Van and Pebble staggered onto the Fox Den grounds.
The adult Collectors had left them behind ages ago, and Van and Pebble had already made one run through the forest that night. Now, exhausted, they scrambled up a small hillside and looked across the grounds.
The Fox Den was in chaos.
The giant reception tent was on fire. Smoke and strange-colored light filled the air. A pileup of luxury cars smashed together in the drive, honking at the fire trucks trying to swerve through. In the gardens, operagoers laughed and screamed and fought. Broken scenery covered the deserted stage.
“Where’s my mom?” Van shouted, scanning the mess with rising panic.
“Where’s my uncle?” Pebble shouted back.
“Where’s Van?” shouted Barnavelt from Pebble’s head. “Oh, there you are, Van! Now where’s Pebble?”
“Should we split up?” Van whirled toward Pebble. “You could—”
But Pebble just raised one arm, pointing straight ahead.
In the wide, dark clearing across the grounds lurked a horde of Wish Eaters.
There were dozens. Hundreds. More than he’d ever counted in one place, even on the night when he’d freed several of them from the Hold. These Eaters were far larger than the ones he’d released. They were larger than any living animal he’d ever seen.
And the Collectors were racing toward them.
Van spotted Razor and Eyelet and Jack charging past the oblivious operagoers, straight toward the clearing. They were small black shapes with silver nets and flashing spears. They were hideously outnumbered.
“Meteors,” said Pebble. “Hundreds of wishes at once . . .”
Dread and helplessness and too many questions coursed through Van, nearly knocking him off his tired feet. He searched the crowd again. Still no flash of emerald green. No sign that anyone else saw the Eaters, or the Collectors, or the awful battle that was clearly about to come. “Can’t anyone see what’s happening?”
Pebble gave her head one tense little shake. “. . . All kinds of things people don’t notice.”
They both stared at the distant clearing. The first group of Collectors had nearly reached it. Eaters crept out of the shadows, the full size of their bodies creeping into the light. “Come on!” Pebble started down the slope.
Van hurried after her. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know!” Barnavelt called back from the top of Pebble’s head. “What are we going to do?”
They scrambled through the mess of granted wishes. Van spotted a heap of gemstones with three men brawling beside it, the remains of a fallen grand piano, crates of lost baseball cards and teddy bears and books that no one had ever read.
Pebble had told Van long ago that people wished for stupid things. A grand piano and books and teddy bears weren’t stupid—but what was truly stupid, Van realized, was the oblivious way the people around them were behaving, so caught up in their own wishes that they couldn’t see the dangers swirling everywhere.
In the distance, the mass of Wish Eaters loomed larger and larger. The first line of Collectors readied their lances, shouting words to one another that Van couldn’t hear. Van pushed his aching legs across the grass. And then, in the very edge of his vision, he caught a flash of emerald green.
Van whipped around.
Not far from the paths leading to the stage, his mother knelt on the ground. Mr. Grey hunched beside her. Between them, sprawled on the grass next to the broken shards of a lighting pole, was a third body.
Someone smaller. Someone who lay very, very still.
Guilt and terror pummeled Van like two fists. Oh no. Oh no. He swayed between the distant Collectors and the knot of huddled people.
No, no, no.
It was Peter. He was hurt. Maybe worse. And it was all because of what Van had done. If he had just explained to Peter—or if he had let him come along tonight, then maybe—
Maybe—
He took two faltering steps closer. Someone nearby was shouting something, but Van couldn’t turn to listen. He couldn’t see anything but the lifeless figure on the ground. He was halfway to it when someone yanked his arm so hard that it spun his body around.
“Van!” Pebble shouted into his face. “LOOK OUT!”
Van glanced back. He caught a flash of hooves. A body like a bison’s. A mouth full of fangs.
One massive Eater was charging straight toward them.
Pebble lunged to the right, dragging Van along. They pelted across the grass, dodging pools of melting chocolate, a hailstorm of falling pearls.
The Eater lunged after them. Without looking back again, Van could feel it surging nearer. A wave of cold seemed to exhale from it, as if its body was an oven filled with ice instead of fire.
They raced into the far clearing.
Other Collectors whirled around them, each one fighting a mass of howling Eaters. Eyelet swung a spear. Two Holders lashed a net around one huge Eater while two more beasts barreled closer. Razor tore through a mass of fog with his twin hooks, fresh blood streaking his hands. And Van knew that Eaters didn’t bleed.
