I swallowed. "Dude, there's a reason I don't swim in the pool anymore."

Faulkner stared at me, his jaw slack. I saw him do the mental math. "Oh. Man. Really?"

"Do I look like I'm lying?" Suddenly I wanted to explode, to punch him, to force him into my head, to let him know I wasn't rebelling because I wanted a later curfew. "G.o.d, Faulkner, believe me for once."

"Calm down." Faulkner put up his hands. "I mean, dude, she's never done anything like that to me. Are you sure? I mean, you didn't just, like, lose at Marco Polo or something?" He laughed.

He didn't believe me. After all that, he didn't believe me?

"But you saw it happen," I protested. "You saw what she did to me in the woods a"

Faulkner shook his head, clearly wanting to erase the image from his mind. "I don't know, man. I don't know what I saw. Maybe it was a trick of the light or something."

"Forget it. I don't need your help. I'll ask someone else."

For a minute, I felt like the older one, as if I'd matured ten years in the past five minutes. For someone who didn't have a license yet and needed to shave only every few days, it was a really strange feeling. "I'll see you later, Faulkner." I started to head off to the right.

"Where are you going?"

"I just need to get away from here. To have some time to think. This isn't a" I looked back over my shoulder at the lawn, the shrubs, the flowers and plants that had stupid unp.r.o.nounceable Latin names and men hired just to take care of them. I couldn't see the well from here, though I could feel it, could sense it. Could still smell it on me.

"There's something about Mom and about everything around here that isn't right," I finished. Understatement of the year.

"What if Mom and StepScrooge Sam ask me where you are?"

That's what we'd called Sam from the beginning. He hated it, but we didn't like him much, so it seemed to be right. In the eighteen months Sam had been married to our mother, Faulkner and I had always felt like squatters in his mansion, me especially. He was hard on Faulkner, but commando on me. I didn't know why. Maybe it was the extra mouth to feed.

Every dollar Mom spent on clothes for us, every piece of food we took from the fridge, was subtracted from his mental debit card. We were banned from the vineyard, as if our being there might taint the grapes. Jumel Vineyards was some kind of superduper business success story because it was located in the middle of Maine, where apparently it wasn't so easy to grow grapes because of the cold.

Sam reminded us all the time about respecting that Jumel heritage-and staying the h.e.l.l away from it. Whatever. We weren't about to breathe on his precious Concords.

We'd never liked him and gave him only as much respect as we had to. That kept our mother from calling the Dr. Phil show on us, kept Sam off our backs, and kept a roof over our heads. But Sam a he was a hard case, always on us for one thing or another, really a.n.a.l about keeping stuff clean and picked up, and a pain in the b.u.t.t about the water bill, as if Faulkner and I alone were responsible for the entire globalwarming problem. The only reason the pool had even been opened was because my mother had sweet-talked him into it, so that she could work out after she hurt her knee last summer. Even then, Sam's face took on this constipated look every time he walked past the Olympic-size waste of natural resources.

The man had money-yet pinched a penny until Lincoln screamed for mercy. Some days I wished my mother had married Hannibal Lecter instead.

So we tolerated Sam, Faulkner and I, to keep the peace and took extra-long showers whenever he was at work. Just because we could.

But right now, there were bigger problems on my plate than Sam and his water-bill fetish.

"Tell them a" I thought for a minute. "Tell them I'm spending the night at Joey Deluca's. Tell them we have a big research project due and I'm working on it with him. Tell them it's for English."

My English grade sucked wind. I hated the cla.s.sics. Hated Shakespeare. Hated d.i.c.kens even more. Thought Pip should have been drowned with the convict in the opening scene of Great Expectations and saved us all the torture. I'd turned out to be a total disappointment to my Englishprofessor father and my American-cla.s.sics-loving mother, who'd named me and Faulkner after their favorite authors, me for the James Fenimore guy who'd written that thing about the Indians.

"Come on. Who's going to believe that?" Faulkner said.

"They will. They'd do anything to have me pa.s.s English."

