Lu and Theo stared at me with wide eyes and open mouths, as if I had just revealed to them that I was planning to grow a second head. Or maybe that would have been more believable than the story I had spun about a magical key, ghostly hauntings, and a library filled with unfinished stories.

“Well,” Lu finally said, “that’s something you don’t hear every day.”

“Can I see it?” Theo asked, his voice sounding raspy, as if he hadn’t swallowed the whole time I was talking.

We were huddled on the far side of the cafeteria during a packed lunchtime.

I had the key on the leather cord around my neck, under my shirt, letting it dangle like a big old pendant necklace. I pulled it out and held it up for them to examine.

“It’s pretty,” Lu said. “You should polish it.”

“I thought about that,” I replied. “But with my luck a genie would show up.”

“It’s old,” Theo said, shifting into analytical mode. “Well over a hundred years. They don’t make keys like this anymore.”

“And how would you know that?” Lu asked skeptically.

“Because I’m smart” was Theo’s simple, typical answer.

“What do you guys think?” I asked while tucking the key back under my shirt. “Easy answer is I’m crazy, but I don’t feel crazy. After that, I’ve got nothing.”

“All righty,” Theo said while squeezing his earlobe. “There could be a few explanations. We talked about stress. People can imagine all sorts of things while under duress.”

“That goes back to being crazy,” I said. “Next.”

“You mentioned hallucinogens. There are some powerful drugs that could cause you to see things, but why would anybody do that to you?”

“And I feel fine,” I said. “It’s not like I’m loopy or anything.”

“Then I suppose there’s the possibility that someone’s playing an elaborate prank,” Theo said. “But, given what you’ve told us, elaborate would be an understatement.”

“That leaves just one possibility,” Lu said.

“Please, tell me!” I exclaimed.

She scratched her neck nervously and said, “It could all be true.”

I jumped out of my chair, then sat back down again. Then stood up. The nervous energy was hard to control.

“Do you know what that means?” I said. “All the stuff we see in movies and read in books, all the ghost stories and magical stuff and weird, unexplainable craziness, would be possible. That changes…everything!”

“No, it doesn’t,” Lu argued. “All it means is sometimes things happen that we can’t explain.”

“Everything can be explained,” Theo said with authority.

“Okay, sure,” Lu shot back at him. “The explanation is, it can’t be explained. It’s like psychic people or people who have memories of past lives. There’s no scientific explanation for those things, but they’re real.”

“There are most definitely explanations,” Theo said stubbornly. “They’re hoaxes.”

“Could you just try to open your narrow mind for once?” Lu snapped. “Not everything can be calculated scientifically.”

“Yes, it can,” Theo replied with total conviction.

“Then how do you explain what’s happening to Marcus?” she asked, folding her arms.

Theo started to answer quickly but stopped himself.

“I can’t,” he admitted. “But I will. If there’s one thing I’m completely certain of, it’s that there is nothing supernatural going on here. There’s no such thing as ghosts. Or curses. Or magical libraries. That’s just not how the world works. When you’re all willing to discuss this logically, I’m available.”

He picked up his books and his lunch tray and stormed off.

“Why’s he so bent?” I asked. “He’s not the one hallucinating.”

“He doesn’t like it when his orderly world turns out to be not so orderly,” Lu said.

“I don’t like it much either.”

“Maybe you should tell your parents.”

“No,” I said quickly. “They’re the last people I want to tell.”

“Why?”

I didn’t answer right away. I’d never shared my feelings about my parents with anybody.

“What’s going on with you and your folks, Marcus?” Lu asked.

“They wish they hadn’t adopted me.”

“What? No! Why do you say that?”

“Because they wanted a certain kind of kid…and I’m not it. My mother even said so.”

“She did not.”

“Yeah, she kind of did. It’s not like it was a surprise. They spend a whole lot of time telling me about all the things I do wrong and how disappointed and frustrated they are. It gets old, you know?”

“All parents do that,” Lu said. “My mom hates that I play roller derby. She wants me to be a cheerleader. Can you see that? I don’t do pep.”

“This is different. They’re angry all the time, and the more we talk about it, the worse it gets. I’m not saying I’m perfect, but I know they wish they’d adopted somebody else. To be honest, sometimes I wish that too.”

“Don’t say that.”

“At least one good thing came from this key. I got to learn a little about my real parents.”

The bell rang, and kids immediately started flooding out of the cafeteria.

Lu and I didn’t move as kids hurried past.

“I don’t know about this library thing,” Lu said, “but the one thing I do know is that your real parents are the people you’re living with right now.”

I grabbed my books and stood up. “Here’s something I know. I’m never putting this key anywhere near a door again.”

Lu reached forward, stuck out her finger, and touched the key through my shirt.

“Don’t be so quick to say that,” she said. “There might be all sorts of things you could learn in a library like that.” She gave me a smile and said, “Just sayin’.”

