TEA WITH THE MIDNIGHT MONSTERS

HUNT NIGHT

"Lud," said Caroline, still in the kitchen, on the phone. "You told me your uncle was a terrible hoarder..."

A hoarder, in case you don't know, is a person so attached to his things, he never ever throws anything away. He collects things until his home is completely stuffed from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, and then he lives amid the piles.

"If the upper floors look like the first floor did," she said to Lud, "in the interest of time, may I bring some friends? To help us search?"

Lud said yes.

It took some time for Caroline to explain -- again, she had to lie and make up part of the teacup story, the part about Annabelle Zane, and of course she said nothing of her daughter dropping by as a winged pony -- but soon enough, she and Cruz and all the parents made their way up Riverside Drive in the rain, eleven blocks north, to von Billing's grand and falling-down house.

For the first time in decades, the top three floors were all lit up. Chandeliers hung from every ceiling, and Caroline could see them from down the block; a beacon in the storm.

Once inside, Lud and his wife led them upstairs, and the parents of the missing split off to search.

But for what?

No one knew.

They only knew they needed a clue. Any clue. Something, anything -- some kind of pointer or map or proof of the fabled bunker, now presumed to be under the park -- the 840-acre park.

"I want to help!" their young son, Luke, cried irritably. He refused to go back to bed.

Caroline understood. She gazed at him and remembered Millie and Pim at his age. Only five yeas ago, Millie was four and so outrageous and full of wonder, always wanting to stay up late and play past bedtime. "How could you sleep at a time like this?" she said kindly to the boy. "It's your house, too." In a corner, she spotted wallpaper. "Look," she said and went to the box. "Oh my, how pretty." She was trying to lure him, and it worked.

The papers were stunning: French and Italian, and decades old, with pretty chintzes, patterns, and flowers. Caroline plucked a roll from the box and unfurled it over the floor. She weighted it down with a pair of bookends, dug into her purse, and pulled out a pouch with Millie's markers.

"The best way to help," she said to Luke, "is to draw us happy pictures. Would you do that? Pretty please? To cheer us up?" Luke nodded, delighted to draw. "I'll be back soon," Caroline said, "to check in on your masterpieces."