by Ilsa J. Bick
Lizzie fishes up her mother’s phone. Crackling with the energy of Lizzie’s thought-magic, the magic-glass of her memory quilt is a shimmering dazzle. The special Sign of Sure, the tool her dad has used to get himself back and forth from Nows through the Dark Passages, is as iridescent as the Milky Way. But she thinks the fog has to be much closer. Maybe she has to let it inside, allow it to slip into and wear her the way she does the book-people and her dolls. The way her father has invited whatever’s in the Dark Passages.
But he’s done it with blood, by cutting himself, so will this work? Can I grab it hard enough?
She just doesn’t know. Yet this she does understand: everyone wants what they can’t have, same as when Lizzie whines for a second scoop of chocolate ice cream. They especially want what’s hard to get.
So make the whisper-man mad. Make it really work hard, get so greedy-pissed it flies for her like a moth to the hottest flame, so it doesn’t get what Lizzie’s doing until way too late.
I’ll show you. Come on, you big show-off. Let’s play my game. She thumbs the phone to silence. The cell rings again at once. This time, she turns off the power, which she already knows won’t make a dent, and it doesn’t. When the phone begins to chirp again, she pitches the machine into the black mouth of the foot well because there is no way, no way she’s answering again. Let that whisper-man stew. That’ll show him.
“Good girl,” Mom says, misunderstanding. As Lizzie scrambles to buckle in, her mother chokes back another sob. “I’m so sorry, Lizzie.”
“It’s okay, Mom.” She knuckles away tears. “It’s going to catch us, isn’t it?”
“If it really wants us, yes. I don’t think there’s much I can do about that, but it’ll have to work to do it.” Her mother’s foot drops and the car surges with a roar. “Listen to me, Lizzie, this is important. If it wants something … if it needs to bind someone, it can take me. I won’t let it hurt you, honey, but you have to promise me to run, run as far away as you can, and don’t look back, all right? I’ll be …” Her voice wavers, then firms. “I’ll be able to hold it. But you run, promise?”
“I promise,” Lizzie says, already knowing that this is a pinky-swear she will break. Run, and as bad as this is, she thinks things could get to be a hundred million zillion times worse, because there is so much power here, enough to break this Now wide open. So what happens next won’t be up to her mother.
Come on, come and get me. As the woods spin by beyond the car, Lizzie hunkers down into her memory quilt. Behind her, hanging in the air, the symbols for Lizzie’s new Now hum and purple with a weird, mad energy drawn from ideas deep down cellar and from the dark where the strongest—the worst—imaginings live. Just a few more seconds and one more symbol …
Come on, come get me, Lizzie thinks. Get mad and want me, wear me, want me.
EMMA
A Choice Between Red and Blue
1
FROM HER PLACE on the snow-covered farmhouse porch, Emma watched the red wink of taillights disappear into a mouth of darkness that finally closed, swallowing up that creaky old Dodge. God, she didn’t want to let Eric out of her sight. What would happen to him if she weren’t around?
Well, I’m sure to find out. She pressed a finger to an aching temple. Her head killed, probably a combination of concussion and all those blinks, a lot of them. Too many. Ever since waking up in this valley, she’d been zoning out, losing chunks of time. She didn’t think the others had noticed, although Casey—that nasty kid, someone she’d never have imagined related to Eric—kept throwing her speculative looks.
I see the same girl, too, over and over again, in every blink. Kid even has a name, and that’s a first. “Lizzie,” she said, trying it out in her mouth. Saying the little girl’s name made all those blinks feel much more real, not like dreams at all but as if she was a stunt double slotting into a film of Lizzie’s life. Not completely in the kid’s head but close. And everything I see is happening to her right now, at this moment. This last time, the kid had been … running from something? Afraid of her dad; something happened to her father. She thought that was right. Emma just couldn’t quite grab hold of what it was about Lizzie’s dad that was freaking the kid out, although she retained a wisp of an image: Dad doing something really, really scary in front of a very odd mirror.