—

That afternoon I served my third day of detention. Ms. Holden was the monitor again, and this time she didn’t leave me alone. That was fine by me. I welcomed the company. Or the protection. I tried to negotiate with her, saying how my day of being suspended should count against my detention, but she didn’t buy it. Though I did get a smile out of her for trying.

The detention period passed without any spooky business. It gave me hope that my part in Michael Swenor’s story was done after all. I didn’t live far from school, so every day I walked home along the sidewalks of suburban Stony Brook. Since school had been out for an hour, all the buses and frantic moms in SUVs were long gone. The street in front of the building was deserted. It was so quiet I didn’t bother walking to the corner to cross. I looked both ways to make sure all was clear, and I was about to step off the curb when I looked to the far side—to see that the street wasn’t empty after all.

Standing on the sidewalk directly across the street from me was Michael Swenor.

No mistake. It was him. The pajamas and bathrobe were gone. He looked just as he did in the newspaper picture, wearing a dark firefighter’s uniform. He stood there alone, looking straight at me with an eerily blank expression.

My brain locked. I was staring at a ghost, and the ghost was staring back. What did he want?

The guy slowly raised his arm. I thought he was going to wave at me, but instead he held the palm of his hand toward me in a stop gesture, as if telling me not to move.

No problem. I didn’t want to go anywhere near him.

A second later, a large pink rubber ball bounced past me from behind and rolled into the street. My first impulse was to run after it, but I didn’t. I was still in shock.

A little girl ran past me from behind. She had long red hair that fell over her shoulders, and she wore a cute little-girl pink party dress. She bounded right into the street without a care, chasing after the ball.

“Hey, careful!” I shouted.

A car came screaming around the corner. It turned so quickly that its wheels squealed on the pavement. It straightened out and accelerated…headed right for the little girl.

Instinct took over. I ran into the street, scooped the girl up, and kept running. It wasn’t a very close call, but my heart was beating like crazy just the same. The car sped past, filled with high school guys hanging out the windows.

“Get out of the road, idiot!” one shouted as they flew past.

“Slow down!” I yelled after them.

They didn’t, and sped off.

“You gotta be careful,” I said to the girl as I put her down on the far sidewalk. “Where’s your mother?”

The girl looked up at me, and my knees buckled.

Her face wasn’t real. It was a plastic doll’s face, framed by long red hair. But it wasn’t just any doll’s face. It was the face of the old woman. Her wild eyes looked right at me as the doll’s hinged mouth moved to speak.

“Surrender the key,” she said in the gnarly voice of the old lady, “or more will die.”

I took a few quick steps back as if I’d been pushed. The girl, or the doll or the old lady or whatever it was, turned and skipped away down the sidewalk. I stood there watching, stunned, as it rounded a corner and was gone.

I didn’t move for a solid ten seconds, trying to unfreeze my brain. Finally, I remembered.

Michael Swenor.

I spun toward the spot where the ghost had been standing.

He was gone. The entire block was deserted. Nobody saw what had happened but me.

Why had he come back? What did he want? Was he trying to stop me from going into the road to save…who? The old witch? Was he protecting me?

I had to will my feet to move. I sprinted along the sidewalk, barely looking for cars as I crossed multiple streets, and didn’t stop moving until I got home. I slammed the door and stood in our foyer, gasping for breath. I needed water, so I hurried into the kitchen and grabbed a glass, then changed my mind and put my head directly under the faucet.

As I gulped down the water, my eye caught something on the counter. It was a plate filled with brownies. My favorite. Dark-chocolate Ghirardelli. Next to it was a note. It was a folded piece of paper with my name on it. I didn’t want to look at it. I thought for sure it would say Surrender the key. Three words I had grown to hate.

Only now there were more words to worry about: Or more will die.

That was what the old lady–girl doll–witch had said.

Or more will die.

I summoned my courage, grabbed the note, and read.

It was from Mom. I recognized her perfect penmanship.

Let’s talk when I get home. I made your favorite brownies. Don’t eat them all. Oh, never mind, eat them all if you want. Mom.

Was this note really from Mom? Or was it another illusion to try to get me to eat a plate of poisoned brownies? It sure didn’t sound like Mom. I wanted to believe that she was reaching out to try to make things right, but I wasn’t sure what I could believe anymore.

Or more will die.

That wasn’t a threat against me. It was a warning. Was the old witch going after people I cared about? There was only one thing I knew for sure: my role in Michael Swenor’s story was not finished.

Not by a long shot.

I left without grabbing a brownie. I didn’t want to take the chance. I went upstairs to my room, threw my books down on my desk, and pulled the key out from under my shirt. How could I surrender it? If I gave it up, I’d lose the one connection I had to my real parents, but if it meant ending the haunting and protecting others from this crazy old lady, how could I keep it?

I walked to my bedroom door and felt the key grow warm in my hand, as if it was telling me what to do. I held it out toward the door. Instantly, the dark spot returned and transformed into the brass keyhole.

Message received.

I inserted the key into the lock, twisted it, and opened the door to return to the Library.