Chapter 1
The door to Hob & Bogie’s Curiosity Shoppe was locked . . . again.
Straining my eyes, I peered through the dingy window and groaned in frustration. “Where are you guys?” I demanded of the empty shop. I heaved myself against the door, trying to force it open, but it wouldn’t budge.
Over the past month, I’d returned to that alley at least a dozen times, hoping for a chance to play another round of Champion’s Quest with my friends. But it was always the same. The store remained closed, the lights turned off, and no matter how hard I pounded, Hob and Bogie, the two mysterious shop owners, never came to the door. Even Garasculous—the monstrous, feathered eyeball that usually graced the front window—was missing. I couldn’t understand it. Had we done something wrong? Had we just imagined it all?
My pocket erupted with a buzzing frenzy, and I let out a faint yelp. I’d been given my first-ever cell phone last week, which was a huge deal since I had never owned any electronics before, and I still hadn’t gotten used to it quivering whenever someone texted me. Glancing down, I read the message from Mrs. Crowe, one of the caretakers of the foster home where I lived.
Miles Maldonado, my roommate at the foster home, was at the Greenwillow Aquatic Center across the street. Normally he would have joined me in the alley, but today his swimming lesson had gone longer than usual. There wasn’t much time to make sure he was ready, so I turned to go.
“I always see you there,” a gruff voice announced, followed by the clattering sound of garbage being tossed into the dumpster behind me.
A balding man with a bushy mustache stood at the back door of the Debrecen Diner, one hand on his hip, the other holding another bag stuffed with discarded vegetables.
“You are always staring in that window and knocking on that door.” The man was the owner of the Hungarian diner, and he spoke with a thick accent. I had seen him before, but this was the first time he had ever said anything to me. “What is it you wish to buy from there?”
“Buy?” I asked, shaking my head. “Uh, I don’t know. Nothing, really.”
“Has to be something if you keep coming back, sneaking in my alley,” the man said.
“I wasn’t sneaking. I was just trying to buy mini-figurines.” Which was sort of true. Hob and Bogie had amazing mini-figurines on display, and I did want to buy one, if I could ever get back inside the shop.
“Mini-figi-what?” the man grunted, crinkling his eyebrows.
“You know. Little statues.” I held up my thumb and forefinger.
The man scoffed. “I do not think they sell toys in that place.”
“Never mind,” I grumbled. They weren’t toys. Far from it! Mini-figurines were awesome, but I knew he wouldn’t understand. “Hey—do you know where they went?” I asked, nodding at the door. “Did they say anything to you about leaving for a while or—”
“I do not bother them, and they do not bother me,” he interrupted, tossing his last bag of garbage into the dumpster and dusting off his hands. “And you should stay away from that place.”
I stared once more into the window of the Curiosity Shoppe and heaved a sigh of disappointment. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” I admitted. I didn’t want to give up trying, but this was starting to get old. Maybe Hob didn’t want us to play his game anymore.
As I glanced back, my breath hitched in my throat. The owner of the Debrecen Diner had been replaced with someone else. He was standing beside the dumpster, peering back at me.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any spare change, would you?” the stranger asked. He was wearing a long, raggedy bathrobe, a tattered hat cinched over his ears, and he was holding up a cardboard sign.
“Where did the diner guy go?” I asked, startled by the stranger’s sudden appearance.
“Back inside,” he said, casually flicking his chin toward the door. “How about it? Think you could spare a few coins for someone down on his luck?”
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t have any cash with me,” I said. I immediately began walking away from the shop, hugging the far wall of the alley to avoid coming too close to the man. I wasn’t trying to be rude, but something felt weird about the whole situation. Where’d he come from, anyway? It was almost as if he’d dropped from the sky.
“You sure you don’t have anything?” the man asked, cracking an eerie grin. He held out his sign for emphasis, and I noticed there wasn’t anything written on the cardboard. I could also see dozens of yellowish sores dotting his face. “I should think someone like you might have loads to share.”
Someone like me? What was that supposed to mean? An orphan from Bentford, West Virginia, should have “loads to share”? Now I was really starting to get freaked out.
As I picked up my pace to hurry past, the stranger shuffled his feet beneath his bathrobe, and I spotted something that caused the hairs on my neck to tingle. Maybe it was a trick of the shadows in the dark alley—or maybe I was going crazy—but it certainly looked like the man had hooves.
