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The cottage is even stranger than Karloff.

We step directly into an open-plan kitchen and dining room, with a living area beyond crowded by more grandfather clocks than any sane person could possibly need. Rich velvet drapes hang over the windows, completely at odds with the pine-paneled walls, and every available surface is occupied by some odd ornament, jar, book, plant, or object I can’t immediately identify.

One of the grandfather clocks chimes. Then another. Then a third, apparently offended at being left out.

I look toward Hewit. “Do they all tell different times?”

“Yes,” Karloff answers from across the room. “Most of them are wrong.” He gestures us toward the table. “Sit, sit.”

Hewit doesn’t move. “Dr. Karloff.”

“Yes?”

“Is this serious?”

Karloff blinks. “You’ll have to be considerably more specific.”

“What we told you on the phone. Nora feeling what I feel. Me feeling her. Her hearing the wolf.”

“Ah.” Karloff’s expression sobers. “That is what I intend to determine.”

He disappears through a doorway. A second later, I hear a rustle beside me. I turn to see a six-foot plant with a thick green stalk and a bulbous purple-black head leaning in our direction.

Its mouth opens. It has teeth.

“Hewit.”

He looks over, and his wolf flashes instantly in his eyes.

Karloff reappears carrying a notebook and a glass jar. “Oh, don’t fret. Agnes is harmless. She’s vegan.”

Agnes snaps her teeth.

I stare at him. “That thing has teeth.”

“Necessary for the sprouts.” Karloff pats the plant affectionately, then feeds it something green from the jar. “Good girl.”

Hewit looks at me, and I bite the inside of my cheek.

Karloff finally settles opposite us with the notebook open. “Now.” He looks at my bandaged hand. “Tell me everything.”

We do. It takes longer than I expect because Karloff interrupts every few sentences with questions that seem either absurdly specific or entirely unrelated.

When did Hewit first feel something that belonged to me?

How far apart were we?

Was the sensation emotional, physical, or both?

Did I experience the same feeling simultaneously?

Had either of us eaten anything unusual?

Had I ever displayed magical ability before coming to Screaming Woods?

Did I dream in color?

That one makes me pause. “Yes.”