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  “Why are you whispering?”

  “I don’t know. It just feels like his name should be whispered.”

  “So where does your mom come in?” asked Owen.

  “I just had this dream where I watched my mom drown. Her last words were ‘It is Pike.’ It might mean nothing, but what if . . . ?”

  “What?”

  “This dream was different. Like it wasn’t a dream at all but a message.”

  Maddy was the most no-drama kind of person Owen knew. If she was saying that this stuff happened, then chances are it really did. Even if there was almost no proof.

  “So what’s our next move?” He would do anything for Madison Fiona Connelly, even if it meant hunting down ghosts.

  Maddy replied, “I think we should check her desk here at home. Maybe it can tell us where she is or at least where she’s heading.”

  Chapter 5

  Maddy pushed the door to her mom’s office open very slowly and quietly. This room was forbidden. She knew she would be in big trouble if her mom found out, and she always found out. The sun shone into the office. On the wall hung diplomas and degrees. There was a large desk that took up much of the room. On that desk were pictures of Maddy as a little girl and even during the awkward middle school years. She had a colorful lump of clay that Maddy made when she was seven. And between all of these mementos and memories were stacks and stacks of papers. Her mom was messy, but when asked to find something among these papers, she knew exactly where to look.

  Maddy silently opened one of the desk drawers. She carefully pulled out a stack of tan and blue files. Even though she knew her mom wasn’t home, Maddy somehow felt that at any moment, her mom would come bursting through the door and yell at her to mind her own business. Maddy handed the stack to Owen to look through. The files were filled with old receipts and pictures of past crime scenes.

  Owen’s mind raced. Pictures of chalk outlines of dead bodies. He could feel his hands shake. Splatters of blood on white walls. His knees quivered as he looked at cream-colored carpet drenched in victims’ blood. That was it. Owen collapsed onto the ground. All his life he had this reaction to blood. He went down like a dead man.

  “Oh, crap!” Maddy ran to him. She was used to seeing blood and hearing about gore. It was part of being her mom’s daughter. Still, some people just didn’t have the stomach for it. Maddy had forgotten Owen was one of those people.

  After a few seconds he started to wake up.

  “Hey, sleepyhead.” Maddy combed his hair with her fingers. “I’m sorry. I should have been more sensitive.”

  “No, I should stop being such a wuss,” replied Owen. He slowly sat up.

  “I think it’s kind of cute.” Maddy leaned in and kissed him. “Every superman has his kryptonite.”

  Owen gently touched her cheek. “I love you, Maddy.” He gave her a long kiss. Then there was a long silence. They both felt uncomfortable.

  Owen broke the silence. “You don’t have to say it back or anything. I just want you to know that.” Owen was blushing now. He felt so stupid.

  “I know I don’t. I’m just thinking. I want to make sure I really mean it when I say it to you. I mean, it’s a really big deal. I have never loved any man.”

  Owen smiled and slowly stood up. “No, I get it. At least you like me,” he said, grinning. “Which is more than I can say for your mom.”

  They turned their attention back to the desk. To their surprise, there was a sticky note right in the middle of the desk. Had it been there the whole time? Why hadn’t they noticed it? On the sticky note was an address: 999 Black Swamp Road, Lilydale, MN. It was underlined three times.

  “What do you think?” asked Maddy.

  “Let’s go!”

  Chapter 6

  Owen slammed on his brakes. “Is that it?”

  “No. That’s the same road we just went down,” said Maddy, trying to hide her frustration.

  They had been driving back and forth for about twenty minutes. Everything looked the same. Same huge trees lining the road. Same faded and peeling billboards. Even the intersections looked the same with their wooden street signs and old street lamps.

  Until, finally, they spotted an unmarked gravel road. It was so narrow, Owen had driven right past it.

  “We haven’t tried that one yet.” He backed up to turn onto the road.