Later that evening, a bloodcurdling shriek rang out at the Sunnyside Group Home for Foster Children. I barely had time to flatten myself against the wall as Roper, the Crowe’s enormous shar-pei, plowed through the kitchen door, droopy jowls quivering like folds of slobbery carpet and completely covered in brown goop. The goop looked a lot like chili, which would make sense. It was Friday night, after all—baked potato night.
“Roper!” Mrs. Crowe shouted from the doorway. “That dog! Miles, if you don’t get a handle on that dog, I swear I’m going to—” When she spotted me trying to peel myself off the wall, she stopped herself from finishing that sentence. “Hi, Lucas,” she grunted, her eyes burning furiously. “Are you hungry?”
“Uh . . . sure,” I said, warily staring into the kitchen as Mrs. Crowe dragged a mop through the mess of chili on the floor.
“Great,” she said, “then would you mind letting Miles know dinner will be ready as soon as Ted gets home from work? And tell him that if he doesn’t get that aquarium clean, he won’t be able to watch the movie tonight.”
“What about Vanessa?” I asked. “Do you want me to tell her too?”
Mrs. Crowe opened her mouth and made a weird face, as though she had no idea who I was talking about. Miles and I were both foster children staying at Sunnyside, though the two of us were close to being adopted into the Crowe family, once Mr. and Mrs. Crowe completed all the necessary paperwork. I wasn’t getting my hopes up, but it did feel like things were moving in the right direction. Vanessa, on the other hand, was the Crowe’s biological daughter—their only child.
“Oh, yeah, no, definitely don’t bother Vanessa,” she said, shaking away her temporary daze. “She’s still getting ready for her date tonight, as I’m sure you know.”
Rolling my eyes, I tromped through the kitchen door. Everyone knew about Vanessa’s date with Chad Maverick. The Greenwillow Aquatic Center was holding some sort of summer dance party later that evening. They’d already covered one of the pools with a gigantic plexiglass lid to use as a see-through dance floor. There would be a DJ and refreshments and no kids under sixteen allowed. Not that I cared about missing the party, though. I wasn’t even thirteen yet. There was plenty of time before I’d need to worry about avoiding high school dances in my near future.
The blinds had been drawn inside my bedroom, and the only light came from the aquarium glowing on the desk, illuminating the small boy sitting on his bed. Miles wasn’t smiling—or giving off any sort of expression, for that matter. But he was giving off a vibe and a creepy one at that.
“Hey, Miles, dinner’s almost ready,” I said.
“I. Was. Not. Aware. We. Were. Having. Dinner,” Miles replied in short, choppy words punctuated by a throaty hiss.
“Why are you talking like that?” I asked.
Miles swung his legs to the side of his bed. “How. Am. I. Talking?”
“Like a robot.”
“I. Was .Not. Aware. I. Was. Talking. Like. A. Robot. This. Is. My. Normal. Voice.” Standing up stiffly, he shuffled over, rigid and robotic. He made a noise that was a pretty good imitation of the laser printer in the town library as he held out a small piece of paper.
Narrowing my eyes suspiciously, I snatched the paper from his hand.
I’m supposed to act like a robot, and if I break character before my time limit is up, I lose.
“Lose what?” I asked, smirking. “Are you playing some kind of game?”
After a few seconds of ignoring my question, Miles took a huge gasp of air as though he had been holding his breath for a really long time.
“And . . . done,” he said, his robotic voice gone, replaced by the sound of a normal-ish eleven-year-old boy. “That was a tough one. Bonus points for me, for sure.”
“That was it?” I crinkled my nose. “How long were you acting like a robot?”
Miles checked his cell phone, where his stopwatch had been ticking away. “Two hours and twenty-two minutes. This game is tricky. Didn’t you notice how funny I was acting?”
I hadn’t. I’d been downstairs in front of the television all afternoon, though I couldn’t remember anything I had watched. I had been way too distracted, thinking only about the stranger in the alley earlier that morning. I hadn’t told Miles what had happened because I didn’t want to scare him just yet.
“What kind of game is it?” I asked.
