Dad swallowed hard. “I hope you can forgive me, and that you’ll help me set this right.”
“Set it right?” Xander squinted at him.
He nodded. “Help me work this house. Work those rooms. Figure it all out. Get her back. Xander, get her back!”
Despite it all, the pain, the loss, the anger, Xander found himself smiling. There was nothing okay about any of this, but Dad’s words sounded so good. They were exactly what he wanted to hear. Several sentences formed in his mouth, but he bit them back. Finally, he said, “Now you’re talking.” He brought his hand up around his father’s back and hugged him. Dad showed him an expression of utter relief. It said, Thank you for not making me lose my son on the same morning I lost my wife.
Behind Xander, the door opened again. Two pairs of feet. Toria came down a step and sat next to Dad. She leaned her head into his side. David brushed against Xander, stopped halfway down the stairs. He leaned back against the railing. Xander knew it did his brother and sister good to see him and Dad friends again.
Xander smiled at David. He said, “We’re going to rescue Mom.”
All of the emotions Xander was feeling crossed over David’s face: sadness and worry, doubt and fear, and, finally, hope and determination. David’s eyes scanned the front of the house, as if seeing it differently. Then, he took in Toria and Dad before his attention settled on Xander.
David nodded. He said, “Let’s do it.”
NOT THE END . . .
WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO . .
LUKE and NICHOLAS FALLENTINE, special readers who helped set the tone;
THE FICTION TEAM AT NELSON, whose vision and expertise make my stories worth telling;
JOEL GOT LER and JOSH SCHECHT ER, for their encouragement and guidance;
MAE GANNON and ANTHONY LIPARU LO, for keeping me grounded and encouraging me to fly;
JODI, MELANIE, MATT , ANTHONY, and ISABELLA . . . always.
available now
BOOK TWO OF
DREAM HOUSE KINGS
Excerpt from Watcher in the Woods
CHAPTER
one
At twelve years old, David King was too young to die. At least he thought so.
But try telling that to the people shooting at him.
He had no idea where he was. When he had stepped through the door, smoke immediately blinded him. An explosion had thrown rocks and who-knew-what into his face. It shook the floor and knocked him off his feet. Now he was on his hands and knees on a hardwood floor. Glass and splinters dug into his palms. Somewhere, all kinds of guns were firing.
Bullets zinged overhead, thunking into walls—bits of flying plaster stung his cheeks.
Okay, so he wasn’t sure the bullets were meant for him. The guns seemed both near and far. But in the end, if he were hit, did it matter whether the shooters meant to get him or he’d had the dumb luck to stumble into the middle of a firefight?
He’d be just as dead.
The smoke cleared a bit. Sunlight poured in from a school-bus-sized hole in the ceiling. Not just the ceiling—David could see attic rafters and the jagged and burning edges of the roof. Way above was a blue sky, soft white clouds.
He was in a bedroom. A dresser lay on the floor. In front of him was a bed. He gripped the mattress and pushed himself up.
A wall exploded into a shower of plaster, rocks, and dust. He flew back. Air burst from his lungs, and he crumpled again to the floor. He gulped for breath, but nothing came. The stench of fire—burning wood and rock, something dank and putrid—swirled into his nostrils on the thick, gray smoke. The taste of cement coated his tongue. Finally, oxygen reached his lungs, and he pulled it in with loud gasps, like a swimmer saved from drowning. He coughed out the smoke and dust. He stood, finding his balance, clearing his head, wavering until he reached out to steady himself.
A hole in the floor appeared to be trying to eat the bed.
It was listing like a sinking ship, the far corner up in the air, the corner nearest David canted down into the hole. Flames had found the blankets and were spreading fast.
Outside, machine-gun fire erupted.
David jumped.
He stumbled toward an outside wall. It had crumbled, forming a rough, V-shaped hole from where the ceiling used to be nearly to the floor. Stumps of metal bars jutted out of the plaster every few feet.
More gunfire, another explosion. The floor shook.
Beyond the walls of the bedroom, the rumble of an engine and a rhythmic, metallic click-click-click-click-click tightened his stomach. He recognized the sound from a dozen war movies: a tank. It was rolling closer, getting louder.
He reached the wall and dropped to his knees. He peered out onto the dirt and cobblestone streets of a small village. Every house and building was at least partially destroyed, ravaged by bombs and bullets. The streets were littered with chunks of wall, roof tiles, even furniture that had spilled out through the ruptured buildings.
