by Jason Segel
When they knocked on Medusa’s door, she answered immediately. Her snakes were a writhing mass on her head, and her normally long blood-red nails had been chewed down to the quick.
“Boys!” she exclaimed as she ushered them inside. “You must leave the Netherworld immediately—and this time you cannot return. It’s not safe here for humans. It’s not safe for anyone anymore.”
Charlie spied the bottle of tonic sitting on a small table beside the front door. He had a hunch that was right where Bruce had left it.
“You haven’t opened the tonic,” he said.
“Of course I have!” Medusa snapped. “But it’s not going to give us the answer we need. And now there are new problems to face. Take a look through the telescope and see for yourself.”
Charlie went to the telescope as he was told and pulled it down to his eyes. In the distance he could see the lighthouse. The enormous lantern at the very top of the structure was brightly lit. It cast a bold white beam across the border and into goblin territory. It was acting as a beacon, Charlie realized. And crowded around the base of the lighthouse were thousands of goblins.
“What are they doing?” he asked.
“They appear to be waiting for something,” Medusa said. “I’ve sent all my best troops out there, and I pray they’ll be able to reach the lighthouse in time. If the door opens and those goblins find their way inside and through the portal, the results could be catastrophic.”
Charlie thought of the Harpy who’d been sent to investigate the lighthouse. “Ava’s still in Maine.” And in terrible danger, he realized.
“Have you had any word from her?” Medusa asked.
Charlie shook his head. He could see his own fears reflected in Medusa’s face. If the goblins were able to cross through to the Waking World, their friend Ava—and the entire state of Maine—might soon have some very unwelcome visitors.
“Goblins or no goblins, we still need an antidote to the tonic,” he told Medusa. “If Charlotte can find out what it’s made of, she might be able to come up with an antidote and stop the hole from swallowing the Netherworld.”
Medusa shook her head. “I told you, the answer we need isn’t in the tonic. The substances that were used to make it don’t have the power to keep humans from dreaming.”
“But I’ve seen what it does!” Charlie argued.
“The tonic’s power doesn’t come from an herb or a mushroom,” Medusa said. “The tonic’s power comes from the hand that made it. Its secret ingredient is despair.”
Medusa’s discovery was a serious setback. It had kept Charlie awake long after he’d returned from the Netherworld. Before he’d finally fallen asleep, he’d set his alarm for eight, hoping to make it downtown for the eight-thirty grand opening of the Cypress Creek branch of Tranquility Tonight. Unfortunately, he’d hit the snooze button a few too many times. Now it was ten minutes past nine, and there were already four people waiting in line outside the tonic shop. One of them was Ollie Tobias’s mother.
To Charlie’s surprise, Rocco Marquez was there too, clutching a stack of papers and handing one out to each person who passed. Few people bothered to glance down at the paper, though. Most wadded it up into a ball and threw it away without looking. Charlie could see that the trash can at the end of the block was already filled with them.
“Don’t drink the tonic!” Rocco was shouting at a man who was swinging a leather briefcase. The man took a flyer and offered Rocco the stink eye in return.
“Tranquility Tonic will eat your brain!” Rocco told a woman on her way to work at the ice cream parlor.
“Excuse me?” It was Mrs. Tobias, calling out to Rocco from her place at the front of the Tranquility Tonight line. “Excuse me, young man. Are you a doctor?”
“No,” Rocco told her. “But I’ve seen firsthand what the tonic can do.”
Mrs. Tobias gave the next person in line a satisfied smirk and then turned back to Rocco. “So you’re not a doctor,” she sniffed.
“Of course not,” Rocco replied. He was clearly getting frustrated. “I’m twelve.”
Mrs. Tobias looked down her nose and cocked her head. She was putting on a show for everyone watching. “Then you should leave the medical advice to professionals. My child has been suffering from terrible nightmares, and I have it on good authority that the tonic will cure him. Perhaps a twelve-year-old like you should be at home playing with his toys instead of preventing people from getting the help they need.”
“Playing with my toys?” Rocco repeated as Charlie drew near. That was when Charlie decided it was best to step in.
