He reached the top, pumping his legs and flailing his arms until he found his balance and could run again. His feet slapped pavement—a road. It took another few seconds for Tick to realize where he’d been sent. Or where he had sent himself. A mixture of relief and confusion consumed him, almost making him stop again.

But he didn’t stop; he didn’t even slow down. He knew exactly where to go, and a fresh surge of adrenaline lifted his energy and spirits.

He was in Deer Park, Washington, on the road leading to his neighborhood, a path he’d walked thousands of times in his life. The why and how ceased to matter in his mind. Something creepy was behind him, and his house was in front of him.

He ran for home.

As Tick rounded his mailbox and shot up the driveway, he couldn’t help but feel a trace of déjà vu. His thoughts went back to his very first wink, when he’d gone to the cemetery as instructed and performed the strange initiation ritual he’d had to figure out from the twelve clues sent to him by Master George.

When he’d winked that night and felt that cool tingle down the back of his neck, the first of many more to come, he thought it hadn’t worked. Sullen and heartbroken, he’d headed for home only to discover he’d been sent to an alternate Reality, one in which a strange, nasty old man lived in Tick’s house.

What if that old man was there again? Or another one?

What if Tick had been winked to another Reality, and his Alterant was in the house, sleeping or sitting at the computer or about to come outside? Though he’d been totally unconscious in the Fourth Reality, Sofia and Paul had told him about what happened when the two versions of Reginald Chu met. There had been an earthquake, a wave of air, and the Reginald from the Fourth had disappeared, gone to some place Master George called the Nonex.

What if that happened to Tick when he opened the door?

Then, despite the darkness, he noticed the crashed garage door from when the water creatures had attacked his parents. His doubts washed away, and he ran up to the bushes lining the house and dropped to his knees, searching for the fake rock that contained a spare key. The key had been missing before when he’d unknowingly been winked to an alternate reality. This time he found it, and, pulling the key from the rock, he ran up the porch steps and unlocked the front door. He went inside and flicked the light switch in the hallway. Nothing happened.

He walked into the kitchen, the moonlight seeping through the windows just enough to aid his way. The lights there didn’t work either. He paused and listened for a minute. Nothing, not even the sound of the fridge or the heater.

So the power was out. Maybe nearby areas had been hit by the same devastation he’d witnessed on the screens back in the Thirteenth.

Based on what little he could see, he no longer had any doubt this was Reality Prime, and that this was his very own house. Just to make absolutely sure, he made his way back to the stairs and went up them to his room, feeling carefully along the wall in the dark. Every bit of furniture, the blankets on the bed, the wall decorations—everything was exactly as he last remembered seeing them.

He felt a little disappointed. Deep down he’d been hoping to find his family here, even though he knew it was a long shot. Jane had taken them, but then Frazier had said they’d disappeared. Tick had hoped the same thing might have happened to them as what had happened to him. He’d hoped they had been sent back home too.

Bad thoughts drifted through his mind, images of all the terrible things their vanishing from Jane’s captors might mean.

To get his mind off it, he knelt down on the floor and reached under his mattress. After feeling about, he found what he’d been looking for and pulled it out, then sat on the bed. Though he couldn’t see it very well in the pale light coming through the window, he knew every detail of the object anyway. His Journal of Curious Letters.

Yes. Unless this was a Reality that had split from Prime very recently, he at least knew he was in the right place. But what in the world was he supposed to do now?

He set the book on the table by his bed and kicked up his legs onto the bed, not bothering to take off his shoes. He lay back onto his pillow, hands clasped behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. Odd-shaped shadows from the moonlight slanted from corner to corner, dark and menacing. He closed his eyes.

Sleep. Could he really sleep despite all the terrible things going on that very instant? He didn’t know, but he needed it for sure. Surprising himself, he relaxed, feeling the first trickles of sleep edge his mind.

A minute passed. Two. The darkness was deep. No sound except a slight breeze pushing branches against the outside of the house. Something smelled good, like the fresh scent of laundry detergent and dryer sheets. All of it seemed to pull him down into the bed, as comfortable as he ever remembered being. Almost feeling guilty, he sank into the welcome pool of slumber.

Ooooooohhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnn . . .

This time the sound came from the hallway right outside his room, a miserably haunted, ghostly moan. Tick shot up in bed, his feet swinging to the floor. A silver-blue light glowed through the space under the door.

So much for sleep.

Chapter 26

Many Faces

He heard the sound again. Then again. And again. Each time it was only a few seconds apart. The moan had such a creepy, deathly feel to it that prickles of goose bumps shot up all over his body, and he felt like every hair on his head reached for the ceiling. This was a new kind of terror—something very different from the constant worry of being killed or hurt, something he’d almost become accustomed to.

No, this was like a real-life ghost story. He was in a horror movie.

He quietly stood up and walked over to the window, carefully stepping on the non-creaking spots of his bedroom floor. He looked through the glass, wondering if he’d have the courage to jump out. The moon cast its pale glow on the yard outside, making the trees look dark blue and creating shadows in which he could imagine every monster from his every nightmare hiding, waiting.

Ooooooohhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnn . . .

Tick turned around to face the door. His mind felt hollowed out. How had it come to this? An hour ago he’d been in the middle of a desert in the Thirteenth Reality, watching Mistress Jane destroy an entire world. Now he was back in his house, in the dark, staring at a sheet of silver-blue light panning across his floor. He saw that it wavered with flashes and glimmers of shadow as though the source of the light was a gigantic TV out in the hallway, showing an old black-and-white film.