Mrs. Swenor and I stood there, looking at one another, for an awkward couple of seconds.

“Is it all right if I come in?” she asked sheepishly.

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” I said, and stepped away from the door to let her into the house.

I kept staring at the bag, hoping to catch a glimpse of an old-fashioned book.

“Are your parents home?” she asked.

“No,” I said while staring straight at the bag.

“I don’t have the book, Marcus,” she said.

My heart sank. Dead end.

“But I’ve seen it,” she said.

“Really?” I exclaimed with soaring hope. “Where is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Crash. Another dead end.

“When you came to the apartment, I didn’t tell you everything,” she said. “I thought I was protecting you. And Michael. But after you called about the book, I decided it would be wrong to hide anything from you.”

My emotions kept bouncing from hope to disappointment, then back to hope again. I led her into the living room, where we sat across from one another. The whole time I kept stealing glances at the bag, wondering what she’d brought.

She sighed and said, “I told you that after your parents died, Michael didn’t talk about ghosts or strange happenings again. Not for twelve years, anyway. I’d forgotten all about it until last week. Michael got a call from someone who knew your father from the old days. Whatever that person said, it truly upset him.”

“Who was it?” I asked anxiously.

“I don’t know. Michael wouldn’t tell me. But he went to see this person, and when he came home, he wasn’t just upset anymore. He was scared.”

Tears welled up in her eyes as she related the painful memory.

“He kept saying how he’d done something terrible, something he thought was right, but it turned out to be horribly wrong. Michael was a guy who ran into burning buildings, Marcus. Nothing scared him. But on that day he was terrified. He had an old book with him and kept flipping through the pages. Whatever he was looking for, he couldn’t find it and kept slamming the book shut in frustration. I think maybe it was the book you’re looking for.”

“But you don’t know where it is?”

She shook her head.

“Did he tell you what he did that was so bad?”

“Sort of. It made no sense to me, but it tore him apart.”

“What was it?”

“He said he broke the seal.”

I jumped up as if I’d been hit by a jolt of electricity.

“That’s what he said? He broke the seal?”

“Yes. Does that mean something to you?”

It meant everything. I looked to the shopping bag.

“Mrs. Swenor,” I said cautiously, “what’s in there?”

“Michael brought this home with him that day. I think this is what he broke the seal on.”

My stomach turned upside down.

“Can I see it?” I asked.

She reached into the bag and lifted out a plain-looking olive-green metal box about as big as an oversized shoe box. I recognized it from old movies as an ammunition box from World War II. It was battered and scratched, with white, painted-on letters that were mostly chipped off.

“Michael called it a vessel,” she said. “He told me your father sealed it just before he died.”

“My father?” I said, stunned. “He said my father sealed it? Are you sure?”

“Yes. Do you know what that means?”

I knew exactly what it meant and what the box was. There had been lots of them throughout time. The first was a copper box that was made a few thousand years ago. But the vessel didn’t need to be made of copper. All it needed was a copper seal.

Everett was right. My father was dealing with the Boggin when he died. He sealed the demon inside this box twelve years ago. This was its last prison. And a week ago Michael Swenor broke the seal to release it back into the world.

“It’s, um, it’s…” I couldn’t think of the right thing to say. I couldn’t just say, That was where my father had the boogeyman trapped, until your husband let it loose.

“I’m not really sure,” I said, lying.

“What was sealed in there?” she asked, with more than a little desperation. “Some kind of disease?”

That was a pretty good guess, but I didn’t share that with Mrs. Swenor.

“Finding that book might help solve the mystery,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Marcus,” she said. “I didn’t tell you any of that because I didn’t want Michael being remembered for having lost his mind. But you knew about the book. You know it’s real. I can only hope that whatever Michael did, it was for a good reason and he didn’t realize how badly it would turn out.”

“I think that’s exactly what happened,” I said. “Getting that book would help prove it.”

Mrs. Swenor wiped her eyes and stood up.

“If I learn anything more, I’ll let you know,” she said. “And I’ll keep looking for the book.”

“Is it okay if I keep the box?”

She glanced down at the old green metal box, and her focus sharpened.

“I don’t ever want to see it again,” she said with disdain.

With that, I walked her to the door. She left, and I was alone.

As soon as the door closed, I spun around and ran for the box. I picked it up and gave it a thorough once-over to find…nothing. There was absolutely nothing unusual about it. It was just an old metal box…where my father had trapped the Boggin twelve years ago. Was that the story in the missing book? Was it the story of my father’s war with the Boggin?

Was that why he and my mother died?

The vessel had gone missing for twelve years and suddenly turned up about a week ago. Where had it been? Who was the guy who contacted Michael Swenor about it? Why did Swenor break the seal and release the demon? Doors were suddenly opening, but they were only leading to more questions. Most important, the Boggin was still out there, threatening to hurt the people I cared about.

It was going to be a long day.

With the box under my arm, I went into the kitchen to hunt for some breakfast. On the counter was a note.

Morning! Mom and I went to the marina to do a little work on the boat. Maybe we’ll go out for a short sail; it’s a beautiful day. Dad.

The marina. The boat. We had a twenty-seven-foot Catalina sailboat. My parents spent most every weekend during the nice-weather months sailing on Long Island Sound.

My heart rate spiked. There was nothing good about this news. It was on a sailboat that my biological parents died. I dropped the box, pulled out my cell phone, and called my mother. My father never took his cell on weekends, but Mom was wired to hers 24-7.

The phone rang. And rang. And rang again. Finally, I got voice mail.

“Mom,” I said, trying not to sound too frantic. “I, uh, I want to go with you. Don’t go out without me. I’ll wait for your call.”

I disconnected and immediately sent her a text: Call me!

She probably had her cell phone in her bag and couldn’t hear it. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to tell them. I just wanted to keep them from going out on the water. Not with the Boggin on the loose.

The Boggin.

I looked at the vessel that had once contained it. It was just a box. The box needed a seal.

A copper seal.

I grabbed it and ran for the kitchen and the stairs that led to our basement. Dad’s workshop was down there. He had to have something made of copper that I could use as a seal to lock the vessel.

That is, if I could get the Boggin into it. How the heck was I supposed to do that?

Our basement was filled with a collection of old furniture covered in tarps, outgrown bikes, sleds, garden equipment, and tools. It was a mess. I clicked the light on and ran down the rough-hewn wooden steps, headed straight for Dad’s workbench. Dozens of tools were hung neatly on a wire rack above the work surface. Underneath the table were dusty cardboard boxes of junk that I quickly pulled out and dug through. There were random electric switches and plumbing fixtures and painting supplies and absolutely nothing made of copper.

On top of the bench was a square organizer with a bunch of small drawers full of screws and nails and washers. I pulled each one out, hoping to find anything made of copper. In one of the drawers, I actually found a ring of old-fashioned keys that were the same size as the Paradox key. They probably were for the ancient dressers that Dad stored in the basement. None were made of copper.

I was feeling helpless. Even if I found something, how would I get a centuries-old spirit to go inside the vessel? I felt the Paradox key around my neck. If anybody could help, it was Everett. Maybe he’d found something in one of his books that would tell me how to coax a demon into the very same prison it had just escaped from.

I pulled the leather cord up over my head and grasped the key. I could use it on the door at the top of the basement stairs to enter the Library. I spun around, ready to run up…and stopped short.

Standing at the foot of the stairs was Miss Bogg.

I was so surprised I jumped back and slammed into the workbench, rattling the rack of tools.

“Enough,” the old demon said sweetly. “Surrender the key.”