one. What else do you have?”
Rosemary looked at Puck. The Fearmonger followed her gaze. His smile didn’t falter. “You? What can you do to help her?”
Puck smiled and then transformed into a wolf, snarling like the Fearmonger’s mask. Rosemary ducked as he leapt at the Fearmonger.
With a yell of terror, the Fearmonger bolted. He ran. Peter tripped him, and he went down heavily. Rubber masks of all varieties, from ghouls to dentists, burst from the Fearmonger’s coat and skidded across the floor. He cowered as the wolf whirled around, transformed back into Puck, and stood there tapping his foot.
“Got you!” said Puck.
Peter and Rosemary burst out laughing.
The Fearmonger scowled. “That wasn’t funny!” But he couldn’t stop Peter and Rosemary from doubling over with laughter. “Stop it!” he yelled, his voice rising in anger. “Stop laughing at me!”
Rosemary, still giggling, glanced at the Fearmonger. Then she stared in astonishment.
He had been barely five feet tall when she’d first seen him. He was six feet tall when he was circling her. Now he was shorter than her sister Trisha. And he was still shrinking.
As Rosemary and Peter watched, the Fearmonger jumped up and down in fury. “See what you’ve done!” he squeaked.
“What’s happened to you?” asked Rosemary. She started to laugh again.
“It is your laughter, Rosemary,” said Puck. “Laughter is an excellent way to reduce one’s fear.” He picked up the doll-sized Fearmonger and held him at arm’s length. “Now then, little man. How do we leave this house?”
The Fearmonger folded his arms. “I won’t tell you.”
Puck took a deep breath and said, “A knight, a monk, and a donkey walk into an inn —”
“Stop!” the Fearmonger shrieked. “Okay, okay, I’ll let you out!” He grumbled as Puck set him down. “Pesky kids!”
Peter folded his arms. “The way out?”
The Fearmonger climbed up the mantel and into the alcove. He pressed a button on the controls. Two doors at the end of the hall, camouflaged by mirrors, opened.
Rosemary smiled grimly. “Thank you.”
“You’ll be sorry!” the Fearmonger shouted. “You can’t stop yourself from being afraid, and when you fear, you’ll face me again!”
“Yeah, whatever,” said Peter.
“And I’ll be taller!”
They headed for the doors. Halfway, Rosemary caught movement at the corner of her eye and whirled. She found herself face to face with her own reflection in one of the mirrored walls.
“What is it?” asked Peter.
“Nothing. It was just my” — she paused — “reflection?”
A girl looked back and raised her hand as Rosemary raised hers. Rosemary frowned. Her reflection smirked. Then, with a flick of her hands, the reflection changed the glasses she was wearing. The girl from the library stood before her.
Rosemary felt herself grabbed by invisible hands and tossed at the mirror. She closed her eyes and braced herself for the shattering impact, but felt instead a brief flash of cold, like passing through a thin waterfall, and found herself on the marble floor.
“Rosemary!” Peter shouted behind her. His voice sounded as if it had come from behind glass. She turned, and saw Peter standing in a mirror behind her, fists thumping against the surface. The room around her was different, darker and backwards.
“I said you’d be sorry!” the Fearmonger shouted as he frantically stuffed his full-sized masks into his pint-sized pockets. “You’ve incurred Her wrath! I’m leaving. You are all done for!” He disappeared down the stairs.
“Her?” Rosemary echoed. Then she turned around. She gasped as she bumped into the girl.
The girl grabbed Rosemary by the throat.
“Do you remember?” said the sandpaper voice.
“Remember what?” Rosemary choked.
“Do you remember the books?” said the girl.
“I don’t — gaak! — I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“The three out of the four?” the girl whispered. “No? Then remember this!” She shoved Rosemary to the floor and laughed as she ran into the darkness.
Rosemary sat alone in the darkened room. Her breath echoed around her. The shadows were far from empty. As she listened, other sounds started to be heard above the blood rushing in her ears and the muffled sounds of Peter and Puck’s frantic discussions of where she had gone and how to get her back.
“I know this place.” Her voice echoed. She drew her arms around herself. “I know this place!”
She scrambled to her feet and ran back to the mirror Peter was beating against. Puck was behind him, watching nervously.
Rosemary felt the mirror. It was solid glass. She laid her hand to match Peter’s, but felt nothing. “Puck, what happened?” she called. “Is this another challenge?”
“No!” His voice was muted. “The Fearmonger was the test and he has just fled.”
“What happened? Why am I alone?”
The word echoed in her mind. Alone.
Or was the echo just in her mind?
A breeze rushed through the house, thrumming through the hallways, like rooms exhaling. In a distant wing, a deep beat began, like a huge drum being struck repeatedly, or a giant marching to war.
Rosemary tried not to breathe fast. “There’s got to be a way out of this! That makes sense, right? They got me in, they have to be able to get me out, right?”
Peter looked at her. “Rosemary, I —”
“Just say ‘right!’” She felt around the mirror for switches, catches, anything.
The drumming footsteps continued to echo through the house. Rosemary shot a look at Peter. His hands were growing white as he pushed desperately at the glass.
The booming rhythm drew closer. Rosemary thought she saw the ceiling shudder under the weight of some presence above her. Then the sound travelled away, but came down a level. The floor began to shake to the beat of it.
Then the drumbeat stopped.
A noise closer made Rosemary whirl around.
A light was shining beneath a door leading out of the room. Something was moving in front of the light. A shadow flickered across the foot of the door. Something was sniffing for an opening, grunting and growling like an animal, or something worse than an animal.
Rosemary swallowed hard. “Peter?”
At the sound of her voice, the shadow jerked. The grunts increased in intensity. The doorknob jiggled and then began to turn.
Puck was staring through another mirror, examining the edges carefully, and frowning. Peter was saying, “I — I can’t get through to her. It’s all solid glass!”
Rosemary backed into her mirror. “Peter? Puck? Get me out of here!”
The doorknob slipped, then jiggled again. The grunts behind the door came quicker, became frustrated. Then there was a fearsome shriek as the creature threw itself at the doors. The crash echoed through the room. The heavy oak panels bulged inward under the assault, twisting like rubber.
Rosemary whirled back and thumped the mirror. “Peter! Get me out! Something’s in here with me!”
Puck marched over to a suit of