“What’s going on?” Charlie asked his friend.
“Charlie!” Rocco cried in surprise. He sounded desperate. “What does it look like? I’m doing my best to save Cypress Creek! I tried to find you and Alfie and Paige after I got home from my game yesterday, but you were all missing! Then I heard that the tonic store was opening today, and I figured I had to take matters into my own hands. But no one is listening to me, Charlie! I feel like that kid Geppetto in that story with the naked emperor and the three dwarves where the sky was falling—”
Charlie grabbed Rocco by the shoulders. “It’s okay,” he said as calmly as he could. “I’m here.”
“Well, well, well!” Mrs. Tobias’s shrill voice broke Charlie’s focus, and his arms dropped to his sides. “Look who it is. If it isn’t Charlotte Laird’s extremely observant stepson. By the way, Mr. Laird, I’m observant too, and I noticed that Hazel’s Herbarium is closed today. And from what I hear, it’s going to stay that way.”
The woman had found Charlie’s weak spot, and he felt his fists clenching. “You heard wrong,” Charlie said. He turned to face the woman at the front of the line. “My stepmom is just in New York visiting publishers. She’s going to be a bestselling author.”
In the brief moment before Mrs. Tobias could answer, the sound of a key turning in a lock filled the silence. It was the shop’s front door. Mrs. Tobias snickered, then, in a saccharine-sweet voice said, “Of course she is. Now if you children will excuse me, I have a purchase to make.”
Ollie’s mother opened the shop’s door, and Charlie rushed forward to get a quick peek inside. He made it in time to get an eyeful, but the Shopkeeper was nowhere to be seen. Behind the counter stood a well-groomed Walker wearing an enormous blond wig. Charlie was certain it was the same woman who’d been handing out pamphlets in front of the shop the day before. When Mrs. Tobias turned and slammed the door in his face, Charlie returned to where Rocco was standing and nudged the boy with his elbow. “Come on,” he said.
“I can’t!” Rocco’s eyes were wild. “I need to stay here and warn everyone!”
“They’re not going to listen,” Charlie answered. “But I know someone who will.”
—
They rang the doorbell three times before the housekeeper opened the door at the Tobiases’ house. She’d obviously just woken up from a nap. Someone had drawn a purple Magic Marker mustache above her lip.
“May I help you?” she asked wearily.
“We’d like to see Ollie,” Charlie told her.
“Are you sure?” the housekeeper asked.
“Of course,” Rocco answered, sounding a bit confused.
“Oliver!” the woman shouted.
There was a sound that could have been a herd of elephants pounding down the stairs, and Ollie appeared at the front door.
“You’ve got company,” the housekeeper told him.
“Thank you, Mrs. Hawthorne,” Ollie said kindly. “By the way, have I told you how lovely you look today?”
Charlie had to force himself not to laugh as the housekeeper narrowed her eyes and turned to look in the mirror by the door. “Oliver!” she screeched. Then she turned to Charlie and Rocco. “Can you keep him busy for five minutes while I wash this mustache off?”
“Certainly,” Charlie told her, trying his best to sound reliable.
The housekeeper stalked off, and Ollie greeted his friends as
if nothing were out of the ordinary. “Hey, Charlie. Hey, Rocco,” he said. “What’s up?”
“We just saw your mother in town,” Charlie said. “She was standing in line at the new Tranquility Tonight store. We’re here to tell you that whatever you do, you shouldn’t drink the tonic.”
“I have to,” Ollie said. Charlie had never heard him sound quite so serious.
“No, you don’t,” Rocco insisted. “When she gives it to you, throw it out the window or flush it down the toilet. Come on—you’re Ollie Tobias. You’ll think of some way to get out of it!”
Ollie shook his head. “You don’t understand. I’ve been having terrible nightmares. I can barely get to sleep at night.”
Now that he mentioned it, Ollie did look tired, Charlie thought.
“But the tonic won’t just get rid of your nightmares,” Charlie explained. “It will keep you from dreaming and eat your brain.”
Ollie shrugged. “I don’t care,” he said.
