Chapter 10

“Kendal,” her father called to her. “Kendal, are you awake?”

During the night, Kendal had fallen out of her bed and onto the cold wooden floor. For a moment, she had no idea where she was.

Her father opened the door.

She crawled back into the bed.

“You need to get up and get going. We need to meet Jeremy in a half hour.”

Her father pulled open the curtains in her room. The mountain was a dark shadow against a periwinkle sky. The sun was just beginning to rise.

Unable to shake the dream, Kendal stumbled into the bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face and tied her hair into two messy braids.

“I brought you up some coffee,” her father said from the other room. “You seem like you could use some.”

She took the cup from his hand and took a sip of the black bitterness. After a few minutes, she remembered the story she had been reading before she fell asleep. She ran back to her room. She wanted to know what happened to Nellie Bly and her children. Had they made it down the mountain? Had Nellie’s youngest child lived? Was that the reason for the curse?

But when she got to her room, she couldn’t find the book.

She searched and searched, pulling off all the blankets on her bed, going through the stack of books sitting on the small table next to her bed. But the glowing red book was nowhere to be found.