Maybe, I hoped, she'd forget I existed for a while. Maybe she'd get into one of those moods where she sort of zoned out. And she wouldn't come looking for me. I started down the street.

"Wait." Faulkner grabbed my sleeve. "You got a cell with you?"

I shook my head. Failing English meant no perks. A cell phone had been the carrot my father had dangled in front of me for a year. Yet another reason to hate Pip. He had cost me a Motorola.

For a second, I thought Faulkner might offer me his cell, but he just shrugged. "Well, be careful. Don't get killed or picked up by some psycho."

I looked away. I already lived with a psycho. She'd made my peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly sandwiches, reminded me to look both ways before crossing the street, and warned me never to talk to strangers. Strangers, it turned out, weren't the ones you had to worry about. "Yeah. I will."

Faulkner dug his hands into his back pockets. Adios, amigo. "

I took in a breath. All I could smell was the faintly pine scent of my cologne. Maybe I had escaped it. Maybe I had dreamed it all. Maybe it wasn't- Then, from far off, I heard a wailing, a low, guttural keening sound, almost like something crying. But these weren't tears of sorrow. It was as if an animal had had its prize ripped away. My heart shuddered to a stop. I swallowed, but nothing moved down my throat. Ice curled around my spine. "Did you hear that?"

Faulkner paused and looked around, then looked back at me, blank. "Hear what?"

"I think a I think it's looking for me." Why was this happening? Why couldn't I just go back to worrying about stupid c.r.a.p like ripping out a fart just when Ms. Walker called on me in math or splitting my shorts doing a jumping jack in front of the entire freshman cla.s.s? I'd give anything to be humiliated in school instead of hunted like a wounded antelope on the Sahara.

"What's looking for you?"

But I didn't answer Faulkner. The thing was screaming again, louder, angrier, more insistent. Faulkner just stared at me as if I were an idiot. "I don't hear anything. Dude, you're muy loco."

But I really did hear it. In fact, I could almost feel it, in that kind of connection that came from being so close, as if I were within touching distance, feel it reaching for me in my head, sending out mental tentacles.

My heart skittered to a stop for one long second, then started again, hammering fast.

Soon, I knew, somehow I knew, it would find me. And if it couldn't drag me back itself, it would find someone to do its dirty work for it-my mother.

Next time, I might not be so lucky to have a rope and Faulkner at the top of the well. Without even bothering to say goodbye to my brother, I turned and ran.

The boy had escaped.

He should have taken him when he'd had the chance. But no, he'd been stupid and he had paused. Antic.i.p.ated.

Toyed with him.

But it had been so long, so very, very long, since he'd had any fun like that. Anything to pursue, other than the occasional rat, or a bird that lost its way and fluttered into the darkness. Some spiders, bugs. The occasional idiot human. And then there were the meals that the other one fed the creature.

None of it was the one person he needed. All the things he'd eaten up until now had given up too soon, fallen apart in fear. No fight in them. Disgusting.

They weren't real quarry. The boy, though, he was a chal lenge, the kind the creature could circle and tease, delighting in the scent of his fear, the thumping of his heart. The power of terror.

He-that human, the one with all the control-he had kept him down here, kept him under his thumb, kept him from the world. And now the creature finally had a way out, something that would give him back all that he had watched wither away. And that something had a name.

Cooper.

The boy's name rolled off his tongue-or what was left of his tongue-like candy. He said it again and again, breathing it in and out. Oh, he'd have him soon. Have him back in the well.

And next time, he wouldn't hesitate.

But until then, he had to eat. It wasn't the meal he needed, the blood that would give him freedom again-freedom to escape, to walk among the world, and finally, to exact his revenge on the one who had tortured him like a spider pinned on a board, who had raped the very land the creature loved-but it would be enough to sustain him, until he could have Cooper. And then a Oh, then his old life would return. A few more days until the moon rose on the exact eve he needed, the anniversary date he had waited so long for, and then he'd climb out of this h.e.l.lhole and walk among people again. Reclaim his birthright-steal it from the one who sat at his table, drank his wine, walked his grounds.

