"Come out of there," demanded Jack.
"No, they'll be right back," replied Petunia hopefully.
"Come out now, this is creepy." Jack hefted his mandolin from side to side, intending to use it as a weapon if need be. Petunia sat on the edge of their tub, staring straight ahead into a dark and empty stall. Beyond the bathroom threshold, the buzz of conversation indicated that the extended family gathering was proceeding smoothly.
"They'll take me into the wall. It's kinda cool," said Petunia, not without some excitement.
Eventually, Jack persuaded his sister to return to the living room. Crying could be heard downstairs.
"Jack, go check on Dustin," someone said. Jack and Petunia hurried to the basement find out what was troubling their twelve-year-old cousin.
As he rounded the corner, Jack saw a teenage girl through the glass door leading to the lower section of deck in the backyard. She was skulking around, holding a book in her arms. Jack approached and pounded on the window, causing the girl to saunter off into the relative darkness.
Dustin cowered under the covers of his bed, crying. Beside him, a young girl lay motionless, also tucked underneath the covers but offering no comment.
"But why do I have to go back? Tell me, why?" sobbed Dustin. Petunia hauled the girl roughly out of the bed and dragged her back upstairs. Jack gently lifted Dustin out of the bed, set him on his feet and hugged him.
"Hi, Dustin," said Jack cheerily.
"Hi," Dustin replied timidly, wiping his running nose.
"Do you know who I am? I'm your cousin, Jack."
Dustin nodded shyly. "Um," he said, "can you, um, blow on my nose? So, so that..."
After a time, the child left and Petunia returned. "Where'd they go?" asked Jack.
"Family conference," she replied. Jack wondered how Dustin's parents were going to deal with these troubling events. He knew the strange girls were malicious, and Dustin was too young to understand their motives. As he pondered, he noticed a strange, fabric figurine.
"Is this Dustin?" he asked.
"Yes," Petunia whispered quietly, "this is Dustin's doll." A spaniel wandered into the room, but looked different as it left.
"Did that dog change color?" asked Jack.
Jack wandered out into the yard. He wore no shirt, but was unaffected by the cold climate. The girls had somehow found a way into the house, and he intended to figure out how. He smiled as he noticed the garden in progress, probably his father's doing. The entire yard seemed to be undergoing some massive construction project. Piles of dirt and exposed pipes littered the yard, and much of the house's concrete foundation was visible. Beyond the backyard, a small avenue extended in both directions along a close-knit collection of houses and storefronts.
Four houses down the road, the flashing red and blue of police lights was visible. Jack could barely make out the figures leaving the house in handcuffs, but he could tell that the malicious girls were being arrested. He communicated this to Petunia when she happened by. He was glad they had been caught.
He watched the neighbors argue about something as their dogs walked around. Then he went over to the opposite side of the house and found a giant, open section of PVC pipe that fed directly into the utility room. He figured that this was the way the girls had gotten in. Out of curiosity, he crawled into the pipe toward the sink at the other end. His progress was quickly halted when his eyes closed involuntarily and he felt very tired and disoriented, like gravity had been reversed. He sat for a time, not knowing what to do. Eventually he was able to back out of the pipe and return to the yard.
