The hiddenseek, p.1
The Hiddenseek, page 1
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
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Copyright © 2021 by Nate Cernosek and Alloy Entertainment LLC
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Cernosek, Nate, author.
Title: The Hiddenseek / Nate Cernosek.
Description: New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, [2021] | Summary: “A brother and sister are transported to a strange world based on the game hide-and-seek, where they are pursued by a cursed witch”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021006126 | ISBN 9781984816764 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781984816771 (epub)
Subjects: CYAC: Hide-and-seek—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Witches—Fiction. | Memory—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.C46495 Hi 2021 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021006126
ISBN 9781984816764
Cover art © 2021 by Pete Lloyd
Cover design by Jessica Jenkins
Design by Marikka Tamura, adapted for ebook by Michelle Quintero
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
pid_prh_5.7.1_c0_r0
For Lucia and Tommy
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
1
The sun hung low in the sky, sinking toward the horizon. A slight breeze stirred the trees and blew through the empty swings. Their chains jostled and clinked. The jungle gym was deserted, as were the monkey bars, the seesaw, the slides. The park was empty.
Almost.
There was one child still at the park. One child who had been left behind.
Her name was Holly Thorn. She was playing hide-and-seek.
She was crouched inside a short tunnel. It was a good hiding spot. She would have been hard to find, and even harder to catch.
That is, if anyone had bothered to look.
Holly curled her legs, her feet propped up on the blue plastic wall of the tunnel. She frowned, crossing her arms, trying to stop her bottom lip from quivering.
She should have known better. No one ever wanted to play with her. But then today, out of the blue, the other kids asked if she wanted to play hide-and-seek. Owen Orlofsky, wiping his nose with his hand. Karen Graham, always blinking super slowly because everyone said what long eyelashes she had. Zoe Zamarripa, the tallest in their class, standing with her hands on her hips like some sort of drill sergeant. They were all smiling and giggling and giving one another knowing looks.
Thinking back, it was so obvious. None of those kids had ever liked her.
But Hector was with them. Hector, her younger brother by a year.
Did he know what they had planned?
Now everyone was gone. They had all left her in the park, alone. It had been a trick. They’d never wanted to play with her. They just wanted to have a laugh at the nerdy girl without any friends.
It hadn’t always been like this. She used to have friends. She thought she did, at least. The memories weren’t clear, more of a feeling—other kids around her, at recess, at birthday parties. And she and Hector had been inseparable. But that was a long time ago now.
Holly heard the wind pick up again, whistling past the tunnel, and wiped her tear-streaked cheeks. She crawled out of the tunnel and saw something odd.
The trees weren’t moving with the wind. Neither were the leaves on the ground. Even the blades of grass stood still.
A hazy mist crept in, blanketing the park in fog.
A figure emerged from the mist. It was a man, his face hidden by a wild tangle of stringy brown hair. His clothes were dusty and patched up and like something a peasant would have worn hundreds of years ago. He was walking slowly, straight toward Holly, looking right at her.
Holly froze in place.
The man approached. He spoke, his voice rough and coarse. “Holly Thorn,” he said.
How does he know my name? Holly thought, too shocked and frightened to respond.
“You hid,” the man continued. “But you were not found. You thought you were playing a harmless game.” He stepped closer, his voice low and ominous. “You were wrong.”
She didn’t know what that meant. She just knew that something strange was happening—something strange and terrible—and nothing would ever be the same.
2
Holly did what any sensible person would do if a strange, hairy man dressed in raggedy old clothes appeared in a park and began talking nonsense.
She ran.
Her house was only just across the street from the park. She sprinted as fast as she could, yelling, “Help!” as she ran. She looked over her shoulder to see if the man was following her, but the street was empty. There were no people, no cars. Even the birds were silent.
She lived in a redbrick house on the corner. Holly sprinted up the driveway and to the rusty metal gate that was part of the breezeway between her house and the garage. She swung the gate open and ran through the yard to the back door.
She went inside, slammed the door, and locked it.
She should have felt safe. But she didn’t.
What had that man been talking about? Where had he come from? How did he know my name? She wiped sweat off her forehead and realized her hands were trembling.
“DAAAAAD!” she screamed. Her voice cracked with panic.
