When Hex and Tommo (both white) head into the woods to play one morning, they have a tagalong: a little girl named Sascha, who wants a turn on the rope swing, too. As Sascha soars over the creek, Hex tosses a stone—he doesn’t know why he does it—that causes her to fall and break her arm. Hex feels sick about what has happened, but rationalizes it by blaming others. Sascha’s sister Maria, understandably angry, soon avenges Sascha with a punch to Hex’s face. When Hex meets an unusual woman, Missus, and her enormous, shaggy dog, he accepts her offer: She can erase the injustice that’s been done to him by removing Maria from the world. Maria won’t die; she’ll simply never have existed. No one will remember her. Over the next few days, the unexpected and unwelcome repercussions of Hex’s choice play out—and he’s not the only one who has met Missus. It will take more than just Hex, who soon blinks out of existence himself, to set the world (or rather, worlds) straight again. Eerie chiaroscuro drawings with their moody contrast of dark and light add to the foreboding sensibility of this short, unsettling British novel examining the intended and unintended consequences of choices both small and large. (Ages 9-13)