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The stranger’s knowledge of me and my secrets I found disturbing as well. I had long known I blacked out at nights sometimes, especially during the fullest cycle of the moon. I often found myself in a disheveled state in the morning, haunted by dark dreams. Sometimes, I later learned that bad things had happened during the night that I had no memory of, but which left me feeling strangely guilty.

Just looking at this stranger and hearing his story about me, with his intense gaze and looming eyes, made me want him to vanish. I didn’t want to think about what happened on nights when the moon was fullest. He became angry when I said as much to him, and I no longer…

Here the paper became torn and unreadable.

Beth closed the book and looked at me.

“What are you doing?” I asked in exasperation.

“You sure you want to keep reading?” she said sweetly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should stop now.”

I growled at her and opened the book again. Beth and I flipped through the delicate pages as quickly as we dared, looking for another scrap of the story. At last, we found it.

…how I learned that the stranger was indeed a cousin of mine, not through natural means, exactly, but a cousin nonetheless as we both shared the same maker, the Alchemist. The stranger has long since left me. He was barely alive, I should think, after our argument. A lesser man would not have survived at all. I was glad to see him go, but was still disturbed by his story. I made a solemn promise to myself that I would seek out the alchemist. Perhaps he may still cling to life even after centuries had passed. After all, I had continued to live without growing gray-haired and weak, so why would he not have taken the same alchemical baths and thus relieved himself from the burden of aging?

The essay ended there, and we both saw the signature. Beth and I gasped in unison. The name signed at the bottom of the page was Vater.

We looked at each other in shock.

“Vater wrote this?” whispered Beth.

I thought about it for a moment, and it all seemed to make perfect sense. “Of course, he did,” I said. “That story fits with what little I know of him. What gets me is that he might have been locked in down there. Do you think that he was a prisoner there? Do you think that was his cell?”

“The lock was broken…” said Beth.

I stood up and paced the room. I tapped my fingers on my chin. “One night, when the moon is at its fullest…”

“And Vater changed and became strong enough to break out,” finished Beth for me.

We heard a sound then, a strange warbling sound that rang through the mansion. We stopped talking and tried not to breathe while we listened for it again. We didn’t hear anything else for awhile, and relaxed.

“Well then, who really owned this mansion then, anyway?” I asked.

Beth looked at me. “The maker?” she whispered.

“The alchemist,” I said, nodding. It all made sense.

“Then he’s the one who built that freaky room…” said Beth.

“The one who made all of us, originally,” I said. The thought was so huge I couldn’t completely understand everything it meant. I felt like I’d learned my parents were really aliens. Perhaps, in a way, they really were.

The sound came again, and this time there was no mistaking it for what it was. It was the sound of howling, the sound a wild dog pack might make while hunting.

I knew in an instant what it was. Danny and Thomas had made it out of the dungeon.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The Hunt

We shoved the book under Chris Anderson’s bed and ran. This time, Beth didn’t try to take the book with us. I think she was finally spooked by it, the way I was, and didn’t really want to read any more right now.

“What are you then, genetic freaks? Mutations?”

“Rude people might call it that, I suppose.”

“We’ve got a dogpack of your relatives chasing us,” said Beth.

“Okay. You’ve got a point.”

We trotted quickly and quietly down the dimly lit hallways. We didn’t see anyone, but we could voices echoing from behind us. They coming closer. I began to run, Beth followed me.

“Where are we going?”

“Back to the place they searched first. The attic.”

We almost didn’t make it. There were footsteps and angry voices underneath the trapdoor just moments after we pulled it up. I wondered if the hanging string we’d used to pull the ladder down was swaying in front of their faces, giving us away.

If it was, no one seemed to notice. The voices came very close and stopped right under us.

“I smell them,” said Thomas in his dog voice. “Right here, and all down these halls. It’s a bit stronger right here.”

“He’s a tricky one,” said Danny. “Just like the dirty rat he is. I’ve always disliked him and now I know why. Dog’s hate rats. It’s only natural. Vater knew too. Vater knew right away he didn’t belong.”

Mouse, I shouted in my head. I’m a Mouse. Beth reached out and squeezed my hand as if she knew what I was thinking.

I fought to control my thoughts. My tail wanted to sprout again, I could feel it.

“What are we going to do if we catch them?” said Thomas.

“A dog’s teeth aren’t for barking,” said Danny. They laughed. The sound was a strange gargling noise coming from their animal throats.

I wondered if a rat’s fangs could match a dog’s if they were evenly sized. I bet they could. I bet that rats-I mean mice — only lost fights with dogs because dogs were bigger. I sort of liked the thought and felt my lips pull back in a snarl. I tried to stop the change, not wanting to scare Beth. My mouth suddenly felt very full of sharp teeth, but I didn’t think she noticed in the dark. I was alarmed, the change sort of snuck up on you, like a yawn. You would think of it vaguely one minute, and then the next you would be unhinging your jaws in a howling big yawn. Trying to stop the change was just as hard as stifling a yawn or a sneeze.

We heard snuffling sounds as they tried to pick up the scent. The batteries were dead in Beth’s flashlight. We huddled quietly in the dark. Hiding and knowing the people searching for me were very close always made my heart race. I could hear my blood pounding in my ears and wondered if a dog’s ears were sharp enough to hear it too.

“Do you think..?” asked Thomas after a few moments.

“Yeah. Leave the others behind to search the rooms. Come on, this way,” said Danny. They ran off with their claws clicking on the hardwood floors.

When they’d gone, I jumped up and dragged Beth to her feet.

“They know,” I told her.

“How did they figure it out?”

“The scent trail ended at the trapdoor, you don’t have to be a genius dog to imagine how we might have vanished. They will go around to take the stairs so they can stay in dog form and surprise us.”

We ran through the attic. I felt like the game was almost up. I was running out of gas, getting tired. We’d done pretty well, I thought to myself. We’d kept hidden for over twelve hours now. It was dusk outside. I had hoped that they would all stop to eat something, but they showed no signs of having a seven-course meal and giving us a break.

Bad thoughts came to me about the dungeon and all those dark, dusty cells. Who else besides Vater had been left to rot down there? Would we, possibly, be locked up down there if they caught us?

“What are we going to do, Connor? They are under us and coming up.”

“We go up to the roof,” I said.

We ran to one of the roof exits, one of those square small doors with the little door handles. An idea came to me like a thunderbolt. I knew right then why the doors up here were made that way.