White Space

LIZZIE Uh-Oh

1

AT FIRST, MOM thinks there are mice because of that scritch-scritch-scritching in the walls. This is very weird. Marmalade, the orange tom, is such a good mouser. But then Mom spies a dirty footprint high up on the wall of her walk-in closet.

A footprint. On the wall.

That’s when Mom feels someone watching, too. So she turns her head real slow, her gaze inching up to the ceiling vent—and there they are: two glittery violet eyes pressed against the grate like an animal’s at the zoo.

A crazy lady is in the attic. The attic.

The sheriff thinks she’s been hiding since fall and sneaking out for food at night: She coulda slipped in when the contractors were here. It happens.

Well yeah, okay, that might happen to normal people who live in towns and cities and don’t know how to reach through to the Dark Passages and pull things onto White Space, or travel between Nows. But Lizzie knows better. The crazy lady is something out of a bad dream: a rat’s nest of greasy hair; skin all smeary like she’s taken a bath in oozy old blood. Her hands, sooty and man-sized, are hard with callus, the cracked nails rimed with grime. She smells really bad, too, like someone raised by mole rats or bears. When the sheriff tries asking questions, the crazy lady only stares and stares. She doesn’t utter one single, solitary peep.

Because she can’t. She has no tongue. No teeth. Not a thing, except this gluey, gucky, purple maw, as if the crazy lady spends all her time slurping blood jelly.

So, really, she’s just about what Lizzie expects. Which is kind of bad, considering.

Like … uh-oh.

2

DAD SWEARS UP and down that he didn’t have anything to do with it: I told you, Meredith. After what happened in London, I’m done.

Mom isn’t having any of that. Really? Pulling out her panops, she extends the temple arms, flips out the two extra side lenses, and then hooks the spectacles behind her ears. Show me your hands, Frank.

Oh, for God’s … Sighing, Dad lets Mom get a good look, front and back. See? Not a scratch.

I see, but that doesn’t prove anything. You’ve brought back hangers-on from the Dark Passages before and not realized it. Taking a step back, Mom peers at Dad through purple lenses. Turn around, Frank.

Waste of time, I’m telling you. Holding out his arms, Dad does a slow turn like the tiny pink ballerina in Lizzie’s music box. (There’s nothing special about getting into her head; she’s only plastic and a little boring. No book-world, nowhere to go, no roommate, no hot shop, no mocha Frappuccinos, not even homework. That silly thing’s got nothing to do but twirl and twirl, although Lizzie loves the little brass nib that trips a hidden compartment. Just think of the secrets she could hide, the way Dad does with some of his characters.) Nothing hanging on, is there?

No. Pulling off the panops and flipping the extra side lenses shut, Mom chews her lower lip for a second. What about the Peculiars? If one’s cracked …

Dad shakes his head. Already checked. No dings, no nicks, not even a hairline fracture. There’s no way anything leaked out. Come on, honey, you’re the science whiz. You’ve done the calculations. Once you seal a Peculiar, nothing can get in or out, right? When Mom nods, Dad throws out his hands, like a magician going ta-da. See? I’ve kept my end of the bargain. I haven’t reached into the Mirror to invite or bind it since London.

Unless you don’t remember. You’ve lost time before. There are six entire months from London you don’t recall at all.

Oh, believe me, Meredith. Dad’s face grows still and as frozen as the expression of one of Lizzie’s special dolls—except for his dark blue eyes. Usually so bright, they dim the way a fire does as it dies. I remember more than you think.

Mom doesn’t seem to hear. Or maybe … She presses a hand to her lips, like she might catch the words before they pop out of the dark and become real. Or maybe it’s stronger and you’re healing faster. This is what the key warned us about. Every time you take it in, it leaves a little bit of itself behind, and vice versa.

The manuscript doesn’t say exactly that. The key says stain, like an old watermark. You could say that about any experience, Meredith.

Yes, but some stains have a way of not coming out. Mom’s jaw sets in a don’t try to talk your way outta this one, buster jut Lizzie knows. She saw it just last week, when Mom set out an apple pie to cool and then didn’t buy Lizzie’s explanation when she said the cat must’ve done it. (Sometimes, Lizzie thinks they really ought to get a dog; they’ll eat anything.) Maybe it can make you activate the Mirror without you being aware or having any memory of doing it.

Now, Meredith … Dad says her name as if Mom is five, like Lizzie, and bawling her head off over a scraped knee. You’re getting hysterical over nothing. You saw my hands. Besides, I can’t go through the Dark Passages to any other Now because you have the Sign of Sure, remember? Without it, I’ve got no way of getting back to this Now, and I would never risk that. Sweetheart, please believe me. That woman in the attic? She’s just some weird, demented vagrant.

Maybe she is. Mom’s mouth goes as thin as one of the seams on Lizzie’s memory quilt: scraps of every bit of clothing Lizzie’s ever worn sewn into special patterns and decorated with Mom’s thought-magic glass, including the twinkly Sign of Sure, which Mom didn’t make but is like the panops and Dickens Mirror—very old and from some other Now. Then let’s talk about you, all right? I know you, Frank. It’s been years since London, and it’s all wearing off, isn’t it? You’re having trouble with this new book. So you’re tempted, aren’t you? When he doesn’t answer, Mom grabs his arm. Talk to me.

I … All of a sudden, Dad can’t look Mom in the eye. It’s just a little writer’s block.

I knew it. Mom’s face crinkles, like she’s as sick as Lizzie after all that apple pie. God, I knew we should’ve found a way to destroy that thing, because it’s never little with you, Frank. When the book just isn’t coming, you get desperate. That’s exactly how you were in London, and look what happened.

No. Dad’s jaw is working, like there’s a bad taste, or a ton of words piled up on his tongue that he knows he oughtn’t let slip between his teeth; enough words for a whole other and much scarier story, the kind he writes best: books guaranteed to melt your eyeballs. That wasn’t exactly how I felt in London. There were … other things going on.

Like what? When Dad doesn’t answer, Mom crosses her arms over her chest. Like what, Frank?

Things you obviously can’t or don’t want to remember, Meredith.

And just what does that mean?

Only that things happened. Dad looks away. When you … when we weren’t together. That’s when things were—Dad licks his lips—bad.

Yes, as in desperate. Do you even remember what you said?

Yes. Dad’s lips must be very stiff, because he’s having a hard time getting his mouth to move. I said I felt … crowded.

You said it felt like your skin was too tight, like there was something growing in your chest. You even worried you might have cancer, remember? Mom shakes her head. I just never connected the dots or understood how much you craved the rush. I should’ve known you’d lose control.

Me? Lose control? Dad gives a tired little laugh. Oh, Meredith, you have no idea. You really don’t. Do you … can you even remember what we were like before the Mirror?

Remember? For a second, Mom looks confused. Her eyelids flutter as if there’s been a sudden strong breeze, or Dad’s thrown her off with a trick question. I’m not sure what you … Mom’s eyebrows pull together. What else is there to remember? I mean, it was so long ago.

But I remember you in the beginning, Meredith. Dad’s face changes a little, like something inside hurts. Every detail. Each moment. Where we met. Your hair. Your smell. Everything.

What are we …? Now Mom looks a little scared, as if she’s being asked to play a silly little piano piece that she never practiced because she thought it was so easy and only now realizes this was a big mistake. What are we talking about? The beginning of what? Do you mean when you couldn’t sell anything? Is that it? When the publisher canceled your contract for the second book because the first one didn’t do well? Or … or … Mom’s eyes drop as if the answer’s fallen out of her brain and gone boinka-boinka-boinka onto the floor. Or when we lived in that miserable little trailer and you taught grade school English and we had to live on food stamps …

No, Meredith. Dad captures her hands in his. That’s all stuff in any article or bio or on the back of a book jacket, for God’s sake. I mean … do you remember what I was back then? Do you remember how much I loved you? How I would do anything to keep you from … Turning Mom’s hands, Dad kisses each palm and both wrists—and the long, stripy scars from where Mom hurt herself way before Lizzie. Oh, Meredith … Love, that man is still here. I’m right in front of you.

Of course. Mom’s eyes are shiny and wet. Of course I know that. But that … Taking back her hands, she blows out, getting rid of the bad. That’s not what we’re talking about. Don’t try to change the subject, Frank. We’re talking about you, not me. Don’t you realize we almost lost you in London? Do you know how hard it was to put that thing back into the Dark Passages because you didn’t want to let go?

Yes. At that, Dad’s face crumples, caving in on itself as a sand castle collapses beneath waves that just won’t stop. But that wasn’t the only reason.

Because it’s an addiction, Frank. Mom grips Dad’s arm so hard her fingers star to a claw. You let it trick you into believing you were in control; that what you wrote was your idea. That what’s on the page stays on the page. Dad mumbles something Lizzie can’t catch, and Mom says, Excuse me?

I said, you should know.

What does that mean? Don’t try to put London on me. That was not my fault. The skin around Mom’s mouth is as white as the special skin-scrolls onto which Dad pulls his stories. You were the one who put together that letter by Collins and then his story about Dee’s Black Mirror with what Mary Dickens wrote about her father. It was you who realized all the mirrors Dickens installed in the chalet weren’t even listed when Gad’s Hill went up for auction.

Yes, all right, fine. But you were obsessed with the possibility that the Mirror might be real; who insisted we prowl London for that damned key. You wouldn’t leave until we figured out which island and tracked down the panops, the Sign of Sure, and that Mirror. (Only Dad says another, very bad word along with that Mirror, so Lizzie knows they’ve totally forgotten she’s there.) Dad aims a finger at Mom. You didn’t mind using the Mirror when you needed it. But I suppose that’s okay, right? Because you’re just so good at knowing when to stop. You’ve got so much self-control. Dad’s laugh is crackly as a crow’s. Take a look at your arms, Meredith, and then tell me you know how and when to stop.

That’s not fair. That was different. I was different then. I was … Mom’s mouth quivers, and her eyes have that confused look again, as if she’s been telling a fib and lost the thread of the lie. I was—her mouth twists as she works to knot words together—we were … that is, I had to … I was trying to …

What, Meredith? What did you have to do? What are you remembering? Now Dad looks a little excited, like he wants to grab Mom’s arms again but doesn’t dare because he might break some spell. Tell me, Meredith; tell me fast. Don’t hold back.

Hold back? I … Mom hugs her middle the way Lizzie does when she has a tummy-ache. I don’t understand. Why are you badgering me like this? I don’t know what you want me to say.

What’s there, Sweetheart; say what’s right on the tip of your tongue.

There’s nothing! Mom is gasping now, her voice all tight and little-girl shrill. Nothing, Frank, nothing’s there, there’s nothing to say! You’re confusing me. I’m not that woman anymore.

Oh God. Dad lets out a laugh that is only air, no real sound to it at all, the way a dog laughs. God, don’t I know.

Then, if you love me, Frank, you’ll stop this! Just … just stop, stop!

All right, all right. Dad’s hands are up, patting the air as if Mom has turned into some scared little animal backed into a corner and, he’s afraid, might bite. Okay. Calm down. I just thought—

What? The word comes out broken. What did you think? This isn’t about me! This isn’t my fault!

No, Sweetheart, of course it isn’t. I’m sorry. I just … Dad forks hair from his eyes with one hand. I don’t understand. So close … but there’s some spark, an essence I can’t quite wrap my hands around and put where it belongs … Shaking his head, he bites down on the rest and sighs. His shoulders slump like he’s suddenly so tired he can barely stand. I’m sorry. You’re right. You’re not the woman you were then. We were talking about me.

That’s right. And then Mom says it again, as if repeating the words makes them that much truer. She is calm now, as perfect and beautiful as a Lovely, one of the little people Mom creates whenever she flameworks a world. To everyone else, the worlds are only metal and swirly colors and tiny people and animals and flowers and other, stranger creatures captured in glass. The really dangerous ones, the Peculiars that live in her dad’s loft—nobody outside the family ever sees those. Even Mom has to wear her special purple panops to make doubly sure she catches enough thought-magic. We’re talking about you and the Mirror.

Yes. That’s right.

We’re talking about you, in this Now. We’re not talking about then. Mom has pulled herself as straight and tall as one of the long metal blowpipes she uses to collect glass gathers from her furnaces. We’re not talking about another Now.

No, we’re not, and I swear to God, Meredith: what happened in London won’t happen again. You’ll have to trust me that far.

