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against your will is abduction,” said Maddy.
    “Maddy!” Granny barked a warning.
    Maddy scowled while Sergeant O’Leary sighed and scribbled some more notes. “And what did this boy look like?”
    “About my height, skinny, really green eyes, red hair, and freckles,” said Maddy.
    “And you say he was the same boy who was outside your window just before Stephen Forest was discovered to have gone missing?”
    “Well, yes . . .” said Maddy. “But he didn’t look the same.”
    Sergeant O’Leary raised an eyebrow. “Oh? How so?”
    “Well . . .” Maddy was horrified to feel herself blushing, but she had to tell him. “His face had gone all weird. He had, like, a snout, and his hands were really long, and he had long tufty ears . . .” Her voicetrailed off into silence as she realized how stupid she sounded.
    Sergeant O’Leary looked down at his notes and sucked his teeth. “Your granny says your granda was telling you faerie tales before bedtime?”
    “Yeah, he was, but I know what I saw!” said Maddy, her voice sharp in anger. She bit her lip as Granny sent a look her way.
    Sergeant O’Leary looked hard at her. “Do you think you saw a faerie, Maddy?”
    “Well . . . I don’t know for sure,” she stammered. “But people don’t look like that, and that is what I saw. I was wide awake. I wasn’t dreaming it.”
    Sergeant O’Leary snapped the notebook shut. “That will do for now, I think.” He pursed his lips as he tucked it away into his top pocket. “You know, Maddy, we need to find Stephen quickly, and any false information we have been given will make our job a lot more difficult. You will think about that and come and tell me the minute you remember anything else, won’t you?”
    Maddy looked at the ground and nodded silently. As Granny let Sergeant O’Leary out, she could feel all the old women’s eyes boring into her scalp. She felt so stupid. What she had seen didn’t sound right, even to her. She sneaked a glance at Mrs. Forest from the corner of her eye. She was glaring at Maddy.
    “I’m so sorry, Liam,” she heard Granny saying. “She got a terrible fright from that lad in the castle earlier, and all the stories Bat tells her . . . well, I think theygot mixed up in her head with bad dreams. She’s only a child.”
    “Maybe so, Maureen, but she’s old enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality. Telling me faerie stories when we are trying to find a missing child is not helping. She is wasting police time.”
    Maddy snorted. All Sergeant O’Leary ever did was sit around on his big bum in the Garda station, stuffing his face. It was impossible to waste his time.
    “I know, Liam. Let her get some sleep, and I’ll talk to her again in the morning.”
    The door closed with a click, and Maddy felt Granny’s gnarled hands on her shoulder, guiding her up and into her bedroom. George’s black and white face peered up from under her bed. Everyone had forgotten he was still in the house.
    “Maddy, I want you to get some sleep, and then we are going to talk to Sergeant O’Leary again,” said Granny. “You need to have a good think about what you saw and get your head straight. This is no time to be messing.”
    “I’m not!” said Maddy.
    Granny sighed. “I know you don’t think you are, love, but honestly—a faerie? That’s not what happened. You were half asleep, and your dreams affected what you saw. You need to remember what really happened. For Stephen’s sake.” She kissed her on the cheek before leaving the room.
    Maddy lay on her bed and looked up at the ceiling. George jumped up and put his head on her chest,gazing at her with sad brown eyes. She heard Granny arguing in the kitchen with one of her friends, and she didn’t need to hear what they were saying to know it was about her. She got up and crawled under the bed, her fingers feeling around in the dark until they brushed a cardboard box she had tucked into a corner.
    She