Eight

Emma

Emma heard Mrs. Gustano gasp, “Rocky, no. You don’t even know what you’re agreeing to. . . .”

Her voice seemed to come in stereo.

Oh, right, Emma thought. That’s because she and Mom said exactly the same thing at exactly the same time: “Rocky, no . . .” And I’m sitting halfway between them, so I’m hearing it exactly doubled.

“Are we going to have to deal with the bad guys again and the . . . the bad place . . . to clear Dad’s name?” the other Emma asked. She wrinkled her nose. “That’s scary. But I’d rather do that than go hide somewhere and pretend I’m someone else. And stay scared forever. So I’m in, too.”

“Me, too!” Finn Gustano piped up. Clearly he didn’t like to be left out any more than Emma’s younger brother did. Then he looked around as if trying to figure out what the others were talking about.

Well, did any of us really know what we were agreeing to, when we said we wanted to fix the other world? Emma wondered.

She thought of the mysterious coin Chess had tucked into his shorts pocket. She thought of all the questions she still hadn’t had a chance to ask Mom.

The door to their glassed-in room opened, and all eight of the Gustanos and Greystones jumped.

“Sorry—I wanted to see if you were ready to order. But if I’m interrupting, I can come back later.”

It was just the waitress. She was a teenager wearing a googly-eyed headband and the restaurant’s official T-shirt, which showed a frantic-looking bird springing out of a clock and proclaiming, “CUCKOO! CUCKOO!” in the midst of lots of weird spirals. That logo always made Emma want to giggle. But today it felt like if she let herself do that, the giggles would turn hysterical.

Mom and Mrs. Gustano both slid back into acting like normal mothers who just wanted to feed their kids.

“No, no—we’re ready,” Mom told the waitress. “Finn, do you want to go first?”

Emma barely paid attention long enough to ask for fish sticks. She kept her gaze on the carvings on the clock. Were any of the other wooden figures carved in the same style as the angel? No. But maybe if she went over and pressed other carved figures, they would shoot out other clues.

Was the coin Chess had found truly connected to the other world, or was it just a coincidence that this carved angel looked like the one they’d seen there?

Emma remembered that the restaurant had a few carvings on the outside of the building, too. She was lucky she was sitting at the end of the table, so she just had to shift a little in her chair to be able to peer out toward the parking lot. One section of the restaurant jutted out to the side . . . nope, none of the carvings there were angels. Emma swept her gaze across the parking lot as she craned her neck to try to see a section farther away, back near where Mom had parked.

Then Emma forgot about carvings.

Why was a man standing by the Greystones’ car, staring at their license plate?

He was angled away from her, so from the back, Emma could see only that he wore jeans and a dark-colored, athletic-style windbreaker with the hood pulled up. It was a warm, sunny day. Why would anyone wear a jacket with the hood up?

Because he’s hiding something, Emma thought.

While she watched, the man backed away from the car. He inched over to the patio of the restaurant and stood behind a tree, peeking through the branches to gaze at the crowded tables.

That’s not a crime, Emma thought. He could just be meeting someone he doesn’t see yet. He could have thought our car was his friend’s car, and . . .

The man slid over to the nearest window of the restaurant and pressed his face against the glass. He held his hands up by the sides of his face. Was he just blocking out the glare of the sun or still trying to hide?

The man moved to the next window.

Emma checked over her shoulder to make sure that the waitress was gone—she was—and then Emma stood up and walked over to the window nearest her.

“Emma?” Chess asked, gazing over at her from the table. “What’s wrong?”

“Probably nothing,” Emma muttered. “I’m just watching . . .”

“Emma, honey,” Mom began. “Are you—”

Emma held up her hand to signal, Wait. Then, for good measure, she turned back toward Mom and pressed a finger to her lips. That was because she’d seen the man turn his head to the side and press his ear to the glass as if he was trying to listen to something inside.

He was truly acting strange.

Emma could see from Mom’s expression that Mom thought Emma was behaving strangely, too. In Emma’s normal life before she and her brothers had found out about the other world, that expression would have led Emma to expect a little talk with Mom about not being rude to other people at the table with her at meals. But now Emma could tell Mom was thinking, Please don’t make the Gustanos freak out even more than they already are!

Emma looked back outside. The man was still stalking through the restaurant’s flower beds and bushes, listening at every window. When he got to the bush closest to Emma, Emma couldn’t take it anymore. She released the latch to open the window, unhooked the screen, shoved it out onto the ground, and reached out to grab the man’s windbreaker.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, shaking the man’s shoulders. “Who are you spying on?”

The man froze, then gazed at her in shock. For the first time, she saw his face.

Emma let go.

“Joe?” she asked.