ARCHER LEAPED UP, CAUSING THE EASY CHAIR TO ROCK violently, and raced toward the front door. In walked a motley crew. First? A young man with a mop of blonde hair and skin way too tan for winter, followed by a girl Archer’s age, appropriately pale with owlish glasses and white blonde hair tied back in a light blue band. The woman who came in last looked like the girl aged thirty years but had her hair dyed a bit darker.
“Buster!” Archer exclaimed, flying to hug his brother. “Amy, Mrs. Pitsitakas—I am so glad to see you.”
“Glad to be off the road,” Mrs. Pitsitakas said.
Amy nodded emphatically. “Yep.”
“Dude!” Buster said, squirming out of the embrace. “I saw a flying elephant—I kid you not.”
“I believe you,” Archer said. “Now, move so I can lock the door!”
“I’ve already done it,” Mrs. Pitsitakas said. “We don’t want what’s out there . . . getting in here.”
Pigtails jiggling, Kaylie peered around the corner. “Hurry, hurry!” she said. “We’ve got chocolate milk and cookies!”
“Rock on,” Buster said, charging toward the kitchen. Amy and her mom followed.
A splintering crack of thunder shook the house. Only, it wasn’t thunder. A blue-green flash flooded through all the windows. Archer charged back into the den and peered through the picture window. Far beyond the roofs and trees of his neighborhood, a brightly pulsing mushroom cloud rose into the night sky. The color seemed supernatural, like something from the Dream. Whatever it was, Archer was glad it was miles away.
Something shattered in the kitchen, followed by a frightened chorus of screams. Archer raced from the den and tumbled into the kitchen to find his father, his little brother, Buster, and his friends Amy and her mother, their faces twisted in horror. Their backs were pressed hard to the sink and counters, trying vainly to back up farther. A gibbering snarl turned Archer’s attention to the other side of the kitchen.
There, a three-headed wolf crouched. It had eyes like red-hot coals, jaws full of tusk-like teeth, and fur-lined bat wings. It seemed ready to spring, but one person stood in the creature’s path and defied it.
“Bad dog!” Kaylie yelled. Archer couldn’t have been gladder his little sister was far from the typical eight-year-old. Kaylie was a fellow Dreamtreader, and one of the most powerful ever. She held up her hand, and a ball of pink lightning swirled in her palm.
“Sit, doggie!” she commanded. “Heel!”
The wolf heads snarled. Suddenly, all three heads began to speak at once. “Stupid girl,” it chorused in a wet slur, “you think we are some mortal pup? We will eat you!” The creature pawed at the ground, shredding the tile with its talons. It flared out its wings, gave a tremendous flap, and rose into the air.
“Kaylie, look out!” Archer cried. He readied his will, the massive reserve of mental energy that allowed Dreamtreaders to create from imagination. But he needn’t have bothered.
Kaylie stood her ground, pajamas and all, held up her hand, and the ball of lightning became a long staff made of pink driftwood. She took the staff in both hands, stared up at the hovering creature, and yelled, “You . . . shall not . . . pass!”
She slammed the staff to the floor, creating a rippling wave of white flame that rolled along the kitchen floor, and then rose in the shape of a hand of white fire. It snatched the wolf creature from the air and slammed the beast to the floor. The thing arose unsteadily, all three heads wobbling loosely, but the burning coal eyes all still gleamed. Gnashing its teeth and snarling, it leaped.
Mrs. Pitsitakas darted protectively in front of her daughter as did Mr. Keaton with Buster. Kaylie had it covered, though. She swung her pink staff and sent a white wave of power crashing into the creature. With the sound of a thousand shattering glasses and a faint howl, the creature burst into a swarm of darting sparks, and then vanished. There was nothing left behind but a cascade of falling ash.
“No giant newspaper this time?” Archer asked, snatching Kaylie off her feet. “Had to go stealing Gandalf ’s line?”
“It just felt right,” Kaylie said, snuggling close. Archer reluctantly put her down and turned to his frantic family and friends.
Buster joined their embrace and gave his surfer-lingo stamp of approval by saying, “Sis, you just dropped the hammer on that thing. Gnarly!”
“W-what was that?” Amy’s mother cried out, her mouth half-twisted as if she might scream. “That . . . thing, it’s not possible. And K-Kaylie . . . what did you . . . how did you do that?”
Amy didn’t give Archer the chance to answer. Her owlish green eyes wide with fear and fury, she grabbed him by his coat and demanded, “You know, don’t you? You know what’s happening?”
Archer mumbled, “I—”
“All this time!” she interrupted. “You were doing that Dream stuff, the top-secret stuff, right?”
“Dream stuff?” Amy’s mom blurted. “What dream stuff?”
“I . . . it . . .”
“Why couldn’t you stop it, Archer?” Amy asked, her voice sad and plaintive. “Why couldn’t you?”
The question felt like a sledgehammer to the gut. Archer had asked the same question of himself over and over again in the hours since the Rift occurred. There were answers, but all in a tangled web: the Nightmare Lord, the Lurker, Bezeal, Rigby—they’d each played a role. Even the Wind Maiden, Archer’s best friend Kara . . . well . . . former best friend. In the end, she had turned out to be at the center of it. In all their many schemes and plots, they’d managed to rip and tear and gouge the Dream fabric until the Dreamtreaders finally couldn’t mend it fast enough.
Archer’s father spoke, his voice quiet but braced with iron, “Son, if you know what’s happening, I think you’d better tell us.”
Archer faced his father, the others, endured their accusing and frightened eyes, and said, “You won’t believe me.”
“We just saw a three-headed, flying wolf-thing!” Mrs. Pitsitakas practically spat. “Try us!”
Archer’s father grasped his son’s shoulder and gave a reassuring squeeze. “A week ago,” he said, “none of us would have believed any of this crazy stuff. Those shadowy things that took me, the sky splitting open, all that happened at the hospital, and then . . . this.” He gestured at the pile of ash, the remnants of the creature. “But now, we’ve seen too much to doubt. Just tell us what you know.”