  Large, bare trees arched over the entrance. Their branches clawed the roof of Owen’s car, making screeching noises. It was like the trees didn’t want anyone to enter. The road curved sharply to the left and then turned into a steep hill. They drove down into what looked like a dried-up swamp. At the bottom was a faded wooden street sign: Black Swamp Road. There was a cluster of worn-out houses with boarded windows and broken stoops. Many had dogs on chains, barking. Owen drove around the road that encircled the very small, unkempt community.

  “That house is 993 and that one is 1001,” he said. “The house between those two should be 999 but instead it is 666. That’s an omen I don’t appreciate.”

  “That has to be the house,” Maddy said.

  It was small, with a rusted metal roof. It had a porch with a broken swing. They followed the cracked and broken sidewalk. As they stepped, Maddy noticed something slithering in the brown grass.

  “Did you see that?” Another rustle of grass. “A snake!”

  She grabbed Owen and wrapped herself around him. “You’re afraid of snakes? How did I not know that?”

  He ran with Maddy up to the porch. By the time they reached the house, he noticed many snakes darting around in the grass. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to scare Maddy even more.

  “The house is actually 999 like on my mom’s sticky note. The numbers just came loose and flipped upside-down. No omen. See?”

  Maddy stepped up to the dilapidated porch and rang the doorbell. Waited. Rang again. More waiting. And again. This time they heard footsteps and some yelling. Then silence. Maddy pounded on the door. Finally, they heard three different locks turn, two chains sliding back, and a click. The door opened a crack. An old man poked his red nose out.

  He shouted in a gravelly voice, “We don’t want no popcorn, pizzas, cookies, or magazines, ya hear? We ain’t buyin’ what you’re selling!”

  He was about to slam the door but Maddy stuck her foot in it. The man looked at her with contempt. His lip curled. He swore under his breath. He was so angry he could hardly get the words out. “Move that foot before I make you move it, little lady. Ain’t your mama teach you manners?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. That’s why we’re here. We’re looking for my mom. I think she might have come this way.”

  “Nobody come this way except by mistake.”

  He was about to shut the door on them when a high-pitched voice hollered from a distance.

  “Yeah, we seen her!” The lady sounded like she was holding her nose, except she wasn’t. “Let those kids in. Girl has worry in her voice.”

  “And she should if she knows what’s best,” said the old man. “Come in.” He opened the door just enough to let them in.

  Their house was tiny. The windows—the ones that weren’t boarded up—were covered in a thick layer of dirt. There was a strong odor of cat pee and mothballs. The woman led them into a sitting room where a fluorescent light flickered from above. She was a big woman with huge arms and a thick waist. She wore an old apron that looked like it was once pretty. She looked like she was once pretty.

  “Name’s LouAnn,” she said.

  “I’m Maddy and this is my friend Owen.”

  Owen looked at Maddy and raised an eyebrow, as if to say, “I am a little more than a friend.”

  Maddy winked at him.

  As they sat on a lumpy couch, they were surrounded by eyes. There were twenty—maybe more—dead, stuffed animals staring at them. They looked so real. They once were real, but each one of these animals had been killed, skinned, and stuffed with plastic to look like it was still alive. There were squirrels permanent
ly paused in the middle of gathering acorns, a fawn forever folded up in its napping position. There were muskrats and beavers gnawing on shiny, varnished tree chunks. Scattered among all the dead animals were little stuffed mice frozen in mid-scurry.

  “We used to own a taxidermy. Merl here is a real artist, isn’t he?” She motioned to all the alive-looking animals that were very dead.

  “Yeah,” replied Owen. “He, ah, sure did a great job.”

  “He still does,” LouAnn said. “He still stuffs animals. You got a dog or a cat you just can’t go without? Merl here can make it look so real you’ll want it to curl up at the foot of your bed.”

  Merl looked bashful. “I sure can. Them are my favorite projects.”

  “Can you stuff a human?” Owen said just loud enough for Maddy to hear.

  She burst out laughing, then tried to gracefully switch subjects. “Sooooo . . . My mom. She is a detective for the St. Paul Police Department. Her name is Eleanor Connelly. She may have passed through here.”

  LouAnn interjected, “She sure did. That’s why I invited you in.”