Her dad would be home. He hardly ever left the house these days. Ever since Mom . . . Holly shook her head. She couldn’t start thinking about that right now.
She ran through the house to her dad’s office. The door was closed, which meant she wasn’t supposed to bother him. She twisted the doorknob and slammed her shoulder against the door anyway, busting into the room.
Her dad was at his desk, where he always was, hunched over his computer. He was tall and thin, and over the last month or two, he had gotten even thinner. His arms, once tanned and freckled by the sun, were now pale. He sat engulfed by stacks of files and papers. They cluttered his desk, piled high against the walls, and even surrounded his chair. It was as if he had literally walled himself in with his work.
He didn’t look up when Holly crashed into the room.
“Dad!” Holly said from the doorway, her heart still pounding. “Dad, something happened! There was a man! DAD!”
He didn’t respond. His eyes stayed locked on his computer while he typed with a single index finger, hunting and pecking each keystroke.
Holly knew he had been getting lost in his work, but this was ridiculous. Couldn’t he tell how upset she was? She strode into the room, not caring that she knocked over a file or two on her way to his desk.
“Dad, listen,” she pleaded. “Please, come on, this is serious.”
She tugged at his arm. It wouldn’t budge. It was like tugging at a statue.
“DAD!” Holly screamed, right in his ear. He didn’t react. He stayed slouched over his computer, continuing to work as if Holly weren’t there. Holly put her hands on his cheeks, like she used to do when she was little. She felt stubble prickling her fingers. He hadn’t shaved. “Please, Dad, stop ignoring me, please!”
“He can’t hear you,” a voice said from behind.
Holly turned. It was the man from the park. He was here.
He was in he r house.
The man loomed in the doorway. He was more than six feet tall and glowered down at Holly with brown eyes so spotted and stormy they had the color of fossilized amber. His face was tan and weathered, and he had a wild, bushy mustache so large it obscured his mouth. Dirt was everywhere—smudged and streaked on his nose, on his clothes, and under his fingernails.
Holly screamed. She grabbed her dad again. “That’s him!” she yelled, and pulled at her dad with all her might.
“I told you,” the man said, stepping forward, making a little tsk sound with his tongue. “He can’t hear you. Can’t see you. Can’t even feel you.”
He put a hand in front of her dad’s face and waved it up and down, back and forth. Her dad just kept sitting there.
“See?” he said.
“DAD!” Holly screamed again.
The man raised his eyebrows, making his eyes wide. “He doesn’t even remember you.”
Holly searched her dad’s face for any sign, any hint that he might be aware of what was happening around him. There was none.
“What’s happening?” Holly asked, backing away, trying to get some distance from this man who had invaded her house. “Who are you?”
“My name is Oliver.” He knelt on one knee, putting himself at Holly’s level. “And you’ve got two choices. Stay here and be forever invisible. Forever forgotten. Or come with me.”
Oliver waited for her to respond. His eyes were sad and intense, and he smelled earthy and funky.
Holly wanted nothing more than to run out of the room and as far away from him as humanly possible. There was so much she didn’t understand right now. She didn’t understand how this man had gotten inside her house or what he was doing there. She didn’t understand why her dad couldn’t see her. Why couldn’t he feel her yanking his arm? Why couldn’t he hear her screams?
But through all that confusion and panic, there was one thing she did know. It was the simplest of lessons, one that had been drilled into her head a thousand times over—never, ever go anywhere with a stranger. And this man was nothing if not a stranger.
“No,” Holly said. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You’d rather stay here?” Oliver asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “Yes, I want to stay here.”
Oliver stood up. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t want to stay here. Here is where everyone you know will walk right by you. Never noticing your tears. Never hearing your cries for help. Here is where you will be stuck, helpless, watching everyone go about their lives as if you never even existed. No, you do not want to stay here. You want to go back.”
“Back?” Holly asked. “Back where?”
“Back to the way it was before,” he said. He lowered his voice, seeming sad. “I understand. You want to be with your family. But there’s only one way to do that.” Oliver leaned down and held his hand out, inviting Holly to take it.
She stared at his outstretched hand, his palm lined with dirt and grime. Nothing that was happening made any sense. Nothing this man had said made any sense. Holly put her hands behind her back. She turned her head, looking away.
She wasn’t going anywhere.
