The horror had begun. Just as the old book predicted.
Finding yourself written about in a yellowed old book was scary enough. But finding yourself with nowhere to live … with your parents missing and your house vanished …
It was almost too horrifying to bear.
Our whole world had turned upside down. I wanted to push a REWIND button and go back to that afternoon, back to when our lives were normal.
Would we ever see our parents again?
Peter shivered in his karate uniform. His trick-or-treat bag stood in the grass beside him. He had both hands shoved deep into his pockets.
I could see he was trying hard not to cry.
Peter never even cried when he was a baby. He was always tough and fearless. Once, he jumped into a friend’s swimming pool, and he didn’t even know how to swim.
He just wasn’t afraid of anything. He splashed around until he started to float. Mom and Dad didn’t have to fish him out. I think he was three at the time.
Knowing that, it felt even worse to see him so frightened and upset.
“We have no choice,” Peter said.
I turned to him. “You mean we have to go back to Bella’s house?”
He nodded. “It might be the only way to get our house back.”
So we hurried through the dark, empty streets. I saw lights on in a few houses. But many were dark.
Two cats followed us for a while. They yowled at us as we trotted down the middle of the street. Maybe they were warning us to turn back. My brain was filled with crazy thoughts like that.
The cats lost interest after a block or two and ran behind a house.
As we made our way past the tall hedges in front, we could see all the lights on in Bella’s house. The front door was open. She stood in a pool of gray light, as if she was expecting us.
We ran up to her, both panting hard. “Our house …” I choked out. “Our house is gone.”
“Can you help us?” Peter asked.
She waved us inside and shut the door. We followed her into the front room.
The fire crackled loudly in the fireplace. The flames danced high, sending flickering shadows over the room.
She handed us two glass cups of yellow liquid. “This will warm you up,” she said.
I eyed the cup suspiciously. “What is it?”
She frowned at me. “It’s hot apple cider,” she said. “If you want me to help you, you have to learn to trust me, Monica.”
I took a sip. It was sweet and hot and felt good on my dry throat. I took another sip.
“How can we trust you?” I blurted out. “Our house is gone. And our parents. Everything. Gone.”
Bella shut her eyes. “It was Screem,” she said. She opened them and gazed hard at Peter and me. “I warned you.”
“Screem made our house disappear?” Peter asked.
“He wasn’t lying — for once,” she said. “He does know who you are. And he wanted to show you —”
“Show us what?” Peter interrupted.
“Show you how powerful he is,” Bella said. “Do you see the evil power he has with those masks? He can change reality. Make houses disappear. Make people disappear — forever.”
I gasped. A wave of fear swept over me. “Make them disappear forever?” I asked.
Bella nodded. “Forever,” she said.
“But … h-how can we bring our parents back?” I stammered.
Bella frowned again. Her dark eyes went dull.
“You can’t,” she said in a whisper.