  LouAnn got up from her rocking chair with great effort. She shuffled into the kitchen. Came back out with a dirty tray carrying hockey-puck-sized cookies.

  “I am not used to gettin’ company in these parts, forgive me. You want one?” Before they could answer, she was handing Maddy and Owen each one.

  “Thank you,” Owen replied. He took a bite of his cookie. It tasted a little like ketchup. Still he smiled. He gave LouAnn a silent thumbs up as he choked down the bite.

  She plopped back in her chair again. “We seen your mom just last night. Boy! You sure do look like her. Your brown hair and dimples. You are the spitting image of her. Real beauty. Now, I don’t know how she knowed to come here, but she was looking for something.”

  Merl said, “See, now, people come round here thinking they know the river. Thinkin’ it is just some water flowin’ to the Gulf of Mexico. For centuries people have gathered at the river. A lot of blood has been shed at this river. Truth is, the river is full of spirits—some good, some not. And some spirits find homes in its caves.”

  LouAnn cut him off. “I can read people, you know, see their souls. I knew she could be trusted. We lent her the atlas.”

  Maddy remembered the book that was sticking out of her mom’s bag the last time she saw her mom.

  “It was an atlas my great-grandpa got from a flea market. It had what your mom was lookin’ for. LouAnn, she a real good judge of character. She said your ma could be trusted, so we lent her the atlas. She said we’d be savin’ lives. I know she’s right. Your ma is a real straight shooter. You find the atlas, you’ll find your mom.”

  “Do you know where we might look for the atlas?” Maddy asked.

  “Well, your mom, she talked about the island just three miles down the river from here. It’s called Pig’s Eye Island.”

  “Pig’s Eye Island?” asked Owen.

  Merl glared at LouAnn. “It’s a place you shouldn’t be asking about. You’d be best to forget you ever heard of a place called that.”

  “Evil visits there. It don’t live there; nothing can live there. But still, it ain’t no place for young folks,” explained LouAnn.

  “We have to get going,” Maddy said abruptly. She stood up to leave.

  Merl shook his head. “I wouldn’t advise you go to Pig’s Eye Island, but if you are stupid enough to, be sure to go only when the sun shines. And the island can flood in minutes. You got to watch the shore. Always watch the shore.”

  He propped the door open for Maddy and Owen. The snakes were once again in full view, slithering and wiggling in the grass. Maddy gave a little yelp.

  LouAnn explained, “This area used to be part of the river. It seems that the snakes don’t know that it ain’t a river no more. They are harmless, darlin’.”

  Maddy tried not to show how much she didn’t like snakes. Owen and Maddy thanked the couple and walked to the car.

  Then LouAnn hollered from the doorway, “Your heart will lead you to your mom. Don’t believe what you see. Eyes deceive, but your heart won’t!”

  Maddy waved once she got in the car. She checked her cell phone for a message, text or voice, from her mom.

  Nothing.

  Owen saw the disappointment on Maddy’s face. “Well, are we going to need the canoe?”

  Chapter 7

  “We have to go to Pig’s Eye Island,” Maddy stated matter-of-factly.

  “I thought you would say that,” replied Owen. They were almost home by now. “We should probably wait until tomorrow, though. It’s getting kind of late. You heard what the swamp people said. By the time we get the canoe, strap it to the roof of the car, and get to the landing, let alone paddle to the island, we will barely have enough time to look around.”

  “No way. It could be too late.” Maddy gave him a determined look, then a kiss.

  “Then I guess we’d better hurry,” he said.

  He knew there was no way she was going to take no for an answer. They held hands the rest of the way home, like an old married couple. They got to his house and packed the canoe, paddles, and life jackets.

  Finally they were off to the boat landing, where they parked the car. Maddy and Owen carefully slid the wooden canoe off of the roof of the car. They hauled it to the water. Owen held the canoe as Maddy tried to keep her balance getting into the tippy boat.

