place to hide away from the world. Alone in the mansion, he’d allowed his fears to take over his life. Eventually his terror grew so powerful that it ripped a hole in the Waking World and created a portal to the land of Nightmares.
“Do you think Alfred Kessog opened a portal to the Netherworld inside the castle?” Jack asked.
Charlotte shook her head. “If every miserable old hermit were able to open a portal, the world would be filled with portals. No, I think Alfred Kessog may have allowed his fears to do something far worse.”
“What could be worse than opening a portal and living with your nightmares?” Charlie wondered.
“Letting your fears hurt the people around you,” Charlotte said. “I’m starting to think that’s what Alfred Kessog might have done to his two young nieces. Why else would they try so hard to destroy Orville Falls? Do you remember when ICK
and INK used to send messages to your mom and me?”
Charlie couldn’t have forgotten if he’d tried. Charlotte and his mother, Veronica, had been friends when they were both Charlie’s age, and they’d visited the Netherworld together. For a few frightening months, ICK and INK had sent them a series of notes, trying to lure Charlotte and Veronica into the Netherworld version of the lighthouse where the twins lived.
“The last time your mom and I dreamed about the lighthouse, we found a note written in sand on the ground outside. It said YOU’RE ALL THE SAME. YOU’RE JUST LIKE HIM. Back then, we had no idea what that meant. But now I wonder if they might have been talking about Alfred Kessog.”
“But what does it mean, ‘You’re just like him’?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t know,” Charlotte admitted. “We didn’t ask. Your mother wanted to, but I was dead set against it.”
Jack leaned in. “Mom wanted to know?”
“Veronica had a very big heart. She thought we should leave them a note that asked, WHY? But I wouldn’t let her. ICK and INK had been terrorizing us for months. I was exhausted, and I just wanted it to end. And after that dream, it did. We never heard from ICK and INK again.”
WHY? The last time Charlie had visited his mom in the Dream Realm, she had challenged him to ask the same question. WHY had two little girls tried to destroy three worlds? Did the answer have something to do with Alfred Kessog and his castle?
—
There was a knock at the front door, and Charlotte and the boys all jumped. A small figure in a long black cape was standing on the sidewalk outside the shop. The Closed sign hid most of her face, but her lips were visible, and there was only one person in Cypress Creek who wore lipstick in such a startling shade of red. Ms. Abbot from school had come to speak to Charlie’s stepmom.
“Isn’t that the teacher from the cafeteria?” Jack whispered. “Are we in trouble or something?”