Coming back from these blinks was so different, too, like surfacing with the tangles of nightmares clinging to her like sticky seaweed. They feel like memories, something I’ve always known. She had this odd notion that if her brain was a hallway lined with doors, all she had to do was open the right one to walk into Lizzie’s life.
Or pull her into mine. A weird thought. And this last blink … “Want me, wear me,” she whispered, hugging herself against the cold. Tony’s space blanket let out a tired crinkle like soggy cellophane. “What does that mean, Lizzie?” Made about as much sense as Jasper going on about … “Dark Passages,” she said, slowly, to the still, cold night. “Lizzie knows about them—and different Nows? Like Jasper? But Jasper was drunk half the time.”
Was Jasper talking about something that exists? The fingers of another shiver skipped up the rungs of her spine. No matter how many times she’d asked, her guardian never had explained. In the end, she’d chalked it up to the fact that he was pretty permanently pickled. But what if the Dark Passages and the Nows are why he drank? Not just to forget or because he was so freaked. What if Jasper drank so it—they?—couldn’t find him? This idea had an itchy, tip-of-the-tongue feeling, something that felt true. As if I once knew this but … forgot?
Another, more bizarre thought: Or is this something I was made to forget?
“Oh, don’t be stupid, you nut.” A flare of impatience. “Jasper was soaked, and the blinks are seizures. They’re hallucinations, like dreams. Of course, you’re going to slot in stuff you know about. That’s the way dreams and hallucinations are.” Yeah, but she didn’t know a Lizzie.
“Emma, stop, you’re not going to solve this right now.” She really ought to go inside. Yet the idea made a twist of fear coil in her gut. Why? It was stupid. There was light inside the house, and it was warm. There was food. She could still smell the faint, rich aroma of cheddar from a mac and cheese casserole. Bode and Chad seemed fine, if a little odd.
But this farmhouse … I have seen you before, over and over again. In the blinks? Yes, and no: she thought she’d actually seen a picture of the house somewhere. She ran her eyes over the porch railing, the bay window, that snow-covered swing on its chains. Come spring, she’d bet money a froth of red geraniums would replace the mounds of white humped in those hanging planters.
If spring ever comes to a place like this. Swaddled in the space blanket and her parka, still damp with gasoline, she shivered as much from cold as a sudden premonition that, maybe, it was always night here, and cold. And that’s got something to do with Wyoming. Those license plates are important. But I’ve never been to Wyoming.
“Oh, don’t be a nut just because you can,” she said, watching her breath bunch in a gelid knot. Her eye drifted from the porch and past Eric’s snowmobile to that huge, outsize barn soaring up from the snow. Wisconsin was lousy with red gable-roofed barns with stone foundations and sliders and haymows and cupolas to draw in air and dry out the hay. But this thing was ginormous, much too big—and wrong, too. Why? Her gaze brushed over the exterior walls, then roamed over the gabled roof.
“No cupola,” she said after a moment. “No sliders, not even a ramp.” There was a door but no windows of any kind. The walls were blank. It was as she’d said to Eric: the skeleton of a movie set, someone’s idea of what a farm—a barn—should be.
“Or maybe it’s all the barn you need.” Then she thought, What? Enough barn for whom?
“Hey, Emma, you nut … what if this is a blink? You ever think about that? Or maybe you’re dreaming.” Hadn’t there been some movie about this? “Inception,” she said, and then more loudly: “So, okay, go ahead, kick me. I’d like to wake up now.”
Of course, nothing happened. “Right,” she snorted, watching how her breath smoked in the icy air. “It’s not like Morpheus is going to show up and give you a choice between red and blue. Get a grip.”
Scooping snow from the porch railing, she cupped it in her bare hands, grimacing at the burn. “So that’s real.” She held the snow to her nose and sniffed. Frowned. “But funky.” Snow had an odor, something that she associated with frigid, frosty, old-fashioned trays of ice cubes. This particular scent was thicker and metallic, but not aluminum. Copper? The image of Jasper’s heap of a pickup flashed in the middle of her mind. Yeah, same smell: wet, cold rust. Still, this was real snow.
And my head hurts. Brushing powder from her hands, she gingerly probed her bandaged forehead with a forefinger. Beneath the gauze and her skin, she could feel the circle of her titanium skull plate. So that, or rather she, was—
2
BLINK.
