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smell? Like peanut butter and smoky cheese, so strong it was as if someone had opened a jar of Skippy peanut butter and placed it directly under her nose.
    â€œWhat’s that smell?”
    â€œWhat smell?”
    â€œLike stinky cheese and peanut butter. What’s in your pocket, Collin?” Much to Collin’s chagrin, Aunt Pru often tucked cheese sandwiches into his pockets, “lest the darling boy starve.”
    Collin yanked out a smushed box of Milk Duds. “These? S’all I got. I swear.” He tossed the box to Katie and she caught it in midair. Expelling her breath, she reached inside and tugged out two chocolate Milk Duds. She popped one into her mouth, savoring the chewy caramel, then Frisbeed the box back to Collin.
    â€œKatie,” Toby said, so close to her ear it made her jump. When she glanced up, she saw that he was standing at least three feet away. Then she heard a sound as if someone had just kicked a tin can and it was rattling its way across the tiled floor, near the strip of red carpet. But when she looked down, there was nothing.
    She peered into the corners of the room, then over her shoulder.
    No tin cans.
    More special effects , Katie wondered?
    â€œKatie,” Toby repeated, the sound of her name pounding so loudly in her ears, she clamped her hands over them.
    â€œStop shouting!”
    â€œNot shouting, Katie.” Toby looked at her oddly, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “Did you ever read ‘The Raven’s Claw’?”
    Katie darted behind the London Stone, effectively muffling the booming sound of his voice.
    â€œIt’s a short story.” Toby’s words pursued her, bouncing loudly off the cinder-block walls. “It’s one of those gothic horror stories written around the time of Edgar Allan Poe, ’bout a bloke who gets three wishes if he rubs this shriveled-up raven’s claw. But what happens after he gets his first wish is so freakin’ awful, he spends his last two wishes trying to undo the first.”
    Perplexed, Katie popped her head back around the London Stone. “Meaning . . . ?”
    â€œIf you interfere with fate, Katie, you do so at your own peril.” Toby’s voice was back to normal, but it had been so piercingly loud just the moment before that it left a ringing void against her eardrums.
    â€œAnd . . . this . . . is relevant . . . because . . . ?” she managed to squeak out, though her head was throbbing now, her ears ringing.
    â€œWhen m’dad died, I used to pray for some kind of über miracle that would bring ’im back. But then I’d reread ‘The Raven’s Claw’ and realized that even if I could change the past, I shouldn’t. I’d only be messing with the balance of the cosmos. What’s meant to be is meant to be.”
    â€œYou don’t really believe that, do you?” Katie whacked the prickly wire surrounding the London Stone. It thrummed like a giant gerbil cage. “I wouldn’t care if I messed up the fate of the whole world, the entire cosmos. I’d give anything to have my parents back. Anything! I’d sell my soul to the devil—” But in truth, Katie knew she wasn’t going to wish for her parents to be alive again. She merely wanted to—
    â€œBeware of what you wish for, Katie, it might come—”
    â€œOh shut up. Just shut up ! ” Katie flew round to the back of the stone again, and without thinking, began wriggling her fingers through a small hole, the size of a Milk Dud, in the wire mesh. How dare he tell me what to do! What a stupid jerk .
    Katie hadn’t come here to wish for the impossible. If she could have one wish, just one , it wouldn’t be something metaphysically impossible. She’d never intended to hope for anything totally unobtainable. All Katie wanted to ask for was one simple little thing. To have my sister in my life again.
    She