hoodie.”
Happy unzipped her jacket and slid out of it, handing it to Callie.
“Pressure,” Callie breathed, lifting the hoodie to her neck. “Put pressure on the wound.”
It was obvious she was much weaker than she’d realized because Happy had to take the jacket and wrap it around the wound for her, securing the makeshift tourniquet in place by tying the sleeves into a tight bow.
“I think that should work,” Happy said, sitting back on her heels to admire her handiwork.
“Feel better . . . already.” Callie sighed, giving Happy a weak smile as the other girl helped her to her feet.
“God, I hope so,” Happy said, her face wan. “Now let’s find Agatha.”
With Callie holding on to Happy’s arm for support, the girls continued down the hallway. This time it seemed luck was on their side, because the next door they tried was the right one, the key sliding into the lock and turning with a satisfying
“Okay,” Happy said, grasping the doorknob with her right hand. “One, two . . . three!”
She threw the door open and Callie screamed as she realized they were teetering on the threshold of a yawning abyss.
“It’s not real,” Happy said calmly, reaching out a hand so that it hung in the empty air before them.
Suddenly the yawning abyss disappeared, almost as if it had never existed at all, and in its place, they discovered a bare octagonal room with an army cot in one corner and a chamber pot half hidden underneath it.
“Happy!” Agatha cried, jumping up from the cot and racing over to them. “I knew you’d rescue me! Count Orlov never came—I don’t even think the invitation was really
Happy, who was used to Agatha’s one-track mind, brushed off the hoodie comment with, “Harold’s here.”
“What?” Agatha said, her blue eyes wide with disbelief.
Happy looked grim.
“I think he’s orchestrated this whole thing in order to make good on his promise to turn you into a collectible.”
All the color drained from Agatha’s face.
“Oh, no,” she said, looking ill.
“This isn’t like an ex-boyfriend thing, is it?” Callie asked.
“No!” Both Happy and Agatha shouted at the same time.
“Sorry I asked,” Callie said, glad her snarkiness was returning because it meant she wasn’t gonna be dying anytime soon.
“He’s a film producer whose career was ruined by a film that Agatha happened to star in—” Happy began.
“I told him it was a bad script,” Agatha chimed in.
“He blames her completely for the failure,” Happy continued. “And he promised to turn her into a collectible doll because he said her performance in the film was as stiff and fake as one.”
“He’s working all this stuff from a remote location so you can’t zap his psychic powers, Happy,” Agatha said angrily.
“I would expect so,” Happy agreed, and at those words, the floor beneath them started to shake, the army cot flipping onto its side as the chamber pot went flying.
“All right, time to get out of here,” Callie said, gripping Happy’s arm for support.
“But what if we’re trapped?” Agatha moaned, tears springing to her eyes.
“Agatha!” Happy said, her brow furrowed in consternation. “Stop trying to create unnecessary drama.”
Agatha’s eyes instantly cleared and she shrugged.
“Well, drama seemed appropriate for the situation, but if you’d rather I not—”
“I’d rather you not, actually,” Callie said as she followed Happy through the door that led back out into the hallway, the house beginning to disintegrate around them.
At first, Callie thought she was imagining the house’s destruction, but as they ran, she saw the ceiling and walls starting to flake into charred black bits that rained down on their heads like volcanic ash.
“The house is a telepathic illusion from Harold’s mind,” Happy said. “So it can’t hurt us.”
She was right. As soon as they reached the front foyer, the final bits of the false image dissipated and they were met with a wash of black soot that settled onto their heads in soft, delicate clumps. . . . Only when Callie brushed the stuff away from her face, she realized that it wasn’t soot covering her head. It was snow.
And then she started to shiver.
The remains of the abandoned mansion were skeletal. Curved wooden beams reminiscent of a naked rib cage exposed the rotting interior to the snowy sky, while corroded siding sloughed off its exterior in swaths like dead skin from a corpse. The red shag runner Callie had snuggled her feet into proved to be nothing more than decaying dirt and leaves, the front foyer merely an empty room without a front door.
The woman they’d called Fiona had managed to make her escape during all the craziness—and Callie wondered if there was any truth to the story she’d told about the daughter and the autograph. And if so, was the address she’d given Happy real?
Once they’d surveyed the decaying house, it hadn’t taken a genius to understand why Fiona had been so adamant that Callie and Happy leave by the back exit: If they’d followed her directions, they’d have plummeted to their deaths via the deep ravine that lay directly behind the property.
As the girls trudged back to the Waldbaum’s parking lot clearly the worse for wear, Callie realized it was just dumb luck that no one had gotten killed. Harold—or whoever the mastermind was, if Happy’s hypothesis was incorrect—had been very clever in using the house as their staging ground, luring Agatha and Happy into a trap via an invitation to a master acting class with the great acting coach Count Orlov—something Agatha’s ego couldn’t resist. It was only by the most random of coincidences—asking the wormhole to take her to a “happy place,” which the universe translated as “take me to a place where Happy lives”—that Callie had stumbled into the story and wrecked the bad guy’s plan.
When they reached the parking lot, Agatha’s red Maserati was the only car left in the lot. As Happy unlocked the doors, Agatha threw her arms around Callie’s shoulders and gave her a pythonlike squeeze.
“I’m so glad we met you. If you’re ever in New York or L.A. and need a place to crash . . .”
Agatha released her, and Callie smiled.
“Agatha, like I tried to explain before,” Happy said, exasperation thick in her voice, “Callie comes from another universe—”
“Whatever,” Agatha said, rolling her eyes as she climbed into the driver’s seat and snagged the keys from her assistant. “Like I said: My casa is your casa.”
Smiling, she jammed the keys into the ignition, the car roaring to life underneath her nimble fingers. As Agatha gunned the engine, Happy rolled down the passenger window and Callie hobbled over, trying not to let her teeth chatter as the snow settled all around her like dew.
“If you hadn’t dropped out of the sky when you did . . .” Happy said, but she didn’t need to finish the thought. They all knew Callie’s surprise arrival had stacked the cards in their favor . . . at least this night.
“It was just dumb luck,” Callie said, shrugging.
“Are you sure we can’t drop you somewhere?” Happy asked, but Callie shook her head.
“I think the sooner you get out of here, the faster I can heal myself and get where I need to go.”
“Well, thank you for everything. Seriously,” Happy said, giving Callie a warm smile. “And good luck getting ho—”
Happy didn’t get to finish her good-bye because Agatha chose that moment to jam her foot on the gas, the candy-red Maserati speeding off into the shimmering white night in a cloud of exhaust.
As the car rounded the bend and disappeared into the darkness, Callie’s wounds began to close.
Callie took a deep breath and then a blinding golden light filled her soul and she was gone. With a sigh, she wondered why it’d taken her so long to figure this whole wormhole thing out in the first place.