“Oh boy.” She was inside, with no memory of having opened the door. She threw a glance at the braided mat upon which she stood. Her shoes were bone-dry: no melting snow, no puddles. To her surprise, the house was a little chilly; she pressed the back of one hand to the tip of her nose. Cold as a brass button. Bet it’s red as Rudolph’s, too.
“Okay,” she breathed, and felt the house fold down a bit, crouch closer—which was … pretty crazy. Exactly like when I read The Bell Jar this past summer; felt that damn thing coming down, trapping me like a lightning bug under a jelly glass. Yet she heard nothing in the house. Not a creak. Not a crack or pop, none of the tiny settling sounds any normal house made. No hoosh of a furnace either. She threw a glance at the ceiling and then down at the floor. Whoa, no vents. No registers or radiators. So how are they heating this thing?
Except for the gleaming hardwood floor, which held this single colorful braided rug, the foyer was a white-walled cube. No pictures. No paintings. Ahead and to the left, she saw a circular flight of stairs that twisted around and around, seemingly forever. Like the barn, the too-large stairs belonged in a little kid’s fairy-tale version of a mansion or castle, and was all wrong. Another hall—black as a tomb and lined with closed doors—ran to the left of the stairs and went on a long way.
Just walls and a front door with sidelights. A hall with a lot of doors. Outside, there’s a porch, a swing, hanging planters, but no storm door. No doorbell or peephole. She threw a look back at the door. Not even a lock. Her eyes zeroed in on the smooth brass knob.
“No keyhole,” she said. “It’s just a knob. Everything’s been stripped down to the bare minimum, like the barn. Because this is all the house you need?” All the house who needs? “Maybe I’m not thinking about this the right way. Maybe”—she cocked her head at the ceiling—“maybe this is all the house needs.”
To her left, something cleared its throat with a faint sputter.
“Huh!” Clapping a hand to her mouth, she held back a scream. She could feel her eyes trying to bug out of their sockets. What was that? Coming from that gloomy corridor … Her breath was coming too hard and fast to hear over, and she raked her upper lip with her teeth, focusing on the pain. Calm down, you nut. Just … music? No. Concentrating, she worked to reel in the sound and caught a static crackle, a gabble of nonsense syllables, a sizzle and hiss.
“Radio.” The word floated on a sigh of relief. Freak yourself out, why don’t you? Or maybe a TV Bode and Chad had left on. Had there been a satellite dish on the roof? She didn’t remember one, and this house was way the hell and gone. No way it got cable. So this was more than likely a radio.
I should look for it. Eventually, they’ll give the call sign, or if I really luck out and there’s a weather band … She pushed away a sudden woozy sense of déjà vu. Hadn’t this been exactly what she’d said to Lily only a few hours ago? Well, so what if this is a weather band? This was a farm, duh; farmers cared about weather just like ships’ pilots and fishermen. If I can find the radio, I’ll know where we are.
“Hah,” she muttered, “easy for you to say.” Carefully inching from the mat, she let herself ease a foot away but still close enough to the door to bolt if she needed to. If the house lets me out. “Stop it, Emma,” she said. Shutting her eyes, she cocked her head like a dog trying to decipher a command, and listened. Where was this coming from?
Well, you could go look, you coward. But she couldn’t make herself move any further than she already had. A spider of new fear scurried up her neck and stroked another deep shudder. “What are you waiting for, Emma?” she murmured. “An engraved invitation?”
And was she talking only to herself?
No. She ran her eyes over the blank walls, the improbable staircase, the smooth ceiling. I’m talking to you, House—and then she sucked in a quick breath as she realized something that neither she nor Eric had seen before, that just hadn’t clicked.
There was light in this house, glaring and bright. But there were no fixtures. No bulbs, no lamps, nothing—only that single pole lamp in front of the barn.
Because you wanted to make sure we saw that barn, didn’t you, House? Just in case we happened to miss the fact that it’s as big as a mountain?