All the others had treated the creature with compa.s.sion. Had acknowledged his gift to them. To these lands. But not this one.

No. This one needed to pay for the way he had sneered at the creature. Thrown him a pittance of food. Thumbed his nose at the wealth the creature's sacrifice had given him. Ripped down his home, replaced it with that eyesore, then laughed, actually laughed, at the creature's pain and loss.

Vengeance would be sweet. Sweeter than the blood he would soon drink.

He concentrated, though it hurt now to do it because he was so weak, so d.a.m.ned weak, and then he heard sounds from above. From the world of light.

Singing. Drunken slurring.

He laughed. Vineyard workers dipping into the product again. Crouching low into himself, he poured everything into his thoughts.

Come closer. These grapes are the best, the sweetest. Taste from this vine.

The song grew louder. Shuffling of leaves. Breaking branches.

Hungry? Take one bite. just one.

The creature pressed on his own head, his fingers sinking deep into what had once been flesh and now was as soft as moss, nails sc.r.a.ping at what no longer even looked like skin. He concentrated harder, sending out his thoughts and reaching his vision up and over the walls.

One man. Old, with gray hair. Skinny, slow.

The creature nearly stopped in disgust. But no, the decrepit human would have to do. For now.

He pressed again on his temples, his fingers lost inside the mush above his neck. His head pounded, stabbing pain arcing through his body, but then his telepathic power began to work, and the slime on the wall grew outward in a quickly multiplying vine, over the walls and toward his prey.

The creature saw with that third mental eye acting as the extension of his reach and then with an agonized surge of effort, his thoughts joined with the land and became physical manifestations. Became real. The green web reaching out, wrapping around the man's legs, yanking him down to the ground. The geezer let out a shriek of surprise. His stupid song stopped. Finally.

The creature pressed harder, and his ropelike snare twisted tighter, winding around the man's flailing legs, wrapping him into a ball like a spider's prize. Worthless creature. He had barely put up a fight.

The vines inched upward, tighter, tighter still, crushing organs and bones in their boa-constrictor grip. With each death crunch the creature's antic.i.p.ation for the meal grew. He forced the last of his mental energy out with one agonizing cry, and the man came tumbling over the wall of the well and down, down, down, in a splashing ball of crumpled skin and oozing blood.

Once a man. Now a means to an end.

Soon, the creature thought. Soon he'd have the real lifeblood he needed.

Cooper.

Where's nothing like sitting in Freshman English on a Monday morning to remind you the real world does go on. And just to make things worse, it smacks you with a book report.

"Three pages, typed and double-s.p.a.ced, on the symbolism found in the play within a play in act three of Hamlet, by Wednesday," my father said to the cla.s.s. He stood at the front of the room, wearing a tweed jacket like he was Doctor freakin' Zhivago, the tips of his fingers white with chalk and his shoes covered with dust from erasing first period's notes.

The cla.s.s groaned. "Dude, your dad is like a prison warden." Joey Deluca slammed his five-subject notebook shutthe only notes in it being ones from girls-and plopped his feet on the floor, making Mike Ring's chair, where Joey's feet had been resting, shake. Mike turned and glared at Joey. "Cooper, can't you talk to him? Tell him this is high school, not Sing Sing?"

My father put his back to us and wrote the a.s.signment on the board with the kind of penmanship that would have made my third grade teacher shout hallelujahs. Then below that, he stacked up a bunch of bullet points we had to be sure to include in our essays. Another collective groan blew through the cla.s.s.

"I'm failing my own father's cla.s.s," I whispered back to Joey. "He isn't going to listen to me."

He never had. That was half the problem between my father and me.

A note slid across my desk. "From Megan," whispered Drue Macy, who was Megan's best friend. She gave me the evil girlfriend eye and turned up her nose before looking away.

I glanced over my shoulder at Megan, and my heart did that funny little flip-flop thing. It always did that when I looked at her-always had for as long as I could remember. We'd been going out for six months now, but it felt like forever. In a good way. As though she'd always been my girlfriend and always would be. I had a hundred images in my head of Megan and me together, and I couldn't imagine a day without her.

