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PROLOGUE

TWELVE YEARS AGO

Hunger gnawed at Bug’s stomach. The cold from the rock beneath her seeped through her thin pants, numbing her bottom and creeping down her legs until her feet felt like two blocks of ice. She thought about her gloves, bright red like the lipstick her mom let her try sometimes, tucked away in her top dresser drawer at home. If she’d known that she’d be sitting outside all day, she would have brought them. Her boots, too. And her hat. At least she had her coat, though even that wasn’t stopping her body from shivering. But there was no way she could have known she’d end up here, tucked away along the side of the road between two huge trees, watching the lights blink on in the house on the hill as evening fell.

Her mother never told her where they were going.

“Life’s for adventures,” she always said, grinning in that way that was both exciting and kind of scary. Bug’s mom had this way of making her feel important, like a best friend. At the same time, there was a shadow in her eyes, flickering behind every smile like the warning light that always came on in their old car.

“It don’t mean nothing,” her mom would mutter every time it winked on before slapping her hand violently against the dash.

This didn’t mean anything either, right? Her mom wouldn’t leave her here.

Her mom had never left her behind before. Not forever.

Then again, this was the first time her mom ever went inside the big house. They’d driven past it more times than she could count, her mom always slowing the car, neck craning to stare up at it like it was the first time she’d seen it. It was big. Bigger than any house Bug had ever seen, even on television. It was fancy, too. Pretty like a Barbie Dreamhouse even though it was made of shiny wood, stone, and enormous windows.

The best part was the railing along the big porch. Instead of bars, the black metal had been shaped to show a scene from the woods. Deer running and leaping through trees and over logs. Big deer. Some of them with lots of antlers and others with none. The whole thing was in silhouette, her mom had explained. Bug loved that word. It was one of the most magical words she’d ever learned, to go with one of the most magical things she’d ever seen. She understood why her mother was so obsessed with it. Whenever they drove past, Bug imagined them living there one day. They would always have water from the faucets. The lights would always work. Her mom would always feel happy. It would always be warm on cold days, and there would always be food. All the food they could possibly eat.

Just the thought of food unleashed a growl from deep in her belly. If she’d known they were coming here—that her mom was going inside—she would have brought a snack. There was a crushed two-pack of crackers, like the kind you got in the hospital, in the back of the cabinet over the top of the fridge. Her mom hadn’t found it yet. It was all crumbs now but if Bug opened it carefully enough, the plastic would hold them like a little bag while she poured them into her mouth.

She wished she had it now even as guilt needled her. Maybe her mom was hungrier.

But her mom was in the big, beautiful house and she was out here.

“Stay on this rock and don’t leave,” her mom had told her. “Don’t go anywhere until I come back.”

Wind whistled through the gnarled tree branches above her. The eyes of a bunch of big, black birds stared down at her. Occasionally, one of them would shriek like someone was stabbing it and all the others would answer until it sounded like they were all being stabbed at once, over and over. She swung her legs, kicking her heels against the stone, trying to force some warmth back into her limbs.

How long until her mom came back? Soon it would be nighttime dark. Black. The soft twinkling lights of the magical house didn’t reach this far. Nothing good happened when she disobeyed her mother, but could she really spend the night out here? She’d been here since morning and not a single car had come down the one-lane road. What if she died from starvation? What if she froze to death? What if the black birds pecked her frozen eyes out? What if a wild animal ate her?

The rapid th-thump th-thump of her heartbeat filled her ears, almost blocking out the death shrieks of the ugly birds with their dumb, ugly eyes staring at her all the time.

She needed a plan. That was all. Her mom always had a plan.

Before it got dark enough that she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, she’d walk up the long driveway to the house, knock on the door, and ask for her mom. A shiver rattled her teeth. Not from the cold this time. What if the punishment for not doing what her mom said was worse than this?

Before she could think too hard about it, a figure came walking down the long driveway, swaying and stumbling like grown-ups did sometimes when they had too much beer to drink. Fear crawled up the back of Bug’s neck like a big spider. She tried to stay very still but her teeth clacked in her mouth and her heart knocked so hard against her ribs, it was difficult not to shake.

Please, please, please be Mom.

She hadn’t thought about what she’d do if someone besides her mom came for her.