Charlie cast a look at Rocco, who was already eyeing him. It wasn’t the response either of them had anticipated. Whatever Ollie saw in his dreams had to be pretty bad.
“What are your nightmares about?” Rocco asked.
“A little girl,” Ollie said. Charlie noticed that the kid was trembling slightly as he spoke. And his usually ruddy face had gone pale. “She follows me around every night. I’ve only seen her a couple of times, but she’s always watching me. I feel awful whenever she’s around. I think she’s going to do something terrible.”
“Nightmares can’t hurt you, Ollie. But you can’t run from them either,” Charlie counseled. “You have to figure out what really scares you and face it. Otherwise you’ll just keep having the same nightmare every night.”
“I know what scares me,” Ollie said, suddenly annoyed instead of scared. “It’s the little girl. And she’s not just a regular old Nightmare. I think I saw her in town today.”
“You saw her?” Charlie asked.
“Just what do you think you’re doing!” a woman shouted up from the sidewalk. “Get off my porch, you grade-school hoodlums!”
Charlie grimaced at the sound of Mrs. Tobias’s voice, but he didn’t turn around. “You have to trust me,” Charlie told Ollie. “Don’t drink the tonic. There are other ways to conquer your nightmares. There’s a book I could show you—”
“I’m calling the police!” Mrs. Tobias was charging up the stairs, a brown paper bag clutched in one hand.
“She’s not joking. She calls them all the time,” Ollie said. “She has them on speed dial. Thanks for dropping by, guys, but you’d better go.”
—
Charlie and Rocco walked back toward town, discouraged.
“What the heck is speed dial?” Rocco asked.
All Charlie could offer was a miserable shrug.
“Nobody believes us,” Rocco muttered. “Not even the town’s best-known juvenile delinquent.”
“Yeah, and how can a little girl be all that scary, anyway?” Charlie groused. “It’s not like Ollie’s dreaming about a witch who wants to eat him. Or an evil principal who wants to make him repeat the seventh grade.”
“Don’t knock little girls,” Rocco said, bumping Charlie with his shoulder. “Little girls can be totally scary. Aren’t you best friends with Paige? She’s the scariest person in town when she wants to be. And who knows, maybe the girl in Ollie’s nightmare is a cannibal or something.”
“Maybe,” Charlie admitted. “But I’ve spent plenty of time in the Netherworld, and I haven’t seen too many Nightmare creatures disguised as little girls. Giant grubs, yes. Talking cockroaches, sure. Little girls, no.”
But even as he said it, Charlie realized that Ollie wasn’t the only one who’d encountered a little girl in the Netherworld. Meduso had seen one too—trapped inside ICK and INK’s lighthouse. It seemed like a weird coincidence.
“So what are we going to do now?” Rocco asked, breaking Charlie’s concentration.
There wasn’t much they could do. “I guess we’ll just have to wait for my stepmom,” Charlie said. And hope she could come up with an antidote for despair, he added to himself.
—
“There you are!” Andrew Laird barked when Charlie and Rocco walked through the door of the purple mansion. “Hello, Rocco. It’s nice to see you,” he added in a more civil tone. “Please excuse me while I yell at my son.” Then he turned back to Charlie. “Where have you been? I need to leave for work! It’s almost ten o’clock, and my first class started at nine-thirty. When Charlotte and I are both gone, it’s your job to watch after your brother!”
Charlie had completely forgotten. “Sorry, Dad. I went downtown to see the new Tranquility Tonight store,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d be gone so long.”
Andrew Laird’s eyes lit up. “It’s open?” he asked. “I might just stop by. I’ve been having the worst dreams lately, and—”
“Dad, no!” Charlie nearly screamed. Then he recovered his composure. “Remember what Charlotte’s friend Dabney told you? The tonic makes your breath smell like kitty litter.”
Andrew Laird yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Might be worth trying it anyway,” he said. “I can’t go another twenty-four hours without a good night’s sleep.”
“Just wait,” Charlie practically begged. “Wait for Charlotte to get home. She might get upset if you take anything without talking to her. Maybe she has something better to give you.”
