Three is an important number. Before their encounter with Dash at the Old Hitchcock Mill, back when it was just him and Simon standing alone against the forces of weirdness, Mars sometimes wondered why the universe felt compelled to throw him a new companion for every adventure, only to have them fade back into the background as soon as their story was over.

He was in the Eerie Cemetary, telling Devon Wilde's headstone about the latest Pitbull Surfers album. He'd promised to play Devon some of the tracks as soon as Tod McNulty's dad stops monopolizing his kid's time with an endless succession of bonding activities long enough for Mars to ask if he can borrow his portable CD player. Simon will sit and listen when Mars plays their music, but he can't hide the fact that it really isn't his thing. Dash doesn't bother hiding it, and Mars figures the subject may still be a little loaded to bring it up directly with Tod, no matter how many fishing trips he and his dad take.

He knows that Melanie is a fan these days, stomping into class in tight black jeans covered in the Pitbull's logos, but sometimes he wonders if this recurring pattern of threes might have been what killed Devon, if Eerie had decided that Marshall+Simon+Devon+Melanie was simply one character too many, and tried to combine a couple of them to make room. After all, he and Tod have both been hit by a milk truck and lived to tell the tale, but both those times, there were only two other kids around to share it with.

It's the reason he ducks into an alley when he sees Janet Donner crossing the street, or why he avoids the World o' Stuff when the newspaper delivery comes in and he knows Andrea will be there, browsing the stacks. Eerie wants a trio, Dash has already proven too hard to get rid of, and Simon... well, even this messed-up town might have qualms about killing off a nine year old. Maybe. Hopefully.

Better not to risk it, even if it means that the only friend his own age is a dead kid in a cemetary. Devon's long past the point where Eerie can get to him now, and he's the only one Mars can go to when he needs to feel normal, when he wants to talk about girls and music and skateboarding and videogames.

"That's pretty messed up," says the Devon in Marshall's head, and Marshall nods and laughs and tells Devon that he finally beat his high score on Mutant Attack.

They're arguing over whether Melanie will end up joining the Unkind Ones, or leading them, or starting a kick-ass girl biker gang of her very own, when there's a ripping noise like a tear opening in reality (that's not flowery language, Marshall's heard it a couple of times before and that's the best way to describe it) and a ten year old girl in a black and orange witch costume falls out of mid-air with a long crescendo scream.

Her pointy witch's hat has fallen off and beneath it she's got reddish-blonde hair that's come loose and is falling into her eyes. She rolls over with a groan, then starts and scrambles up just in time to avoid a black cat who comes flailing out of the hole in the sky, hissing and shrieking in outrage and twisting at the very last minute to land on his feet beneath the portal that shimmers like heat haze above him, and shout "Nice going!" in a horribly familiar voice.

By the time the boy with Marshall's face and a slightly shorter haircut lands face-first on the soft, mossy ground, Mars is already getting to his feet and brushing the dirt and grass off his jeans.

"I'll see you later," he tells Devon's grave, and the Devon in his head laughs and waves and tells him to go check out whatever colliding parallel worlds Eerie has thrown at him this time, but be sure to come back and tell him the story when it's over.