The Journal of Curious Letters (The 13th Reality #1)

You idiot, he thought.

Whoever M.G. was, he or she would have no way of knowing when people received the cryptic letters, much less when they would test out the first clue to figure out the

all-important date. Tick reread one of the lines from the first letter:

Beginning today (the fifteenth of November), I am sending out a sequence of special messages . . .





November the fifteenth. Even before officially starting the messages, M.G. had provided the mystery’s first hint: the start date needed to solve Clue Number One.

Tick quickly went through the calendar again, calculating three times what the date should be based on the new starting date, erasing and rewriting. Finally, confident that he’d solved it, his paper showed a different result:

May 6





At first, he worried that the results were only ten days apart when the beginning dates had been off by eleven, but after looking at the calendar three times, he determined it had to do with June only having thirty days.

May sixth. The all-important date. Just over five months from now.

Tick wrote the date in big letters on the bottom of the first clue, then ripped out the one-page calendar and stapled it to the back of the cardstock. He examined the second clue for awhile, which really did nothing but refer him to the first letter he’d received as a code or something to figure out the “magic words.” After an hour of staring at the typed message, his brain exhausted, he gave up. He folded everything up together and stuck the stack in his desk drawer.

For the rest of the evening, Tick couldn’t quit thinking about the first clue. According to the stranger known as M.G., something very important was to happen on May sixth of the next year.

But what?

~

Much later that night, after playing Scrabble with his mom and Lisa (Tick’s best word: galaxy, 34 points on a double-word score), eating two-thirds of a bag of Doritos while watching SportsCenter with his dad (swearing on his life he’d never eat another chip—a promise he knew wouldn’t last past tomorrow), analyzing the clues for a while (still no luck with the magic words), then reading for an hour in bed (the latest seven-inch-thick fantasy novel he’d checked out from the library), Tick finally went to sleep.

In the middle of the night, ripping him from a dream in which he’d just received the very prestigious Best Chess Player in the World trophy, crowds chanting his name and cheering wildly, Tick heard the sounds again: the metallic whirring, the scraping, the patter of tiny footsteps. All coming from inside the closet, where the door was closed.

Something bumped against the door.

Tick sat up, suddenly very, very awake.





Chapter


9




~





The Gnat Rat


Tick’s first instinct was to run and get his dad again, the creepy chills of the night he’d first heard the noises returning in full force. But he steeled himself, resolving not to go running off like a baby again until he knew it was all for real. Whatever was moving around in his closet couldn’t be very big, and it had to have a reasonable explanation. Maybe it was just a squirrel that had chewed a hole through the wall—too small for them to have noticed that night when he and his dad had searched the room.

What about the mechanical fan sound? he thought. He told himself that maybe the little squirrel had accidentally eaten his dad’s electric shaver, but then realized he was probably one step away from the mental hospital talking to himself like this, and telling jokes at that. Just go check it out, he told himself sternly.

He reached up to his headboard, keeping his eyes riveted on the closet, and flicked on the lamp. The warm glow banished the dark shadows, illuminating fully the door with its many posters and sports banners taped haphazardly across it. Encouraged and braver with the light on, Tick swung his legs around and stood up from his bed, hoping the closet door didn’t burst open when he did so. Nothing moved. The sound had completely stopped.

Maybe I just imagined it. I haven’t heard it since it woke

me up.

Think it all he wanted, he couldn’t convince himself. A slice of fear cut through his heart, making it pound even harder, sending a pulse of heat through his veins. His hands were sweaty and his shoulders and back tingled, making him remember what Mothball had said about the smoke-ghost he’d seen in the alley. The Tingle Wraith. But its sound had been totally different, and Tick didn’t really expect to see one in his closet.

No, this was something different, if anything at all.

He crept over to the door with ginger steps, staring at the thin sliver of space between the floor and the bottom of the door. If anything shot out from that crack, Tick knew he’d die of a heart attack on the spot. He stopped a couple of feet away and paused, clenching and unclenching his fists.