Trust? You want my trust, Frank? Then show me the new book.

No. Dad says it without thinking, the word popping out like a hiccup.

Why not?

Because. Dad swallows. I can’t.

You mean you won’t.

I mean, I can’t, Meredith. Not yet. It’s not done. You know I don’t like anyone, even you, seeing work in progress. Would you want me looking over your shoulder when you’re in the studio?

London didn’t happen to me.

I’m aware of that. Meredith, please, if I show you the new book …

Frank, an insane woman, with no tongue, was in our attic. Mom says each word really slow, like Dad is deaf or very, very stupid. And you’re worried about falling a little out of love with your book?

They go round and round, but Dad finally gives in. He goes out to his barn, which is his special private place, and returns to unroll his new book right there on the kitchen table. And yup, there she is, penned with spidery words in Dad’s special ink: the crazy lady with her nightmare eyes, buried between words on page five-forever.

Page fifty-eight. The age Dickens was when he died, as he was working on Drood … All the color dribbles from Mom’s face, until her skin is so clear Lizzie can see the squiggle of teeny-tiny blue veins around her eyes. Oh God. Frank, it’s taunting you. That can’t be a coincidence. It’s telling you it came out of the Mirror. Don’t you see?

Meredith, I … Poor Dad is completely confused. But I didn’t do it. She doesn’t belong there. There’s no character like her in the story at all.

But she’s there, Frank. You must’ve pulled her out and put her there.

If … if I did, I … I don’t remember. Dad looks really spooked for the very first time. Meredith, I honestly don’t. But if that’s true … Dad stares at his hands, turning them over and over, front to back, like he’s never seen them before and has no idea what hands are or what they can do or who they belong to. Why am I not cut?

At the look on Dad’s face, Lizzie’s stomach cramps, like the time last winter when she got the flu and spent a lot of time hanging over the toilet. (Which scared Dad like crazy; he’s a real worrywart when it comes to her. Every little scrape and sniffle … Mom always says Lizzie won’t break, but the way Dad refuses to leave her room at night when she’s sick, and keeps real close, makes Lizzie wonder just what her dad is afraid of. As if once, so long ago Lizzie can’t remember, she was really, really sick. Maybe even sick enough to die.)

You should tell about the crazy lady, Lizzie thinks. Her skin is prickly and hot. This isn’t Dad’s fault. But, oh boy, she is going to be in so much trouble.

Then she thinks about something else: that page number, that five-forever the crazy lady got herself to. How come that happened? Had she even thought about a specific page? No. Heck, she isn’t all that good with numbers yet anyway. Yeah, she can count and stuff. She’s five; she’s not just a dumb little kid. She knows what she calls “forever” is really an eight instead of the symbol for infinity standing up instead of lying down; that twenty is more than ten; and two plus two is, well, duh. But clocks and telling time? Forget it. Same with years. She just sent the crazy lady where she thought the woman ought to go, is all.

So what if … Lizzie’s insides go as icy as Mom says a Peculiar is, because you need the cold to slow down all that thought-magic. What if it’s a little bit in me, too, only I just don’t know it? Like Dad? Like how the monster-doll sometimes makes me feel?

What if London happens to her?

Meredith. Dad’s face scrunches, like he might cry. Honey, I honestly don’t remember writing her.

Mom’s shaking fingers keep trying to knot and hold themselves still. Then how do you explain that … that thing in our attic? She popped out of the Dark Passages on her own? She and Dad stare at each other, and then Mom whispers, Oh, Frank, is that even possible? Can they … could it do that? Act independently? If it got too much of you, could it have absorbed your ability to—

I don’t know. That’s not the way it’s supposed to— Then a new thought seems to bubble into Dad’s mind, because he glances at Lizzie, his eyebrows knitting to a frown.

And Lizzie thinks, Oh boy. She wonders if Dad remembers what he once said: that even though she’s only five, Lizzie is precocious, which is adult-speak for crap, she’s smarter than us.

Burn it. Mom quick grabs the book and runs to the woodstove and stuffs all that skin into the fire. The scroll, the special White Space Dad makes himself and onto which he pulls his stories, catches with a whump. Lizzie bets the words tried to fly away, but Mom’s trapped those suckers good, slamming the cast iron with a big clang. The pages scream bloody murder as all the White Space turns to ash.

That’s not going to do any good. Thick crayon-black lines of new worry are drawn around Dad’s eyes and along his nose. His voice is all shaky and yet very tired and heavy, which Mom once said is how doom sounds. Like when you know that, oh boy, your car’s about to crash and you can scream yourself silly all you want, but too bad.

Or when you’re Dad, and you finally wake up and understand that not only have you been gone for six solid months you don’t remember, but something very, very bad has slipped from the Dark Passages—and it’s your fault. That all the terrible, awful things happening in that London are because of you, and there’s no thought-magic in that Now to fix it. When you realize that you have to save yourself and especially Mom and get out, fast, and use the Sign of Sure to swoosh from that London to a different Wisconsin.

The book’s in my blood, Dad says in his heavy doom-voice. The energy’s in my brain. I can’t unthink it, Meredith.

You can choose not to dwell on it. You can choose not to write it. Think about something else. Dream up anything else.

But what about this book? I’ve gone too far. The characters are already in motion. If I just stop, I don’t know what will happen.

So what?

Meredith, think. Even without the Mirror, I’ve still had enough juice to pull the characters onto White Space for years. Maybe you’re right, and it’s finally wearing off, but sweetheart, I feel them. The characters will find their way out, somehow. Either they’ll bleed into other stories or each other’s, or worse, but if I don’t reach the end and their stories aren’t resolved … if they really can make the jump on their own—

I don’t care, Frank. Mom shivers as if she just can’t get rid of the really bad dream clinging to her brain, but keeps seeing it happen again and again, no matter where she looks. Do what you have to, but kill them. Kill the book.

What do you think you just did, Meredith? You can destroy the manuscript or my notes, but it’s still here. Dad presses a fist to his chest. The book’s inside. You’d have to kill me.

Then use them in another story. Take the characters, change their names, and—

It doesn’t work that way, and you know it. They’re all infected. Their original stories would break any new book-world wide open. That’s why I send all my notes and ideas for new work away to London for safekeeping in the first place. Hell—Dad lets out a weird, high laugh that sounds a lot like the way the crazy lady looks—you might as well seal me into a Peculiar, if you really want to be sure.

What about the Mirror?

You mean, destroy it? Meredith, you were the one who said it would take a tremendous amount of energy. Simply breaking it wouldn’t work, right?

Yes, that’s right. A glassy red bead of blood swells and trembles on Mom’s lower lip, followed by another and then another. Maybe we should take it back to the island, where the barrier’s thinnest. Let the island swallow it up.

Meredith, no. Think. Honey … it’s a tool. You can’t go back, and I won’t lose you ag— Dad stops a second. I won’t let us lose each other and what we have, how much we’ve accomplished. If the Mirror and panops and Peculiars exist, there has to be something, somewhere, that will help us use them more safely. We just haven’t found it yet. Maybe that’s what we need to concentrate on.

That could take years, Frank.

So what? What’s time to us?

Plenty, if we end up dead in another …

No one is going to die, Meredith. I won’t let that happen.

Then what if … Mom’s nibbled her poor lip so bad her chin is smeary with blood. What if you stopped writing? I don’t mean forever. Just for now. Like with the Mirror. Take a break. You feel all that accumulated energy from them now, right? Your … your juice? So let the characters fade. Maybe they’ll die on their own. People have abandoned ideas and stories before.

It wouldn’t work. Every book is like a virus. Eventually, the stories find a way out, no matter what. Dad cups Mom’s face in his hands. Meredith, they live in my blood. They are as real to me as you and Lizzie. I’ve got to write. I can’t stop. I’ll go crazy.

Oh, Frank. Big, scared tears roll down Mom’s cheeks. She hooks her hands over Dad’s wrists like she might fall if she doesn’t. I know it’s hard, that it hurts, but you’ve got to try. We’ve got Lizzie to think about now. After so long, so many times that I … that we l-lost … Frank, she’s just a little girl. What about her? What if one of those things—

I’ll be okay. Lizzie can tell they’ve forgotten her, because they jump as if she’s suddenly popped into this Now right out of the Dark Passages. I bet I can help.

No. Now it’s her dad who shakes his head. No, Lizzie, you don’t know what you’re saying. This is not for you. It’s too dangerous.

Frank. Mom’s face is wet. Did you just hear yourself? Don’t you understand that you are risking us by risking yourself?

Meredith. Sweetheart. Dad’s eyes are watery and red. I know you’re afraid, but I’m still here, and I would sell my soul for you, I would die for you, I would take your place and never think twice, but please, please, don’t ask me to stop. You don’t understand what could happen. I swear, Love, I’ve still got it under control—

Control? Mom screams. She pulls away from Dad, leaving him with nothing but air. You’ve got it under control? Then what the hell was that woman doing in our attic?

3

SO, IN THE end, Dad promises to stop working on the new book, not to try writing it again or even make notes to squirrel away in London. Not one word. He swears to let this story fade away. Cross his heart.

Hope to die.

4

TWO MONTHS LATER, Mom sends Lizzie to call her father for supper.

This is the first time since the crazy lady that Lizzie’s gone to Dad’s barn, which broods on a hill. Mom’s told her to stay away: Your father needs space and time to mourn. Like the book inside, Dad has to rot.

Lizzie’s missed the loft. Before, Dad let her play as he worked, and she made up tons of adventures for her dolls with all her special Lizzie-symbols: squiggles, triangles, spirals, curlicues, arrows, ziggies, zaggies, diddlyhumps, swoozels, and more things with special Lizzie-names. Just a different way of making book-worlds for her dolls, that’s all. Not that either parent knows what she can do. If her mom found out? Oh boy, watch out. So she doesn’t tell. No big deal. No one’s ever gotten hurt.

Well … not counting the monster-doll, which started out life as a daddy-doll but got left in her mom’s Kugelrohr oven too long on accident because Mom let her set the timer and Lizzie messed up. The heat was so bad the monster-doll’s glass head melted, his eyes slumping into this giant, creepy, violet third eye. Afterward, the monster-doll was really cranked, like, Hello, what were you thinking, you stupid little kid? She tried explaining it wasn’t on purpose, but oh boy, the monster-doll wasn’t having any of that. Mom said he was ruined and tossed the monster-doll into the discards bucket, but Lizzie felt guilty because the whole thing really was her fault. So, quiet as a mouse, she snuck back into Mom’s workshop and fished the monster-doll’s head from the bucket.

Problem is … her stomach gets a squiggly feeling whenever they play. The inside of the monster-doll’s head is all gluey-ooky, the thoughts sticky as spiderwebs. Every time she pulls out, she worries there’s a tiny bit of her left all tangled with him. Sometimes, she even wonders if she oughtn’t to swoosh the monster-doll to a special Now where he can’t hurt anyone. She hasn’t, though.

Because, really? Some monster-doll thoughts are … kind of exciting. He shows her how to do stuff in other Nows, too, most of which isn’t that scary. Well, except for that humongous storm this past July. Wow, it took her three whole days to figure out how to turn that thing off. But she’s got it under control.

Like Dad.

5

LIZZIE SLIPS FROM the house with Marmalade on her heels. The night is deep and dark and very cold. The stars glitter like the distant Nows of the Dark Passages. Icy gravel pops and crunches beneath her shoes.

At the barn door, though, Marmalade suddenly balks. “Oh, come on, don’t be such an old scaredy-cat.” When the orange tom only shows his needle-teeth, she says what Mom always does when Lizzie misbehaves: “My goodness, what’s gotten into you?” (Really, it’s the other way around; Mom doesn’t know the half of it.)

But then Marmalade lets go of a sudden, rumbling growl and spits and swats. Gasping, Lizzie snatches her hand back. Wow, what was that about? She watches the cat sprint into the night. She’s never heard Marmalade growl. She didn’t know cats could. She thinks about going after the tom, but Dad always says, De cat came back de very next day.

Sliding into the still, dark barn is like drifting on the breath of a dream into a black void. Ahead, a vertical shaft of thin light spills from the loft. Voices float down, too: her dad—

And someone else.

Lizzie stops dead. Holds her breath. Listens.

That other voice is bad and gargly, like screams bubbling up from deep water. This voice is wrong. Just wrong.

