Chapter 1: Rae 1. RAE
Rae watched the trees blowing outside the car window. Their naked branches were moving so fast in the wind that they almost looked like the tentacled plants of the Other Place. She closed her eyes a second, opened them again, and they were just trees.

That seemed to be happening to her a lot lately. Ever since she’d gotten out of that awful alternate dimension, she’d felt as if a part of her were still there, still trapped. Or like she’d brought that place with her.

“So…” Ava began, the word heavy with meaning. And then she just stopped there, waiting. She had agreed to drive Rae to the café across the street from her school this morning so Rae could meet her friends there before class started. Supposedly it was a nice gesture, but really Rae figured her older sister just wanted the chance to yell at her. Rae had gone into the Other Place and then followed a man she knew to be dangerous inside a secret spaceship, all without first telling anyone.

Doctor Nguyen had come to their house yesterday and filled Ava and their mom in about the spaceship and about Patrick. How he was really an alien, and how he’d used Rae’s desire to find her dad as a way to trap her. She’d suggested that their mom tell Ava and Rae the truth.

Their mom had told them some of it. Like the fact that the real reason they’d moved here was because their dad was somewhere in this town. Only, some kind of secret organization that worked at Green On! wasn’t letting him contact them. Apparently they were still mad he’d released Patrick—the alien—a year ago. Even though he’d had no idea the alien was evil. He’d just been trying to help.

After that bombshell, Rae had told her sister about the Other Place. How she and her friends had been sent into it, and how Caden and Aiden had somehow destroyed it. So now there was no Other Place. Instead, they had a forest here full of monsters just waiting to descend on the town. The only thing stopping them was the magical barrier Caden’s parents had created around the Watchful Woods.

Her sister had listened to her story, thanked her for finally telling her something true, and then hadn’t said much more than a word to her since. Obviously she was angry.

Rae turned away from the window and the darkening storm clouds racing across the sky. Might as well get this lecture over with. It wasn’t as if she didn’t deserve it. “So,” she said, watching her sister’s profile. Everyone said they looked alike. Same big brown eyes, similarly colored brown hair. But where Rae’s jaw was square, her chin prominent, her sister was all soft lines and rounded features. It made her seem more vulnerable, even though she was four years older.

Maybe that was why Rae was so reluctant to tell her everything. She wanted to protect her from some of the nightmares she’d had to face herself.

Ava’s gaze flicked to her, then back to the road. And in that moment, Rae remembered that Ava had faced her own share of nightmares recently. She’d faced them, and they hadn’t broken her.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been good about keeping you informed,” Rae said. “I should have told you I was going into the Other Place, but it all happened so fast. And… I didn’t want you to try to stop me.”

Ava nodded but said nothing.

“And the spaceship,” Rae continued. “I should have told you about that, too. But again, so fast. And…”

“And you didn’t want me to try to stop you,” Ava repeated, her voice flat. “I get it, Rae. I do. But the whole point of our deal was that we were in this thing together. You promised, but you keep leaving me behind anyhow. How am I supposed to help find Dad if I don’t even know what’s going on?”

Rae looked down at her lap. “I don’t know what’s going on either,” she said quietly.

“But you have some ideas.”

“Not really.” She took a deep breath. “But I know someone who does. We both do.” She glanced at her sister, waiting.

After a second, Ava’s eyebrows lifted. “Doctor Nguyen.”

Rae nodded. She had been Patrick’s right-hand woman, helping him with all his plans, up until the end when she’d decided to help Rae instead. And she’d known their dad was somewhere in Whispering Pines. There had to be a lot more that she knew. But after yesterday, Rae couldn’t shake the sense that, despite all her secret knowledge, the scientist was in over her head.

“You think we should talk to her?” Ava turned onto the road that led toward Rae’s school.

“Well, I was thinking…” Rae paused as the outline of Dana S. Middle School came into view. The red bricks of the outside looked especially dramatic today against the coal-black of the sky, and the nearby trees whipping frantically in the wind. Several teachers hurried in through the front doors clutching their hats and scarves, as if afraid the sky would open up on them at any moment.

Ava drove past the school, pulling into the parking lot of Kat’s Café across the street. “You want to go see her,” she said as she parked.

“Yes.”

Ava sighed. “When?”

“Honestly? Now.”

Ava frowned. “What about your little party?”

Rae had told her friends she wanted to meet this morning to celebrate surviving the world’s worst internship. But that wasn’t really why she wanted to see them now. Or at least, it wasn’t the full reason. If all went according to her plan, she and Ava wouldn’t be going to see Doctor Nguyen alone. “Fine. After the celebration.”

“I can’t let you skip school. Mom would kill me if she found out.”

“I know.” But the thought of sitting there another day, pretending she cared about her classes, all the while knowing that her dad—her dad!—was somewhere close by, felt almost impossible.

“How about right after school?” Ava said. “I’ll pick you up, and we’ll go straight there.”

“Really?” Rae looked at her sister.

“Really.” Ava smiled. “You and me.”

Rae smiled back, relief making her eyes watery. “Let’s do it.”

“Don’t sneak off without me now, okay?”

“I won’t,” Rae promised. She wrestled the door open and got out of the car, the wind howling around her. Waving, she managed to get the door shut again and then sprinted toward the café as the pressure of the storm built around her. Crossing the street to her school would be fun in this weather. She’d never experienced a storm quite like this one in California.

It felt a little better inside, away from that wind. Still, there was a strange energy crackling through the café. People huddled around their drinks and breakfast sandwiches, talking softly as they glanced uneasily at the trees whipping about outside the window. It reminded Rae of animals in the wild. How they’d all go to ground whenever a big storm was coming.

They know, she realized. Something was coming. Something bigger than this storm. Then she wondered where that thought had come from.