The last few pages of the book are missing. What Rowanwand destroys a book—much less a Book of Shadows? What was written in there? I need to study this book more closely. I've told mother what I found, and she seemed very interested. Could it be that we have some kind of an answer to our haunting problem at last?

— Aoibheann

When I told Morgan that I knew what I was doing, I'd probably been overstating my case just a little bit. I knew that I was running away, that I was going to Gloucester, and that I was going immediately. The details—well, I hadn't quite worked them out.

I was the only person waiting at the bus station for the midnight ride to New York. I used my bank card to buy a ticket and sat down to wait. I felt like I was in a cheesy movie of the week—teen leaves home, gets on bus to the big city. Things like this weren't supposed to happen to me. But it was real, and I was alone, seething, and nearly numb with anticipation. Fortunately I'd timed it well, and I only had to wait a few more minutes before the bus arrived.

About three hours later I saw the lights of New York in the distance. Though I love the big city, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where we eventually stopped, is probably the last place I'd normally want to be at 3 a.m. on a Sunday. Though it was less crowded than usual, there were still a lot of people wandering around. Many of these people had hollow gazes; several mumbled to themselves. Everyone seemed to be eyeing me—this squeaky clean teen with her fat duffel bag.

According to the monitor, the next bus for Boston left at 4 a.m., so I had an hour to kill. I used my bank card again to buy my ticket, taking care to have it out of my bag for the least amount of time possible. I also really needed to go to the bathroom, but there was no way I was venturing into one of those desolate ladies' rooms.

My adrenaline rush was fading. I was shivering. I passed a phone, and I thought about picking it up. I wasn't quite ready to call my father. Morgan? Mary K.? Too late. Their parents would freak. I could call Hunter. His dad wouldn't mind that I called so late (an advantage to letting your father live in your house and not vice versa). But I figured Hunter probably wouldn't be to happy about me running away, and I didn't really want to get a lecture.

No. I had decided to go, and now I was going to deal with it. So it was a little scary—I would be in Gloucester soon. I sat down and watched a screen with the weather forecast refresh itself about two hundred times before it was time to board the bus.

The bus to Boston was almost empty, so I had two seats to myself, nice and close to the driver. This made me feel a little more secure. He didn't seem to notice anything strange about my being alone. I guess this was pretty much standard runaway procedure, something he'd seen before—something just what my mother had done over thirty years before. Shoving my bag behind my head, I closed my eyes and fell right asleep.

I dreamed of the mermaid again. It was night this time, and we were both on the shore. The sea was calm now. The mermaid hid herself under a green veil, and she pointed up to the moon, which was a hook hanging low over the water—a waxing moon. We sat in silence for a long time; then a wave lapped up on the sand. As it pulled away, the beach was glowing with runes and Gaelic words. All the space between us was filled up by this mysterious writing. Another wave came and washed it all away, leaving the beach bare and sandy. And when I looked up for the mermaid, she was gone. I woke up just as the bus was pulling into Boston's South Station, the biggest bus and train depot in the city.

I discovered by reading a few rainbow-colored folding transit maps and asking a few commuters that I needed to take two subway lines to get to North Station, where I would be able to get on a train to Gloucester at seven-thirty. From there, the ride to Gloucester would take about an hour. My brain was waxy and numb from too much emotion and too little sleep. The color-coded routes on the maps seemed like they would be impossible to navigate. But I pulled up some hidden reserve of energy and brainpower and managed to get myself on the subway and across town. For the third time in only a few hours I was waiting on another platform. If only I had a car I thought. Life would be a lot easier.

I thought of my bed back in Widow's Vale, all made, ready to be climbed into and enjoyed. Of course, there was nothing else left in my room, but my bed was there. My dad probably pacing. I was sure he'd been up all night…

There was a phone behind me. Impulsively I picked it up and called the house collect. Someone snatched the phone off the hook on the first ring. It was my dad, who frantically accepted the charges.

"Hello? Alisa?"

"It's me, Dad," I replied, frightened by the urgency in his voice.

"Alisa, where are you?"

"It's okay, Dad," I said, keeping my on the track for any sight of the train. "I'm fine. I just need… some time."

"Time? What are you talking about?"

"It's just been too much for me to take in," I sighed.

"Alisa…," he said. He sounded confused, like he didn't know which would be more effective: being angry or pleading.

"I'm not just running off," I said. "I'm going to see Mom's family."

He had no idea what to say to that. I might as well have just told him that I'd hopped on a slow boat to China. My mother never talked about her family, so my dad always assumed it that they must have been pretty bad to make her run away when she was eighteen. From what he'd told me, my mom wasn't exactly a rebel.

"There's a lot you don't know about the," I added. Understatement of the year. "They know I'm coming. They want to see me. I have to go."

"I've had enough of this, Alisa," he said, opting for the angry approach.

"I'm just telling you," I continued, "so you won't worry. I'm in safe hands, not out on the streets somewhere. I'm going to a house, to stay with mom's brother. There is no need to call the police or anything."

"Your mother didn't even had a brother!" he said, his voice breaking.

"She did," I said. "He lives in a nice place. It's fine. I'm fine. I just need to think. I promise that I'll stay there, where it's safe—just please don't call the police. I promise that I'll call."

"Do I have a choice?" he finally said.

"Not really," I admitted.

"I love you, Alisa. You know that, don't you? I know you've been…"

The train was coming.

"I love you, Dad." I felt myself choke up on that. "I have to go. Please don't worry about me."

I think he was calling my name when I hung up. My hands shook, and my eyes stung. Onward, I thought. No turning back now.

I crashed again on the commuter train, with my head resting against the window. No dreams this time. I woke with a jolt and a crick in my neck as I heard the conductor announcing that we were pulling into Gloucester.

No one was around on the platform. Only a few people were out walking on the street—it was still early on an overcast Sunday morning, after all. I didn't know where I was or how to find Sam's house, so I just headed out and started walking in the direction that seemed most promising. I don't know how to describe it, but the town felt right to me. I could sense the heavy pull of the ocean. Lobster traps and fishing gear turned up everywhere—in signs and displays, on people's lawns. It seemed like a very modest place, a functioning fishing town, very old and not very fancy. While I definitely wasn't giddy with delight, I felt a sense of calm after the chaotic night. Whatever it was that had been calling me—it was here.

A half hour later a lonely cab happened to go past me, and I frantically waved it down. The driver looked at me a bit hesitantly—I guess high school kids don't usually hail cabs off the street in Gloucester—then took me in. I gave him the printout of the e-mail with Sam's address on it and settled back in the seat. We wound up and down the tight streets filled with colonial style houses, many marked with plaques commemorating the people who had lived there hundreds of years ago. The cab slowed at a neat little cape house, tucked tightly in a row of similar houses on one of the town's center streets. We stopped and the driver turned on me.