Uh-oh. Her skin goes creepy-crawly. If Dad’s doom-voice could be a feeling, that’s what drapes itself over her now, like when she gets a high fever and the blankets are too hot and heavy. Only she can’t kick this off. She remembers how Marmalade didn’t want to come inside. How Marmalade sometimes stares, not at birds or bright coins of sunlight but the space between, while his tail goes twitch-swish. The cat sees something Lizzie doesn’t. So maybe Marmalade knows something now, too.

Lizzie chews the side of her thumb. She has a couple choices here. She can pretend nothing’s happened. She can run right back to her nice, safe house where her mother waits and there is hot chocolate and supper, warm on the table. Or she can lie and say Dad wasn’t hungry. Or she could sing, La-la-la, hello, it’s Lizzie, Daddy; I’m coming up now! Yeah, she likes that one. Make a noise; give Dad a chance to pull himself together so he can keep his promise to Mom, and it will be their pinky-swear secret.

But wait, Lizzie. The whisper-voice—she knows it’s not her—is teeny-tiny but drippy and gooey somehow, like mist blown from a straw filled with India ink. Don’t you want to see how he really uses the Mirror? He’s never let you watch. Go out and play, he says. That’s what adults always say when what they mean is, Get lost, you stupid little kid.

This, she considers, is true.

Oh, come onnn, Lizzieee, the voice coaxes. Thisss is your big chance for something really gooood.

The tug of that voice is the set of a fishhook in her brain. It is, she thinks, a little bit like the monster-doll’s voice. But so what? She’s played with the monster-doll in lots of times and Nows, and no big deal. Besides, wouldn’t she like to know about the mirror?

You bet I do. Her tongue goes puckery, and her heart gives a little jump of excitement. So she decides, Just a peek.

Lizzie creeps up the ladder, oh-so-carefully, quietly. Three more steps … two … Then, she hesitates. Lizzie might be just a kid, but she’s no dummy. The gargly voice reminds her of when she’s stayed too long in her monster-doll’s head: a feeling that is sticky and gucky and thick.

Oh, go on, you old scaredy-cat, the whisper-voice says. You’ve come this far.

So Lizzie watches her fingers wrap themselves around the last rung, and then she’s easing herself up on tiptoe—

6

THE LOFT IS one big space. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves line the north and west walls. Feeble light fans from table lamps. The only picture, a copy of Dickens’ Dream, hangs on one wall. Dad says what makes Dickens’ Dream so interesting is that the painter died before he could finish, and that guy had taken over for another artist who blew his brains out after working on a couple of Dickens’ books. (Which kind of makes you think, Whoa, who got inside his head?)

On a low table just beneath the painting, Mom’s purple-black Peculiars gleam. Lizzie knows each by sight: there is Whispers, and there are Echo Rats and Shadows, In the Dark. Purpling Mad. Now Done Darkness, where the poor mom gets eaten up from the inside out, that monster-cancer chewing her up, munch-munch-munch. And a whole bunch more. Whenever Dad finishes a scary book—one so frightening that Mom would absolutely and positively have a stroke if she knew Dad’s read a single word to Lizzie or, worse yet, that Lizzie’s visited—Mom slips on her special panops, which help her see all the thought-magic of the book-world: the energy of real life mixed with make-believe. Like when her dad says, Oh sure, honey, let’s give that brave, smart girl your eyes. Or, Hmm, how about we take a couple letters from your name and put them riiight here? If you know how to look, there’s her whole life, all these Lizzie bits and pieces, tucked in her dad’s books: the orange tom here, the squiggle-monsters there, Dad’s big red barn.

Mom draws out a bit of all that thought-magic to seal in a Peculiar, because it’s already way too easy to slip into one of her dad’s books. It’s why Dad’s famous, a bestseller. People are always dying for him to hurry up and write the next book already. They love that feeling of being lost somewhere and somewhen else. Sometimes Lizzie doesn’t want to pull herself out of a book-world at all, just like kids who pretend to be superheroes and run around in costumes.

As her eyes slide from the Peculiars to Dad’s desk, Lizzie’s throat suddenly squeezes down to a straw. She’d hoped that Dad would be there, looking at the night through a big picture window facing the high heifer pasture. Lots of times he’ll just sit there, and Lizzie swears he’s watching something play itself out, as if on a big television tuned to a secret channel. Mom says Dad flashes back, kind of like visiting a very special, private Now. Not for real; he doesn’t go anywhere or slip through any other Dark Passages than the black basement of his brain, where there are whispers from waaay back, when he was a boy and lived in this creepy old farmhouse at the very bottom of a deep, cold valley surrounded by high, snowy mountains in a very bad Wyoming.

But right this second, Dad’s not flashing back to that valley. He’s not at his desk, and Lizzie feels that awful, heavy blanket weigh her down just a little bit more. She thinks, No, Dad, no. You promised. You crossed your heart. But he must’ve been dying inside, the story in his blood hotter than the highest fever, burning him up.

Dad has been a busy, busy bee. A new skin-scroll is unfurled over his desk. What he’s already pulled onto the scroll’s White Space with special ink is a bright red spidery splash: letters and words and whole paragraphs. A heavy scent, one that is like a crushed tin can left out in a storm, fogs the air.

Dad stands at the Dickens Mirror, which is not an oval but a slit, like the pupil of a lizard’s or cat’s eye, with all sorts of squiggle-monsters and arguses and typhons and spider-swoozels and winged cobcraas squirming through its wood frame. The glass isn’t normal either but smoky-black, like old char left from a great big bonfire.

And Dad … he’s not acting like Dad. What he’s doing doesn’t even seem human. Because Dad is growling, like something’s waking up in his chest, raking curved claws over his insides, trying to break his bones and bust from his skin, just like the mom’s cancer in Now Done Darkness, or the million creepy, furry spithres that tremble like spiky petals from that girl’s mouth in Whispers. Dad’s face is all twisted and crooked, as if his head got ruined in Mom’s Kugelrohr oven.

In his right hand is his wicked-sharp lunellum. Normally, Dad only uses the knife, which is decorated with special symbols, when he makes his White Space skin-paper. Not tonight, though, and Lizzie knows doom when she feels it. The person in front of that Mirror is in the middle of becoming a thing she’s never seen before.

So make a sound! A tiny panic-mouse claws her brain. Sing a song! Do something to save him! Do something, Lizzie, do anything, before it’s TOO LATE!

But then too late happens.

The blade kisses her dad’s left palm, quick as a snake, and Dad goes, AARRGGHHH! His head whips back as another roar boils and bubbles: AAAHHHH!

On the ladder, Lizzie jumps. Dad! the panic-mouse in her brain squeaks. Dad, Daddy! All the hairs on her neck and arms go spiky as a porcupine’s quills. She watches in mute horror as a bloody rill oozes down her father’s wrist to weep ruby tears.

The knife flashes again. The skin of Dad’s right hand splits in a red shriek. The lunellum thunks to the floor as her father slams his bleeding hands, really, really hard, against the Mirror. The stand wobbles; there is a squeaking, wet sound as her father’s blood squelches and smears the glass; and Lizzie hears a very distinct, metallic click like the snap of a light switch.

And then the lizard-eye of that Dickens Mirror … changes. It starts to shimmer. The surface wobbles and ripples in undulating black waves, like a river of oil spilling across ice. Her father’s blood pulses, hot and red and alive; his blood writhes over the Mirror, and where his blood touches, the smoky glass steams. Long, milky fingers of mist curl around her father’s wrists and begin to pulse and suck—and all of a sudden, they are not white as milk or heavy mist but first pink and then a deep, dark bloodred.

The Mirror is drinking her father. The Mirror’s greedy fingers spiral up and up and up in a tangle of rust-red vines to web his neck and face, as if her dad is a piece of blank parchment onto which something new is being written in blood.

“Blood of My Blood,” her father says, but what comes out of his mouth is a voice of one and many: overlapping echoes and whispers from down deep and very far away. “I feed you, Blood of My Blood, Breath of My Breath. I feed you and I invite you. I release you and I bind you and I draw you. Together, we are one, and there are the Dark Passages and all of space and time to bridge.”

The mist twines around her father in a shimmering vermillion spiderweb. The blood-web tightens and squeezes, hugging her father right up to the churning, rippling glass. The black glass gives, the inky mouth of that Mirror gapes, and then her father’s hands slip through, sinking into the glass, as he reaches down its throat and into the Dark Passages.

Run! the panic-mouse screeches. Run, Lizzie, run! Get Mom! But she doesn’t. Her heart bumpity-bumpity-bumps in her chest, and she has never been so scared. In all the Lizzie-worlds she’s made and the Nows she’s visited and the hours she’s spent here with her father, she has never seen anything quite as terrible as this—and she simply can’t move.

The glass fills with something white and sparkly and thick and formless as fog that swirls and ripples—and knits together to form a face. But not Dad’s face, oh no. Whatever lies beyond the glass is still becoming: oozy and indefinite, there and then not, as if the face is pulling together the way hot glass slumps and folds and becomes something else. Even as she watches, the face solidifies into a nightmare of raw meat, bristly teeth, a snaky black tongue—

And eyes. Eyes. Two are black. They are a crow’s eyes, a cobra’s eyes—dead eyes with no pupils and no eyelids either.

But the third is different. Instead of the blue-black cyclops eye that is her monster-doll’s, this third eye is a silver storm, both mirror and ocean—and her father is there, his reflection pulling together from the swirling, smoky whirlpool to eel like a serpent, and oh, his face, her dad’s real face!

Maybe she makes a sound. Or maybe, like a snake, the whisper-man tastes her with his tongue, because all three eyes cut sideways and then—

He sees me. Her hand catches the ball of a shriek. He sees me, he sees me, he sees me!

And then.

Her father.

Turns—

EMMA Blink

1

“EMMA. EMMA?”

“What?” Emma snapped back, awareness flooding her mind in an icy gush, an arrow of sudden bright pain stabbing right between her eyes. Blinking past tears, her gaze sharpened on a pair of windshield wipers thumping back and forth, pushing rills of thick snow.

Driving. I’m in a car. Her hands fisted the steering wheel. But where am I going? How did I get here?

“Emma, are you okay? You look kind of out of it.”

“I-I’m fine. Sorry, Li … Lily.” She stumbled over the name, but Lily felt right in her mouth and Emma did recognize her, sort of: leggy, blonde, a touch of the valley girl.

“Have you figured out where we are yet?” Lily asked.

Oh man. They were lost? Jesus, how long had she been gone this time? “Not yet, but I bet we’ll be up … up …”

“Emma?”

“Jasper’s,” she blurted, the word catapulting from her mouth like a rock from a slingshot. “I bet we’ll be up at Jasper’s in no time.”

“Are you—” Lily let out a shriek as a fork of lightning stuttered. “Is that normal?”

“For Wisconsin,” Emma said as thunder bellowed and the lumbering Dodge Caravan—a rental; yes, I remember complaining about the bad shocks, the mushy steering—jumped. “Happens all the time, Lily.” She tried to keep it light, but her voice didn’t feel as if it belonged to her at all. God, leave it to her to vacate at the worst possible time. The blink had been so different, too: not just a blackout or snapshot flash but a whole sequence, fading fast. What had she seen? A little girl and a … a cat? Yes, but what was its name? Something to eat … Jelly? No, no, that wasn’t right.

Come on, Emma, you can do this. Just relax and let it come.

But she couldn’t relax. Her head killed. Her vision fuzzed and then blistered as her headache pillowed and swelled. The space before her eyes opened in a spiky, purple-black maw, violent as a bruise. The doctors had always dismissed it as a variant of a scintillating scotoma, a visual symptom of a migraine. But hers wasn’t anything like a normal person’s, which figured. No bright firefly flashes for her, no shimmering arc or fuzzy spiral. Hers began as a rip in thin air, like a hole being munched right out of the backside of this world. The doctors made reassuring noises about petit mal seizures and an Alice in Wonderland syndrome, but all their talk boiled down to the same thing: Honey, so sucks to be you.

