The Boggin stood between me and the stairs…the only way out.

I slipped the Paradox key into the pocket of my jeans, whatever good that would do.

“Leave me alone,” I said. Pretty feeble, I know, but it was all I could come up with.

The old lady tilted her head and gave me a sweet smile that made her look like somebody’s darling old grandma.

“I would be delighted to, child, once you surrender the key.”

She took a step forward, which made me back into the tool bench again and knock a hammer off the rack. In desperation I grabbed it off the bench and flung it at her.

The demon didn’t even blink. The hammer passed right through her as if she weren’t actually there. It hit the stairs behind her and bounced down at her feet.

“What were you expecting?” she asked coyly. “Flesh and bone?”

“But if you’re a…a…spirit, how can you even use the key?”

Instantly, Miss Bogg transformed into vapor. It was so quick and so stunning that I let out a gasp. The white cloud hung there for a moment, but it wasn’t a cloud. It was her. The cloud dropped down to the floor as if pushed by an overhead fan. It swirled around the hammer I had just thrown, and grew dense. With no warning the hammer rose off the floor and flew toward my head. I ducked, and it smashed against the wall of tools behind me, sending more crashing to the bench. I glanced back briefly at the damage, and when I spun around again to face the Boggin, she had returned to human form.

“I do have physical abilities,” she said with a smug smile. “Now. Please. Simply place the key on the floor and step away.”

“Why?” I asked in frustration. “I don’t understand why you want to destroy the Library so bad.”

“The agents of that library bring solace to the haunted,” she said, turning cold. “They eliminate mystery, uncertainty, and fear…everything I was conjured to create. I have done battle with them for centuries, and I tire of their meddling.”

“Did you kill my father and mother?” I asked.

Miss Bogg gave me a sinister smile.

“Not knowing the truth haunts you, doesn’t it?” She chuckled, as if taking pleasure from my pain.

This monster really did exist to create misery.

“I could erase your doubts and end your constant wondering,” she said. “But first you must surrender the key.”

She motioned for me to put it down on the floor so she could swoop over in a fog to take it away.

It was tempting, but…

“No,” I said with finality.

I felt something tickle the back of my neck. I swatted it.

“You have no purpose,” I said. “The druids conjured you to create fear in children. It was a mistake. Even they knew it.”

“Yet here I am,” she said. “With an unquenchable thirst. I exist to create fear. I feed on it. It strengthens me. My powers have grown over the centuries, and now I am capable of so much more.”

I felt another tickle on my neck and swiped at it again. It felt as though an annoying mosquito was buzzing me.

“But you’re not powerful enough to take the key from me,” I said. “That means it must have some pretty serious power of its own.”

She didn’t move.

I felt another tickle, this time on the top of my head. I swiped at it and looked at my hand to see three spiders, each the size of a nickel. They were black and furry and very active. They scrambled across my palm and tried to shoot up my sleeve. I had to shake my arm to get rid of them.

“You are an annoying child,” she said with disdain. “I enjoy annoying children.”

Instantly, I felt something fall on my head. And my arms. And all around me. I swiped them away, but more fell on me. Many more. Looking at my arms, I saw hundreds of spiders scampering across my shirt. They crawled down my collar and tickled my back. I couldn’t help but look up. They dropped from the dark rafters of our basement like an army of commandos on zip lines. It was impossible, but they were there. And they kept coming. By the thousands. They swarmed around my face, trying to get into my mouth and eyes. No matter how fast I swept them away, more followed.

Miss Bogg watched calmly.

“You can end this,” she said. “Surrender the key.”

My body was crawling with spiders. Literally. They weren’t satisfied with just landing on me; it was as if they were on a mission to burrow into my skin as they scrambled into every opening in my clothing. My sleeves, the cuffs of my pants, my collar—all were entry points for this army of vicious creatures.

The only things keeping me from going out of my mind were the memories of the impossible images I had seen: a ladder that wasn’t there, a bull that disappeared, a storm that wasn’t real, and a house that had been crushed by a predator tree…until it wasn’t.

The Boggin dealt in fear created by illusion.

“They’re not real!” I screamed while brushing off the spiders that actually seemed pretty real at the moment. They crawled over my skin, burrowed through my hair, and dug into my scalp.

“None of this is happening!” I screamed.

I fell to the floor and rolled, hoping the motion would crush some of the little monsters before they could sting me. Or bite. Or whatever it was that spider illusions did.

I hated spiders. Did she somehow get into my head to figure that out?

Miss Bogg loomed over me.

“Michael Swenor is dead,” she said. “As are your parents. Is that not real?”

“You tricked them,” I cried. “I can fight it. I can fight you.”

The spiders kept coming. They hit the floor and instantly skittered my way. These were not mindless creatures. They had a target. Me. There were so many of them swarming all over me that it looked as if I was wearing a fur bodysuit. The tickling against my skin made me want to scream, but I held it back. I didn’t want to give that demon the satisfaction.

The Boggin leaned down toward me and said through clenched teeth, “Perhaps you can fight me, but can you say the same for your new parents?”

The evil gleam in her eye put me over the edge. I finally let out a scream. It was a desperate cry, filled with terror and anger. She was going after my parents, just as she had my birth parents twelve years before.

History was about to repeat itself.

I lunged at her, hoping to grab her wrinkled old neck. This wasn’t an old lady. It was a monster wearing a twisted disguise. She was an evil Mother Goose who told tales of terror. I reached up with my spider-covered hands and grasped at her neck. I had her. I closed my hands, expecting to feel flesh and bone. All I got was air. In that instant she disappeared in a white wisp of fog. It surprised me, but only for a second. This was a phantom. A specter. She wasn’t flesh and blood, and she was gone.

The spiders weren’t.

I screamed again in absolute, mind-bending anguish, jumped to my feet, and ran for the stairs. All I could think to do was get out of that dark basement and into the light of my yard. My normal yard. The spiders had other plans. They nipped at my skin like a thousand tiny pinpricks, all striking at the same time, making me feel as though I were being electrocuted.

I screamed again. I couldn’t help it. I tripped up the stairs, falling once to my knees, but I got right back up and kept going. I threw open the basement door and sprinted through my house to the front door. I didn’t know what being outside would do, but it was better than being trapped inside with a thousand tiny marauders. I got to the door, grabbed the knob, yanked it open…

…and came face to face with Lu and Theo.

They were as surprised as I was.

“Whoa, are you all right?” Theo asked.

Dumb question. I pushed past them and jumped off my front step, continuing to swipe off the spiders.

“Marcus, what are you doing?” Lu yelled.

I continued to brush at my arms until I realized it was no use. The spiders were gone. It still felt as though they were crawling on my skin, but I was fighting with a memory.

“I…I…there were spiders,” I said, frantic. “Thousands of them.”

Theo and Lu gave each other worried looks.

“I know you’re afraid of them,” Theo said. “But don’t you think this reaction is a little extreme?”

I fought the urge to continue brushing them off and focused enough to realize I wasn’t even feeling them anymore.

“It was an illusion,” I finally managed to say while gasping for breath. “She was here.”

“The Boggin?” Lu asked.

I nodded. My mind was already racing ahead to try to understand what had happened and what it meant.

“My parents,” I said, and pulled out my cell phone.

I entered Mom’s number and once again got her voice mail.

“The Boggin’s going after them!” I shouted in a panic. “Lightning’s about to strike twice.”