"One day, she went back to his office for a checkup. I don't know why."

I thought back. To the weeks before this had begun. "He sent her a bottle," I recalled. "With some flowers. I was home when the delivery guy came to the door."

"I didn't know. The day I saw another bottle of that wine was"-my father looked out the window-"the day she left me for him."

Then this whole nightmare had begun. I guess I'd always been the chosen one and Sam had always known. It wasn't as if he picked me when I became an adolescent. Almost two years ago, Sam had started working on her, probably figuring he needed the extra time to keep it from being suspicious when I disappeared. If he had married my mother in September, and I disappeared a month later, the cops would have been all over him. But give him eighteen months of history with a troubled, ungrateful stepson, and he had a perfect setup for a teenage-runaway scenario. Gee, Officer, I don't know what happened to that Cooper. We tried so hard to make him happy, and then one day, poof-he takes off "Where is he now?" I asked.

"The police station. Mike's dad picked him up for questioning."

"Questioning? For what?"

"When your mother brought Faulkner to my house, she told me her story and her concerns about Sam. She also brought along something she found in the house that scared her."

It took only a second to connect the dots. The sickening images of the night before came hurtling back. "The b.l.o.o.d.y blanket and scrubs."

My father nodded. "I don't know what he's doing, Cooper. And I don't think I want to know."

I didn't say anything. There were just some things I decided to keep to myself. My father didn't need that extra sucker punch of truth.

"I want you to come stay with me," my father said.

"I'll be a" I was going to say fine, then decided my father was right. "Let me grab some stuff and come over later. I want to see Megan again first."

My father shook his head. "I don't feel comfortable leaving you here."

"I'm not staying, Dad. Seriously, I'm stuffing a few clothes into a backpack and then booking it for Megan's."

"I'll wait, give you a ride."

I laid a hand on his arm. "Take the dog and go home to Faulkner. Make sure he's okay. I'll be fine. That thing is dead. There's nothing to worry about anymore. You said yourself that Sam is at the police station."

My father weighed that for a moment, then let out a sigh. "You're determined, aren't you?"

"Just a stronger today than I was before."

"All right. But if you're not at my house in an hour, I'm sending out the SWAT team."

I laughed for the first time in what felt like forever, then hugged my father. "It'll be cool. Promise."

He held me tightly, tighter than he ever had before. "I'm so glad you're safe, Faulkner's safe, and Megan's home. Now that Sam's probably going to be in custody and your mother's back to being Mom again, I think everything's going to be just fine."

"Thanks, Dad." Still, even as he hugged me a I wondered. Was it safe, or did I just want to believe that? Either way, I put on a brave face when my father drew back and rea.s.sured him for the thousandth time that I'd be okay and would be at his house before he knew it.

I got out of the car. Whipple followed me, refusing to stay behind. "All right, boy, let's go," I said to him. "Last stop on the train back to normal."

Turns out I was wrong about more than one thing that day.

A birthday cake sat on the countertop. My name had been scrawled across the top in dark red icing. That was the first sign that something was wrong.

With all the excitement of last night and this morning, my mother couldn't possibly have had time to bake me a cake for my birthday.

But someone had.

Dread curled a vise grip around my senses. I backed up, away from the cake, away from the blood-red Cooper written on it.

"Going somewhere?"

I spun around. Sam leaned against the doorway, as casual as a golfer waiting for a caddy. "I thought you were at the police station," I said.

"Did you learn nothing from your little stay down there?" He pushed off from the wall and took two steps toward me. "Hire a good lawyer and they can't hold you for long."

I took a step back. At my feet, Whipple began to growl at Sam. "I'm staying at my dad's tonight."

Sam smiled, a smile that held no warmth. "Why? It's your birthday. You need to be here. With your real family."

A chill ran through the room and me. I had to get out of there. If I could distract Sam, maybe I could get out the door.

I glanced around the kitchen, looking for something, anything, that would buy me enough time to make a run for it.