Can’t afford to blink away again, not while I’m driving. Although she’d clearly been away already, hadn’t she? But why now? Come on. Emma put a finger to her forehead, right above her nose, pressing the hard circle of a lacy titanium skull plate beneath muscle and skin. Think. When had she taken her last dose? This morning? Last night? Two days before? She couldn’t remember. The docs were always on her about that, too: Emma, you need to be more compliant. Easy for them to say. It wasn’t like she was trying to be a pain in the ass, but let them choke back pills for a week or two, see how much they liked it. The anti-spaz meds completely messed with her mind. The headaches might evaporate, but reality also misted to a blur until she felt as flat and lifeless as fading words on a tattered page. She didn’t know what was worse: no headaches, seizures, and blinks, or wandering around all hollow and zombied-out, like an extra from The Walking Dead.

Well, just muscle through it. Gripping the wheel harder, she squinted through tears. The world beyond the windshield was shimmery and nearly colorless, that relentless curtain of snow going to gray, about to fade to black as the day died. But what she saw around the edges of that purple maw was wrong: craggy mountains on the right, the drop-off of a valley on the left.

What? Her eyebrows pulled into a frown. That wasn’t right. Sure, Wisconsin has plenty of valleys, but the mountains were pimples. They were zits. Nice zits but still zits.

God, where are we? Her eyes slid to her driver’s side window, frosted with a rime of thin ice. And right then she had the strangest, weirdest impulse: to press her hand to the glass, feel the burn as the ice bled. One push, where the barrier’s thinnest. That’s all it would take. Push hard enough and the glass would open to swallow her up and then she would fall …

Another crash of lightning broke the spell, made her heart flop in her chest. Beside her, Lily let out a yelp and clutched the dash. “How can it do that in snow? Come on, Emma, you’re the science brain. Is it supposed to do that?”

“Sure, if cold air passes over warm water,” she said, relieved her voice didn’t shake. Temples throbbing, she forced her eyes forward again. The metal plate above her nose seemed to be burning its way through the bony vault of her skull. What had that been about? Bleeding ice? Pushing through melting glass, a thinning barrier, to some other world? You nut, who do you think you are—Neo? Stop this. Come on, get a grip. “It just means we’ve got to be close to Lake Superior. That’s why the thunder’s so loud. If we were further away …” She bit off the rest. Lily probably didn’t need a lecture on acoustic suppression and the reflective properties of ice crystals—and she did know Lily, right? Sure, they were both juniors at Holten Prep; Lily was in her … her … What class was it? English? History? Basket-weaving for the mentally deranged?

What’s wrong with me? Her tongue skimmed her lips, tasting fear and salt. Coming back from the blink this time was much worse than ever before, her mind pulling itself together like molten chewing gum pried from the underside of an old shoe. But why? Usually, it was blink-blink and, whoa, when had she decided to take up skydiving? All right, the fugues—pockets of time for which she had no memory—weren’t quite as bad as that, but if she ever needed a go- to for why eighteen pairs of shoes suddenly appeared in her closet, she was set.

Don’t freak. That just makes everything worse. Come on, you know who you are. You’re Emma Lindsay and she’s Lily … Lily … She swallowed around a sudden knot of panic. Lily who?

“Maybe we should turn back,” Lily said.

No, I don’t think we can. I don’t think the storm will let us. But those were crazy thoughts. A storm couldn’t think. Ice didn’t bleed. You couldn’t tumble through glass to fall into forever and all times like some kind of crazy Alice. Of course, a purple mouth shouldn’t make Swiss cheese of the world, but that didn’t stop her addled brain from conjuring one out of thin air. Understanding why didn’t make what she saw any less scary.

Then a real memory—what a weird way to think about it—floated from the fog of her thoughts. “If we go back, won’t your parents make you do that dogsled thing for wannabe warrior-women?” Emma asked.

“Yeah, but compared to this?” Lily grunted. “Dog shit looks pretty good.”

2

WHEN EMMA WOKE up yesterday morning, life had still been pretty normal. Well, as normal as it got for a kid with a head full of metal, killer headaches, visions that appeared more or less at random, chunks of lost time, and nowhere to go over Christmas break.

Heading north hadn’t been the plan. The stroke over a year ago turned Jasper into a zucchini—on June 9, to be exact: her birthday, and Jasper’s, too. They always had two cakes: ginger cake with buttercream frosting for him, dark chocolate with velvety chocolate ganache for her. She’d been jamming candles into Jasper’s cake—try fitting fifty-eight candles so you didn’t get a bonfire—when, all of a sudden, something right over her head banged so hard the cottage’s windows rattled. Racing upstairs, she’d found Jasper, out cold, sprawled in a loose-limbed jumble like a broken, discarded doll. These days, Jasper languished in a dark room, his head turned to a white sliver of window hemmed by coal-black shutters. He wore diapers. He was mute. The entire left side of his face looked artificial, like a waxen mask melting under too much heat. His left lower eyelid drooped, the eye itself the color of milky glass, and his mouth hung so wide she could see the ruin of his teeth and the bloated dead worm of his tongue. The last time Emma ventured in to read aloud—she and Jasper used to make a game of trying to finish Edwin Drood—Sal, the lizard-eyed, pipe-puffing live-in, shooed her away. When Jasper had been boss, Sal behaved. Now, with the old bat out of the attic, Emma felt about as welcome as a case of head lice.

Best to stay in Madison. The Holten folks had paired Emma, on full scholarship (which translated to smart and weird but poor), with Mariane, a Jewish exchange student from London who was big into decorative art. Seeing as how Emma worked glass, that was all good. So she and Mariane would eat Chinese and see a movie, which, apparently, Jewish people all over the world did on Christmas. Maybe chill with a couple Beta boys at the university, drink beer, eat Christmas brats. Binge on X-Files and Lost and watch the Badgers get slaughtered in the Rose Bowl. All-American, Wisconsin stuff like that.

She could use the time to throttle back, too. Head over to the hot shop and work a pendant design she’d mulled over for months: a galaxy sculpted in miniature from glass, encased in glass, yet small and light enough to wear around her neck. When she mentioned her idea, the gaffer cracked, Maybe we’ll start calling you Orion, like that cat. She’d laughed along with him and the other glassblowers, but Men in Black and that cat’s amulet had given her the idea in the first place. Not everything had to stay make-believe.

So that was the plan, anyway—until that asshole Kramer called her to his office, shut the door, and said, “Ms. Lindsay, we need to

3

HAVE A LITTLE chat about that last assignment.”

“Okay,” Emma says. She watches Kramer withdraw a mug of steaming Mighty Leaf green tea from his microwave. A little alarm is ding-ding-dinging in her head. He hasn’t offered her any. Not that she minds: green tea tastes like old gym socks, and the Mighty Mouse brand, no matter how swank, probably does, too. For him not to offer, though, she must be in deep doo-doo. “Is something wrong, Professor Kramer?”

“Is … something … wrong?” Kramer gives his tea bag a vicious squish between his fingers. He sets, he chucks; Mighty Mouse goes ker-splat against the far wall. On a corner of Kramer’s desk, a radio mutters about the continuing investigation into a young girl’s gruesome discovery of eight …

“ ’Orrible murders and ghastly crimes,” Kramer grates in an angry, exaggerated cockney, and stabs the radio to silence. “These screaming twenty-four-hour news cycles are as bad as Victorian tabloids.” He fires a glare through prissy Lennon specs. “Well, yes, you might say there’s something wrong, Ms. Lindsay. I’m trying to decide if I should merely flunk you out of this course, or get you booted out of Holten, despite your circumstances. Just what kind of game do you think you’re playing?”

She’s so flabbergasted her jaw unhinges. “P-Professor Kramer, wh-what did I do?”

In answer, Kramer jerks open his desk drawer hard enough to make the pens chatter and yanks out a sheaf of paper-clipped pages, which he tosses onto his desk. “You might have gotten away with this … this rubbish if I was any other instructor, but I’m writing a book on the man, for God’s sake. No one except researchers is allowed access to this material. What, did you think I’d simply ignore this? Time to wake up, Ms. Lindsay. I’m not the headmaster, I don’t care about your sad little history, and I’m sure as hell not your bloody psychiatrist. Now I want to know where you got it.”

She has no idea what he’s talking about. Her eyes fall to the first page:

WHITE SPACE

A Short Story

by

Emma Lindsay

Lit. Seminar 058

“Got it?” She swallows. “I wrote it.”

Kramer’s ears flare Coke-can red. “You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that. Where did you get this? Did you download it from a pirate site?”

She’s getting a very bad feeling about this. Oh boy, is that possible? No, don’t be silly. The guy’s dead. “I-I don’t know what you’re t-talking about, sir.”

“You want to play it that way? Fine.” Kramer tweezes out a single sheet. “Take a good, hard look at this and then convince me why you shouldn’t be expelled.”

This is not happening; this is a nightmare. Tears threaten. Shit, don’t cry. She does what Kramer wants—and as her burning eyes trip over the watery letters and spaces of one word, then jump over white space to the next word and the next and the next, it’s as if an invisible fist has wrapped around her throat and begun to squeeze.

So how long would it take? There had to be a way to figure it. Maybe he should’ve stripped the clothes, but then what? Couldn’t bury them. The ground was frozen solid, and some things wouldn’t burn: snaps, buttons, zippers. And didn’t nylon melt? He thought it did, and there’d be the stink.

And didn’t how long really depend on how bad you wanted something? How much you were willing to risk? Sure. So, clothes or no clothes, if you were a wolf or coyote and starving because Wyoming winters were hard and game, scarce … and there was dinner lying right there? All that easy meat?

A wolf would strip that body to bones in no time.

A wave of unreality washes over Emma. A sudden headache spikes right where it always does, under that lacy cranial plate the doctors screwed into place between her eyes so her brain wouldn’t bubble out. (When the doctors had first shown her the plate, she’d thought, Great, the perfect accessory for every occasion.) The pain is blinding, and she shuts her eyes against the sudden tilt as the world seems to slump and run like superheated glass.

“Right. Wasn’t that interesting, Emma? I thought it was. And now let’s listen to yours, shall we? You’ve no objection if I read while you follow along?” Kramer asks, but it’s one of those rhetorical questions a person knows better than to answer. As Kramer drones, she stares at words and sentences that, up to five seconds ago, she thought were hers alone.

There had to be a way of calculating how long it would take. There must be rules, like physics or math; there were variables to take into account. Temperature, of course, but also the clothes. Maybe he should’ve stripped the clothes, but then what? He couldn’t bury them. The ground was frozen solid, and burning wouldn’t work because zippers, snaps, buttons didn’t burn and Gore-Tex melted.

Didn’t how long depend on how hungry you were? How badly you wanted something, and how much you were willing to risk? So if you were a coyote and starving to death because the snow was deep and the Wisconsin winter, hard—and then you stumbled on something that couldn’t fight back? Meat that was free and for the taking?

God help him, but he knew: a coyote would strip that body in no time.

“Other than your substitution of Wisconsin for Wyoming?” Kramer drills her with a look. “You see my problem.”

Emma just shakes her head. She is so mortified she wants to melt into the linoleum. God, maybe she really should be better about taking those damn pills. Better to be a zombie than feel this.

“I said, write in the style of Frank McDermott,” Kramer seethes. “I didn’t say steal.”

4

THE SEMINAR WAS a mistake.

She’d had an open slot for a junior-year elective. Any class coy enough to be called “Out of Their Minds: Madness and the Creative Process” made her nervous. Her adviser was more direct: Are you sure about this? The admin people at Holten Prep knew her … ah … shall we say, unusual circumstances. But since the only other alternative was animal husbandry, which was a Wisconsin thing and included a unit on neutering piglets, it was kind of a no-brainer.

What she hadn’t realized was that Kramer meant for them to write the occasional story in the style of fill-in-the-blank. This was a problem. Creative writing already weirded her out, and now she had to crawl around the heads of these guys, too? Seriously? Most of these writers ended up killing themselves. But there was no way she was getting sucked into making little Wilbur squeal.

The Bell Jar had been on this past summer’s reading list, and she’d decided to get a jump on it, starting right after finals and a couple days before her seventeenth birthday. Well … big mistake. The book completely freaked her out. Somehow she got … she became lost, slipping into the story the way she might slide into a tight pair of skinny jeans, and then into Esther’s head. Started looking at the world differently, too, as if staring through a bizarre set of lenses that showed her phantoms no one else could see. And once or twice, swear to God, she heard someone call her name, only to turn and find no one there.

Yet that feeling was … familiar, somehow. Like, I know this. This once happened. At some point, I was really and truly nuts. As if by reading all about Esther Greenwood, Plath’s stand-in for herself, she was remembering what it was like to go slowly insane; to be trussed in a straitjacket and forced to gag back too-sweet medicines and then locked away beneath a bell jar to rave. Which was crazy.