People had started calling us "CooperandMegan," as if we were one person. It had been nice, real nice. And then yesterday, I'd made plans for a fancy dinner. At a good restaurant and everything, to celebrate our six-month anniversary. Until the well got in the way.

I unfolded the paper. Megan's small, tight writing in blue pen filling only three lines. "I waited for you yesterday. Where were you?" she wrote. "Why ask me out if you were going to stand me up? And on our anniversary, too." She'd underlined anniversary. Four times.

"Dude, seriously," Joey went on. "I'm supposed to go out with Lindsay Beckham tomorrow night. I don't have time for Hamlet and his screwed-up family."

I folded the paper and stuffed it into my jeans. What was I going to tell her? Sorry, I know this was a big deal, but my mother had plans to feed me to some monster in the well in the vineyard behind our house?

Yeah, she'd believe that. I'd have better luck telling her I'd been sucked into the mother ship.

I tipped back in my chair, pretended to stretch, and glanced at Megan out of the corner of my eye. She had her head down, her hair a velvet brown curtain swishing forward around her notebook. She was taking notes.

I'd known Megan since kindergarten. When my mother and father were still married, Megan was the cliche-the girl next door. Back then, we were friends, part of the neighbor hood pack that rode bikes to the playground, traded off yards for catch and swimming, stuff like that.

But then one day, something changed. A switch turned on in my brain and I stopped noticing Megan as one of the others and noticed her as Megan. I started paying attention to the way she walked. Talked. To her perfume. Her hair. Her eyes. Her body. Especially her body.

Then I got nervous around her. I couldn't hang out with her, even with everyone around, without becoming the stammering idiot Hulk.

It took three months before I got Braveheart enough to do something about it and finally blurted out, "Want to meet me at the movies on Sunday night? Just you and me?"

She'd rewarded me with a yes and the most amazing smile I'd ever seen. I'd thought my life was pretty d.a.m.n sweet- Until I'd ended up at the bottom of a well instead of at Vincenzo's Italian restaurant with Megan in one of those curtained booths.

Megan quit writing and looked up. Her eyes met mine. I tried on a smile, but it didn't quite fit. Her face hardened, spelling you're a jerk, and she looked away.

I took out her note and scribbled, "I'm sorry. I'll explain everything later, I promise," on the bottom. I thought a minute, chewing on the end of my pen. I needed something more, but it's not as if they hand out a manual on this stuff at freshman orientation. In the end, I just underlined the "I promise," signed my name, and sent it back to Megan via Drue the carrier pigeon.

Mike leaned his head back into my s.p.a.ce. "I got a solution," he said. It took a second for me to realize he was talking to Joey. "Pay Maria to do your paper. That's what you did with A Midsummer Night's Dream. "

"No can do. She hates me." Joey wadded up a corner of notebook paper and finger punted it into Mike's hair.

"You're a loser." Mike brushed at his head, but the looseleaf soccer ball stayed put.

I really didn't care about the conversation, but listening to Joey and Mike kept me from thinking about my own life-about Megan being mad at me, about the well, about how I'd spent last night sleeping in an abandoned house on the outskirts of town, seriously creeped out and awake until two in the morning. Joey hadn't been home, and Mike's mother wasn't wild about his friends showing up and having an insta-sleepover. The whole camping-out-like-a-hobo thing had sounded like a good idea. Until I did it.

My friends were about as full of depth as an empty mayonnaise jar, but they made me feel as if things were normal. As though I could walk out of this building, hitch a ride on the bus to my house, and find a chicken in the oven and my mother standing there with a smile, instead of a knife aimed at my throat.

"Why does Maria hate you?" I asked.

"Her sister. Me. Hot date." Joey put out his palms, shrugged, and grinned.

"Dawg!" Mike pivoted in his seat and raised a high-five hand. "She's, like, a senior."

"Mr. Ring!" My father's voice, full of you-will-payattention authority.

Mike slid down in his seat and circled back around, like a puppy caught peeing on the gardenias. "Yeah, Mr. Warner?"