“So that demon well doesn’t eat the rest of us!” Tyler squawked.
“It didn’teather. Emma touched the water on purpose.”
“Emma’s other shoe is on the houseboat,” Nico pointed out.
“I don’t need my shoe,” Emma said, surprising Opal. “Tyler’s right. Let’s go home.”
“Okay, sure.” Nico kicked a pebble into the pond. Opal heard the reluctance in his voice.
He’s as curious as I am.
Because Opal was practicallyburningwith curiosity. What could make a purple bear spring into being? She wanted to examine the Darkdeep right away, but it was Emma who’d been sucked through a spin cycle and ejected into a freezing pond, just in time to meet her imaginary friend before it vanished into thin air. So, yeah. She got to make the call.
With nothing more to discuss, they climbed the ridge, heading for the rowboat. Opal wasn’t ready to share her tunnel yet. Not until she was sure they’d keep including her. Onthe beach she and Nico each picked up an oar. They pushed off, the island disappearing behind them in the mists.
Nico cleared his throat. “Emma,” he said quietly, rowing in sync with Opal. “You think youmadethat bear? That it somehow came from your imagination?”
“Yes.” Emma spoke with absolute certainty. “It happened inside the Darkdeep.”
More strokes. More silence. Finally, Opal cracked.
“I wonder if the rest of us could do it.”
“Do what?” Tyler glanced from face to face. “Oh no.Don’t tell me you’re thinking about going in on purpose. Because there’s nuts, and then there’snuts.”
Nico kept rowing, his face an unreadable mask. Emma nodded as if Opal had made the logical conclusion.
Lay out all the cards.
“If I went into the Darkdeep,” Opal said, “maybemyimaginary friends would appear.”
“You can’t be serious,” Tyler said. “Go in? Into the black, sucking, mind-reading well?”
Opal shrugged. “Are you seriouslynotthinking about it?”
Tyler looked away. Nico grunted, dipping his oar in time with hers. Emma grinned.
As they slid toward the sheer cliff wall, Opal had only one thought.
What would the Darkdeep pull from her?
11
NICO
The chin strap fit snugly under Nico’s neck.
He stared into the mirror, a feeling of intense humiliation spreading from his face, down his neck, to his limbs, fingers, toes, and the rest of his body.
I look like a royal dork.
“Hmmm.” Warren Holland scratched at his beard, as close to a laugh as he ever got these days. It didn’t improve Nico’s mood.
“Dad, there’s no way I’m wearing this,” Nico pleaded, praying his father would save him from the town’s idea of cutesy festival regalia.
“If the school sent it home, you have to wear it,” Warren said sternly, his giant frame nearly filling Nico’s bedroom. “Town pride is important, son. This festival is … um … Timbers is really trying to do something special.”
Nico was dressed in a giant radish suit. A red, formlessblob of a body—stitched together by Ms. Simanson’s sixth-period home economics class—matched to a green, beret-style cap with a jaunty leaf-and-stem combo on top.Nightmare.