“Tree!” shrieked Barnavelt.
Pebble yanked Van to the side. The trunk of a huge oak scraped Van’s arm. In the dimness, they’d almost hit it. The Eater changed its course too, galloping around the tree’s other side. It wheeled back toward them, drawing so close that Van could feel its cold mist on his skin.
Pebble dragged him around another tree. They raced back toward the center of the clearing. The Eater kept pace.
It was toying with them, Van realized. It was letting them tire themselves out, and then—
Then—
He skidded sideways, suddenly alone.
Pebble had let go of his arm.
Van spun to see Pebble tearing away in the opposite direction, Barnavelt’s tail streaming behind. The Eater raced after them.
“Pebble!” Van screamed.
He couldn’t even hear his own voice above his thudding heart. He was too far away to do anything but watch as the Eater ran Pebble down.
Just before the beast reached her, Pebble hit the ground.
She rolled into a ball, Barnavelt clinging to her shoulder. The Eater galloped straight over her, its momentum carrying it forward across the clearing.
Van pelted across the grass. “Pebble!” He dropped to his knees. “Are you okay?”
“What are you doing?” Pebble shouted back, unrolling herself. “That was your chance!”
“I’m not going to run away while you’re all fighting a bunch of Eaters!”
“You’re not one of us!” Pebble shot a glance across the clearing. The Eater had lumbered to a stop. Its massive head craned back toward them, its milky eyes fixing on them both. “Go!” she commanded. “Run somewhere safe!”
“No!” Van yelled. “I’m not leaving!”
“Yeah! We’re not leaving!” echoed Barnavelt.
The bisonlike Eater broke into a run. It charged closer, huge head lowered, speed building.
Pebble grabbed Van by the arm once more. This time, she took off toward the edge of the clearing, heading for the thick fence of trees.
Van caught flashes of Collectors and Eaters as they ran: Jack’s torn coat, Lemuel’s black wings circling above, three Holders slashed by a lizard-shaped beast. Noise filled his ears like gritty mud. Pebble held tight to his arm, running even faster—
Until something bashed them to the ground.
Van’s head thumped against the earth. One hearing aid tumbled out of place and vanished into the darkness. The air was crushed from his lungs. Icy cold crashed over him.
The Eater’s hooves struck the ground inches from Van’s skull. Van tucked himself into a ball and peered out through his arms. Beside him, Pebble was doing the same, her arms wrapped protectively around Barnavelt.
The Eater reared up onto its hind legs, its foggy body blotting out the stars.
Its hooves plunged down.
Before those hooves could crush them both, something slammed into the Eater’s side.
The Eater toppled sideways. Its legs thrashed at the air. Snorting angrily, it heaved itself over and lurched back onto its hooves. It took a final look at Van and Pebble—or at something just above them—before lumbering away.
Van gazed up.
A ball of mist gazed back down at him.
It had wide, round, worried eyes. It had fuzzy ears, and a lemurlike tail, and a rounded body that had once fit in the palm of Van’s hand, but that was now the size of a delivery truck.
“Lemmy?” Van breathed.
The Eater reached out with one long-fingered hand. Its fingertip, as delicate as dewdrops, touched Van on the cheek.
Van threw himself into the creature’s arms.
The Wish Eater felt cool, soft, almost insubstantial, like cotton candy made from snow. Tiny beads of mist gathered on Van’s skin as he hugged it tight.
Van leaned back, looking up into the creature’s hubcap-sized eyes. “How did you even find me? Did you follow me all the way here from the city?” He recalled the swaying branches in the forest, the sense of something huge and hidden looming over him. “Have you been following me all this time?”
The Eater just gazed steadily back at him.
“Pebble, it’s Lemmy!” Van spun toward her, beaming.
But Pebble’s face was drawn and wary. Barnavelt crouched on her head, twitching skittishly.
“It helped us,” Van prompted.
“Is it going to help us again?” asked Barnavelt.
“Again?” said Van. “What do you mean?”
“Again.” The squirrel nodded past Van, toward the middle of the clearing.
The bisonlike Eater stood at a short distance, pawing the grass.
It lowered its massive head. Then, like a silvery battering ram, it charged.
Just as its icy cold crashed over them, Van’s feet left the ground.
He was floating. No—he was flying. So was Pebble, with Barnavelt clinging to her shoulder. And so was Lemmy, who had lifted all of them straight up into the air.
