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doorbell rang.

“P robably a noise complaint from all your arguing,” Dr. Walker joked to Eleanor. He left his family and went to the great hall. He opened the front door without using the peephole. He was used to living in safe neighborhoods.
    Dahlia Kristoff stepped in swiftly. She wore her polka-dot dress but no hat or shoes this time. She was completely bald. Dr. Walker drew back from her splotchy red skull and yellow toes.
    “Excuse me— hello? Miss? You can’t come into my house!”
    “Shut up!” Dahlia hissed, striding toward the living room.
    Dr. Walker followed, pulling out his phone to dial 911, but suddenly the phone jumped from his hand. It flew through the air and cracked against the philosopher bust, as if it had been snatched up by a powerful gust of wind. When Dr. Walker retrieved it, it wouldn’t turn on.
    “Dad, who was it?” Brendan called, but instead of his father Dahlia Kristoff stepped in. He froze.
    “My God,” Mrs. Walker said, “what are you doing here? How dare you barge into our home—”
    “How dare you consider this your home!” Dahlia shrieked, and then the transformation began.
    Brendan backed up against the driftwood-legged coffee table, watching it all in slow motion. It was like IMAX 3D but way better (and way worse). The old crone threw her hands up. Just as he’d suspected, her right hand ended in a knobby stump. Dahlia arched her back, stretching, stretching, as if to crack the bones in her spine, and then two gray wings sprang from the neck of her dress!
    Brendan was terrified, stunned, and amazed all at once. His world had just gotten a lot bigger. But all he could think was: I’m not gonna let this freak hurt me. And I’m not gonna let her hurt my family.
    Dahlia Kristoff’s wings unfurled behind her to spread across the room. They weren’t like angel wings; they were dusty and greasy-looking, filling the air with the stench of sulfurous rot.
    “Mom, what’s happening?” Eleanor cried.
    “I don’t know, honey,” Mrs. Walker said, grabbing her youngest with one hand and the cross around her neck with the other. Dahlia laughed—a breathy cackle, a skeleton’s laugh.
    “Get out!” Dr. Walker yelled, crashing into the room, but the crone swung a wing and slammed him across the back, knocking him into the piano with a cacophonous dong . On TV, Groucho Marx slid down a fire pole.
    Brendan tried to run for a weapon, but now Dahlia was flapping her wings, whipping the air up in the house, keeping him off balance. He stared at her. Something horrible was happening to her face. The fine blue veins under her old pale skin, which had been notable to begin with, rose to the surface, bulging as her wings beat. Soon they were joined by her red arteries, protruding from her face like lines of bark on a tree. Brendan thought she might explode and drench them all in blood.

    “You!” Dahlia said, turning to Cordelia. “You stole from my library!”
    “I was just—borrowing—” A gust of wind knocked Cordelia against a wall. The contents of the room were swirling in a spiral now—a pizza box, cups of soda, a Pino’s menu, the TV remote. Brendan had to clutch the couch to stay upright.
    “For the honor of my father!” Dahlia Kristoff howled. “For all the evil done upon him by the Walkers! For the disturbance of the great book! For the craven consultation with Dr. Hayes! For Denver Kristoff, who lives again as he lives always! A life for a life, the Wind Witch has spoken, let a page torn be a page reborn!”
    Slam! The shutters closed on the living-room windows. Brendan heard them slam in the kitchen and library too. Then the glass coffee table rose and hurled toward him. He ducked, but it spun toward Mrs. Walker. She was kneeling, praying. It smacked her in the head.
    “Mom!” Brendan yelled. His mother hit the floor, covered in broken glass, bleeding from her forehead.
    “Get down!” Dr. Walker screamed to his children as he lunged toward his wife. But the