The Bell Jar was bad: an infection, a fever raging through her body, burning her up. It got so awful she spent a couple hours studying a wickedly jagged razor of clear glass, filched from the discards bucket at the hot shop, and thinking, What if? Go on, do it, you coward. You know you want to; you know this is the best way, the only way to pass through into …

Through? Into what? What she’d found down in Jasper’s cellar years ago? (And nope, no way she was thinking about that, nosirreebob.) And go where? Who the hell knew?

She hadn’t sliced and diced—obviously—but the temptation to cut, to filet herself, really hack those arteries and watch the blood bubble, still occasionally slithered into her mind like the black tangle of a nightmare she just couldn’t shake.

Honestly, after that whole Bell Jar mess, the prospect of studying the work of insane writers, slipping into their skins, made lopping off Wilbur’s balls almost attractive. But she was stuck.

5

THE CLASS HAD started with science fiction, which was okay, although Kramer was in love with the sound of his I’m-from-Cambridge-and-you’re-not voice: To paraphrase the incomparable though deeply disturbed Philip K. Dick, whoever manipulates words manipulates the existential texture of reality, as we blahdiddy-blahdiddy-blah-blah. But when Kramer began bloviating about quantum foam and Schrödinger’s cat and dark matter and more blahdiddy-blahdiddy-blah-blah, and everyone else was oh, awesome, that’s like, dude, so Star Trek … she just couldn’t help herself. Dark matter could only be inferred. In the case of Schrödinger’s kitty, collapsing probabilities through observation had nothing to do with massless particles popping out of quantum foam. And quantum effects could be observed on the macroscopic level at near absolute zero within the energy sink of a Bose-Einstein condensate, which therefore proved Hardy’s Paradox regarding the interaction of quantum and anti-quantum particles that might actually coexist in related timelines and alternative universes …

A single death glare from Kramer, though, and she clammed up. Fine. Be ignorant. Mangle science. See what she cared.

After that, the class drifted to horror, specifically Wisconsin’s Most Famous Crazy Dead Writer, Frank McDermott, who was originally from somewhere in Wyoming and lived in England a good long time, but who was keeping score? Besides writing a bazillion mega-bestsellers, McDermott’s claim to fame was getting blown to smithereens by his equally wacko nutjob of a wife. (Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin murders, McDermott—Wisconsin was full of ’em. Had to be something in the water.) With his new! important! biography! Kramer hoped to solve the BIG MYSTERY: where was Waldo … er, Frank? Because, after the explosion, not one scrap of McDermott remained, not even his teeth. Which was a little strange.

Originally a quantum physics star—lotsa theories about multiverses and timelines and blah, blah—Meredith McDermott was fruitier than a nutcake. Years in institutions, suicide attempts—the whole nine yards. Maybe she turned to glass art the way a patient might take up painting, but what she made was unreal; museums and collectors fell all over themselves snapping up pieces.

Turned out the lady was also a complete pyro. She would’ve had plenty on hand in her studio, too: propane tanks, cylinders of oxygen, acetylene, MAPP. To that she’d thrown in gasoline and kerosene and, as a kind of exclamation point, a bag of fertilizer.

The fireball was immense. The explosion chunked a blast crater seventy feet long and fifteen feet deep. Emma bet Old Frank was tip-typing away in writer heaven before he knew he was dead.

Even so, there ought to have been plenty of Frank McDermott shrapnel: bits and pieces zipping hither and thither at high speeds to get hung up on branches or blast divots into tree trunks. Science was science. No matter what the movies said, for a person to completely vaporize, you needed either an atomic bomb or about a ton of dynamite. So why couldn’t the police find a single, solitary bone? A watch? Something? All that was recovered at the scene were the barn’s iron bolts, sliders, and hinges—and a coagulated lake of slumped, amorphous glass.

And only the barn burned. The house hadn’t. Neither had Meredith’s workshop or the woods or even the fields, despite the fact that the local fire department was twenty miles away and no response team arrived until hours after the explosion. Just plain weird.

And where was Meredith? What happened to the McDermotts’ little kid? All the police ever found was the family car, miles away after it lost an argument with a very big oak. No bodies, though. Just a dead car.

And a whole lotta blood.

6

THE UNFINISHED MANUSCRIPTS were also weird.

Three—and there might be more—were quietly decomposing under house arrest in some vault in England. No one was allowed to see or handle them, period. All scholars like Kramer got were a few choice bits copied from the originals: not enough to make much sense of the stories but just enough to whet their appetites.

This tallied, though. McDermott was a squirrel. Not even his editors were allowed to hang on to his original manuscripts, which were penned on homemade parchment scrolls—no one was quite sure whether these were vellum or the hide of some more exotic animal—with a special ink McDermott also formulated himself. Since the guy made more money than God, the editors put up with it. They also mentioned how the longer they handled those scrolls, the more the ink changed color to a shade as vibrant as freshly clotted blood, as one editor put it. Even this wasn’t necessarily news. From the description, Emma thought McDermott’s brew must be chemically related to iron gall ink, which oxidized with exposure to air. In other words, the ink rusted, and the stuff literally ate through parchment. All the academics made this sound so spooky, but honestly, it was just chemistry. Mozart and Rembrandt and Bach used the same ink. So did Dickens. BFD. All McDermott had done was tweak the original recipe so his work had a built-in termination date: a nice way of sticking it to people like Kramer. Give McDermott an A for effort; Emma almost admired the guy.

Probably would have, if she hadn’t been so freaked about her story.

7

WHAT KRAMER HANDED her was a fragment—a note, really—from a book she’d never read, because McDermott never got around to writing it. All that scholars like Kramer knew about this novel, Satan’s Skin, came from this and a few other jotted entries. The plot involved a demon-grimoire stitching itself back together, only the pages had been reused in other books and so the characters kept jumping off the page while debating the nature of quantum realities. Some loopy Matrix meets Inkheart-with-a-vengeance crap like that.

Her story was about these eight kids stranded in a spooky house during a snowstorm who begin to disappear one by one. Okay, it wasn’t all original; she’d taken a cue from this awesome John Cusack movie. (Sure, the film was completely freaky. All the characters turn out to be alters: different personalities hallucinated by this completely insane, wacko killer. But the idea that people who thought they were real weren’t—well, it was just so cool.) Her first draft had written itself, pretty much. Considering how writing creeped her out, this should’ve tripped some alarms.

As it happened, her story was a subplot of Satan’s Skin. There were differences. In McDermott’s version, the kids—and yeah, there were eight—were nameless. The oldest, a complete psychopath, murdered his nasty drunk of a dad, who deserved it, the abusive SOB. (All McDermott’s dads and quite a few moms were the same, too. Guy had some serious parental unit issues.) In her version, the characters had names, but her hero—this sweet, sensitive, gorgeous, hunky, completely yes-please guy—had killed his nasty dad in self-defense and was haunted by what he’d done.

Both her draft and McDermott’s fragment shared something else: neither ended. Kramer said McDermott’s note stopped in midsentence, a little like Edwin Drood, although Dickens had the decency to put in a period before up and dying. Hers was like McDermott’s. Not only had she written herself into a corner; she couldn’t figure a way to tie up all those loose ends. The last sentence just sort of floated all by its lonesome. Since her assignment was only a first draft, she had the go-to of needing feedback from the Great Bloviator … er, Kramer.

But, to be honest? Imagining a final period or the end set up a sick fluttering in her stomach. She just couldn’t do it. She’d never admit this to a soul, but … well … her hero was the perfect guy and she … she really liked him. In that way. Okay, okay, fine, she even daydreamed about him, and how lame was that? Mariane had this stalker thing for Taylor Lautner—seriously, the girl was obsessed with those pecs and that six-pack—but at least she drooled over a real guy. Emma’s perfect boyfriend was an idea that lived in her head, but he was also so real, the most well-rounded of her characters. The others were just one-dimensional placeholders. This guy she actually thought of as a complete person. Wrapping up his story would be so final, a lowering of that damn bell jar. Once done, her guy was finished, no way out of the box—not unless she decided to chuck science and write herself into The Continuing Adventures of Emma Lindsay, Loser and Social Misfit. Maybe that was why writers did sequels; they just couldn’t let the story really die.

Anyway. Her draft and McDermott’s fragment were virtually identical.

“Other than the madwoman in the attic, which is so utterly Brontë but perhaps understandable considering Meredith McDermott’s long history of mental illness, that subplot is baffling,” Kramer said. “It’s as if these teens in Satan’s Skin are … stand-ins? Alters? Different possible versions and aspects of McDermott himself? Because, clearly, the man’s reworking his abusive past. That miserable childhood in Wyoming always haunted him, and of course, the snow and deadening cold are symbolic of slow soul murder. Very Joycean, wouldn’t you agree? He does much the same with the mother in Whispers—absolutely brilliant; we’ll be reading that after break … and of course, madness as a slow cancer, a rot eating away at the very fabric of reality, is rendered with stunning effect in this very bizarre little Victorian pastiche that exists only in fragments itself and yet is thoroughly blahdiddy-blahdiddy-blah-blah.”

Numb, Emma grayed out. Who gave a wet fart what McDermott had in mind? How had she copied a manuscript she hadn’t known existed?

Hating Kramer would’ve been easy; he was such an asshole. But she couldn’t, not really. From his perspective, she was a cheater, a plagiarist, the academic scum of the earth. But he just didn’t know the whole sordid story.

No one did.

8

EVERYTHING SHE KNEW about her bio parents fit the back of a stamp, with room to spare. Dear Old Drug-Addled Dad tried a two-point set to see if Baby really bounced against a backboard. (Uh, that would be no.) Mommy Dearest boogied before Dad tested whether she might be less sucky on a layup. Later, Daddy hung himself in lockup because—oops—someone forgot to confiscate the shoelaces of his All Stars. Big whoopsie-daisy there.

Cue ten years of Child Protective Services and a parade of foster parents, group homes, doctors, staring shrinks, clucking social workers. Her headaches got worse, thanks to Dear Old Dad. All that head trauma started off a chain reaction of growing fractures. She got older and uglier as her skull grew lumpier and bumpier.

Then Jasper, a crusty old sea dog with a fondness for bourbon, Big Band, and paint, showed up. Why he wanted to foster a kid, especially one with her history and looks, she never could figure. (Before her surgeries, she could have been a stunt double for those bubble-heads playing the Mos Eisley Cantina.) Jasper got her surgerized so her brain wouldn’t go ker-splat all over the floor. Fixed up her face, too. Then he whisked her away from all the do-gooders to an ancient stone cottage waaay up north overlooking Devil’s Cauldron, a dark blue inlet of rust-red sandstone layered over ancient volcanic rock on the northern tip of Madeline Island in Lake Superior.

By day, Jasper piloted charters and wandered around in a ratty cardigan and muttered to himself. Nights, he tossed back a couple belts, cranked up a wheezy old cassette recorder, and slathered canvasses with eerie, surreal landscapes choked with bizarre creatures, as Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin burbled, or Bleak House or The Old Curiosity Shop or a dozen other Dickens novels and stories spun themselves out on the air. Some of the creatures Jasper painted, she recognized: woolly mammoths, dinosaurs, prehistoric benthic creatures, weird insects with three-foot wingspans. Others—the ones with stalk-eyes and tentacles and screaming needle-toothed navels—were so Lovecraft, they looked like they’d slithered from the deep wells of inky nightmares.

What Emma never did understand was that when he finished, Jasper pulled a Jackson Pollock, slopping thick white paint onto each and every canvas. When she complained there was nothing left to see—and what was the point?—Jasper would toss back another shot and explain that the creatures, which existed in the Dark Passages between all the Nows, were too powerful to let out: Every time you pull them onto White Space, you risk breaking that Now. (And oh well, when he put it that way, it all became so clear. So much for a straight answer.)

With a story as Harry Potter as this, Jasper ought to have been a wizard. She should have had strange powers. But no, Jasper was just odd; a small army of surgeons stenciled a road map of skillfully hidden scars onto her scalp and gave her a normal, if titanium-enriched, skull; and she loved Jasper so much that seeing him as he was now hurt like nails hammered into her heart.