David’s eyes fell on an object in the street. His panting breath froze in his throat. He slapped his palm over his mouth, either to stifle a scream or to keep himself from throwing up. It was a body, mutilated almost beyond recognition. It lay on its back, screaming up to heaven. Male or female, adult or child, David didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. That it was human and damaged was enough to crush his heart. His eyes shot away from the sight, only to spot another body. This one was not as broken, but was no less horrible. It was a young woman. She was lying on her stomach, head turned with an expression of surprised disbelief and pointing her lifeless eyes directly at David.
He spun around and sat on the floor. He pushed his knuckles into each eye socket, squeegeeing out the wetness.
He swallowed, willing his nausea to pass.
His older brother, Xander, said that he had puked when he first saw a dead body. That had been only two days ago—in the Colosseum. David didn’t know where the portal he had stepped through had taken him. Certainly not to a gladiator fight in Rome.
He squinted toward the other side of the room, toward the shadowy corner where he had stepped into . . . wherever this was . . . whenever it was. Nothing there now. No passage home. Just a wall.
He heard rifle shots and a scream.
Click-click-click-click-click . . . the tank was still approaching.
What had he done? He thought he could be a hero, and now he was about to get shot or blown up or . . . something that amounted to the same thing. Dead.
Dad had been right. They weren’t ready. They should have made a plan.
Click-click-click-click-click.
David rose into a crouch and turned toward the crumbled wall.
I’m here now, he thought. I gotta know what I’m dealing with, right? Okay then. I can do this.
He popped up from his hiding place to look out onto the street. Down the road to his right, the tank was coming into town over a bridge. Bullets sparked against its steel skin. Soldiers huddled behind it, keeping close as it moved forward. In turn, they would scurry out to the side, fire a rifle or machine gun, and step back quickly. Their targets were to David’s left, which meant he was smack between them.
Figures.
At that moment, he’d have given anything to redo the past hour. He closed his eyes. Had it really only been an hour? An hour to go from his front porch to here?
In this house, stranger things had happened . . .
READING GROUP GUIDE
1. None of the King kids is particularly happy about leaving everyone and everything they know back in Pasadena to move to Pinedale. Have you ever had to move away from a place you loved? How did you cope?
2. Pasadena is part of a big metropolitan area. Pinedale is small and secluded. What can you do in big cities that you can’t do in rural towns? How about the opposite: What can you do in rural towns that you can’t do in big cities? Which do you prefer?
3. Xander loves movies—to the point that he relates a lot of what happens around him to something he’s seen in the m
ovies. Do you ever do that with movies or books or something else? Does it help you understand situations better? Why?
4. When the Kings first find the big Victorian house, Xander gets an uneasy feeling. Have you ever had a bad feeling about something that you couldn’t explain? What did you do about it?
5. “Victorian” architecture became popular during and after the reign of United Kingdom’s Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901. “Cape Cod” homes were named after an area of Massachusetts where they were popular. Do have a favorite house style? Do you know what style house you live in?
6. T he Kings discover footprints in their new home. They search for an intruder or a place where people could slip into their house, but they find nothing. What would you have done if you were in their situation? What else could they have done to protect themselves?
7. Xander and David discover that the upstairs linen closet is more than a closet. What would you do if you found something so strange? Would you tell your parents? Why do you think the King boys decided to keep it secret?
8. Why do you think the guards in the Roman Colosseum threw spears at Xander? Was there anything else Xander could have done to save himself ?
9. A fter Xander’s bad experience in the Colosseum and Dad’s making the third-floor portals off-limits, why was David so insistent about experiencing “going over” for himself ? What do you think of his actions?
10. When David goes over, he runs into three tigers and a tribe of hunters. Where do you think he was? If you could go anywhere in history, where would you go? What would you do there? Who would you like to meet?
11. Why do you think the Dreamhouse portals to other worlds exist in the first place? In other words, what is their purpose?
12. T he portals seem to continually shift around—for example, the first antechamber may lead to an Arctic world one time, but a pirate world the next time the Kings look. Why do you think the portals change?
13. T he King children find out that Dad knew a lot more about the house than he had let on. Why do you think he kept his knowledge of the house secret? Xander and David have very different reactions to their father’s lying about the house and their real reason for moving to Pinedale. Would you have responded angrily, like Xander, or more calmly, like David? Why?
House of Dark Shadows Page 18