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sneaking out of his family’s apartment—not running away exactly, but just
walking
. He liked the way the eveningmist would gather in great tufts around the shoulders of the buildings and drift slowly to the street. Sometimes, the mist and fog fell so thick and fast that it erased the buildings, then the cars, then the other people walking by, then his own feet, then hands, as though there was nothing left but a cool, white space.
    Iowa, though, was different. Here the night had voices.
    In Iowa, the grasses breathed and murmured and sang. Crickets whispered in shadowed shrubs; mosquitoes hummed in clouds. Somewhere a cat tipped open its jaws and let loose a loud, feral howl. Jack checked his watch.
Three fifty-two
, he thought, hiking his backpack higher on his shoulders.
The faster I move, the farther I’ll get.
    He quickened his pace.

    Under the porch, four yellow eyes glowed softly in the dark. Once the boy reached the end of the block, Gog and Magog crept out of their hiding place. They paused briefly, their heads tilted upward, their tails straight and tall like spears, before leaping forward and sprinting down the street.

    Anders was out of bed too.
    Though the night had been dreamless so far, he wokeup agitated and worried, with a strong urge to stretch his legs. He slipped out of bed, pulled on his jeans, and tiptoed downstairs.
Three fifty-two
, the clock on the microwave read.
    But something wasn’t right. It didn’t
feel
right. Very quietly, Anders lifted the back door’s latch and slipped outside.

    Mr. Avery should have been in bed hours ago, but he couldn’t sleep.
    He paced the perimeter of his Retiring Room, pausing every so often to page through the ancient diaries that he normally kept on his polished shelves but that now lay open on his desk. The first Mr. Avery, his great-grandfather, despite his vast researches into some of the universe’s deeper mysteries, had nothing to say on the subject of
this
sort of difficulty. It was possible that the Reverend Weihr
did
have something to say on the matter, but Mr. Avery didn’t have the good Reverend’s diary. It had been secreted away two generations earlier by the Reverend himself, though now it was, Mr. Avery was
sure
, in the possession of a certain Professor Clive Fitzpatrick. He had no proof, but the self-satisfied smirk on the ancient professor’s face was evidence enough, Mr. Avery felt. Unfortunately, the old man, if he indeed possessed it, had hidden it cleverly—despite Mr. Avery’s gift infinding things and getting things, he had never been able to lay his hands on the book or access its information.
    What he needed, he knew, was an
opportunity
. But what he
felt
was panic. One cannot make good decisions while panicking, but he couldn’t help it. He paced and fidgeted, and, like a little child, felt himself on the verge of tears.
    He stopped at the window, leaned on the sash, and gazed outside. At the far end of the road, a figure walked into the lamplight. It was small, the size of a child, its shoulders hunched under the weight of the heavy pack slung over his back. Its eyeglasses flashed in the dark. The figure stopped, turned around as though checking to see whether it was being followed, then shrugged and kept walking.
    “You!” Mr. Avery cried.
And alone
, he added silently as the beginnings of a plan—desperate, yes, and not without consequences, but a bold plan all the same—spread from his mind to his face and uncurled into a smile. He grabbed his keys from his desk and hurried out to the car.
Just get him out of town
, he thought.
If I send him away before She wakes up, then perhaps things can stay as they’ve been. It should be simple enough.

    From the shadow of the thicket of trees in Henderson’s Gully, Anders watched Jack approach. There wassomething about that kid. Something
important
. Though
what
it was
exactly
, Anders did not know. He had a few guesses, but that was it.
    Jack came closer. Anders withdrew