Chapter 1

Winnie’s Mom dreams never ended with the soft whisper of “Windy,” her mom’s pet name for her. They usually ended in the cruelest of ways, with Mom gently fading out, leaving behind an empty porch chair facing a lake.

Winnie heard the name again. Or maybe a breeze through the seagrass outside her open window played tricks with her ears. Before she could drift back to sleep, a tiny hand jostled her shoulder. Her eyes blinked open to a dark room that smelled faintly of salt air.

“Windy?” The small voice belonged to her little stepbrother, Mikey.

“Hey, bud,” she said in a sleep-groggy voice. “Couldn’t sleep?”

The hint of moonlight that shone through her window showed Mikey’s silhouette, shaking his head. The little boy sniffled.

“Need some water? Or—” She swallowed hard, not really wanting to suggest it. “—do you want me to get your mommy?”

“Which one?” He sniffled again.

She had never expected that. “How many do you have?”

“Doesn’t matter. What I need is to get strong really fast.”

“Oh. Well.” She sat on the edge of her bed. “That might take a while.”

“It can’t,” he whined. “The oracle just sent me a message. Bad things are in the sea.”

Now she understood. The oracle was part of a fantasy game he’d invented called Frama-12. Late at night, though, anything seemed possible. Like her mom being alive or Frama-12 being a real place. Winnie gave him a side hug. “It was just a dream.”

He slumped onto the bed beside her. “The oracle promised I’d be bigger when the lurk in marched on the castle.”

Due to her warrior code, plus the fact the kid was cute, she often played Frama-12 with him. In the game, he played General Takka. She pretended to be the quarrelsome Queen Bogen. The object was for Takka to convince the queen to strengthen their army so they could defeat the evil lurkin. Obviously, the game had consequences. Winnie’s recurring nightmares of giant attacking spiders for example.

“The oracle foretold it,” Mikey said. “My human form was supposed to be taller, stronger, and smarter. But they’re coming sooner than she calculated.”

She gave him another hug. “It’s okay, buddy. I get confused when weird dreams wake me up too.”

He let out a huff. “Windy, this is for real, and I’m not strong enough to help. Or old enough. Or cunning enough. The oracle messed up.”

“How can oracles mess up? Aren’t they supposed to be, like, all-knowing and all-seeing?”

“The queen will never listen to me if I go to her in this form. She’ll think I’m a baby.”

“As your queen, I say—”

“You’re only the pretend queen. I meant the real one.”

She had hoped a few words of comfort would send him back to his room. At this rate she’d get no extra rest before her alarm went off. And she wanted to run ten miles today.

“I’m going to tell you a secret. I’m a warrior.”

“You are?” he said in an awed whisper.

“I don’t advertise it, but yes. When I’m called to duty, I fight. Since my form is bigger than yours, I’ll go to the queen and fight in your place.”

Skinny arms wrapped tightly around her. “Thanks, Windy!”

“But not right now, okay? I’ll go to war after lunch or something.”

“Not right now. When the time tear opens again.”

She laughed. “Whatever you say. Good night.”

****

Winnie had never visited a castle in her life. That’s how she knew she was stuck in another dream. How else could she explain standing in a high-ceilinged throne room with eerie candlelight flickering off its golden walls? She’d never dress like a warrior princess either, not even on Halloween. Yet she stood at stiff attention, wearing tights and a leather battle tunic. Not that she minded. Whenever she dreamed about the castle, she didn’t feel like gangly Winnie Harris, adjusting to a growth spurt. She felt like General Windemere. The Great.

Currently, though, she felt like General Windemere, the Annoyed. She gazed over the sea of shadowed heads at the raised platform on the opposite side of the room. Polo, the court’s wiry little jester, strummed his lute and sang, “Queen Bogen of the vogan, squatting on her throne. Eats her squires and wiggly thiggs, while spitting out their bones.”

Windemere nervously rubbed a thumb over the hilt of her side dagger.

