3

As Corey stepped outside on a foggy Halloween morning, he was not surprised to find a horse, a buggy, and a plastic pack full of blood.

For a week, his whole block had been transformed into a set for the movie Victorian Zombies of Olde Manhattan. The street really did look olde. Gas lamps were installed at the curbs, plastic cobblestones were laid over the blacktop road, and all the neighbors had had to move their cars out of sight. Last night Corey had snuck a peek out his window at a noisy shoot-out scene with horses, carriages, and people in old-timey costumes. Lots of fake blood had sprayed from the actors as they pretended to drop dead. It was beyond awesome.

Now Corey knew how they did the spurting-blood part—square plastic packs of red goo! Genius.

He strode to the blood pack, which was lying on the sidewalk. Without any traffic on the block, he could hear his own footsteps. He smelled horse manure. The whole scene made him feel like a kid in the late 1800s. Standing straight, he called out over his shoulder to Zenobia, who was climbing up the steps from their apartment, hunched over her phone: “What a glorious morning, dear sister—but, hark, what lies on yonder pavement? It suggests blood, in color and in thickness!”

“Ew,” Zenobia grunted. “One of the stunt people must have dropped it. And stop pretending you’re in the past. It’s so nerdy. They didn’t talk like that, anyway.”

“How dost thou knoweth this?” Corey looked up and down the block and smiled. “Admit it, this whole thing—this movie set—it’s awesome! Doesn’t it change you inside? Make you feel like you’ve stepped into another time?”

“Pssht,” Zenobia replied, which was her way of saying no, when no wasn’t strong enough. “I auditioned to be an extra. But they took Emma Gruber from Number Thirty-six instead. She even got her SAG card. She’s fakey, and so is this set.”

“And a SAG card is . . . ?” Corey asked.

Zenobia rolled her eyes. “It means you’re a professional movie actor.”

“I sag. Can I get one?” Corey was thirteen and barely one hundred pounds. If you counted his stupendous nest of hair (thanks to his Greek American dad and Puerto Rican mom), he was already more than six feet tall. So in truth, he was in the habit of sagging when he talked to his shorter friends.

But Zenobia would not dignify his question, so he bent over to pick up the blood pack from a pile of swirling red and yellow leaves. Next to the dropped pack were a dropped fake cigarette, a dropped New York City MetroCard, and a dropped silver-chain necklace with a large oval-shaped locket, all of which (except the cigarette) he slipped into his pocket while Zenobia was looking at her phone.

Corey held up the fake-blood packet, which was labeled Property of Gotham Cinema Solutions. “How do you think it works—do they just squeeze it and . . . goosh?”

Zenobia sighed with great drama. For days she had been composing a symphony based on her epic poem, The WestSidiad, mostly during her subway rides to Stuyvesant High School. With her red cat-eye glasses, close-cropped hair, and black-on-black wardrobe, she never seemed exactly cheery, but interruptions by Corey made her downright mad. “Well, duh, the actors can’t be squeezing those things by themselves on camera, right? So the packs must be hooked up to some kind of wireless detonator. When the shot rings out, someone presses a button on a device, and—”

“Goosh!” Corey exclaimed.

“You said that already,” Zenobia snapped. “Work on your vocabulary.”

“Splursh?” Corey offered.

Zenobia groaned. “Did the hospital switch my real brother with you at birth?”

“Ha ha. Not funny.”

“I’m serious. You don’t look like Mom or Dad.”

“I look exactly like Papou,” Corey said. Which was true. “Plus, he liked to pretend to be in the past. Remember our alter egos?”

“Otto and Bimbo Something?”

“Oliver and Buster Squires, Gentlemen of the Distant Past from the Town of Twit.”

“Right. He made you wear a monocle.” Zenobia smiled faintly. “That was back before you became Nerd on a Stick. When you were cute. And he was alive.”

“I’m still cute,” Corey said. “And he’s still alive.”

“Corey, let’s not start this again.”

“Well, that’s what I believe,” Corey said defiantly.

“Welcome to the Never-Ending Fantasy World of Corey Fletcher.” Zenobia turned silently and began walking up the street toward the subway. Corey saw only the back of her head, but he could tell she was sneering.

That was when he had his first really bad idea of the day.

He examined the blood pack. It seemed pretty clean. He spat on it, rubbed it on his shirt for good measure, then put it in his mouth. Tucking it into his left cheek, he followed Zenobia up the street. “Hey, Zenobe! Hit me. Seriously, just slap me in the face. Lightly.”

She pulled out one of her earbuds and said over her shoulder, “First, that thing was on the sidewalk, so you probably have a communicable disease. Second, if you think you’re going to bite down and spray me with fake blood, save it for your middle school friends. And, oh, by the way, your school is in the opposite direction.”