“It’s called Characters Unite,” Miles said, holding up his phone. “It’s that role-playing app I was telling you about the other day. It’s pretty cool, and it’s free . . . I think. Well, at least some of it’s free. It gives you all sorts of challenges and rewards. I think the actual quests are something you have to pay for, and Mrs. Crowe won’t let me do the official two-week trial because it requires her credit card, and you know how she feels about paying for apps. Hey, you should totally play with me.”
“Mrs. Crowe is going to freak out when she sees that,” I said, as my eyes drifted over to the humming aquarium sitting on the corner of Miles’s desk. So much grimy algae coated the glass I could barely see Grick, Miles’s goldfish, swimming in the murky water.
“I think she may be planning to give Grick away,” Miles admitted, his shoulders slumping.
“And Roper too,” I added.
Miles smiled half-heartedly. “Yeah, and Roper too.” He opened his desk drawer and removed a brush and some cleaning materials for his aquarium.
My cell phone rang, and I hurriedly answered it. It was Jasmine. Since playing Champion’s Quest together last month, she’d become one of my best friends.
“Are you coming outside or what?” Jasmine’s tone was serious, as usual.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Where are we going?”
It was just about to be baked potato night, and I truly hoped Jasmine wasn’t thinking of sneaking into the dance party, though it did sound like something she might want to try.
“Are you trying to be funny?” Jasmine asked. “What did you guys do all day?”
“Well, Miles has been acting like a robot for the past two and a half hours,” I said.
Miles looked up from cleaning and frowned.
Jasmine groaned. “You haven’t read it yet, have you?”
“Read what?”
“Check under your pillow, and then meet me outside in fifteen minutes,” she said. She ended the call before I could respond.
I stared at the phone in confusion. What was she talking about? Glancing over at my bed, my eyes widened as I noticed something small and blue sticking out from beneath my pillow.
“What is it?” Miles asked, as I dove across the room. “Is it a rat? Don’t squash it if it is.”
“It’s not a rat,” I said. I had yet to see a rat, but Miles kept insisting he’d seen one.
Tearing away my pillow, I discovered a turquoise-colored envelope dotted with sparkling silver stars.
“No way,” I gasped.
This was no ordinary message. I could almost feel a charge of energy radiating from it. The endlessly twinkling stickers seemed to capture every gleam of light from the dull glow of Miles’s aquarium.
“I think this might be from Hob,” I whispered.
As I eagerly peeled open the envelope, the bluish paper ignited with green fire, surging up like flames from a tiny chimera.
I screamed. Miles screamed. Roper howled from somewhere downstairs, and I heard a loud crash of metal striking the kitchen floor.
“What’s happening?” Miles squeaked, tossing aside his brush and moving beside me. “Why’s it on fire?”
I shushed him as Mrs. Crowe’s thunderous footsteps echoed against the floor. “I’ve told you two a million times!” she yelled from the bottom of the stairs. “No roughhousing in your room!”
“I’m sorry!” I shouted as the green fire continued to consume the envelope. “It won’t happen again.”
The paper didn’t burn with normal flames; in fact, it wasn’t hot at all, and the puff of smoke kind of smelled like vanilla custard. As the fire consumed the rest of the envelope and went out, I found myself holding a hexagonal-shaped card bound with gold ribbon.
“Why did Hob only send you a message?” Miles asked, leaning over my shoulder.
I shot a glance toward Miles’s pillow and pointed with my lips. “I think you got one too.” He probably would have noticed it had he not been acting like a robot all afternoon. “Try not to scream when you open it,” I warned as Miles leapt across the room, sending blankets and sheets into the air with a flurry.
“Hey, you screamed first,” Miles fired back, his eyes gleaming with excitement.
My fingers trembled as I untied the ribbon, and a handful of colorful candies wrapped in plastic tumbled into my lap.
Ye stalwart members of the Wild Crows Band,
Are you ready to go on your next Quest? I do hope so. Unfortunately, the Curiosity Shoppe is no longer a suitable location. But do not fret. I have made arrangements elsewhere. Meet me at the abandoned Pied Piper Pizzeria tonight at 7:00 p.m. Do try to be prompt. I’ll explain everything upon your arrival. The entry password is Doovlis, Divlis, Bajoink. Repeat it three times and the door shall open. And if you need a little help getting to your destination this evening, use the candies.
Hob
“Miles!” I gasped, my heart pounding in my chest as Miles’s face disappeared behind a puff of smoke pouring from his envelope. “We’re playing Champion’s Quest tonight!”