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Chester chair got him—the same one he’d been sleeping in that afternoon—hitting his skull with a nauseating crack . He slumped over. For some reason Brendan flashed to his mother asking Diane Dobson Is the furniture for sale? and Diane saying Everything’s for sale.
    The Wind Witch—that’s what she had called herself: the Wind Witch has spoken —blew Mr. and Mrs. Walker into a corner. They lay unconscious against each other. Brendan, Cordelia, and Eleanor were far away from them, by the piano.
    The foundation of Kristoff House began to shake.
    Brendan wondered if it would tip over and slide into the ocean. The television tilted up and flew at him, the Marx Brothers looking demonic until the cord came out of the wall and they disappeared. The TV shattered on the wall behind him, sending shards of plastic and LCD whirling around— “Nell, close your eyes!”
    Brendan’s younger sister was curled into a ball. Books were flying into the room now from the library, clobbering Brendan and his sisters, attacking like those terrible birds in that Hitchcock movie Brendan had seen once. Each time a book neared him, its pages open and fluttering, he heard voices inside, gibbering in aged accents, demanding to be released.
    “Deal!” Brendan called. All he cared about was surviving—and making sure his family survived. His parents were unconscious on the other side of the room; he couldn’t help them at this moment. But I’m supposed to protect my sisters.
    He couldn’t see Cordelia. The wind was all-consuming; the debris blinded him to everything. He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbed them, and forced them open. Right in front of him floated three books, leather volumes that suddenly seemed to grow, expanding from hardcover-size to almanac-size to encyclopedia-size. Impossible!
    Brendan screamed, but he could no longer hear himself, and then he saw that the room was larger, the ceiling now fifty feet from the floor and rising every second, as if the house were warping and stretching. And then, while the Wind Witch rose to the ceiling and stared down from a towering height, like an avenging angel sent by the wrong side, one last thing entered the room: the bookshelves from the library. Massive, sickeningly heavy even without the books, they slid in one after another, levitating higher and higher, swirling to an apex above and crashing down—and then all was black and silent.

B rendan came to in a pile of rubble that used to be his new living room. He struggled out from under the heavy shelving that lay on top of him and checked himself for crippling injuries. He felt like he’d been put in a bag of rocks and shaken, but aside from cuts and bruises he was okay.
    He looked around the living room. It was like the pictures he’d seen of that horrible tsunami in Japan, where a slew of debris was thrown across the land. What used to be individual chairs and tables and books was now a foot-deep pile of scrap. The shutters were still closed.
    “Mom?” Brendan called. “Dad?”
    He saw part of the pile move. It looked like a mound with an earthworm underneath. Brendan ran over as Cordelia reached an arm up and dragged herself out.
    “Deal! Are you okay?”
    “I think . . . I blacked out. What about you?”
    “I blacked out too . . . after a lot of insane stuff. These books grew in front of me—they were massive—and then that . . . I don’t want to say her name . . . ”
    “Witch. Wind Witch,” said Cordelia. “That’s what Dahlia called herself.”
    “Right, fine. That Wind Witch flew up to the ceiling and knocked me out. Where are Mom and Dad?”
    Cordelia’s eyes got very big. She started to call desperately, “Mom! Dad!”
    Brendan joined in: “Mom! Please! Hello? Where are you?”
    No answer. Brendan’s eyes welled up, but he didn’t let any tears fall. “What about Nell?” he asked.
    “ Nell! Eleanor!” Cordelia began. They stumbled over broken furniture, searching and calling, pawing through piles