“Our brave and noble queen,” Polo sang, “oft readies for the hunt. Seeking thrills and many kills of hoppers, wags, and glunt.”

She quivered with frustration. This ballad had twenty-seven very long, very tedious verses. She leaned toward the knight on her left. His head barely reached her elbow. She lightly thumped his breast plate.

“Sound the trumpet,” she murmured from the corner of her mouth. “I have an urgent message for the queen.”

The knight peeked through the narrow slit in his fishbowl-shaped helmet. “Begging the good general’s pardon,” he whispered back, “but our queen is never disturbed during her evening’s amusement.”

“She will be now,” she said through clenched teeth. “We’re being invaded.”

The knight turned his back on her. A general. Not just any general. A great and mighty general with critical news. Windemere did what any offended general would do. She shoved the insubordinate soldier into the guard beside him. Metal clanked against metal. Both frail men crashed to the floor in a creaky heap.

Polo stopped singing. He shaded his eyes with a tiny hand and peered toward the back of the throne room. “Does someone think he’s more important than our queen’s entertainment?”

Ignoring him, Windemere strode forward, head held high. “Your Majesty, the lurk in are about to attack the castle.”

A thunderous boom sounded outside.

She cried out, “They’re through the gate!”

None of the shadows moved.

“Don’t just sit there,” she commanded. “Defend yourselves.”

“Vogan do not fight,” spoke a pompous female voice from the front of the throne room. “We are royalty.”

The ornately carved door behind Windemere crashed open. She spun around. An army of mandible-snapping spiders, fifteen feet tall, lumbered inside. They were accompanied by the boisterous strains of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”

“That can’t be right,” she murmured.

Her mother appeared at her side. “Windy, you’re a warrior. You need to help these people.”

An eight-legged creature scuttled toward them. Winnie jumped awake. Two more bars of “Ride of the Valkyries” sounded from the smart watch her dad had given her. She pressed a side button, stopping the alarm, then took a deep breath to settle down. Something had to be done about those spider dreams. She fumbled in the dark for her clothes, thinking less-than-stellar thoughts about a certain little stepbrother and his fantasy game.

Uncool. After changing into a T-shirt and running shorts, she gripped her sneakers by the laces and tiptoed in stocking feet through her dad’s beach house. Halfway through the living/dining room area, her left foot landed on a small, sharp lump. Not expecting to be stabbed in the foot so early in the morning, she let out a gasp and leaped straight up. On the way down, she landed on it again. She wanted to howl at the injustice but refused to wake everybody in the house.

She puffed and removed the offending object. By the feel, she’d been poked by one of Mikey’s homemade fantasy toys. It was part man/part horse, but in a way mythology had never intended. He called it a “palum.”

He kept a whole herd of them in a plastic bag. He’d created them by cutting up little plastic horses and green army men, then fusing the pieces together with hot glue. Winnie had supervised, never guessing she’d get speared by one.

Good thing Mikey was cute or she would’ve exacted revenge. She limped to the kitchen area and slid her feet into her shoes. As the pain faded, her thoughts switched to her fantasy of one day qualifying for the Boston Marathon. Today was day three of her training.

She took two gulps of orange juice directly from the carton. After four lunges and six hamstring stretches, she scampered down the wooden steps and onto the deserted beach. She jogged in semidarkness across dry beach toward the water. Once she reached the damp sand, she pumped her legs in time to the hiss and roar of the surf. She breathed deeply, savoring the cool salt air, and soon relaxed into an easy rhythm.

The crazy idea of jogging all the way up the Eastern Seaboard to New England made her grin. Four hundred and fifty miles. Now that was a long-distance run.

She might have kept going till she wore out if she’d had her cell to call Dad for a ride. Unfortunately, he’d made her leave her devices at home. She got to keep the smart watch after promising she’d only use it for the alarm and to tell time.

“We’re going on an electronics-free vacation,” he’d said. “It’ll be fun,” he’d said. What kind of fun involved living two weeks with no phone, no internet, and no TV? Sounded like child abuse to her.