9

AND NOTHING BAD happened once she was with Jasper. Summers, she biked around Madeline or kayaked over to Devils Island with Jasper, slipping in and out of sandstone sea caves or wandering the forested sandstone while her guardian sketched. Jasper said the island got its name from the old Ojibwe legend that Matchi-Manitou, some honking huge evil spirit, was imprisoned in a giant underground cave at the entrance to the spirit worlds, and only the bravest warriors could pass through the black well at the center of the island to fight the thing, blah, blah. Some vision quest crap like that. The only well she knew on that island was near an old lighthouse and keeper’s cottage. Still, whenever there was a really big blow, the roar and boom of the sea caves—of big, bad Matchi-Manitou—carried clear to Jasper’s cottage.

Still, nothing horrible happened. Okay, she was lonely. No friends. Maybe it was crusty, tipsy, bizarre Jasper, who would scare a sane kid, but no matter how hard she tried … she was a dweeb. Smart, but still inept and weird.

Whatever. Really, everything was good.

Well … until the year she turned twelve and went downstairs into the cellar to look for a book and where … where …

Well, where something happened down cellar that she’d really decided not to think about, or remember.

Really.

10

THE BLACKOUTS—THE BLINKS—STARTED a week after the incident down cellar. Each began the same way: a swarming tingle like the scurry of ants over her skin; the boil of an inky dread in her chest. The world thinned; her brain superheated. Then that purple-edged maw opened before her eyes and she would swoon into an airless darkness, tripping into the space between one breath and the next.

And then—blink-blink—she was back.

Often, she retained glimpses: the ooze of fog over slick cobblestones; a string of gaslights marching over a faraway bridge and a huge clock face that she almost recognized. A long hallway and rough carpet against her feet. A white nightgown that whispered around her legs. A huge red barn. A deep valley ringed by craggy, snow-covered mountains.

Sometimes—the worst times—she remembered things: bulbous monsters with tentacles and a patchwork of eyes; creatures that lived someplace dark, far away, and very, very cold. Or, come to think of it, that lurked behind the white paint of Jasper’s canvases.

Mostly, though, there was nothing. She would simply blink awake with a sizzling headache arcing from the plate between her eyes to another at the very base of her skull, as if a switch had been thrown and a circuit completed: zzzttt! The blinks lasted anywhere from a few seconds or minutes to a good long while, but she apparently functioned: got to class, turned in papers, took tests, worked glass, drank Starbucks. Clearly, even in a blackout, she was a girl with priorities.

The doctors said her migraines were to blame for these pesky little episodes. Her symptoms even had a name: the Alice in Wonderland syndrome. Of course the darned thing would be rare as hen’s teeth, but they assured her that she would outgrow it: don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.

She told none of the doctors the full story, how long she was gone, or what she saw. The meds she already took were bad enough. With her history—the jigsaw puzzle that was her skull, her headaches, that spiky purple mouth—they’d think her wires had gotten totally crossed and drug her so thoroughly she’d never find her way out of the fog.

She read scads about the syndrome and other, stranger cases of people almost like her: the lawyer who suddenly disappeared and turned up six months later; the schoolteacher picked up on the streets with no memory of who she was. Problem was, Emma didn’t wander or end up as a bum. Well, so far as she could remember. But she definitely went places, that inner third eye channel-surfing through movies she never followed to a conclusion. Maybe that was lucky. What would happen if the tether on her life snapped? Would she die? Float around in limbo? Remain stuck forever on the other side of the looking glass?

Well, yeah. She thought she might.

11

NOW, THE DAY was gone, the storm had them, and she and Lily were lost, no question. After her little sit-me-down with Kramer, she’d snagged Lily, rented the van, and skedaddled. No one would even know to start looking for them for a week, easy.

“Try the radio,” she said to Lily. “Maybe we can pick up a station.” She didn’t really believe they’d get anything; it was just a way to keep Lily from freaking out completely and give her some space to think about what to do next. She listened as Lily patiently feathered the knob. FM was nothing but fizzles and pops, which figured. AM wasn’t much better, just static from which only a few broken words surfaced: police … brutal … killings …

“God, I can’t turn on the radio without hearing about that poor little girl. Can you imagine what it was like to find all those bodies? In the basement of her own house?” Lily said.

Murders? Emma had no idea what Lily was talking about. “Anything?”

“No.” Sighing, Lily threw up her hands. “Any other suggestions?”

“Try the weather bands,” Emma said. “Different bands are assigned to different regions. Might give us an idea of where we are.”

There was nothing between channels one to five, but as Lily clicked to channel six, the radio cleared its throat with a loud pffssstt. “There, right there, hold it,” Emma said. She listened as the steel wool of a voice fuzzed: … extremely dangerous storm. Once again, the National Weather Service has issued a severe weather advisory for the following counties: Bayfield, Ashland …

Okay, that was good. Those counties were northwest, which meant—

Taylor, the radio voice said. And peekaboo, I see you, Emma. I’ve got you …

What? Emma gasped. Her heart turned over in her chest. What?

“Emma?” asked Lily.

Emma couldn’t answer. The radio kept jabbering: I’ve got you, so let’s play, Emma. Come down and plaaay, Blood of My Blood, Breath of My Breath, come and plaaay …

The hairs on her neck prickled. Oh my God, that almost sounded like … like Kramer? Yes, she would know that tight-ass Brit’s voice anywhere. But how could that be? And he sounded close, too: not just a sputter seeping from the dashboard radio but coming from directly behind her.

Like the voice is whispering into my right ear. But that’s nuts. There’s no speaker in the ceiling or the headrest. She flicked a glance at her rearview. You’re losing it, kid; you’ve lost it, you’re as crazy as they say you—

Her heart slammed into her throat.

Because, in the mirror, there were …

LIZZIE Save Dad

HER FATHER TURNS.…

“Ah!” Lizzie flinches, and then her left foot isn’t on the rung anymore. Gasping, she lunges forward, wrapping her arms around the ladder. Her heart thump-thump-thumps so hard she feels it in her throat. She wants to wait, not try getting down until the shakes go away—but she mustn’t, she mustn’t, she mustn’t!

Oh Dad, Dad, Daddy!

Somehow she gets down, half tripping, half slithering, and then she is pelting out of the barn and over the slippery gravel drive. The rock snatches her shoes, and she falls, ripping the knees from her jeans. The pain is strangely good, quick and bright as a firecracker and much better than the acid fear on her tongue. She claws her way up, shivering so hard her teeth go clickity-clickity-clickity-click. But now there is the kitchen and a square of warm yellow light and her mother, framed like an angel in a painting. Lizzie bursts through the kitchen door, the door going bam so the windowpanes complain and the glasses chatter in the cabinets. “Mom, Mom!”

“Lizzie?” Her mother’s eyes probe Lizzie’s face and then she gasps at whatever she’s read. “Stay here, Lizzie, stay right here!” Quick as a whip, Mom is out the door and sprinting for the barn. She doesn’t even bother with a coat.

A stiletto of terror pierces her heart, and Lizzie thinks, Oh, Momma, Momma, be careful, be careful, be careful! Face pressed to the glass, she waits and waits and waits, scrubbing away breath-fog so she can see the moment her parents emerge from the barn, the very second her mother rescues her father.

Hurry, Mom, hurry. The windowpane is going all wobbly, as if her house is starting to melt. Lizzie’s eyes burn, the tears chasing each other down her cheeks so fast they drip-drip-drip from her jaw. “Hurry, Mom,” Lizzie whispers, her voice thinning to a watery squeak. “Save Dad. Pull him out before the whisper-man slides all the way inside and fills him up. Hurry, hurry, hurry.”

But Lizzie, you saw. This is not the monster-doll, but a voice that is calm and reasonable and centered in a clear patch of the storm in her mind. The voice is, in fact, a little like Mom’s that last time Lizzie raised a fuss about lima beans on a Try-It Tuesday: Just try one little no-thank-you bite.

Now, Lizzie, this calm little voice says, you saw, honey, how far he reached? And when he turned?

“No, you’re wrong! I’m not listening to you.” Lizzie presses her hands over her ears. “La-la-la, I can’t hear you. Mom is strong and smart, you’ll see. Mom will beat him, Mom will—”

All of a sudden, across the yard, the barn door crashes open with so much force, the muted smash of wood and metal seeps through the window and into the kitchen. “Yes!” Lizzie’s heart, full to bursting with fear and worry, seems to rocket out of her chest. She is dancing on tiptoe, bouncing up and down. “Yes, Mom, yes, you got him, you …”

But then Lizzie’s voice dies on her tongue, because all she sees

EMMA Eyes, and Nothing Else

ALL EMMA SAW in the rearview mirror were eyes, and nothing else. The eyes weren’t hers, which were a deep, rich cobalt: an unearthly, glittering blue that almost didn’t look real. Her right eye, with its tiny golden flaw in the iris, was especially strange. A birthmark, the doctors said, but get a few drinks into Jasper and he’d say it was her third eye, which made about as much sense as all his wild talk of Nows and Dark Passages.

These things in the mirror … she’d never seen anything like them. Two were black as stones and smooth as glass, with no whites, no pupils. The third eye was a mercury swirl floating in midair, suspended in a milky cloud. No face, at all, stared back.

No, Emma’s mind gabbled. No, no, no, no! This was worse than a blink. This was like the barrier between her life and someone else’s was breaking down, some freaky parallel universe leaking into hers. I should do what the doctors want. I should take the pills. Dimly, she was aware that the radio was still sputtering about a manhunt: … so far authorities believe at least eight children may have met—

She watched, paralyzed, as that milky cloud in the mirror gathered itself, folded—and then the silvered glass moved.

“Ah!” Emma flinched, her hands jerked the wheel, and then the van shimmied, first right and then left. Emma fought the impulse to slam on the brakes. The snow was deep and very wet, with a thick layer of compressed ice beneath. The van wallowed, the heavier rear trying to swing past and outrun the front. Oh no no no, God, God, don’t lose it!

“Emma!” Lily screeched. “Look out, look out, look out!”

Emma’s eyes snapped to the road just in time to see a flash, dead ahead: a sudden bright pop like the death of a light bulb after a blown fuse.

“Shit!” Emma jinked right, much too sharply. Already skidding on a knife’s edge of control, the van’s wheels locked, the rear slewed, and Emma felt the van begin to spin at the same moment she realized that this was not lightning dead ahead but a light: a single bald eye, bouncing and bright and very large—and growing.

“NO!” Lily screamed.

ERIC Poof

1

SNOW BLASTED HIS helmet. The west wind screeched like a cat. Eric wrestled the Skandic Ski-Doo back on course, leaning and carving through deep snow as the sky flared with a flash of lightning. The storm’s fingers pried and tugged at the loose folds of his jacket, slipping in through minute gaps in the zipper, chilling him to the bone. He couldn’t feel his face and, worse, the shakes had him now: one part cold, three parts shock. Fear kept slithering up his throat, trying to suffocate him.

What have I done? What am I going to do now?

A crisp click in his helmet and then a voice sizzled through the tiny speaker: “Eric?”

“Yeah, Case.” His voice came out strained, a little breathless. Come on, get a grip. You’ll just freak him out more than he is already. “What’s up?”

“Do you know where we are?”

“Sure, we’re—” He stopped. They were on a road.

A road?

Whoa, wait, that wasn’t right. When had they left the trail? His eyes flicked left, then right. The sled’s sole headlight was good but not great, and it was like trying to look beyond the limits of a silver fishbowl. He made out a forested hill on the left: a black-on-white expanse that rose beyond the limits of his headlight, the snow-shrouded trees slipping away as he passed. The hill felt large, too high, a little unreal.

Mountains. There were mountains? Actual high peaks? In Wisconsin? Swallowed by dark and snow, he couldn’t see to the very tops, but he just had this feeling that it was true. To his right was a black chasm of a valley, its drop-off outlined in the intermittent wink of green reflectors along a guardrail.

What was going on? His eyes fell to the Skandic’s odometer, his brows knotting to a frown. The gauge said they’d already gone sixty miles. That far? In the storm, their speed hovered around fifteen. Do the math, and they’d been on their sleds for four hours.

That had to be wrong. They ought to be home by now. He tried to recall if they’d passed a single town. There were three on the way to the cabin, seen from the trails as glittering strings laced through the trees like Christmas decorations, but he didn’t remember having seen any towns or lights at all, and now they were on a road curling around a mountain that shouldn’t exist, not in Wisconsin. When had they left the snowmobile trail?