“Good point,” Andrew Laird said. Nothing pleased him more than Charlie’s newfound appreciation for his stepmother. “And if I’m going to have kitty litter breath, I should probably pass it by her first. Now I gotta run to work. Charlie, stick around the house today, would you?”
Charlie didn’t even bother to argue. For the first time in days, there was nothing else for him to do but wait for something to happen—and waiting wasn’t his specialty. He needed something to keep him from going crazy with worry. So he went out to the front porch and began tending to the plants. Rocco tagged along, and together they watered the herbs, repotted a passion flower, and gave the milk thistle a nourishing layer of cow dung.
At around ten-thirty, Jack joined them, still dressed in his pajamas. The three of them weeded, trimmed, and hoed. Few words were spoken. Charlie was too busy thinking through the situation. The people of Cypress Creek were lining up along Main Street to purchase a tonic that would turn them into Walkers. Thousands of goblins had gathered outside the Netherworld lighthouse—and they appeared to be waiting to invade Maine. ICK and INK seemed to be responsible for everything. But why? What was their plan? Try as he might, Charlie couldn’t figure it out.
—
Just before noon, Rocco headed home for lunch. Charlie and his brother were tending to the Saint-John’s-wort when Charlie heard someone coming up the drive. He turned to see a man in a pin-striped blue suit making his way toward the mansion. He had slicked-back hair and a fancy gold watch, and he smelled like he’d recently bathed in cologne. When the man greeted the boys with a wide, toothy smile, Charlie knew he’d seen the guy somewhere before. He stood up and brushed the dirt off his hands.
“Good afternoon, young man. I’m looking for Mrs. Charlotte Laird. Is she at home?”
“No,” Charlie said curtly. He’d taken an instant dislike to the man. “She’s out of town.”
“You must be one of her stepsons.” The man hadn’t stopped smiling. “Let me guess. Charles? Am I right?”
“How did you know?” Charlie asked, surprised.
Before the man could answer, Jack appeared. “Hi,” he said.
The man bent down and made a show of shaking the boy’s hand. “And you must be Jack.”
Jack looked over at Charlie and back at the man. “Who are you?” he asked bluntly.
“My name is Curtis Swanson.” The name made Charlie’s stomach churn. He’d seen the man’s signature on several letters. “Your stepmother is a client of mine.”
“You’re from the bank,” Charlie sai
d.
“That’s right!” Mr. Swanson exclaimed, acting as if Charlie had won the lottery. “I was hoping to have a word with your stepmother about an important business matter, but…”
“You look like the wolf,” Jack said, recalling Charlie’s nightmare.
“Excuse me?” Mr. Swanson asked, glancing from boy to boy, confused.
Charlie picked up a shovel and drove its sharp edge into the ground. “I told you. Charlotte is not here,” he said.
Curtis Swanson’s smile was so wide that it almost seemed to wrap around his entire head. “Yes, and I heard you. So I’m just going to have a quick look around the property and take a few pictures before I go. Don’t mind me!” He started off across the lawn, his eyes inspecting every inch of the building. “It’s going to need some serious fixing up. And a new coat of paint to cover that purple,” Swanson murmured to himself.
Charlie followed the man, Jack jogging alongside him. “Charlie, why is that guy just like the wolf from your dream?” Jack asked. “And what the heck is he talking about?”
Charlie knew the answer. He’d read the letters with Curtis Swanson’s signature at the bottom. Swanson ran the bank that was trying to take their home away.
“No idea what they see in this place,” Curtis Swanson muttered as he snapped photos of the front porch and the tower above.
“Who?” Charlie demanded. “What who sees in this place?”
“The people who intend to purchase this house,” Curtis Swanson answered absentmindedly.
“Our house is for sale?” Jack asked.
“No.” Charlie could feel the rage building inside him. “It isn’t.”
“Not officially,” Swanson told Jack. “It won’t go on the market until the end of the month. After we foreclose.”
“What?” Jack asked, but the man was on the move again.
Charlie was on the verge of losing it, when a single thought popped into his head. It was an evil idea. But it was a chance to save the purple mansion. He hurried after the banker.