3
“Hmph,” Oliver snorted. He slapped his hands on his knees and stood up straight. “Have it your way,” he said, frowning in a way that managed to convey both disappointment and contempt. He moved Holly aside with one arm and edged past her. With his shoulders slumped and his head bowed, he walked across the room and out the door.
Holly stood still as she listened to his footsteps retreat down the hall. She heard the front door open and close.
Did he really just leave? Just like that? Could this nightmare actually be over?
She turned back to her father. “Dad,” she said quietly, trying one last time. Again, she was only met with silence.
Her dad wouldn’t be able to help her.
What about Hector? Where was he? Should she go look for him?
But then she remembered how he had looked at the park. Surrounded by the other kids, smiling. Practically giddy, really. The reason why was obvious now.
He had been excited. He knew what they had planned. He had to have known.
No, Holly told herself. Hector wasn’t going to be any help, whether she could find him or not. She’d have to figure this out on her own.
She left her dad’s office and peeked into the hallway. The man, Oliver, was nowhere to be seen.
But something wasn’t quite right. It was something Holly hadn’t noticed when she had sprinted through her house before. The hallway looked different. It was impossible, but somehow, the hallway was longer.
She had been up and down this hall countless times and knew the layout of the house as well as she knew anything. Mom and Dad’s room was at the end, the door shut, as usual. Holly’s and Hector’s rooms were on the left. A bathroom and her dad’s office were on the right.
Except now there was an additional door. A whole new room, one she had never seen before. The door was closed.
She walked toward this strange new door. She was about to go in when she heard the thump of boxes being moved in her parents’ room. Mom was up.
Maybe she can help, Holly thought. Maybe she’ll snap out of it. She knew that wasn’t likely. Mom hadn’t been herself lately. But the urge to see her, to run to her, was overwhelming.
Holly charged into her parents’ room, slamming the door open with a loud thud.
The room was dark. The shades were drawn over the window, light from outside peeking in around the edges. The room looked like it had been ransacked. But that was typical these days. Dresser drawers lay open, clothes strewn about haphazardly.
Her mom was on her hands and knees, rummaging around inside the closet. Holly could hear her shifting boxes and sliding wire hangers out of the way.
Mom was in sweatpants and a T-shirt. In the last month or so, she had rarely worn anything else. Her skin—the same olive brown complexion shared by Holly and Hector—looked dry and sallow. Her black hair was in a loose, unraveling braid. Holly instinctively touched her own neat braid of dark hair—they had been wearing their hair the same way for years now.
“Mom?” Holly said.
Even if she could hear her, Holly knew her mom wasn’t likely to respond. She had been lost in her own world for weeks. When she wasn’t sleeping, she was looking, searching. Practically tearing the house inside out, room by room.
“Something’s missing,” she would say. “I know it. Something’s missing.” It was about all she said these days.
But Mom never found anything. She just kept looking.
Dad had taken her to see doctors. When that didn’t work, relatives and neighbors were full of advice. Have you tried music? Meditation? Does she take vitamins?
Their next-door neighbor, Mrs. Murphy, said the same thing had happened to her cousin, years ago. She even had a name for it. She called it “the Missing.”
That’s what she’s got, Mrs. Murphy had said, kneading her cat’s fur with her knuckles. It’s the town curse. Been happening to folks here in Covenant since before my nana’s time.
Dad had thanked Mrs. Murphy but told Holly she was just superstitious as they walked away.
“Mom,” Holly said again. She went to her and touched her shoulder. Just like with Dad, there was no response. “Please, Mom.” Holly clutched her mom’s sweatshirt in a fist. “I need you. I need you back now.”
Nothing.
Holly heard a door creaking open in the hallway. Her dad emerged from his office. He looked tired. He paused in front of the family portrait hanging in the hallway, yawned, and scratched his head, then walked away. She followed him. He went down the hall, through the living room, and into the kitchen.
Her dad began pulling ingredients out of the pantry for dinner. It looked like spaghetti. Again.
But then he stopped. He put a hand on top of his head and rubbed, his expression knotting up in confusion. He got on his knees and reached inside a cabinet, rummaging, metal pots and pans clanking against one another. Only the back half of his body was visible as he dug deeper and deeper inside, as though he was looking for something he couldn’t find.
Just like Mom.
