Once they arrived in Salem, the twins buzzed around with more and more excitement at every turn Chris made.

Morgan landed on his shoulder and took a seat. "Daddy, are we going to see Mom soon?"

Joe gave him an I-told-you-so look. Another one. It was pretty much the only look Joe offered him over the last hour.

"I don't think Mom's home today," Chris said, pretending he didn't notice. "I'm going to try to find out where she is, though."

"Oh," Morgan replied. "Is she at work? I want her to see my new wings!"

Morgan was still in the process of perfecting her wing flap frequency. They were fluttering for demonstration as if she were showing her mother. And in the process, she gave it too much oomph and lifted off his shoulder by mistake. Then she slowed them down too much and thumped back to a seated position after a mini-free-fall.

"I don't think so."

It was a lot of buzzing in Chris's ear. He loved her dearly, but it wasn't a sound he could stand at that moment.

Morgan pouted at both his answer and flinch, and soon hovered over to Ryan, who was now playing a game of tag with Joe's palms. And that was all it took. With wings, all games were new. She was distracted again in record time and it stayed that way longer than it usually did. They were good kids—everyone always told him that—and whether it was due to the novelty of it all or just fear, or perhaps some combination thereof, they had truly exceeded his expectations.

If they were "bad" or just kids being kids. . .

He didn't even want to go down that mental route. It was possible they'd still be in Pyxis. Or worse.

About a mile from the house, Chris found a parking spot. He and Joe got out of the car and switched sides.

"Don't you want to get a little closer to the house?" Joe asked with his elbow leaning on the open driver's-side door.

"I'll walk the rest of the way. It'll be safer for us all if you avoid the area entirely," Chris replied from the sidewalk. He stared in the direction he intended to travel.

"Walking could take you the rest of the day," Joe pointed out.

Chris's eyes shot back in his brother's direction. "I'll hitch a ride somehow."

"What are we supposed to do while you're off playing spy?"

"I don't know! Go to the museum!"

The Salem Witch Museum. Were witches real? Made up? He'd lean toward real now! Regardless, Chris had never liked all the hoopla they brought to his town. And the subject matter wasn't ideal, but the museum was a crowded, chaotic place, especially during a vacation week. Joe could get away with wearing a costume and they'd stay out of the cold for a little while. Chris was being more sarcastic than serious, but there were certainly worse places they could go.

Like home. . .

Joe scowled, shook his head, sighed, the whole bit. "Where do we meet you, then, and what time?"

"I'll be back in a few hours. How about right here?"

Chris turned away and stood silent, refusing to answer any more of Joe's questions. A few seconds later—Chris was finally getting used to Modifying with ease—he shrunk beneath his clothes and redressed in his fairy attire.

As miniature Chris emerged, Joe removed the human clothes from the ground without comment or even a glance, and then he slammed the vehicle door shut.

Chris lingered on the side of the road and watched the 4Runner fade into the fog and cold drizzle. It took a passing car and a shudder to spur him into motion.

He moved alongside the curb. When a traffic light turned red, he caught hold of a mud flap on a low-riding sedan and held on until he was close to his destination. He let go before the car made an undesirable turn and continued jogging for the remaining blocks.

Before he rounded the last corner, Chris glanced over the curb and captured his first view of the house. It was a modest white Victorian, built in the late nineteenth century. He always admired its quaint charm and classic beauty. In the chilly light rain, however, it looked as gray as the sky. The yellow crime-scene tape further marred its appearance.

Chris felt as if a noose were tightening around his neck already. For a moment, he forgot why he wanted to put himself through this. He briefly considered turning back. Then an inner, almost supernatural force tipped the balance. He was going in. It was never a choice.

Once he reached the house, he hoisted himself up the shallow steps with a run, jump, and a climbing lift. At the top, he stooped beneath the door's overhanging threshold and waited.

Not long after, the door opened. A state trooper stepped out. Chris snuck inside before the door slammed shut. He crouched behind a snow boot by the radiator.

There were at least half a dozen people inside his living room. They were violating every corner and shadow, every book and photo and knickknack, every bill and receipt.

He had to remind himself that the police were not the enemy. They were just doing what they were paid to do. An evil-fairy invasion wouldn't exactly top their list of plausible explanations for the bloodbath in the bedroom.

There were bodies. Did the Gray Coats clean up after themselves? How well? Was Alana's body among them? Did they take it or leave it?

Perhaps he'd never know the specifics. . . .

Just as he was about to move deeper inside the house, the front door swung open again. Chris dodged back behind the boot.

The young man in a cheap suit approached the older, heavyset investigator holding the clipboard.

"Did you discover anything unusual?" the younger of the two asked.

"No, not yet."

"Do you still think he killed her?"

Dead. She was dead.

"There's no doubt in my mind," the older one said with a thick Boston accent.

"Shouldn't we wait for forensics to confirm that before we write this guy off?" said the younger man, obviously a rookie. "I mean, he never even had a speeding ticket."

"Nah, I've got a hunch."

"You have to admit it's strange that his brother and father are missing, too."

The older man shrugged. "His father has been gone for years, and his brother's probably shooting up in some drug den. My guess, a coincidence."

"I hope we find the kids in time. Only four years old. . ."

"You hang on to that hope, kid. You're gonna need it."

Chris couldn't listen . . . or even function after that. The colors in the room became hazy, furniture looked like it was hanging from the ceiling, and voices were muffled as if their source was under water.