Below, the charging Wish Eater skidded to a stop. Its massive body dwindled as Lemmy rose higher, other Eaters and Collectors around it shrinking into miniatures.
“Ha! You didn’t get us, you big bully!” Barnavelt shrieked back toward the ground. “Bully bull! Bull bully! Bully bully bully . . .”
Lemmy turned toward the forest, and the clearing vanished from sight.
Treetops rustled below them. The starry sky arched above. Van smiled up at Lemmy, relief and joy so light in his chest that he felt like he could have flown on his own.
He glanced at Pebble. She wasn’t smiling. Her hands clutched Lemmy’s arm so hard that her knuckles glowed white.
Far from the clearing, Lemmy descended. It set Van and Pebble in the sturdy limbs of a big oak tree and hovered beside them, shielded by the canopy, like a cloud caught beneath a leafy umbrella. Barnavelt scurried happily into the branches.
“Thank you, Lemmy.” Van reached out with one hand, holding tight to the tree with the other. The Eater bent its head to let Van rub its fuzzy ear. “You saved us twice.”
Pebble stared at the Eater with an expression of distrust. Without speaking, she reached for the lower branches.
“Pebble,” Van called. “What are you doing?”
With the leaves rustling around them, and with only one hearing aid, Van lost several of her words. “. . . back down there.”
“You’re going back down there? But—you can’t! You don’t even have a weapon. And there are too many Eaters. You’ll be—”
“. . . have to,” Pebble cut him off. “This all may fall.”
Fall? Van glanced at the sturdy branch beneath him. “Lemmy wouldn’t—”
“She said, ‘This is all my fault,’” Barnavelt put in, reappearing next to Van’s hand. The squirrel tugged the cap off an acorn and began nibbling.
“It’s not all your fault,” Van called, before Pebble could climb any farther. “It’s my fault too. We both helped bring the Collectors here. Maybe we can come up with a plan, or—”
“. . . late for plans,” said Pebble. “Any . . . not . . . stare . . . with an Eater.”
And I’m not going to stay here with an Eater. Van glanced at Lemmy, who was still watching them with round, worried eyes. “This Eater just saved your life,” he shot back.
“And other Eaters might be killing my friends!” Pebble shouted.
Another bolt of guilt and fear—this time, laced with love for Lemmy—shot through Van’s insides. Between the Collectors and the other Eaters and the chaos at the Fox Den, how could they all possibly get out of this?
“. . . understand.” Pebble’s voice was softer now. “. . . want to first.”
“She said, ‘I know you don’t understand,’” said Barnavelt helpfully, through a mouthful of acorn. “‘You’re not one of us.’”
Van swayed on the branch. He caught himself with both hands, at the same moment that Lemmy gently reached out to prop him up. “Pebble, I’m on your side.”
Pebble lunged back toward Van’s branch, so he could see her face in the dim starlight. “You’re not a Collector,” she said. “You never will be. You weren’t wished. You’re not like us.”
“But I can hear the Creatures,” Van pleaded. “I can see you. And the Eaters.”
“So can Uncle Ivor.” Pebble’s eyes were hard. “You’re a normal person who notices things. And you think that makes those things yours. Just like him.”
Her words cut Van in a raw, deep place. “I am not like him,” he said, wishing his voice hadn’t started to tremble. “Just because I can see both sides doesn’t mean . . .”
But Pebble wasn’t listening anymore.
She was staring into the distance, her eyes wide.
Van and Barnavelt and Lemmy looked too.
The sky above the Fox Den was filling with Wish Eaters. As they watched, more and more rose from the clearing, claws and tails and wings and paws massing together into a swirling silvery cloud.
Then, as one, the Wish Eaters streamed away—away from the Fox Den, away from the tree where Pebble and Van clung, staring after them. Soon they were only a faint trail of fog, and a moment later, they were nothing at all.
“Why are they leaving?” asked Van. “Where are they going?”
For a moment, Pebble didn’t speak. Then she whirled toward Van, her face hard, her eyes on fire. “We have to find my uncle. NOW.”
She scrambled down to the next branch.
“I’m coming!” Barnavelt called, stuffing the rest of the acorn into his mouth and bounding away.
“Wait,” said Van, inching after the two of them. “We didn’t see him at the Fox Den. Do you know where—”
Pebble’s voice came through the leaves. “The house.”