Only one thing sat on the counter. I darted to the right, grabbed the cake, and threw it at Sam. The frosting exploded across his face and chest, coating him with white, then red, making him look like a clown in a really bad accident. He roared with anger, but I was already gone.

Whipple kept pace beside me as I charged down the steps of the deck and onto the lawn. It was twenty yards, maybe a little less, to the driveway and then another fifty yards to the nearest neighbor. I was younger than Sam, faster. I could outrun him.

Then I heard him outside, calling first my name, then screaming words I didn't recognize. Speaking that same ancient, guttural language the stick man had used.

I kept running.

Then the earth shifted beneath my feet, Sam's perfectly manicured lawn pushing up in a growing hill, then opening in a yawning hole, the gra.s.s tearing into pieces on either side of my feet. I tried to jump over the crevice, but the earth grew up and out, expanding like hands that reached for my feet, my legs.

The gra.s.s fists came down on me, taking me to the ground like two cornerbacks. Whipple yelped and leaped to the side. I clawed at the edge, pushing with my feet, digging and moving, refusing to let them drag me down.

I could hear Sam running, his feet pounding against the ground. In seconds, he'd be here. And then what would happen?

Push. Now.

The gra.s.s was rising again, growing, the blades reaching for my ears, my eyes, my mouth.

With a scream, I shoved as hard as I could and broke the first of the two earthy holds on me. No time to pause, to think; I shoved again, and the second gave way. I scrambled to my feet and began to run again, brushing off still-clinging clumps of gra.s.s, their roots curling around my skin.

Sam let out another furious shout, then more of those odd words. I ducked to the left, the right, then left again, a receiver with a football dodging the opposing team, trying to think ahead of him, ahead of whatever creepy nature thing he had working for him.

The yard opened up one hole after another, gra.s.sy hands springing up, reaching for me, their green fingers coming so close that I could feel the whisper of their touch against my ankles and my calves. My chest burned, but I kept running.

I veered toward the driveway. Sam shouted another order. Suddenly, the lawn split apart, an earthquake driving a wedge right down the side. The ground shivered, and my steps faltered.

The lawn rolled up on one side, a huge wave of gra.s.s, then started toward me. There was no way I was going to make it to the driveway.

Maybe no way I was going to make it out of here at all.

I turned and ran in the only other direction left.

Toward the woods.

Cooper a oh, Cooper."

Sam called my name like a mother coaxing back a runaway preschooler. I ducked lower behind the ma.s.sive oak tree and tried to catch my breath without making any noise. Just a few minutes, that was all I needed, and I'd be ready to run again.

"Don't make me call on them," Sam said. "Don't make this difficult."

Call on whom? The vine men? I wasn't worried about them. I'd dug the lighter out of my backpack and had it in my hand. The knife in the opposite hand. I figured I was ready for whatever Sam was going to do.

Leaves crunched. He was close, maybe only two feet away. I slid down more. Held my breath.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," he said. Then he spoke again in that language, releasing a few short words.

For a long second, nothing happened, and I thought I was in the clear. Then the trees began to move.

They lifted up out of the ground with earsplitting crunching noises. Their roots became legs, branches became arms, and tops swung down to become heads that seemed to be scanning the woods.

Looking for me.

The oak in front of me jerked up and I scrambled back, only to find myself hitting the legs of another tree. Whipple barked, and Sam- Sam laughed.

He called out another command. The trees turned as one and began to move toward me. Whipple went crazy, barking and circling, then took off running in the woods. I tried to run before the trees could reach me.

But I was battling impossible odds. Before I could move, the earth opened up again and began to swallow me, dragging me down, down, down, sucking me into the dirt like quicksand. Was this what had happened to Gerard and Auguste's mom? I dropped the lighter and knife, trying to fight against the dirt vacuum. I opened my mouth to scream, and a stream of dirt squirted upward, like a backwards waterfall, toward my face.

I shut my mouth, and dirt smacked against my closed lips. But it didn't give up, the brown granules building a snaking path up toward my ears, my nose- I was going to die.