He said, “Case, how long have we been on this road?”

“I don’t …” Whatever Casey said next was garbled by static.

“Say again, Case.”

More static. “I … ember. It …”

Interference from the storm, he guessed, which made some sense. Their system was old and hardwired into each sled’s battery, with headsets plugged into jacks. Eric did a quick peek and tapped the side of his helmet to signal Case to say again. A second later, there was more fuzz, and then Casey’s voice stuttered through the hash: “… said I don’t remember. I’ve been following you and … peekaboo, I see you. You can’t run, you can’t hide, and it’s time, boy, time to come down and play, come and plaaay, come …”

Jesus. “Case?” Eric twisted to look back at his brother. “What are you—”

Whatever had his throat cinched down tight.

Because Big Earl was there, right behind him, slouched in the rumble seat.

Big Earl, who was …

2

“IS HE DEAD?” Casey’s cheeks are streaked with tears; a slick of snot smears his upper lip. His jeans puddle around his ankles. The whippy wood switch has slashed right through Casey’s flannel shirt, scoring the boy’s skin with angry red wheals and splashes of blood. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know.” But that’s a lie. In the space of eight months, the Marines have turned him from a gawky eighteen-year-old kid into a very fine killing machine. So he knows. His right hand cramps, and he forces his fingers to relax. The empty bottle of Miller Lite—Great Taste! Less Filling!—thuds to the cabin’s rough floorboards. Eric watches the bottle roll a halfturn, then another, and butt his father’s left leg.

Big Earl doesn’t flinch, and is beyond telling Eric just how badly he’s going to hurt him. Instead, Eric’s father stares up at the bare rafters, his muddy brown eyes at half-mast, his liverish lips sagging in a slack O. There is something off about Big Earl’s head. That dent in his left temple, mainly. A thick red tongue leaks from the split in his father’s scalp. More blood dribbles from his left ear to soak into a tired braid rug.

A blast of wind buffets the cabin. The windows rattle in their frames with a sound like bones. That breaks the spell. Blinking away from the body, Eric looks up. The afternoon is nearly gone, dark only a couple hours away.

They have to get out. They can’t stay here. He has to think. He can’t think. What’s wrong with him? The world has gone a little soft around the edges, a bit out of focus. The cabin’s hot, the air sullen with the stink of rancid beer and fresh blood. Maybe call the police? No, no, they’ll throw him in jail, and he doesn’t deserve that. This isn’t his fault. Big Earl pulled his gun; Big Earl squeezed the trigger.

They have to get out.

Sidestepping the body and a litter of empties scattered around a puke-green Barcalounger, Eric goes to his brother. “Come on, Case,” he says, gently. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

“Oh-okay.” Casey’s flop of blond hair is damp with sweat. His eyes, an indefinite storm-cloud gray and now watery and red-rimmed, slide to Big Earl. Casey makes a strangled sound. “I’m going to be sick, I’m going to …”

They get to the kitchen sink just in time. Afterward, Eric turns on the cold water full blast. The cabin has a septic system and no garbage disposal. They’ll probably stop up the pipes. Big Earl always yelled when they clogged the johns: Who the hell used the whole roll on his ass?

“Hang on.” Eric snatches an old dishrag from a towel bar, soaks the cloth in cold water, and wipes his brother’s mouth. “Better?”

“Yeah.” Tears leak over Casey’s cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.” Eric pitches the soiled rag into the garbage can under the sink. “It was an accident.”

Actually, it was self-defense. The sight of Big Earl standing over Casey with that switch of whippy ash; the whickering sound that damn thing made as it cut the air … Something in Eric just broke. Eighteen years of pain and empty promises: God, enough was enough. Two long strides, and then he was wrestling away the switch, snapping it over his knee. Big Earl had turned with a drunken bellow—and that’s when Eric saw the Glock in his father’s fist, the bore larger than the world. Eric ducked as the gun roared. A bullet zinged by his ear, but then the bottle was in Eric’s hand and he swung.

And like that, Eric’s future went poof! Up in smoke.

3

HE WON’T LET Case come along, but tells his brother to find something to replace his ruined clothes—even one of Big Earl’s shirts, if it comes down to it—and be ready to go just as soon as he gets back. Where they would go, how far they ought to run … Eric hopes that works itself out.

The drifts are high. Big Earl is 250 pounds of dead meat, so the ride out on the sled takes time. Four miles from the cabin, Eric squeezes the brake and cuts the engine. He sits a moment, listening to the howl of the wind, the rasp of ice crystals spinning over snow, the dull whump of heavy snow sliding off a drooping evergreen. A hard winter. A lot of animals starving, he bets.

He has to peel out of his gloves to untie Big Earl. His fingers shake and he can’t make them work right, but he finally gets the job done. Then he stands a moment, staring down at the body slumped in the Skandic’s rumble seat. Except for the blood and that dent, Big Earl looks almost normal. Well, for a drunk sleeping it off.

Parents are supposed to take care of their kids. A kid shouldn’t have to join the Marines and risk ending up as roadkill or minus a couple body parts, all so he can scrape together enough money for college and not get the crap beaten out of him by his own dad.

Planting a booted foot, he gives the body a shove. For a long moment, nothing happens. Then his father’s body shifts and slews sideways in a languid swoon, settling to the snow like a sack of dirty laundry.

“I’m not sorry you’re dead,” Eric says as he throttles up the Skandic. He pulls away without a backward glance. “I don’t care.”

Yet when he reaches the cabin and puts a hand to his face, he feels tears there: frozen to his cheeks, hard as diamonds.

4

NOW, BIG EARL was back. Big Earl was right there; had hitched a ride on this lost road to nowhere. His father’s head was lopsided, caved in where the bottle had crushed bone and brain. His wifebeater was a bib of gore, and Big Earl’s brains slopped in a grotesque tangle of moist pink worms.

“NO!” Eric shrieked. His hands clamped down hard on the Skandic’s handlebars, sending him into a sharp turn he didn’t want. The Skandic canted in a scream of snow, first right and then a grinding left as he carved deep, trying to compensate. Casey was yelling something, but Eric didn’t answer, couldn’t. Was that thing still on the sled? No, no, the weight wasn’t right; the weight had never been right; it was never there to begin with. Get control, get control! He felt the sled hit something—a chunk of ice, maybe; a rock; it didn’t matter. The Skandic bounced, and then the runners stuttered as the sled spun.

“Eric!” Casey’s voice now, spiking through Eric’s helmet speaker: “Eric, look out look out look out!”

A sudden wash of silver-blue swept around the curve fifty feet ahead, and then twin shafts of light pinned him like a bug. Above the roar of the storm, he heard the churn of the car’s engine coming on way too fast.

Frantic, Eric jerked the sled hard left. The sled skated, skipped, drifted sideways, the runners skittering, and he felt the machine buck and jump between his thighs. At the same moment, he realized that the car—no, it was a van, big and blocky and still coming—was shrieking into a drunken skid, out of control, grinding right for him.

For one long, nightmarish second, the world slowed down. Eric saw the right rear fender swinging in a wide arc, heard Casey screaming in his helmet, felt the stutter of the Skandic’s engine in his legs, even saw the white blur of a face—a girl—swimming behind frosted glass.

He was going to die. This was what Big Earl wanted; this was his revenge. The van would kill Eric when it hit, or the Skandic would rocket off the road and smash into the guardrail. The snowmobile would stop, but he would not. He would keep going, catapulted like a stone into the black void of the valley, and he would fall a long, long way down to where Big Earl waited.

Only one chance.

He took it.

ERIC A Gasp in Time

1

ERIC JUMPED—A WILD, desperate leap—hurtling left as the van slewed right. For a second, it felt as if he simply hung there, suspended in midair, like Keanu Reeves dodging a bullet. Through the spume of snow splattered on his faceplate, he saw the massive bulk of the van growing larger and larger, darker than the night. The red eye of the van’s taillight, hot and angry, loomed and became the world, and he thought, I’m dead.

The van sliced by, shaving air less than six inches away: so close he felt the suck as it swept through space. He thudded face-first into the snow, the stiff plastic of his breakaway faceplate jamming hard enough to flip up and click free of its tabs. A bright white pain shot through as his teeth sank into his tongue, and then he was choking, his mouth filling with blood.

Above the roar in his ears came a high shriek of metal—and then, for just an instant, the world seemed to skip: a gasp in time and space, as if the storm had taken a deep breath and held it.

Someone started to scream.

Eric pushed up on trembling arms. His head was swimmy with pain. Panting, he hung on hands and knees like a dog, his brain swirling, coppery blood drizzling from his mouth. Then he dragged his head around, and his breath died somewhere deep.

Oh my God.

2

THE VAN HAD jumped the barrier. It should’ve kept going, tumbling over the lip of the road to crash into the valley below. Instead, the van hung on a ruin of crumpled metal, like the badly balanced plank of a kid’s teeter-totter. The van’s lights were still on, and the engine was running, but just barely, coughing and knocking in hard death rattles bad enough to make the chassis shudder. The air smelled of acrid smoke and hot oil.

In the van, someone was screaming in a long, continuous lash of sound. Eric saw the van bounce and begin to rock up and down, up and—

No, no! “Stop moving, don’t move, don’t move!” Ripping off his helmet, Eric swarmed to his feet and began to run, bawling over his shoulder, “Casey! Get your headlight on the van!”

As light flooded over the vehicle, the driver—the girl he’d seen spin by—leapt into being, framed in a rectangle of iced glass, frozen in an instant out of time. In the glare of the headlight, her hair was dark, and her skin, a cold bone-white. For a bizarre moment, Eric thought she looked dead already.

“Listen!” he bellowed over the wind. “The van’s jumped the barrier. The front end’s left the road. Do you understand?” When she nodded, he said, “Okay, unlock the doors, but don’t do anything else. Don’t move!”

There came the thunk of locks being disengaged, and then all the windows buzzed down, and he thought, okay, that was pretty smart. Lowering the windows would allow the wind to flow through the van instead of push against it. She’d already popped her shoulder harness, too, but wasn’t moving otherwise. Very smart.

“Hi.” Her voice was shaky, but she wasn’t going to pieces on him either. Smart, cool in a crisis—and she seemed familiar somehow. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. What’s your name?” His drill sergeant said if you called the wounded by name, they wouldn’t die. Probably Marine voodoo, but it couldn’t hurt.

“Emma.”

“I’m Eric.” He saw something flit through her face—surprise?—but then he was arming snow from his face and eyeing the back door on her side. The handle was within reach and tempting, but his angle was off, and he was afraid of unbalancing the van. “Who else is in there?”

“Just Lily.” Emma opened her mouth to say something else, but then a sudden shock of wind grabbed the Dodge, and her eyes went wide.

“Easy.” His heart was jammed into the back of his throat. “It’ll be okay. Take it easy.”

“I’m … I’m trying,” she said in a breathless wheeze. The van creaked, and then it began to rock: up, then down, then up.

“Eric,” Casey said from somewhere behind. His voice rose: “Eric, Eric, the van; the van’s going to …”

There came a scream, short and sharp as a stiletto, and then the other girl was turning around, trying to scramble over the front seat: “What are you waiting for? Get us out, get us out, get us out!”

“Lily!” Emma shouted, and Eric could see from that tight grimace that it took all her self-control not to look around. “Don’t move, Lily, don’t—” There was a loud squall, and Lily screamed again as the van dipped and slipped another inch and then two.

Eric didn’t even think about it. His right hand pistoned out to wrap around the handle on the driver’s side back door. As the van tipped in a drunken sway, Eric backpedaled, but the vehicle outweighed him by nearly two tons, and his heels only scoured troughs from the snow.

“Eric!” Casey shouted. “Eric, let go, let go!”

The van lurched. There came a long grind of metal, a high screech as something tore, and then Eric was choking against the stink of gasoline blooming from the ruptured fuel line. The van’s headlights swung down, the arc lengthening with a rending, gnashing clash of metal against metal.

Inside, Lily was shrieking: “Do something do something do something!”

All of a sudden, the back tipped, and Eric’s feet left the ground. No, no, no! For one dizzying, horrifying instant, Eric saw himself hurtling over the barrier, his arms and legs pin-wheeling through the dark all the way down. Then Eric’s knees banged into the ruined guardrail; a jagged edge ripped through his jeans to slice meat, and he grunted with sudden pain.