“But it will take us forever to get all the way back to your house!” Van turned to Lemmy. “Lemmy, you know where Mr. Falborg’s house is, right?” The Wish Eater stared steadily at him. “Can you take us there?”
The Eater’s eyes brightened. It scooped Van into one arm.
“Pebble,” Van called as Lemmy floated past the branch where she clung. “Lemmy will take us straight to the house. Come on.”
Pebble shot him a look that said she’d rather ride a giant tarantula made of poison ivy. She scrambled unsteadily for the next branch, muttering something that Van couldn’t hear.
“What did she say?” Van asked Barnavelt.
“Oh. ‘You can’t trust an EATER,’” the squirrel answered cheerily, bouncing along the branch between them. “She also said, ‘Are you crazy?’ Do you want me to tell her yes or no?”
“Lemmy is helping us,” Van insisted. “You saw it for yourself. Maybe Wish Eaters are only dangerous if people have been keeping them in boxes or cages for years and poking them with iron spikes.”
Pebble didn’t answer. Her sandals skidded on the next branch.
“It’s going to take you half an hour to climb down one tree,” said Van. “Aren’t we in a hurry?” He leaned toward Pebble over Lemmy’s misty arm. “I know you don’t trust Eaters. But I trust this one. Don’t you trust me?”
Finally Pebble halted. She turned toward Van, avoiding Lemmy’s eyes. Her face was furious. “Fine,” she muttered. “. . . Otherwise . . . too late.”
Lemmy opened its free arm. Pebble edged along the branch toward it. She let the Wish Eater scoop her gently into the air, still not looking at its face. Her lips were pale and tight.
Barnavelt took a flying leap to Pebble’s head. “Wheeeeeee!” the squirrel crowed. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
Lemmy rose through the trees. It broke through the leafy canopy, and the night sky with its steadily burning stars surrounded them once more.
The Wish Eater steered toward the Falborg estate. As they skirted the Fox Den, Van caught the scent of smoke and the flash of red emergency lights. His thoughts shot to Peter, lying so still on the ground. His heart clenched. But he couldn’t change what had happened. He could only try to stop things from getting even worse.
“Wheeee!” Barnavelt squealed again. “I’ve never climbed up this high before! Pebble, have you ever climbed up this high? Hey! Van! You’re up here too! Isn’t this great? Hey! Where are we going?”
The Wish Eater soared steadily ahead. Treetops rushed past their dangling feet. In minutes, the Falborg mansion appeared ahead of them, its peaked tower jutting through the woods.
Lemmy descended into a grove of pines at the edge of the Falborg lawn. Van and Pebble slipped out of the Eater’s arms.
“Thank you, Lemmy.” Van reached up to touch the Eater’s dewy side.
“Yes,” Pebble mumbled. “Thanks.” She gazed at the Wish Eater for a moment, as though she might be about to say something else. But she whirled around and took off toward the house instead.
“She says, ‘Hurry up, Van!’” the squirrel yelled from her shoulder.
“Lemmy.” Van patted the Wish Eater’s foot. “You should go. Hide somewhere safe. We don’t want Mr. Falborg trying to re-collect you.” He fought a sudden tightness in his throat. “But I hope . . . I hope I’ll see you again.”
Lemmy gave Van a shy smile before whisking off into the trees. In a blink, it was gone.
Van rushed to catch up with Pebble.
The brick mansion loomed before them, a still, sharp silhouette against the wavering darkness of the woods. Lights burned in the lower windows.
Pebble flung open the front door. “Uncle Ivor!” She stormed into the entry, Van tagging after. The light of the crystal chandeliers made him squint.
“Uncle Ivor!” Pebble yelled again. Her voice rang from the high ceiling. “Where are you?”
“Mabel?”
The voice wasn’t Mr. Falborg’s.
Van whipped around. Two figures emerged from a doorway to their left: a tall, broad-shouldered man with wavy gray hair and a woman in a neat linen suit.
Hans and Gerda.
Mr. Falborg’s staff looked down at them with warm, surprised eyes.
“Why, Mabel,” said Gerda, in the swooping accent that Van remembered. “Look achoo. What . . . all muddy . . . dis?”
“And Master Markson,” said Hans, putting a big hand on Van’s shoulder. “You look . . . all right?”