A wave splashed onto the beach, sending foam over her feet. The distraction of glancing down cut off her negative thoughts. She looked up but not soon enough to avoid a weird column of sparks straight ahead. She plowed into it.

The flickering lights merged into a glowing web that wound around her, squeezing her breath. She gnashed her teeth and clawed at the snare. The hold tightened. She fought harder, lungs burning for air. A warrior never gave up. She’d learned that from her mom.

Through a growing buzz in her ears, distant voices said, “Live long our Mighty Queen!”

The snare let go. Her legs buckled. Before she collapsed, she saw eyes without a face, gazing back. If they hadn’t been such a bright emerald green, she might have thought her mom was watching.

In time, Winnie’s brain ambled toward consciousness. Light seared through her closed eyelids. She knew by feel that she lay on her back. Warm granules prickled her neck. More grit had attached to her elbows and bare calves. It had to be sand. Where am I?

She became aware of the sound of waves splashing against the shore. Seagulls squealed overhead. The beach? With effort, she sat up. She rubbed her aching head. Something weird and dangerous had tried to suffocate her. Her eyes snapped open. Was it still out there? She warily peeked through her bangs. Nothing. At least she didn’t see any glowing specks or hear electric sparks. She tentatively raised her right arm. Only warm sea air tickled her skin. She took a deep breath and stood on wobbly legs.

Two female joggers, dressed in matching pink tank tops and black shorts, glided gracefully past. Farther down the beach, an old man in a floppy hat watched his black Lab frolic in the surf. A typical morning at the beach had begun. Typical if Winnie ignored the memory of the invisible snare.

She moved cautiously toward home. At the bottom step of her cottage porch, she paused. Had she imagined the electric web? Had it been some bizarre trick her brain played on her for jogging on too little sleep? Trying to figure it out on an empty stomach made her head hurt. She gave up on the mystery and entered the screened porch. Through the cottage’s open doorway, she saw Dad and Mikey sitting at the table, eating toast and cold cereal.

Mikey said to Dad, “I told Kip I’d show him my people today.”

Winnie’s stepmother, Maria, plump body wrapped in a pink bathrobe, stood in the tiny kitchen area, pouring coffee into two mugs. Everyone else wore shorts and T-shirts.

“Windy!” A loving glow shone from Mikey’s wide-set brown eyes. “You can meet Kip too!”

She smiled back. She didn’t even mind that she didn’t know who Kip was. Mikey always lifted her spirits.

“You’re a little late, aren’t you, Win?” Dad stared more closely at her through his black-framed glasses. “Is that sand on your arms?”

She blinked down at the grit she’d forgotten to brush off. “Maybe. A little.”

“Hon, did you fall?” Maria asked.

Winnie clamped her lips together. Be civil, be civil. You promised Dad. Still, she couldn’t help frowning. Only librarians and old people were allowed to call her hon. She shrugged. “Sort of.”

“What?” Maria set the two steaming mugs on the table and fluttered to her. “Let’s see. Are you hurt?”

Winnie ducked away. “I’m okay, honest. Thanks. Just need to, you know, have a little breakfast.” She slid into the chair opposite Mikey and grabbed the box of Oatie-Ohs. She dipped her hand inside.

“Get a bowl, Win,” Dad said.

“Did you twist your ankle?” Maria handed a coffee mug to Winnie’s dad and sat opposite him with hers.

Winnie shifted her shoulders. “Think I fainted.”

Dad eyed her with concern. “Did you eat breakfast before you went out?”

“Orange juice.”

“Oh, well, there we go, then,” said Maria. “Low blood sugar.”

Dad frowned at Winnie. “If you want to train for a race, you have to give your body the proper nourishment.”

“After breakfast,” Maria said, “you can sweep up the sand you just brought in.”

Her sympathy sure didn’t last long. All Winnie needed were a couple of nasty stepsisters, and she’d be living in a fairy tale. She took a few slow breaths, reminding herself that, as stepmoms went, Maria wasn’t that bad. She simply wasn’t Mom. Don’t go there. She had bigger things on her mind anyway. Like that strange web that had grabbed her.