“Emma, come on!” Stretching his left hand, Eric leaned so far forward that there was nothing but air beneath his chest, and still he couldn’t bridge the gap. Emma’s hand was maybe four inches away, but those inches might as well have been miles. “Give me your hand, Emma,” he pleaded, desperately. “Give me your hand!”

She tried. He felt her fingers brush his, and he grabbed, fumbled to hang on—and for an instant, he had her, he had her …

Then the van tilted. The front fender chopped air … and Eric slipped. Blame the snow; blame that he was off-balance or the sudden list of the van. Whatever. He just couldn’t hold on. His hand slid away and he thudded to the snow in a heap.

No, no, no, don’t you screw this up! Rolling, he got his boots planted, swarmed back to his feet. Save her, save her, save—

3

THE VAN BELLOWED, loud and long, in a tired, grinding groan. Held up by nothing more than twisted metal hooked under the rear axle, the overbalanced undercarriage hitched, skipping out another sudden, violent half-foot before the rear axle finally snapped.

The van slid away: there one moment and then not. It plunged into the dark, and Emma vanished.

But he heard Lily—all the way down.

RIMA So Never Digging Around a Goodwill Ghost-Bin

1

IN THE HOUR before dark, the storm came on fast. They spotted just one other vehicle: a truck, judging by those taillights. The truck was perhaps an eighth of a mile ahead, visible only as an intermittent flicker of red, although every now and again, Rima spotted a faint drift of black. Truck was burning oil, probably.

“Man,” Tony said, “I hope this guy knows where he’s going. Otherwise, we are completely screwed.”

“Why?” Rima asked.

“Well, we ought’ve gotten to Merit by now.” Tony said Merit was a dinky little town, which had to be right, because she couldn’t find it, not even in the road atlas. “But the valley’s wrong. This part of Wisconsin’s pretty flat. And those mountains we saw just before dark? They’re not right either.”

Oh, perfect. Rima didn’t want to say, You got us lost? All the umpteen trillion counselors she and Anita had seen said that negative statements weren’t helpful. The problem was the only positive things Rima could think of were along the lines of, Wow, Anita, you only sucked down three pipes instead of four? You go, girl! So she said, “Have we passed any place you recognize?”

“No,” Tony said, after a long moment. “Can’t say we have.”

So they were lost. The thought made her hug herself tighter—and oh boy, big mistake. A jag of bright, splintery pain radiated to her right jaw, and then her cheek exploded: ker-POW! Grimacing, Rima trapped the moan behind her teeth, thought to the kid’s whisper: Calm down, honey, it’ll be okay. In a few seconds, the pain’s grip loosened and she could breathe again.

Idiot. The parka was her fault, a Goodwill refugee with duct tape slapped here and there to mend the holes. The parka’s previous owner had been a little girl, barely twelve, named Taylor. You wouldn’t think that would be a problem, except Taylor’s final moments were a jumble of glassy pain and a single clear thought: Daddy, don’t hurt me; I’ll be good, I promise! The asshole killed her anyway, pitching the kid over a fourth-floor balcony to break on the sidewalk like a raw egg.

To be honest, Rima had nearly tossed the parka back with the other whispers: drug addicts, an old lady murdered by her son, a guy with high blood pressure whose last, very bad decision was to mow the grass on a hundred-degree day. Leaving behind poor little Taylor felt wrong, though; no one but a screwed-up parent could so completely mess with your head. So she took the poor kid.

Swear to God, though, when she grew up and actually had some money? Rima was so never digging around a Goodwill ghost-bin. Like, ever.

2

FATHER PRESTON, THE headmaster at All Souls, called it a gift. Her drug-fogged mother thought she was possessed. Rima just called them whispers, the bloodstains of the dead. Once Rima touched something for long enough—soothing, drawing—the whispers eventually dissipated, like morning mist under a hot sun. Whispers such as Taylor’s, whose death had been violent, took longest and were acid in her veins.

Of course, Rima was to blame for her mother’s drug habit because, oh, the strain of living with a possessed kid. There had been spiritualists, psychics, and so much incense you needed a gas mask. A hatchet-faced voodoo priestess was the worst, graduating from a raw egg squirreled under Rima’s bed to catch the departing demon—Rima’s room stank like an old fart for a week—to a noxious stew of ammonia, vinegar, and olive oil Rima was supposed to toss back with a smile. Uh … wrong. That voodoo chick was always trying to spill Rima’s blood, too. The crazy bitch never said cut; she always said spill, like Rima was this big glass and whoopsie-daisy, look at that mess. Not a lot of blood, Anita explained: Just a half-cup to feed the spirits.

Oh, well, when you put it like that … If Anita wasn’t so dead serious loopy, the whole thing might’ve been funny. Eventually, the voodoo also went bye-bye, either because Anita got tired of Rima being just so ungrateful, or the priestess thought she was a lost cause. Whatever.

The damage was done, though. Last week, dead of night, her mother got her supplier to pick the lock of Rima’s bedroom. Before Rima knew what was happening, the supplier had pinned her wrists while Anita pressed a very long, wickedly sharp boning knife to Rima’s throat. No spilling, not for Anita, nosirreebob: she was going all the way.

The only reason Rima survived was the supplier got cold feet and booked. After another tense half hour, Anita drifted off from all that meth she’d smoked to work up the nerve and then all the downers she popped to take the edge off. It took Rima what felt like a century to ease out from under, and even then the knife won, the keen edge scoring her flesh with a hot spider’s bite.

That was just too darned close. Stick around, and one morning she’d wake up shish kebab. Forget Child Protective Services; they’d only shuffle her from foster home to foster home for the next two years until she turned eighteen. Then it was a handshake and YOYO, baby.

Why wait?

3

CALIFORNIA OR CANADA, she figured. California had the movies; maybe she could learn makeup or something. Canada … well, everyone in Minnesota who wanted out went to Canada, but only because it was closer than Mexico.

Her thumb got her to Grand Rapids. After a night shivering in the thin light of the visitor’s center doorway, she was contemplating the merits of a bus to Milwaukee when Tony’s vintage Camry, a drafty four-door hatchback from the early Pleistocene, rattled into the lot, trailing a single crow that bobbed along like a black balloon on an invisible string.

Okay, crows were bad. But there was only the one. So maybe this wouldn’t be so much of a problem. She decided to chance it.

They got to talking. He was a preacher’s kid, not a born-again, and a nice guy. Same age, same grade, and from his stories, the public high school bullshit factor sounded about the same as Catholic school’s, minus the uniforms and grim-faced nuns, some of whom could definitely use a shave.

When he offered a lift, she said yes, despite the crow. Settling into the front passenger seat, she cringed as the whisper sighed and cupped her body.

“You okay?” Tony asked. “I know the seat’s a little shot, but I got the car for a song.”

Yeah, no shit. No one would want a car whose last passenger had, literally, lost her head when the impact catapulted her right out that busted windshield like a cannonball.

“I’m fine,” she said, and this was true. The woman had been dead-drunk when she died. A fuzzy moment of awareness, a spike of fear, and then blam! No white light, no meet-up with old friends and family, no floating around for final good-byes or if-I-stays. Just hello, darkness, my old friend, which meant the dead woman’s whisper was easily soothed. After an hour, Rima couldn’t finish a sentence without punctuating with a yawn. Dropping her seat, she blacked out, only coming to when

4

THERE’S A THUNK of a lock and a squeal of hinges as Tony drops into the driver’s seat, wreathed in the aroma of fried eggs, salty grease, and coffee.

“Here.” He thrusts a large brown paper sack into her hands. “I didn’t know if you liked ham or sausage, so I got one of each. There’s coffee, too, and some sugar and milk. Or they’ve got that artificial stuff, in case you like that, or orange juice.”

“No, this is great. Thanks.” The paper sack warms her hands, and the aroma is so good her stomach moans. She hasn’t eaten in almost two days. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I know. It’s just I would’ve felt guilty eating in front of you.”

He doesn’t lie well. He could easily have wolfed something inside and she’d never have known. “I don’t have a lot of money,” she says, which is the truth. Her nest egg’s a whopping $81.27, all that was left after her mother found her stash. Again. All that coke, it’s a miracle Anita still has a nose, much less a sense of smell. Dirty socks Anita’ll let go until they sprout hair and teeth and start moving up the evolutionary ladder, but squirrel away a wad of cash? Then the woman morphs into a frigging bloodhound.

A blush stains Tony’s jaw. “Hey, don’t worry about that. You’re doing me the favor. Otherwise, I’d have nothing to do but listen to the radio, and all they talk about are those murders. Can you imagine that poor kid finding—”

“How about we eat inside?” The last thing she wants to dwell on is death, especially murder. “It’ll be warmer and we won’t mess up your car.”

“Too late,” Tony says, throwing a rueful glance. The Camry’s backseat is strewn with clothing, crumpled fast-food bags, three shoeboxes of cassettes—mostly Lloyd Webber musicals (if Rima hears “I Dreamed a Dream” one more time, she might be forced to hurt someone), a wheezy old cassette recorder, vintage comics like Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror, and a couple Lovecrafts with nightmare covers of gruesome monsters boiling with tentacles.

She laughs. “How about we don’t mess it up more than it is already? Those comic books must’ve cost a fortune.”

“Um, no, I paid regular price, but it’d be nicer inside, yeah.” Tony’s grin is hesitant, but when it comes, his whole face lights up. With his mop of brown curls and light blue eyes, he’s really pretty handsome.

“Great,” she says, and reaches for the door handle.

“Hang on.” He depresses the master lock on his door. “The power locks are all screwed up so you can only open them from my side. I keep meaning to get them fixed.”

Crossing the lot, she spots the birds: five very large, glossy black crows ranged round a rust-red truck slotted beneath a gnarly, naked maple. Four crows brood on a trio of low-hanging branches, their inky talons clamped tight. A fifth teeters above the grinning grill like a bizarre ornament.

She knows, instantly. Death—very recent, very strong—has touched that truck. Like the crow floating above Tony’s Camry, the birds are a dead giveaway, no pun intended. The more there are, the closer they come to a house or car or place, the more violent the death. One bird, she can handle. Times when whole flocks blanket the roof at the Goodwill, she takes a pass. And forget cemeteries.

“You okay?” Tony tosses a look at the truck. “What?”

“Nothing.” He doesn’t see the crows. No one normal ever does. Still, as she hurries inside the rest stop, she holds her breath. She doesn’t actually believe that old saw about breathing in dead spirits, but there’s always a first time for everything and she has enough problems.

Just as she’s about to turn into the ladies’ room, a hard-faced kid in baggy, olive-green fatigues cuts a sharp dogleg. “Hey,” she says, pulling up short. “Watch it.”

“Say what?” He whirls, incredibly fast, his fists coming up. The kid’s pupils are huge, black holes rimmed with a sliver of sky blue. Then he spazzes, blinking away from whatever horror show he’s watching. “Oh. Hey,” he says. “I’m sorry. I thought you were—”

“Hey, Bode!” Another kid, also in olive drab, stands at a table in the fast-food joint. Even at this distance, she spots the angry sore pitting the left corner of his mouth, and the kid’s so meth-head jittery he could scramble a couple eggs.

“Hey, Chad,” Bode says. And then to Rima: “I got to go.” Before she can shrink back, he puts a hand on her arm. “You sure you’re okay?”

His touch is volcanic, atomic, so hot she can feel the death cooking into her flesh. “Oh, yeah,” she says, faintly. “I’m good.”

As soon as he lets her go, she bolts into the bathroom, making it to a stall just in time. Later, as the taste of vomit sours her mouth, she hangs over the bowl—lucky for her, no one died on that seat—and thinks about Bode. The guy’s touch was mercifully brief and fragmentary, but she’d seen enough. Ten to one, he’s that truck with the death-crows. The real question is who, exactly, is dead?

Because when Bode touched her, he changed. Just for an instant, but enough so she saw Bode’s head—

5

“OH, HECK,” SAID Tony.

Rima blinked back to the here and now. “What?”

“The truck’s gone,” Tony returned grimly.

“Maybe there’s a turnoff.” Something sparkled then, and she squinted through the snow frothing the windshield. Way off to the right, there was a sharp glint—glass?—and something very black and formless floating over the snow. “Is that …?” She almost said smoke, but the word died halfway to her teeth.

Not smoke.

Crows.

And, in a crush of splintered trees, an overturned van.