Ahead of us, Skrae gave a last buzz and flew back down the tunnel, back to Leanansidhe to give his report, I assumed. There was no going back for me. I reached for the door handle.
“Wait,” Puck ordered. I turned back, impatient and annoyed, when I saw the grim severity in his eyes. “Are you ready for this, Princess?” he asked softly. “Whatever lies beyond that door isn’t Ash any longer. If we’re going to save your family, we can’t hold back now. We might have to—”
“I know,” I interrupted, not wanting to hear it. My chest tightened, and my eyes started to tear, but I dashed them away. “I know. Let’s…let’s just do this, all right? I’ll figure something out when I see him.” And before Puck could say anything else, I wrenched the door open and walked through.
The cold hit me immediately, taking my breath away. It hung in the air as I shivered, gazing around in horror, my stomach twisting so painfully that I felt nauseous. Ethan’s bedroom was completely encased in ice. The walls, the dresser, the bookshelf; all covered in a layer of crystal nearly two inches thick, but so clear so I could see everything trapped within. Outside the window, a cold, clear night shone through the glass, the moonlight sparkling lifelessly off the ice.
“Oh, man,” I heard Puck whisper behind me.
“Where’s Ethan?” I gasped, rushing to his bed. The horrific vision of him trapped in ice, unable to breathe, made me virtually ill, and I nearly threw up at the thought. But Ethan’s bed was empty, the quilts flat and still beneath the frozen layer.
“Where is he?” I whispered, near panic. Then I heard a faint noise from beneath the bed, a soft, breathy whimper. Dropping to my knees, I peered into the crack, wary of monsters and bogeys and the things that lurked under the bed. A small, shivering lump stirred in the far corner, and a pale face looked up at mine.
“Meggie?”
“Ethan!” Relieved beyond words, I reached under the bed and pulled him out, hugging him close. He was so cold; he clung to me with frozen hands, his four-year-old body shaking like a leaf.
“You c-came back,” he whispered, as Puck crossed the room and shut the door without a sound. “Quick! You have to s-save Mommy and Daddy.”
My blood ran cold. “What happened?” I asked, holding him with one arm while pulling open the door we came through. Now it was just a normal closet. I yanked out a quilt that wasn’t covered in ice and wrapped Ethan in it, sitting him on the frozen bed.
“He came,” Ethan whispered, pulling the folds tighter around himself. “The dark person. S-Spider told me he was coming. He told me t-to hide.”
“Spider? Who’s Spider?”
“The m-man under the b-bed.”
“I see.” I frowned and rubbed his numb fingers between mine. Why would a bogey be helping Ethan? “What happened then?”
“I hid, and everything turned to ice.” Ethan gripped my hand, big blue eyes beseeching mine. “Meggie, Mommy and Daddy are still out there, with him! You have to save them. Make him go away!”
“We will,” I promised. My heart started an irregular thud in my chest. “We’ll make this right, Ethan, I promise.”
“He should stay here,” Puck murmured, peering through a crack in the door. “Man, it looks like the whole house is iced over. Ash is here, all right.”
I nodded. I hated to leave Ethan, but there was no way I wanted my brother to see what came next. “You wait here,” I told him, smoothing down his curly hair. “Stay in your room until I come get you. Close the door and don’t come out, no matter what, okay?”
He sniffled and huddled deeper into the quilt. With my heart in my throat, I turned to Puck. “All right,” I whispered. “Let’s find Ash.”
We crept down the stairs, Puck in front, me clinging to the railing because the stairs were slick and treacherous. The house was eerily silent, an unfamiliar palace of sparkling crystal, the cold so sharp that it cut into my lungs and burned my fingers as they gripped the railing.
We reached the living room, cloaked in shadow except for the light that came from the open door and the flickering static of the television. Silhouetted against the screen, Mom’s and Luke’s heads were visible over the top of the couch. Leaning together, as if asleep, they were frozen solid, encased in ice like everything else. My heart stood still.
“Mom!”