“What’s he doing with the fish?”

“We sent a lot of it over to the day care this morning. We got some protein to the littles, at least.”

“A lot of it?” She raised an eyebrow. “What’s Quinn doing with the rest? He’s not hoarding it, I hope.”

“He’s . . .” Sam stopped himself. The last thing he wanted was to argue about Quinn and Albert and fish. “Actually, can we talk about that tomorrow? The important thing is that the littles got some protein today. Can we just be happy about that?”

Astrid laid her hand against his cheek. “Go to bed.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He trudged upstairs, feeling better than he had all day. He passed Mary coming down. “Hey, Mary. Back to work?”

“What else would I be doing?” she said. “Sorry, that sounded cranky.”

“If you can’t be cranky, who can?” Sam said. “But hey, are you getting enough to eat?”

Mary seemed startled. “What?”

“I was wondering if you were getting enough food. You’ve lost some weight. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you look good.”

“Thanks,” Mary managed to say. “I’m um . . . Yes, I’m getting plenty to eat.”

“Did you get some of the fish this morning?”

Mary nodded. “Yes. It was really great.”

“Okay. Later.”

Sam had the use of what had once been a guest room. It was nicely made up, had its own bathroom, with very soft matching towels. He kept the room very neat and clean because it was still somehow not his room. He couldn’t imagine it ever being his room. This house belonged to . . . well, that was a good question. But it sure wasn’t his.

Which did not stop him from sliding between the sheets and passing almost instantly from hectic consciousness to sleep.

But there was no peace in his dreams. He had a dream of his mother. Only she wasn’t really his mother in the dream, not the real person. She was the creature who had called for him in the midst of what would have been the poof.

Happy fifteenth birthday, Sam, now step out of the FAYZ into . . . into no one knew what.

Some kind of illusion. Seeing what you wanted to see. And yet, it had seemed so real at the time. In his dream, Sam relived that moment.

He saw Caine, his fraternal twin, within a circle of blistering light. He saw their mother. And he saw a girl, maybe twelve, thin, with a lot of thick ponytail. He wondered in a vague sort of way about the girl. There had been no girl there during the poof. Not inside the distortion. No girl.

But now that dream was dissolving into another. Sam was standing at the bottom of the town hall front steps and there were cans as big as trash barrels rolling down the steps. It started with a can of beans. And then another. And then a can of ravioli. The cans started coming faster and now Sam was trying to climb the steps but he couldn’t because every time he lifted a foot to set it down on a step, he found another can hurtling toward him.

Now a cascade of little cans, almost like insects scurrying around under his feet. He was tripping, slipping and sliding in a cascade of cans, unable to rise.

In his dream he looked up and saw a girl, the same girl again. Lots of brown hair drawn back in a long ponytail. The girl. She was at the top of the stairs. But she wasn’t throwing the cans.

The cans became Junior Mints. In cans, oddly, but with the familiar green Junior Mints label. Cans of them rolling and tumbling and tripping Sam, who now was buried under them.

Sam was aware of someone standing beside him. Not a person, an insect, a bug of indistinct shape.

The giant bug picked up a Junior Mint, which now was not a can but a big, novelty-sized box.

Sam woke suddenly.

Astrid was shaking him, yelling right in is face, scared. “Wake up!”

He was up in a flash, almost knocking Astrid over.

“What?”

“Petey,” Astrid cried. Her eyes were wild with fear.

Sam ran for Pete’s room. He stopped dead in the hallway outside it. The door was open.

Pete was in his bed. He wasn’t moving. His eyes were shut. His face was peaceful. He was asleep. But how he could sleep was beyond Sam, because the room around Pete was filled with monsters.

Literally filled. Wall to wall. Up to the ceiling.

Monsters. A hundred nightmares’ worth of monsters. They slithered from under his bed. They crawled from his closet. They floated like they were helium balloons. Like an entire Macy’s Thanksgiving parade in miniature had floated into Little Pete’s room. But instead of cartoon Shrek and the Cat in the Hat there were things much more sinister in their place.

One of the smaller ones had purple wings in three pairs, grasping tendrils hanging from its belly, a head like the end of a syringe with bloodred eyeballs perched on top.

The largest was a shaggy monstrosity like a grizzly bear with eighteen-inch spikes at the ends of its paws.

There were creatures that were all sharp edges, as if they’d been assembled out of razor blades and kitchen knives. There were creatures of glowing magma. There were creatures who flew and others who slithered.

“Like the other day? In the plaza?” Sam asked in a shaky whisper.

“No. Look: they cast shadows,” Astrid said urgently. “They’re making sounds. They smell.”

The big shaggy monster shifted shape as they watched. The brown fur lightened toward white, then veered suddenly to green.

Its mouth moved.

Opened.

A sound came from it, like a strangling cat. An eerie mewling.