“Okay, then,” Maria said, feeling increasingly exasperated. She nodded to the wrench in Derek’s hand. “What are you working on?”

“This? It’s nothing. Just fixing up an old clock. Come on, do you want to head upstairs and walk around outside? I feel like I’ve been in this basement forever.”

Maria couldn’t agree more. She followed Derek around the piles of antiques back toward the stairs, but jerked his arm suddenly when she saw a spiderweb in their path.

“Whoa, what gives?” he said, rubbing his arm.

“You almost walked right into that web.”

“Oh, wow. I didn’t even see it.”

He leaned in to take a closer look at the web just as Maria located the spider that had made it. The spider was looking right at her, but she could still see its body, and its bloodred hourglass.

“Derek, don’t!” she exclaimed. “That’s a black widow spider. Their bites are poisonous.”

Derek jumped away.

“Jeez. Thanks, M. Now I really think it’s time to go.”

He grabbed her hand and started to lead her around the web. It was strange, she thought, that he didn’t at least want to cut the thing down.

“Derek, wait.”

“Seriously? You want to stay down here with a poisonous spider?”

“It’s just … if a black widow bites you, my mom says you can go thirty whole minutes before you feel it. I noticed you scratching your neck earlier. Do you think the spider could have already bitten you?”

“What? No way. I’m fine, Maria. But I might not be if we stay down here a second longer.”

“Do you want me to take a look at your neck?”

“I said I’m fine.”

“All right, all right,” Maria said. She didn’t want to be down here another moment, either, with the black widow spider she could swear had been watching her. She let Derek pull her up the stairs that led back to the shop. She waved helplessly to Mr. Overton as Derek gave him a very gruff good-bye, mumbling that they were going to grab root beer floats at the old-fashioned pharmacy down the block.

Outside, the sun was just beginning to set, the pinks and reds reaching out to them like fire filtered through a gemstone. Maria remembered what her mom had said about old people who got more confused as the sun went down. Could it happen to young people, too? Would Derek be warning her about lurking enemies next?

And if being confused was the first sign of something worse, would Maria be able to save him, the way she hadn’t been able to save Grandma Esme?

Distance from the shop seemed to do Derek good. Root beer floats seemed to do him even better. By the time his float was a creamy soda at the bottom of a tall glass, Derek was almost back to his chipper self.

“So remind me what the plan is for Claire’s party?” he said, raising his voice in a question at the end. “We’re just going to walk up and act like we’re totally welcome there? Won’t that be really unpleasant for you?”

“It would be unpleasant, which is why we’re not going to do that. We’re going to sneak around the entrance by the lake and hide behind Claire’s pool house until the ‘surprise’ happens.”

Derek’s eyes widened. He coughed on the last sip of root beer float.

“You’re joking.”

“What?” Maria said. “I’ve been over there with Rafi before. I know my way around. And we won’t have to be there for very long.”

“Oh, well, that makes the thought of trespassing on Claire’s property so much better.”

“Come on, Derek. Please? You know you want to see Claire get what she deserves.”

“You still haven’t told me what that is, exactly.”

“I told you, it’s a surprise.”

“If you want me to come with you, you at least have to give me a hint.”

“Fine,” Maria said, sipping the last of her own float. She tried to think of the best way to put this. “Let’s just say you and I won’t be the only unexpected guests at the party.”

Maria hadn’t been lying when she’d said she’d been here before, to the narrow gravel driveway that led around the McCormicks’ lake. But that had been in the daytime, in her mother’s jeep, dropping Rafi off. She hadn’t been trying to walk on uneven rocks in a fancy dress that time, shivering in the cold. She also hadn’t paid any attention to the forks in the path.

“Are you sure it was supposed to be a left back there?” Derek whispered. Maria didn’t have the heart to tell him they had a while yet before he needed to be quiet.

“Pretty sure.”

“Are we almost there?”

“Yup, almost,” she replied, deciding to sound more confident than she felt.

“I don’t think my dad believed me when I said we were walking back home. Do you?”

“I thought he did,” Maria said. “Why else would he have let us leave on our own?”

“Because he feels sorry for you.”

“Oh.” The syllable fell out of her mouth like a heavy, dead thing.

“No, I mean, because of … this week.”

“I know what you meant,” she said. Her voice was clipped.

“Well, either way, as long as we make it back in an hour, we should be good. Is the surprise supposed to happen before then?”

“I think so. And if not, I’m sure that could be arranged.”

“Okay. I’ve got my phone just in case we run late.”

“We might need to use it as a flashlight soon.”

It was a few minutes past six thirty, and the last hints of sunlight had vanished into the February air. When she thought Derek wasn’t looking, Maria slipped the ring out of her clutch purse and slid it onto her finger. If you’re listening, she thought, please show us the way before we get lost.

The familiar warmth of the ring was welcome in the chill, and Maria sensed the spiders before she saw them. It was as if the blades of grass at her feet weren’t tiny but massive, quaking with the vibrations stirred by the creatures’ approach. Her eyes went right to them — two, then a few, then a multitude of spiders, weaving and scuttling through the grass and the leaves.

She tried to follow them without being too obvious. She didn’t want Derek to know the full extent of the ring’s powers, for reasons she couldn’t fully explain. She used to feel like she could trust him with anything.

When they came to the next fork, Maria eyed the line of shiny silver spiders at her feet and said to Derek, “It’s a right here. I’m positive this time.”

Sure enough, after they cleared one final bend around a corner of trees, they could see the lights of the pool house and the house beyond it. The spiders veered off into the woods beside them. They must have decided Maria didn’t need them anymore, now that she could see where she was going. But when Maria peered into the trees, she could swear she saw a pair of eyes staring back at her, hovering in the shadows, beckoning for her to follow.

“Come on, Maria,” Derek said, standing at her side. “What are you looking at?”

The eyes were gone, although Maria hadn’t sensed any movement. Maybe she’d imagined them after all.

“Nothing, sorry.”

Maria and Derek hurried up behind the pool house. Really, it was more like a poolside house, small only in relation to the McCormicks’ mansion on the other side of the yard. There was even a little kitchen visible through the back window. Pressing her face against that window and peering through to the front, Maria could see the large mass of kids from school, crowded on a glass dance floor over the pool, just as Claire had promised. A few people danced, but mostly people stood around in clumps, like they were at a dance in the school gym. The blue glow from the pool and a string of lights overhead made everyone look like they were underwater. The effect was dazzling.