Thirteen

Finn

Finn woke up first the next morning. This never happened—Finn was usually the best of all the Greystones at sleeping. But Emma and Chess were still sacked out in their sleeping bags beside him, both of them looking worried even in their sleep. And Mom was huddled on the bed, her knees clutched in tight, as if she’d fallen asleep trying to hide. She moaned as if she were having a nightmare.

Finn did not like seeing the rest of his family like this.

A month ago, before the first time he’d traveled back to the other world, he would have immediately shaken all three of them awake. He would have made Mom assure him she was only having a nightmare; he would have made Emma and Chess play silly games with him to cheer them up.

Today, though . . .

Maybe they just need to sleep. Maybe that’s the best thing.

Finn slipped out of his sleeping bag and tiptoed out of the room. All the doors in the hallway were still closed—was everyone else in the whole house still asleep?

Ms. Morales’s house was a little creepy like this, so silent and still. Even the bright sunlight streaming in through the window at the top of the stairs didn’t help. It just seemed to light up all the ways this house was like Other-Natalie’s in the other world.

And in that house, Finn, Emma, Chess, and Natalie had been afraid of everything.

They’d had good reason to be afraid of everything.

Finn rushed downstairs, because the first floor of Ms. Morales’s house was less like Other-Natalie’s house than the second floor. He didn’t try to be quiet, but still, nobody flung open any doors behind him; nobody cried, “Good morning!” or congratulated him, “You’re up early! Good for you!”

The first floor seemed as empty as the second. Finn wandered through the vast living room, trying not to think about how shadowy it was with all the first-floor blinds and curtains still drawn.

And then he tripped over a leg. A leg attached to . . .

“Mom!” Finn cried, just as he heard Mom say, “Finn!”

Finn whipped his head around to stare at the woman huddled in the corner of the shadowy couch. His brain felt scrambled. But I just saw Mom asleep upstairs and there wasn’t time . . . oh. This is Mrs. Gustano.

Mrs. Gustano blinked at him in the same confused way he was blinking at her.

“Oh, right,” she said. “Finn Greystone. Sorry. For a moment I thought you were my Finn. And he never gets up this early, so that would be as weird as everything else that’s happened.”

Mrs. Gustano’s eyes looked like they could twinkle just as merrily as Mom’s did when Finn said something funny. But they weren’t twinkly now. They were sad and worried and had lines around them that Mom’s eyes didn’t have.

Or . . . maybe Mom’s eyes did have lines now. Mom had changed in the past month, too.

“I swear,” Mrs. Gustano said. “You walk just like my Finn. You turn your head like he does. I mean, of course I’m looking right at you, and I can tell that your eyes are bigger and your nose is smaller, and of course you’re not my Finn, but . . .”

“But I was looking at you thinking your hair should be longer,” Finn said. “And thinking, did Mom get a haircut overnight?”

In the shadowy light, that was the only way to tell Mrs. Gustano from Mom. If Mom did get her hair cut really short, instead of pulling it back in a ponytail, maybe even Finn wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.

Mrs. Gustano touched the little curls at the base of her neck.

“This must be so strange for you kids,” she said. “At least you all don’t look exactly alike. But do you want to know something else that’s weird? Ever since I met your mom yesterday, I’ve been thinking I should grow my hair out. Is she influencing me without even trying?”

Then Mrs. Gustano put her hand to her mouth, as if she shouldn’t have told Finn that.

“What do you mean by—?” Finn began, but broke off because just then the doorbell rang.

Mrs. Gustano stiffened, then tiptoed over to peek out one of the blinds. Finn tiptoed right alongside her.

“You can let Ms. Morales come down and decide if she wants to open the door or not,” Finn whispered. He wasn’t tall enough to see what Mrs. Gustano saw through the gap in the blinds. And . . . he wasn’t feeling quite brave enough to pull the blinds back and peek himself. “It’s probably just, like, UPS or FedEx or . . .”

“No, I think this caller’s here for me,” Mrs. Gustano muttered.

She stalked over to the front door and yanked it open.

Without even thinking about it, Finn ducked down behind the nearest couch.

“Yes?” Mrs. Gustano asked, standing in the doorway.

Finn peeked out from behind the couch. A silver-haired police officer stood outside on Ms. Morales’s porch. Even though Finn had met lots of the local police when his mother was missing, he didn’t recognize this one.

“Good morning, ma’am,” the police officer said. “Kate Gustano, correct?”

“How did you know I was here?” Mrs. Gustano asked. “Have you been tracking my movements?”

“You aren’t helping your husband’s case,” the police officer said. “It is my duty to inform you that you are putting yourself and your children in danger, trying to investigate on your own when you should let the proper authorities—”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Mrs. Gustano snapped. She sounded just like Mom when Finn, Emma, or Chess were in trouble. “I am in no danger in this house. And last time I checked, this is a free country, and I am a free citizen, and my children and I are allowed to go anywhere we choose. Unless . . . are you accusing me, too? Have you found—or contrived—false evidence against me, just like the false evidence against my husband? Should I be calling my lawyer to report improper arrest or police harassment or—”

“Ma’am, ma’am, please,” the police officer interrupted. “Calm down.”

“It is never a good idea to tell a woman who’s being treated unfairly to calm down,” Mrs. Gustano said, her voice completely icy now.

This was not going well. What if the police officer did have false evidence against Mrs. Gustano?

Finn thought about the other Finn sleeping upstairs. What if he woke up to find that his mother had been arrested and taken away? How awful would that be?

Finn popped up from behind the couch.

“Oh, hi, Officer!” he chirped. He dodged around the couch to go stand beside Mrs. Gustano. “Mrs. Gustano isn’t from our town, so she doesn’t know how nice the whole police force was when my mom was missing. Could you say hi to Officer Dutton for me? There was this one day when he brought bags and bags of stuffed animals for my brother and sister and me. And then he and Officer Dao came to visit while Mom was in the hospital, and they brought more flowers than anybody. Could you say hi to Officer Dao for me, too? Do you know them—Amy and Ben? They told us to call them Amy and Ben. . . .”

The silver-haired police officer on the porch looked confused. But at least he and Mrs. Gustano weren’t arguing anymore.

Then the officer stiffened his jaw.

“Young man, this doesn’t concern you,” he said. “As it happens, I do need to take Mrs. Gustano and her children down to the station for questioning.”

Mrs. Gustano gasped. “Why?” she asked. “Under what pretense?”

Finn didn’t quite catch the officer’s answer, because he was distracted by a noise behind him. Footsteps. Was someone running down the stairs?

Finn spun around, and there was Emma, her hair sticking up in full bedhead mode, her feet bare, the oversized math club T-shirt she’d slept in sliding back and forth on her shoulders. Emma raced past Finn to step in front of Mrs. Gustano. She glared at the police officer. Then, oddly, she reached up and tapped his name badge.

“Just as I thought!” Emma exploded. She spread her arms protectively in front of Mrs. Gustano and Finn. “Mrs. Gustano, don’t go anywhere with this liar! He’s not a police officer from our town! I bet he’s not even from this world! I bet he’s from—”

Before Emma could finish her sentence, the man turned around and took off running.