"Horror movie marathon to celebrate?" I suggested. "A selection of Darby Crane's finest? The drive-in is playing a handful of them this month."

Mercy turned her nose up and sniffed. "His last few bombed. Seriously, Bucky is a knock-off of Child's Play and everyone knows it. I heard he's still in litigation over that one. Besides, the radio is broken."

Mostly because she'd broken it in a fit of pique. The radio might have straightened itself out given enough time. Or maybe it would have become a smoking ruin by the end of the ride. Now we'd never know.

"But Harvest is amazing," I insisted, slamming my locker door shut. The previous owner had dented the metal, so keeping it closed took effort. "I can quote it."

"So why do you need to see it?" Mercy asked, stuffing her math book into her backpack. AP Calculus, the show-off.

"It's the principle of the thing."

She hummed thoughtfully. "What's the run time?"

"An hour and twenty minutes. An hour and five minutes if we arrive late, miss the opening credits, and skip out on the end credits. We could totally blame it on traffic."

Mercy swung the bag over her shoulders and sauntered forward, putting a little sway into her hips to tease the poor janitor. He ducked his head, paying sudden and intense attention to his mop water. The guy couldn't have been much older than we were, working a minimum wage job, and now had to deal with jailbait in a short, plaid skirt. I had to feel bad for the guy.

I jogged to keep up, falling into step with her as we reached the end of the hall. The echo of the last bell still rang through the halls, almost drowned by the chatter of girls as they fled en masse toward the front doors. We were headed in the same direction, albeit at a more sedate pace. Probably to keep in the eyeline of the janitor for as long as possible.

"Do you have to tease him?" I asked, leaning in so only she'd hear. Her hair smelled like strawberries and exuded gentle warmth. She'd covertly sunned herself in one of the classroom's many windows.

Her smile was unrepentant. "He's the one staring at underage girls. The very least I could do was give him something worth looking at. Try it sometime. It's fun."

"I think I'll stick with high school guys thank you very..."

The air changed from one step to the next, dipping at least ten degrees in an instant. Something thick and unpleasant slithered down my spine and curled around my middle, squeezing tight. I had the sudden and insistent urge to throw up. The smell of raw sewage clogged my nostrils and brought scalding bile up my throat in a sudden wash. I closed my eyes and brushed my fingertips across the smooth metal surface of a nearby locker to ground myself. The psychic stench was so potent it nearly bent me double.

"Molly? Small, warm hands curled around my shoulders. Mercy shook me lightly. "What's wrong? Are you having an episode?"

A few latecomers slowed their pace to listen in. Their eyes flicked from my pinched face to the bracelet that dangled from my wrist. The epilepsy medical ID bracelet had been Dad's idea. My lapses could be explained away as absence seizures. The gawkers were probably hoping to witness a grand mal. Vultures.

I glowered at the girls until they passed and then shook my head. "No. I'm sensing something. It's bad. Feces. Maybe rot. I can't tell. It's close."

I took one shaking step forward and then another, gathering my will until I could walk in a relatively straight line. If I opened my sight, I could probably track the trail of energy without effort. But whatever I saw would stick with me, and I didn't need more nightmares.

"Where are you going?" Mercy hissed.

I didn't answer. I couldn't if I wanted to keep a hold of that sense of greasy power. It was sliding further away, leaving a slimy psychic trail to mark its passing. It felt...cold. Malicious. Gleefully so.

"To find it," I said, swallowing back the desire to be sick. "It's looking for something. Someone. We have to stop it."

"Stop what?" she asked, voice rising in pitch as I turned into the adjacent hall and began to sprint. "Molly, come back! We should get Harry!"

No time. The smell was stronger now, putrefaction not shit. Sweet rot and a note of ammonia washed over me as I pelted down the hallway toward the library. It was in there, lurking somewhere in the stacks.

God, this is foul, I thought. How can Daniel stand the smell?

My steps stuttered to a halt just before the library doors. There was that name again. I wasn't sure where I'd heard it, why it kept popping into my head, or what it had to do with the godawful stench. It had to mean something, right?

I threw open the doors with a bang, startling a petite fifth grader and the librarian leaning over her shoulder, pointing to her copy of Coraline. They turned in unison, staring at me like I'd lost my mind. And maybe I had, because the moment the doors came to a shuddering halt, the overbearing presence evaporated, leaving me panting in the doorway with absolutely nothing to show for my bout of lunacy.

Mr. Richards straightened to his full height, adjusting the spectacles on his beaky nose. He was a spare man with a pencil mustache and smile lines around his eyes. He gave me a rather stern look and asked, "Did you need something, Miss Carpenter?"

"I...uh..." I began. Was I really crazy? Had I just imagined the creeping sense of malice?

Mercy caught up to me a moment later and seized me by the wrist, tugging me away from the doorway. She shot Mr. Richards an apologetic look over my shoulder and said, "Sorry, Mr. Richards. I think Molly needs to visit the nurse. I'll take her."

"See that you do," he said, face softening. He turned back to the girl. "You were telling me about the Other World?"

"It's a spider web..." she began, reaching into her book bag to produce a notebook. A cute, white cartoon rabbit decorated the front. Mercy pulled me backward with a grunt of effort before I could lean in to hear the rest of the explanation. I didn't need to, really. I'd read the book when I was her age.

"Web weaver," I murmured almost to myself.

"What?"

"Coraline. There's this character in the book called The Other Mother. She's a spider," I said, sounding out the words slowly, as though they had real, tangible weight. "A web weaver. She's a temptress, luring kids into her web."

"You're not making any sense," Mercy snapped, and there was a hard edge to her voice I'd never heard before. "Come on, Molly. We have to go."

I cast one last look at the girl and her notebook before she disappeared from sight.

Find your white rabbit, dumbass, the woman had said.

But what exactly was I supposed to do when I found it?