Corey felt himself sag again. He stopped, watching her walk toward Central Park West. Then, in a perfect imitation of Papou’s Greek-accented voice, he said, “Don’t take any wooden neeckels!”

Zenobia ignored him.

Traffic whizzed by in both directions on Central Park West, but police barricades blocked the end of Ninety-Fifth Street, so none of the vehicles could turn in to the movie set. As Zenobia veered left toward the subway stop, Corey could hear the soft clopping of a horse behind him.

He turned.

A couple of trainers were leading a horse with a lustrous brown coat and tufts of white ankle hair up the block. They had come from the direction of the trailers parked around the corner, and they were giving the horse exercise, brushing it gently. With no cars parked at the curb, the hoof steps echoed crisply against the fronts of the four-story brownstone apartment buildings. Corey smiled. In the morning sun, the buildings glowed and the windows cast deep shadows. Columns, flat fronts, massive stoops or none, brick walls or stone—they were like people shoulder to shoulder, with different faces and personalities. Even though he saw them every day, Corey had never really noticed how unusual and unalike they were.

His phone chimed, breaking the spell. This would be Leila Sharp, his best friend, who always texted at this time. Fishing out the phone, he quickly answered.

meet at my house 2 walk 2 school?

u mean like we do EVERY SINGLE MORNING lol???

hahaha. b nice.

nice is my middle name. corey nice fletcher.

don’t b late. ;)

Leila liked to be early for everything. But George Washington Carver Middle School didn’t start for another fifteen minutes and it was only on the next block, which meant maybe a four-minute walk.

So Corey had time. And when he had time, his mind kicked into gear.

At the moment, his mind was feeling guilty about snatching the MetroCard and the locket from the street. Whoever dropped them would be missing them. So with his extra time he could return the items. The movie people probably had some kind of Lost and Found. And those people were always in big white trailers parked along Central Park West, which was on the way to school. He thought about returning the blood pack, too. But he decided to keep it where it was, parked inside his cheek. No one wanted a drool-covered blood delivery device.

Walking up the street, he pulled the chain from his pocket. The locket caught, so he had to give it a good yank. It was pretty big and clunky, at least an inch around, and as it popped out, the hasp sprang open.

Corey was not surprised to see a funky old faded photo inside. But he was surprised by a flash of darkness all around him—a silent, momentary blackness. Like a sudden eclipse, or a spell of blindness as if something had hit him in the head.

He let out a squeak that would have been embarrassing if anyone had been there to hear him. With his free hand he felt the top of his head. No ache, no bump, no unusual object on the ground.

Bending his knees, he took a deep breath. Then he glanced upward into a stormy sky, thick and white with fog.

It was nothing. His stomach felt a little funny, but that would be nerves. Nerves and an overactive imagination.

He glanced at the open locket in his hand, which showed a badly faded sepia photograph of a woman. She was looking off to the left, but that’s about all Corey could tell. The image was so old and washed-out, she could have been a dolphin with hair.

Lightning flashed, followed by a clap of thunder. In a nanosecond, his mom would be shouting from the window for him to take an umbrella. Corey hated umbrellas.

But as he ran toward Central Park West, his hand began to sting. Now the locket was smoking hot. A tiny wisp of smoke rose from the metal.

With a muffled cry, he moved it from hand to hand until it cooled. If there was lightning, that meant electricity in the air—and maybe it had conducted through the locket. Like the key on Ben Franklin’s kite. Was that possible? Could a person holding a lightning-struck locket survive?

“What the heck?” he murmured.

Leila would know. She knew everything. Forget about returning this thing. He’d take it straight to her. This was too weird to let go of.

As he tried to snap the locket shut again, he caught a glimpse of the faded portrait. Now he could make out a smile. The woman didn’t seem so dolphin-like anymore. Her eyebrows were thick and her cheek was adorned with a dark mole. Her hair bunched up unevenly where it was pulled back by a ribbon.

With his free hand, he rubbed his eyes. Now he was able to see the ridge of her nose and the lace on her collar. The face was becoming clearer, the background whiter.

“Hello! You there!”

A booming voice made him nearly drop the chain. He looked up. A man with a handlebar mustache and a thick woolen uniform was riding a horse toward him. It was a different horse from the one he’d just seen, thicker chested and not nearly as shiny. The other horse and its handlers were gone, and this guy did not look happy.

Corey knew that expression. He’d seen one of the movie people with that same look the day before. It usually meant they were about to film a scene and they wanted everyone out of sight.

“Shhorry, you’re shooting, right?” Corey said, his voice thick with the blood pack that was still in his mouth.

“Well, not yet, unless I have a reason to.” It was an odd thing to say, and the guy gave an odd chuckle. “Say, perhaps you can help us.”

