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happens to Harry Potter.”
    Maybe she could even see her family then. But, her mind continued, maybe they won’t know me. I wonder if I’m gone from their minds like I never existed or if it’s like I just suddenly disappeared. The thought of them looking for her—calling her name in the woods, wondering where she could be, tears on her mother’s cheeks, her father pale and worried—made Miri’s stomach feel queasy again.
    “I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m here. I’ll be fine.” She didn’t feel fine. She wanted her mother. She wanted to go home. She wanted it so much that it hurt. I have to get out of this room, she thought. I’m going to throw up if I stay in this room.
    She opened the door as silently as she could. There was the narrow staircase and the hallway leading to the other bedrooms, just as they were in her own time. Summer-evening light drifted through the fan-shaped window above the landing. Miri descended the ladderlike stairs without one creak and ventured down the hall. A door stood slightly ajar, and through the gap Miri could see a dressing table with a ruffled skirt and a careful arrangement of glass perfume bottles set before a large mirror. That room must belong to Horst’s sister, the one Molly called Sissy, thought Miri. What a goony name. I’d never let anyone call me Sissy.
    Just as she always did, she brushed her fingertips along the smooth wood of the walls as she walked toward the large staircase that led to the first floor and felt the same surge of satisfaction that she was used to. The satiny surface was the same, the rooms were in the same places, and even the funny little gusts of cool air were the same. But it was definitely a different time. Nothing buzzed or beeped or rang. The air smelled less like cars and more like animals. Now she could hear voices and the clinking of forks against plates. Her stomach rumbled loudly, switching from queasy to hungry in a split second, and she wondered what would happen if she just walked into the dining room and demanded some food. Thinking of Horst, she decided against it.
    She could hear him now, growling like her stomach. I wonder what he looks like, she thought. A bear, probably. She stood at the top of the stairs, hesitating. At the bottom was a large, square hallway—the same as in her time. Straight ahead was the front door, leading to the porch and the cool evening air beyond; on the left was the arched entrance to the dining room; and on the right was a twin arch leading to the living room. If I can get into the living room, Miri plotted, I can sneak around to the kitchen and get a look at Horst through the hole in the sideboard. She began to sidle down the stairs slowly, choosing moments when the conversation in the dining room would cover the random squawks of the wooden stairs.
    A thin, whiney voice was complaining, “. . . told me it was on sale for seventeen cents a yard, but when I got there, it was twenty-one cents. Well, I said to her, Lottie, I guess it don’t make much difference to me, but the one thing I don’t care for . . .” As silent and agile as a spider, Miri glided down the stairs and turned into the living room.
    There was only one problem. It was the dining room.

CHAPTER
6
    F OR AN INSTANT , she faced them. They were so close, she could see them even without glasses. There was Aunt Flo, her black hair pulled sharply away from her face, her eyes on her plate, her long jaw moving in brisk, methodical jerks. Next was Sissy, a younger, prettier version of her mother with dark cropped hair and a floppy, brightly painted mouth. At her side was a bulky figure that had to be Horst. Molly said that he ate a lot, but even so, Miri was amazed by the size of him. His clothes seemed to stretch and strain to hold him in, and his wide legs threatened to crush the chair underneath him. His face was flat and flushed, and in his thick, meaty hands were a slab of bread and a chicken leg.
    It was luck alone that kept