“He asked, ‘Are you all right?’” prompted the squirrel on Pebble’s shoulder. “Well, are you?”
Van’s tongue went numb.
Hans and Gerda had always been kind to him. Of course, that was back when he was on Mr. Falborg’s side. Did they know he was an enemy now?
“I . . . ,” he began.
Pebble saved him by interrupting. “Where’s Uncle Ivor?”
“Mr. Falborg . . . beck . . . opera yet,” answered Gerda. “Come into the kitchen. . . . cleaned up. But Mabel . . .” She frowned at the squirrel on Pebble’s shoulder. “I don’t tink you should bring dat dirty rodent in here.”
Without answering, Pebble dodged past Hans and Gerda. She plowed through the doorway where they’d emerged, Van once again racing to catch up.
“Mabel!” Gerda called after them. “What are you doing?”
“Did that woman call Van a dirty rodent?” Van heard Barnavelt ask. “That’s not very nice.”
Pebble rushed through a large, well-lit kitchen. A cup of steaming tea and an unfinished game of cards lay on the kitchen table. The air smelled faintly of cinnamon. Van wished he could plunk down in a padded chair, sip a cup of something warm, and play a lazy game of Go Fish—but the world of safe and comfortable things was falling apart around them. He wasn’t sure that world would ever come back. Pebble hurried to the back of the kitchen, and Van hurried after her, with Gerda and Hans shuffling confusedly behind.
Inside a huge walk-in pantry, Pebble wrenched open a wooden door. A burst of cool air swirled through it. On the other side, Van made out a flight of stairs leading steeply downward.
The cold, stone-scented air sent Van’s thoughts to the Collection, to that long staircase descending into the darkness. Pebble charged down the stairs ahead of him. She flicked on a light switch as she ran.
Van followed her into the mansion’s basement.
The basement had high ceilings, stone walls, and several huge chambers branching off from a central room. Dusty lights glowed from the rafters. It was the kind of place where a very wealthy person might store thousands of bottles of wine, or build a hidden swimming pool, or install a giant pipe organ. Van had seen basements like this one beneath French châteaus. But Mr. Falborg’s basement didn’t have a wine cellar or a swimming pool or a pipe organ.
It had boxes. Empty boxes.
They were scattered across the stone floor, tumbling from shelves and spilling from every corner. Small cardboard boxes. Wooden chests. Brass-tacked steamer trunks. All of them were open, their lids gaping or tossed aside. And all of them were empty.
“Should’ve known . . . ,” Pebble breathed, her words carrying through the still underground air.
“Known what?” asked Van, scurrying closer.
“All those Eaters at the Fox Den.” Pebble gestured to the empty boxes, to the open doorways of the basement’s other chambers. “They were his.”
She pressed her hands to either side of her head. The squirrel skittered out of the way of her fingers.
Pebble mumbled something that sounded like All the pain . . .
“What is she saying?” Van asked Barnavelt.
The squirrel blinked back at him. “Oh. She says it was all a plan. That Uncle Ivor knew about the meteor shower, and that there would be a big crowd at the opera for opening night. He must have had Hans and Gerda release the Eaters while he was at the Fox Den, so they could eat all the wishes that the crowd made and grow huge and powerful. Then he sent them away. And I know where they went. Wait.” The squirrel blinked again. “I don’t know where they went.”
“I do.” Van recalled the Wish Eaters dwindling into the distance. “They went to the city.”
Pebble nodded. “To the Collection.” Now her voice was like ground glass. It sawed straight into Van’s ears. “But the Holders are here. Because I called them here.”
“So the Hold will be unguarded,” Van said, putting the rest of the pieces together. “Mr. Falborg’s Eaters will swarm in and release all the other Eaters, and destroy the Collection, and then . . .”
Pebble finished for him. “He’ll have an army.”
Van began to ask another question, but Pebble suddenly froze. Her eyes went wide. Her head whipped toward the top of the stairs.
It was only then that Van realized something: Hans and Gerda hadn’t followed them into the basement.
There was a thump as the basement door swung shut.
A look of fear and fury flashed across Pebble’s face.
“What is it?” asked Van.
“I don’t know,” answered Barnavelt. “But I think I heard a click. Did I hear a click?” The squirrel paused for an instant, glancing from Pebble to Van. “Oh. That makes sense.”
“What makes sense?”
Barnavelt’s inky eyes stared at him. “Pebble says, ‘They locked us in.’”