Excerpt: At the Sign of the Starcase

Luke sat on the end of her bed, his dark hair sticking out everywhere in a truly impressive bedhead. She’d have to wet it down for sure to tame it this morning. “It must have been a pretty bad dream to make you scream like that. Was it about Dad?”

“I don’t remember, okay?” Maddie regretted her flash of annoyance almost immediately, but Luke didn’t seem bothered by it.

“Okay, whatever. I’m going downstairs. I might as well eat since I’m up.”

Fear clutched at Maddie’s chest for a moment, and she almost told Luke to stay upstairs. She didn’t know where that thought had come from, though, and it was gone as quickly as it had come. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

After Luke had padded out, Maddie thought about the dream. Oddly, Luke’s mention of going downstairs had brought it back—or parts of it, at least. She and her father had been at the bottom of the stairs, right here in their house, and he’d been trying to tell her something. Something she didn’t want to hear, although they hadn’t been arguing, exactly. He kept repeating something about the staircase, but although in the dream she could see his lips moving, that was the only word she could make out. He’d held out something to her—a flat box, she thought, but her hands passed right through it when she tried to take it.

That was startling enough, but then she’d realized that her hand had also passed right through her father’s fingers. Panicked, she reached out to touch his arm, but her hand met nothing. Then she was wildly grasping, trying to take hold of his hand, his shirt, anything. Every time her hand passed through.

A noise surrounded them suddenly, seeming to come from all directions at once. It started low, a murmuring like water over stones in a brook, then grew to a roar—and shattered into the sound of something tumbling, clattering down the stairs toward them. The Maddie in the dream knew suddenly that they had to get out of the way, and she made one last grab at her father’s arm. He was no more substantial than he’d been before, but this time her hand somehow knocked the box from his grasp. It fell and broke open on the wood floor, and a swarm of black beetles erupted from it, their legs whirring as they poured out and scuttled in every direction. Her father didn’t seem to notice them, but his already-ghostly form began to fade.

Just then whatever had been falling down the stairs tumbled into Maddie’s legs and knocked her down, into the mass of beetles. Their legs skittered horribly over her skin, and that’s when she’d started screaming and woke up. She shuddered at the memory.

Abruptly, Maddie swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. It had just been a stupid dream, and she didn’t want to think about it any more. She’d go and wake Ren, and they’d all be ready for school early for a change.

As she pulled clothes out of her dresser, wishing she’d thought to throw her good jeans in the washer last night, she thought she saw movement on the floor under her window, just out of the corner of her eye. Her heart leapt again as images of the beetles from the dream flashed in her mind, but when she turned, there was nothing there.

“Hey,” said a voice from the doorway, and she jumped and almost screamed again. It was only Luke, a slice of toast smothered with peanut butter in one hand, ever-present math book in the other. “I forgot. Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.” Maddie took a deep breath and forced a smile.

“Guess what? I’ve got the first fifteen digits of pi memorized now. Three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight--”

“Great, Luke!” Maddie interrupted. Luke and his math obsession. Why couldn’t he be obsessed with something useful, like making dinner or keeping his room clean? “Go wake Ren, would you? Then you can tell her, too.”

He went off down the hall and Maddie sighed and turned her attention to her clothes again. Some birthday this was starting out to be.