The dark, heavy blanket sucked me down, squeezing my chest so I couldn't drag in another breath. Panic engulfed me, but I couldn't move, couldn't battle the giant sucking hole filling in around me as fast as it opened up. It was up to my chest, neck, chin, then under my nose. I closed my eyes.

Sam, you win.

Just as I was about to go under, I heard a m.u.f.fled scream, something that sounded like my name. I wanted to say it was too late, to let me go, but I couldn't. The dirt had walled my mouth shut.

Something charged past my head, then touched my shoulder. It latched on and began to pull. A hand, someone trying to a Save me?

Survival instinct kicked in. My feet began to work, pushing against the dirt still trying hard to suck me in. I clawed with my fingers and at first felt as if I were going nowhere, and then my chin was free, my neck, my chest, my arm.

"Take my hand."

I twisted and reached. And latched on to my mother.

"Hurry," she said, her eyes wide with fear.

"How a ?"

She shook her head, placing a finger against her lips.

I nodded and crawled out of the hole with her help. I'd lost the lighter and knife, but it was a small price to pay for being alive.

She reached out and placed a hand on either side of my face, as if making sure I was okay. I hesitated, but then I saw she was Mom again, no craziness in her face, and I decided right then I'd trust her. She'd saved my life when she had had every opportunity to let me die.

"I called the police station," she panted. "When I heard Sam had been released I realized what he might do a"

She drew me in for a quick, tight hug and a kiss on my head. I swore just before she pulled away that I felt a tear drop onto my neck.

"Where is Sam?" I asked nervously.

"Sam went to get him," my mother whispered. "We need to run. Can you do that?"

The trees were closed in tightly, like a fence of forest. They stood still, watching, observing, maybe waiting for Sam to return and issue new orders. I could see gaps between their trunks, wide enough for us to sneak through.

"Yeah."

We squeezed through a small gap between an oak and a maple but got only a few steps before Sam came crashing through the forest. "Where do you think you two are going?"

"Sam, leave him alone," my mother said. "Let him go."

"No can do. He was bred for this. Thanks to you, Mom." Sam barked out another series of orders, and we were ripped by the trees from where we stood, swung from tree to tree like rag dolls to our final destination.

The only one Sam had ever intended.

The well.

My mother and I landed in two crumpled heaps on the ground. I got to my feet, aching, hurt, but with nothing broken. My mother didn't move. Whipple came charging through the woods and nosed at her, whimpering.

"Mom?"

"She's served her purpose, Cooper. Let her go." Sam strode up to the well, grinning like he'd won the lottery, his blond hair touched by the sun behind him.

"Do something! Help her!"

"I don't need her anymore. She was the incubator for you, and now she'll let me keep my hands clean. The mother killing her own son." He laughed. "No one would ever believe the truth about what really happened to dear Cooper."

My mother moaned, and Whipple nudged her. But still she didn't get up. I wanted to go to her, to help her, but Sam reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a switchblade. In one deft move, he depressed the b.u.t.ton and released the blade. It gleamed in the light, evil. Menacing.

Sam took a step closer. With a noisy, shuddering crunch, the trees closed ranks, sealing off my escape. "In life, Cooper," Sam said, "we all need to make sacrifices for a higher purpose. And you, you need to sacrifice yourself so the rest of us can continue to live. We'll have a wonderful life, and so will so many more generations of Jumels. Then, in two hundred years, you'll have your turn."

I backed up, but there was nowhere to go, nowhere but into the well.

"Today is a very special day, Cooper. Today is your-" He waved his hand, meaning for me to finish the sentence.

"Birthday." I knew that, but the creature was dead. What did it matter anymore? Didn't Sam know what I'd done?

"And someone else's birthday, too." He grinned, and it sent a chill down my spine. "Not to mention, today is also the anniversary of Auguste's sacrifice. And the day he finally returns to the living."

"I killed Auguste, Sam," I said. "It's over."