“Help you?” Corey’s heart sped up with anticipation. He thought about what had happened to Emma Gruber from number 36. SAG card, potential stardom! “Sure! I—I’ve had shhhome on-camera experiensh!” he blurted. “Once I washh in the audience of Shhaturday Night Live. I can do accentsh and stuff. I go to George Washington Carver Middle School, but the adminishtration gave Emma permission to be in the film. You know, that’ssh the girl you hired yeshterday? Shho they’ll be cool with me doing it, too. Will I get a Shhhag card?”

The guy stared blankly. “All I want you to do is answer a few questions, big fella.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his jacket, unfolding it as he showed it to Corey. It was a pencil portrait of a young guy with a wispy beard, an evil grin, and beady eyes. Printed over the portrait were the words WANTED FOR THE CRIME OF DESERTION, and under it the name FREDERICK RUGGLES. “Do you know the whereabouts of this young man?”

Corey grinned as it dawned on him what was happening—an audition. He wished he hadn’t had the pack in his mouth, but spitting it out would look too weird. “Ohhhh, duh, of coursssh!” he replied. “Shhhorry.”

“Haw! Well then, aren’t you one peculiar boy!” The guy cocked his head and gave a muffled laugh. He was good. He was a professional and was not going to break character. That’s just what actors did. “You know, son, you will get quite a substantial reward for information leading to a capture. How does . . . two dollars sound to you?”

“Gadzooksh, ’tissh a fortune, I thinks!” Corey said, furrowing his brow as he examined the old portrait. “But, land shakesh and dagnabbit, shir, I have never sheen this man in my life!”

The guy nodded. “Hmmm . . .”

Was anyone shooting video of this? Corey snuck a look around for signs of any crew. But all he saw was one man halfway up the block, with raggedy pants hiked up over his waist.

He was walking a goat.

Corey blinked hard. It wasn’t the goat that caught his eye. The guy was in front of number 36, Emma’s address. In the place where the apartment building had always stood was . . . nothing. Just a battered wooden fence strung together with wire and what looked like a small shack with a dirt yard.

“Sorry . . . shhorry, going off character now,” Corey said, tucking the blood pack as far back into his mouth as he could. “What happened to that house?”

The man, who had begun to turn his horse around, stopped. “Excuse me?”

“Emma Gruber? She lives there. She’s in the movie. This doesn’t make sense. Did you guys knock down a building overnight?”

“Young man, I’m afraid very little of what you’ve said makes sense to me,” the man replied, his face tight with concern. “By the by, may I ask where your parents are?”

This was a dream. It had to be a dream.

Corey began pinching himself. It hurt, a lot. He was not waking up. And nothing was changing.

Now the guy was dismounting, walking toward Corey. “Are you all right, young man? Shall I take you to your mama and papa? Do your mama and papa know you are outside? Do you know your address?”

He was talking to Corey as if he were four years old. Or as if he were just plain loony tunes.

Maybe he was loony tunes.

Corey backpedaled. He nearly tripped over a metal pole sticking up from the sidewalk. A brick sidewalk.

“Those are bricks, not cement,” Corey said. “They’re supposed to be cement. And that’s a hitching post.”

“Yes, it is,” the guy said in a soothing voice. “Of course it is. . . .” He was coming closer, reaching behind him for something Corey couldn’t see.

Corey looked down into the little patio just below the stairs that led to his apartment door. The windows revealed a living room with rocking chairs and a wooden table—none of which he had ever seen before. “Wait—that’s my house. I was just in there. Where’s all our stuff?”

The man was holding a cord now, a leather strap. With a sudden lunge, he raised his arms and reached behind Corey with the cord. He pulled it tight, pinning Corey’s arms to his side. “There’s a good boy. . . .”

“Hey!” Corey cried out.

“Just stay put,” the man said through gritted teeth. “This is for your own safety. A little trip to the sheriff.”

Corey could smell the tobacco on the man’s putrid breath. He struggled to move his arms, but the guy was already tying a knot.

So he shifted the blood pack from the back of his mouth to his teeth and bit down, hard.

A gush of red goop splattered into the man’s face. He cried out, staggering backward.

Corey turned on his heels and started to run. The half-tied knot quickly loosened, and the cord fell. Above him, someone let out a yell and threw a bucket of slop from a fourth-floor window that splashed to the curb and doused his ankles.

At the sight of Central Park West, Corey’s knees buckled. The high-rise at the end of the block was gone, replaced by a small brick building. On Central Park West itself, a horse-drawn trolley passed from right to left.

Corey kept his balance and ran. Thunder blasted again, with a sound so loud it seemed to shake the buildings themselves. The burning sensation in his hand grew sharper and he almost dropped the locket.

“Leiiiilaaaaaaa!” he screamed, sprinting as fast as he could.