“Dad.” She helped herself to another handful of sweet, crunchy cereal. “Ya know that wall runners hit when they do marathons?”

“Never experienced it personally,” he said. “Win, get a bowl.”

“Do you have to run a whole marathon, or can you hit it at any distance?”

“It was the time tear,” said Mikey.

“A bowl?” Dad raised his eyebrows at her. “How far’d you go?”

“Windy,” said Mikey, “it was the time tear.”

She put down the cereal box. “The what?”

“The distance, Win,” Dad cut in. “How far did you run on an empty stomach?”

“Tear in the time fabric,” Mikey said in a casual tone. He took a dainty bite of toast. He always did that to avoid the crust. “Think of time as a great big blanket covering the universe.”

“That’s so creative!” Maria’s dark eyes glowed with pride. “Maybe I should have named you Michelangelo.”

Winnie rolled her eyes. She still remembered the time Maria had gushed over Mikey’s creativity when he pushed a box of Band-Aids across the table and made car noises.

“Everybody knows blankets cover the universe,” Winnie retorted. “I saw it on the Science Channel. I think it was called, ‘In Search of the Cosmic Bedspread.’ ”

“I’d like to watch that one.” Obviously, Mikey hadn’t learned how to recognize sarcasm yet. “They’re right. The universe is like a bedspread.”

“I never know what you’ll think of next.” Maria affectionately tousled his shiny black hair. “I can’t decide if you’re going to be a scientist or a novelist.”

“Or be totally made fun of when he starts first grade this fall,” Winnie mumbled.

“Windemere,” Dad said, “let’s have a little less attitude.”

Winnie let out an annoyed breath of air. “I happen to know stuff. And I know kids pick on kids they think are different. I’m trying to protect him.”

Mikey held up his skinny arms. “Guys, listen. Bedspreads and the time fabric can get holes. But if you catch a time tear before it closes, you can jump into a whole nother world.”

“Like Frama-12?” Winnie mentioned his game as a joke. His solemn nod took the fun away.

“Mikey,” Maria said, “speaking about those bedspreads with holes in them. Didn’t I notice a rip in yours at home?”

The little boy shrugged. “Maybe. Sharp things can tear regular bedspreads.”

Winnie froze. She had hoped nobody would notice that.

Maria and Dad turned toward her. “What kind of sharp things?” they asked in unison.

“Oh sure.” Winnie frowned at them. “Everybody look at me now.”

And Maria did with a raised eyebrow. “Who had a better way to cook spaghetti sauce and ended up splattering it everywhere when the lid blew off the pot?”

“And who decided,” Dad chimed in, “that the best way to get rid of dryer lint was to stuff it in the back of Mikey’s closet and tell him it was a dirt-making machine?”

“That one worked, Clive,” Mikey said to Winnie’s dad.

Winnie folded her arms. “What does everybody do? Keep a list?”

Dad shook his head. “When there’s a mishap, you’re usually nearby.”

“I tore the bedspread,” Mikey blurted.

Dad’s and Maria’s heads swiveled toward him. So did Winnie’s.

“Well,” Winnie said, recovering first. “It was probably an accident.”

It definitely had been. Back home, a slip of the scissors had made the tear. She’d been cutting out a magazine article on marathon training. Her solid navy bedspread was identical to Mikey’s. Since she just received a lecture for tracking muddy sneakers across the kitchen floor, she’d thought it prudent to secretly switch the bedspreads.

“Accidents happen,” Mikey said.

Maria and Dad exchanged glances.

“Be more careful next time, champ.”

Mikey bobbed his head up and down. “I will, Clive. Sorry.”

Winnie’s shoulders stiffened with indignation. Dad never called her champ when she wrecked things. Although she had to admit Mikey had just saved her from a lecture. That was why, when he invited her to meet his new friend, Kip, she accepted. She owed him a favor. Kip was probably imaginary anyway.

If she’d been keeping track, that was when the real trouble started.