Mary Katherine waited for a response. None came. She looked back at the carton of milk. The picture of Emily Bertovich stared back at her. Smiling with those missing front teeth. Mary Katherine’s heart began to pound. She didn’t know what was wrong, but she could sense something. Like her father’s knee that knew there would be a storm an hour before the weatherman did.
“Christopher? If that’s you, you better go back to bed,” she said.
The silence was deafening. Mary Katherine quickly returned Emily Bertovich to the cold refrigerator. Then, she hurriedly walked through the kitchen, the dining room, the living room. But there was nothing there. Just that feeling. She was about to go upstairs to check the bedrooms when she looked through the sliding glass doors to the backyard. And there it was, standing in the snow, staring at her.
A deer.
The clock struck 4:00 p.m. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Mary Katherine knew something was terribly wrong. She raced upstairs to Christopher’s room.
“Christopher!” she said. “Christopher! Answer me!”
She opened his bedroom door and saw that Christopher was not in the bed. His window was open, the curtain fluttering in the breeze. Mary Katherine rushed to the window and stuck her head out.
“Christopher! Where are you?!” she screamed.
She looked down and saw the trail of his little footprints through the snow.
Right past the deer.
And into the Mission Street Woods.
Chapter 43
Something was watching.
The moment Christopher closed the door to the tree house, he felt it. A big eye. Smothering like a blanket. Just watching and drifting. Looking for something.
Hunting.
Christopher knew it was a terrible risk coming into the imaginary world alone. He’d promised the nice man he would never do this, but he had no choice. The nice man was imprisoned somewhere. Or he was already dead. Christopher had to find some information. Proof. A clue. Anything. But he had no idea what was waiting for him on the other side of that door.
Never come in here without me. Never be in here at night.
Christopher turned to the window and saw the sun low in the sky. He didn’t have much time before night fell. It was now or never. He put his ear up against the door. At first, everything seemed all right. Then, he heard a faint noise.
sCratch. sCratch. sCratch.
Something was under the tree.
sCratch. sCratch. sCratch.
Christopher turned back to the window. He saw deer crawling through the clearing, leaving trails in the winter snow. The deer walked up to the tree and scratched with their hooves.
sCratch. sCratch. sCratch.
“Remember, Christopher,” the nice man had told him. “The deer work for her.”
The deer sniffed around the base of the tree for something. Maybe food. Maybe him. Christopher only had an hour of daylight. He needed to find a way around them. He saw a six-point buck chew a small leaf off the low-hanging branch. Right next to something that caught Christopher’s eye.
The white plastic bag.
Christopher was so used to seeing the bag on the real side that he didn’t pay it any attention. But something about it looked different on the imaginary side. The bag was hanging lower on the branch than usual. Like a fish bending a pole. The bag must be weighed down. Because…because…
Something is inside it.
Christopher’s heart skipped. The nice man must have left him something. He was sure of it. What was it? A map? A clue? He had to know. Christopher waited until the deer had satisfied their hunger (or curiosity) and moved away from the clearing.
Then, he slowly opened the door.
Christopher quickly walked down the 2x4 ladder. Little baby teeth nailed into the tree. His boots landed on the crunchy ground, and he tiptoed over to the white plastic bag. He reached inside and pulled out what the nice man had left behind.
A Christmas card.
On the front was a picture of Santa Claus yelling at Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as he pulled his sleigh through the snow.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU FORGOT YOUR GLASSES?!
Snap.
Christopher turned around. The deer were back. The six-point buck stared right at him, but its ears perked up as if listening for a predator. The wind whipped through Christopher’s hair, then died like a bird in flight. Christopher held his breath, waiting for the deer to react. But they never did.
Because they can’t see me.
Christopher looked back at the Christmas card. Santa screaming at Rudolph.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU FORGOT YOUR GLASSES?!
This was the clue. Christopher looked back up to the