She's dead, and they think I'm her killer.

They think I murdered my wife and kidnapped my own children.

Chris had to sit or he would have fallen down. He wondered what he'd done to deserve this. Everything had been taken from him. And any hope of a normal life for his children? Gone. The humans would want blood from him for a crime he did not commit. He would spend the rest of his life on the run, hiding from fairies and humans.

Like a vigilant sheepdog, his anger corralled all the erratic facets of grief deep inside and pushed outward a bitter numbness that at least enabled his feet to move.

Chris decided to collect a few items and leave his old life behind. He was a MacRae—a fairy, a warrior—and would avenge his wife's murder to the death.

He hustled to the staircase when the timing was right. The wood trim on the wall allowed him to walk to the second floor without the need to climb each stair one by one.

Most urgently, they needed money. Continuing to steal cars would attract unwanted attention, and stealing food—even if only just enough to feed themselves at fairy size—would be dangerous and time-consuming.

Alana once had a rainy-day stash that she'd tried to keep secret from him. He always knew it existed, though. It was tucked inside a dress boot in the master bedroom closet; the police may have seen the boots but may not have looked inside them.

Luckily, the bedroom was empty. The police had already cataloged the area, it seemed. Everything was tagged, marked, torn apart, and then put back to a police standard of neatness.

As Chris moved closer to the scene of the crime, he turned away from the bloodstains on the rug. There was still the lingering scent of death even if he didn't look. And it was hard not to. There is blood everywhere. And with every step and breath he took, there was no way to escape the memory of the intruders, the baseball bat, the struggle, the fall.

If only. . .

Why hadn't his father ever told him anything? Not even the slightest hint. No "by the way, Chris," or "I hate to break it to you."

Standing in the open space between the bed and closet, Chris suddenly heard a familiar buzzing sound. His head snapped toward the hallway. There he spotted a winged fairy hovering along the ceiling, headed in his direction.

Chris was in very real danger once again. Fairies, winged or not, would be as inconspicuous as he was. Plus, they had swords and armor, and the Royals could get a bird's-eye view.

At least Chris had the home-field advantage. He scurried to the cracked-open closet. Even in the near dark, he easily found the money. It was too bulky to carry in his current form, so he needed some way to make it manageable. He unlaced a sneaker and wrapped the bills in a tight roll, securing them with the shoelace.

He lifted the ends of the lace over his shoulder and peeked out the crack. The flying fairy was scouting his bedroom. After a couple of rotations, the fairy left the room.

Once he could no longer see or hear the other fairy, Chris ran toward the hall. He was a few steps past the doorway when the buzzing sound returned and slowly increased in volume. Believing he was still unseen, he ducked into Morgan's bedroom.

Thankful for once that his daughter was a messy child who never put her things away, Chris had plenty of places to hide as the fairy whizzed past the door. While he waited, he realized some of the objects strewn around Morgan's room might be useful: miniature clothes and accessories, a doll purse that had a strap he could throw across his shoulder.

Chris scooped up a pile of clothes, adding it and the roll of money to the purse. Then he climbed into a toy bin on a low shelf to search for anything else that might come in handy.

On his way back down, his foot nicked a pink ball with bells inside. It bounced to the hard wood floor and rolled all the way to Morgan's open door.

Buzzing. It grew louder until Chris heard it ringing in his ears like a thousand bees. He ducked behind a teddy bear just as a Royal fairy moved into the room with his sword drawn.

Chris rummaged through his pockets for his knife, but both were empty. A string of expletives went through his head. He had taken the knife out when they'd had breakfast, and it never found its way back into his pocket.

The fairy landed on the ground and paced forward, sword ready to strike, his footsteps and movement, precise and lethal. He was closing in on Chris's location. There were also approaching footsteps—large ones. The fairy ducked behind a toy less than one human pace away from Chris.

An officer pushed Morgan's door all the way open with his foot. He entered the room with his gun pointed. After scanning the room and the closet, he put his gun back in its holster. Returning to the doorway, he squatted and picked up the ball. As he rattled it a couple of times, his walkie-talkie crackled to life. "All clear?"

The officer stood back up and detached his walkie-talkie from his belt. "Yeah, looks like a toy fell. I swear this place is haunted."

The voice chuckled and said, "Yeah, no kiddin.' Wonder why that is?"

The man left the room. Chris remained motionless, and so did the fairy soldier. Time ticked by. Chris muffled every breath and tensed every muscle.

Then the fairy did something Chris did not expect. He flew from the room. And Chris wasn't going to stand around and wait for him to come back.

The hall was empty, so—with the doll purse strapped to his back like a hiker's pack—he ran toward the stairs. Before he made it there, the buzzing sound approached again. This time he ducked into Ryan's room. Over his shoulder, he saw three fairies fly by.

As soon as they passed, Chris knew he didn't have a moment to lose. He had to get to those stairs. Darting into the open again, he crossed the final stretch of hallway. Instead of walking carefully down the stairs' trim, he slid down it and used his feet to gain more speed.

He made it to the pile of boots by the door, but stopped and circled, not knowing where to go next. When the three fairies appeared at the ceiling above the stairs, Chris darted behind a police detective's laptop bag. He didn't want to risk running anywhere else. So he unzipped a side pouch and climbed in.

The computer would eventually exit the house. But the police were getting desperate—he could feel it in the air—and they were reaching for something that didn't exist. It wasn't likely to be anytime soon.      

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