  There was a gentle breeze. It was too early in the season for mosquitoes. It would have been the perfect day for a canoe trip, but instead there was a hurry to everything. Time felt very precious. Owen and Maddy rowed in sync with each other. Their paddles dipped into the water, pushing and lifting at exactly the same time. They moved quickly and smoothly upstream. Maddy’s arms ached. Her injured hands burned. They spotted the muddy banks of Pig’s Eye Island. It was covered in dead trees that had no leaves, or even bark. During floods the water drowned the trees and pulled off all the bark.

  They dragged the canoe up onto the shore of the island.

  It was silent. There was nothing living on the island except the crows. They cawed from the bare branches. Maddy started to walk around the very small piece of land. There were clouds of gnats buzzing around them.

  The sun was getting low in the sky. “Let’s split up,” said Maddy. “We need to cover this island quickly.”

  Owen continued to walk around the edge of the island. Maddy walked toward its center. She came to a clearing where there were no trees. There was a smooth floor of wet clay, a greasy mud that covered the island. Maddy walked through it. At first, she left perfect shoe prints. She could see every zigzag and line on the bottom of her shoes imprinted into the clay. But as Maddy kept walking, clay gathered on the bottom of her shoes. Every step became a little heavier. She kept walking even though the heels of her shoes were starting to slip under the weight of the clay.

  Then she saw a footprint, not her own, perfectly imprinted into the clay. It had a unique pattern and looked about the same size as Maddy’s. She squatted down to get a closer look at the pattern. She saw the Zoot logo. That was the brand name of her mom’s running shoes. These were definitely her mom’s shoe prints. Maddy followed them. She walked about twenty feet. The prints came to an end. There were no other tracks. The river was still another twenty feet away. There was nowhere for Mom to go, and yet the prints stopped. It was like she had just vanished.

  Maddy heard her name. It was Owen.

  “Maddy! We have to go!” shouted Owen. “The island is flooding.”

  “Look at this. Mom was here!”

  “Come on, Maddy! We have to get to the canoe before it floats away.”

  Maddy tried to run to him, but her feet were stuck. The clay had formed a cement around her shoes. She quickly untied her laces. She stepped out of her shoes and ran to the shore barefoot. The water had reached the canoe. She was about to climb in when she looked up in a tree. She saw something red. Maddy jumped out of the canoe. She ran to the tree. />
  There, wedged between a cluster of branches, was the atlas. She used smaller branches that were low to the ground to help her climb. Already the ground she had run on was covered in cold river water flooding the island. She grabbed the book, but there was no way down.

  Owen paddled around the trees that were getting covered by more water. He fought the current, trying with all of his strength to steady the canoe under Maddy so she could jump in.

  “Climb down as far as you can and then jump,” said Owen.

  “I’m going to tip the canoe.”

  “It’s the only option we have right now. The sun’s setting. We have to get out of here! Come on, Maddy. Jump!”

  Owen held onto both sides of the canoe. He spread his weight out so the canoe would be steadier. Maddy jumped. The current spun them around and Owen had to grab the paddles to keep from being tipped over.

  “We did it!” Maddy reached over to hug Owen. One side of the canoe dipped into the river.

  “Whoa, Maddy! You can thank me when we’re home and dry!”

  The journey back home was easier. They paddled with the current. Maddy kept thinking about her mom’s footprints. Where did they disappear to? More importantly, had her mom disappeared? Maddy looked down at the atlas resting on her lap. The Atlas of Cursed Places, it read.

  “Where are you, Mom?” Maddy whispered.

  Chapter 8

  Maddy and Owen were soaked, cold, and exhausted. Once they had cleaned up and put on warm clothes, they sat down at Maddy’s kitchen table.

  “Those were my mom’s footprints. I just wish I knew where she went. The footprints stopped. It was like she just disappeared.”

  “Didn’t LouAnn say that if we found the atlas, we’d find your mom? Well, here it is.” Owen held up The Atlas of Cursed Places. “Now where’s your mom?”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Maddy said. “Plus, it’s not like her to treat someone’s stuff so carelessly.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t being careless,” said Owen. “I mean, she did have to climb the tree and tuck it among those branches so it wouldn’t fall. It isn’t like she dropped it in the mud.”