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know. You’re the only one left.”
    “I am not the only one left. What about Brian?” Brian was Steve’s cousin.
    “I am sad to say that Brian does not believe in alchemy any more.” Aunt
Shannon spoke of him as if he were dead. “Uncle Ken and Aunt Mary gave up their
faith in this science, and so Brian, being a chip off the old block, gave it
up, too. And Richard.” Aunt Shannon paused. “Well, Richard is not of this world
anymore. He can’t help me.” She sighed.
    “What if I don’t want to do it?”
    “Why wouldn’t you want to do it?”
    “You don’t want me, Aunt Shannon. I am not good at this kind of stuff. I
can’t do it.” Fluttering in the back of his mind were those horrible words he’d
come to hate:
    Duck Boy. Duck Boy.
    “How do you know? Have you ever tried?”
    “No, I haven’t. But I’m failing Chemistry and Algebra, and practically every
other subject in the entire world. I’m no good.”
    “You are good. You’re just the person we need.”
    “How do you know? I only see you twice a year, once at Spring Break and once
over the summer for a few days. You know nothing about me.”
    “I know lots about you,” she insisted.
    “Whatever,” Steve grumbled.
    “Your mother told me lots and lots about you.”
    “My mother. Ha! That’s a joke. Do you know where she is right now?” Aunt
Shannon answered the question with silence. Steve answered his own question,
“She’s probably in Mexico or someplace like that. She just left. She didn’t
want me, not to help with experiments—not for anything.” Hot tears rushed to
his eyes, but he wouldn’t let them fall.
    “That’s not true, Steve.” Aunt Shannon’s voice was quiet. “I think she
stumbled onto something big, really big. She just needs help to find her way
back. You can help her.”
    He pushed his chair away from the table and stood. “I can’t help you, Aunt
Shannon. You need to face the truth. Nothing will bring her back…Nothing.” He
couldn’t stop the tears any longer. But before anyone could see him, he fled
the room, into the hallway, just out of sight. Peeking around the doorjamb, he
could still see his aunt and uncle at the table.
    Aunt Shannon sat quietly for a moment. Uncle Edward glanced at her. “You
shouldn’t be getting that boy mixed up in all your flim-flam. You’re going to
end up getting him or yourself hurt…again.” He emphasized the last word in his
sentence carefully.
    Steve’s tears fell silently. He mopped them up with his shirt sleeves.
    Aunt Shannon smiled in a way that seemed like she, too, might cry. “Edward,”
she said sharply, “Stop it. Just because you’ve never liked alchemy doesn’t
mean other people should feel that way.”
    “Listen, you already lost Richard….” Uncle Edward continued.
    “That’s not fair!” Her face twisted in agony. “Are you going to make me pay
for that the rest of my life?”
    “He was our only son,” Uncle Edward said quietly.
    “I couldn’t have stopped him, and you know it,” Aunt Shannon said firmly.
    A minute or two passed in silence. Steve wiped his eyes with his hands.
    “It is going to be more difficult than I thought,” she mused. “I do have a
couple of tricks up my sleeve, though. I think I should introduce him to
Lindsay Locket.”
    Uncle Edward snorted.
    “What’s so funny, Edward? She’s a clever one, and she’s catching on to my
hocus-pocus quite quickly, thank you very much. For your information, she
already knows how to make her Benu stone. She just needs to find it.” She
paused and stared into her teacup, as if looking for hints of the future.
“We’re going to find Steve’s mother if it kills us.”
    “Be careful,” Uncle Edward replied. “It just might.”
    Steve had heard enough. From the hallway he tiptoed to his room.

Chapter 3

“I want to go home,” she wept, standing on the edge of a lake. The face
before her showed no emotion.
    “That isn’t a possibility. You belong to us now. You