She clenched her jaw, willing her teeth to stop chattering. Surely, the entire forest could hear it. The figure kept coming down the driveway. Should she stay put, like her mom told her, or hide? Before she could decide, the person reached the bottom. Relief rolled through her small body when she saw it was her mom.

Finally.

Bug didn’t even bother looking both ways as she sprinted across the road, clasping her mom’s hand. Something hot and wet soaked her fingers. Her mother’s head hung down and to the side, making her long hair swing across her face. A weird gurgling, choking noise came from behind it.

“Mom?” Her voice sounded so small and yet, so loud in the dark.

Something warm trickled down from her mom’s fingers, over her wrist, and into her coat sleeve. She tried to look at it but there wasn’t enough light. A whole mess of fear spiders broke out along the nape of her neck, skittering under her clothes, across her cold skin, making her breath feel funny as it pushed in and out of her body.

The creepy watcher birds were doing their death shriek again.

“Mom?”

Her mother spoke in a broken-sounding voice, the words almost jumbled, like she couldn’t get the sounds right.

Bug felt her mom’s sticky wet fingers jerk in her hand as they made their way along the side of the road. Hopefully they were going to where her mom had hidden their car. The heater didn’t work but it might be warmer than outside.

“Did you spill something?” Bug whispered.

“Shhh.” Her mom’s legs wobbled. She fell to one knee with a loud grunt. Still, their hands stayed locked, the weird goo holding them together. She’d seen her mom like this before, so she wasn’t all that worried.

Not until they got into the car and the sad, yellow light in the ceiling shone on her mom’s face. Or what used to be her mom’s face. Where her nose had been was something flat and crooked, leaking blood so thick it was almost black. Her bottom lip gaped open, split in two like a slingshot. One of her eyes looked gone, replaced by a big, purple ball. Above her other eye, the skin hung down like a flap, red and pink where her eyebrow had been.

Fear wasn’t a thousand spiders anymore. It was a million watcher birds pecking every inch of Bug’s skin and bone until there was nothing left and nowhere to hold the air in her body. Turning her hand back and forth, she saw her mom’s blood soaked into the folds of her knuckles. Sickness sprouted deep in her belly, like after the time she ate canned soup that turned out to be “expired.” A grown-up word for poison.

When she spoke, her voice sounded weird and quiet and shaky. “Mom?”

What happened in the magical house? she wanted to ask. There were so many questions, but she couldn’t make her mouth work.

The engine roared to life. “Lissen ah me.”

Bug really wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Her mom’s lower lip flopped and dangled, revealing teeth that weren’t white anymore. Slowly, she reached into her coat pocket and brought out a little cloth bag. Bug wanted to ask what was in it but she couldn’t. Suddenly, her mom lunged toward her, making her heart do a little dance in her chest. Then she stuffed the bag down Bug’s shirt. Hard little things pressed through the pouch and poked against Bug’s skin. There was a clinking sound, like metal.

She tried again to talk, to ask what was in the little bag and why her mom was giving it to her but her mom kept saying something. Two words. Except they didn’t sound like words because her mom’s face was not her face anymore. It took Bug some time to turn the sounds back into words in her own brain.

Keep. Hide.

Was it food? No, it didn’t feel or sound like food. Her stomach growled loudly but her mom didn’t notice. She was making more noises that Bug needed to change into regular words.

“We neber go to thah house again. Neber. Don’ talk ’bout it. Don’ go.”

We never go to that house again. Never. Don’t talk about it. Don’t go.

Bug’s voice came back, tinged with the tears that burned the backs of her eyes. “But we were gonna live there one day. In the magical house. You said?—”

Suddenly, her mom’s bloodied fingers dug into her cheeks so hard, the pain set Bug’s tears free. They rolled down her face.

“Wha’ I jus’ say? There is no mahhical house. Nah anmore.”

What did I just say? There is no magical house. Not anymore.

Bug didn’t dare ask why even though she really, really wanted to.

Their faces were so close that she could see into her mother’s remaining eye and what she saw there was scarier than a million spiders and a billion watcher birds. It was something she’d never, ever seen before. Her lungs stopped working. Her skin felt gross like she was dead and a bunch of creatures were crawling all over her.

The eye blinked slowly but the thing was still there, shining wetly like broken glass in moonlight.

Fear.

Her mother—who always had a plan, who stood up to people bigger and meaner than her all the time, who responded to bad things with raging fury—was afraid.

Very, very afraid.