“You,” she said to herself, “are creeping yourself out.” With good reason, though: this valley, the house, the stillness, this sudden radio gibberish, if that’s what it even was … none of this belonged.
“You don’t belong either, House.” Her voice came out flat. “It’s like you’re alive. I feel you watching me, waiting for me to make a move …”
3
SHE BLINKED BACK.
She stood at a bathroom sink, over which a wall-mounted, mirrored medicine chest hung. The glass was fogged with condensation. Her hair was damp, and the air was steamy and smelled of floral shampoo. A fluffy white towel was hung neatly over a steel shower curtain rod. The curtain itself was gauzy white and decorated with the black silhouette of a cat at the lower left staring up at a tiny mouse at the right.
Cat-and-mouse is right. Looking down at herself, she saw that she now wore fresh jeans and a turquoise turtleneck that brought out the deep sapphire of her eyes. Must’ve raided a closet or something. Even blinked out, she always could color-coordinate.
And now I’m in front of a mirror, and there was a mirror in that blink about Lizzie’s dad. “But this is a bathroom.” Plucking a white washcloth from a towel bar next to the sink, she scrubbed the mirror free of steam. Her face swam to the surface of the glass and firmed. She saw that she’d removed her bandage. Her forehead was a mess. “Just a plain-old vanilla bathroom in a creepy little house, not some huge, weird mirror in a big ba—”
Oh, shit. “In a big barn.” Her mouth was so dry she had no spit. Be calm. She carefully smoothed the washcloth, then folded it in half and draped it over the towel bar. Think this through.
“Right. Okay, so there’s a barn,” she said to her reflection. “So what? What does this prove? That you’re still in that weird Lizzie-blink? Or only dreaming?”
Yet Lily was dead. That was no dream. And her forehead hurt. Squinting at her reflection, she gingerly finger-walked the wound. The ragged edges were raw, and a purplish lump bulged like a unicorn’s horn. Touching it sent off a sparkle of pain.
“So this is real.” At the wave of relief, she gave a tremulous laugh. “Of course it is. I’ve been scared in dreams, but I’ve never gotten all banged up or cut, and if I have, I don’t remember, and I’ve never felt pain.” Lucky I didn’t crack my skull either. Can that happen if you’ve already got plates—
She never finished that thought. She felt the words curl in on themselves as tightly as snails withdrawing into their shells.
Because that was when her brain finally caught up to what was going on with that mirror—and, more to the point, what was happening in it.
“Oh, holy shit,” she said.
4
LOOK IN A mirror, any mirror, even the goofy ones at the county fair. Raise your right hand. From your reflection’s perspective, you’re raising you
r left hand, so your reflection raises its left. Equal but opposite. Put your right hand on the glass and your reflection’s left hand floats to meet you.
But when Emma raised her right hand, her reflection lifted its right. Equal … but not opposite.
“What?” Startled, she took a step back—
And watched her reflection take a step forward.
“Oh God.” A sudden cold sweat started on her upper lip. That can’t be happening. I hit my head. That’s what this is. I’ve been blinking a lot. I’m seeing things. “It’s all head trauma,” she said, and let her right hand drift up again. “This is nothing but—”
The rest wouldn’t come, because, this time, her reflection did nothing. Not a thing. Didn’t move its hand. Didn’t step back either.
“Stop that,” she said to her reflection. “What’s—” Ohhh, God. She heard her breath gush from her mouth. She was talking. Her mouth had moved.
But her reflection’s hadn’t. That thing with her face hadn’t matched her words at all but only stared, mute and waxen as a doll, as soulless as a mannequin.
Get out. Her knees were beginning to shake. In another second, if she didn’t get moving, her legs would give out and she’d fall, maybe faint. Get out of this house while you still can. Run, ru—
Her reflection moved toward her.
“Oh shit.” Emma breathed. Rooted to the spot, she watched as her reflection took a step and then another and another until it was plastered against the glass, its features flattening like those of a kid peering into the darkened front of a candy store. Run, you nut, run. But she couldn’t make herself move. It was as if she’d turned to stone.
Something tugged her wrist.
“What?” She stared at her right hand, which was starting to jitter. Her fingers twitched. “Stop that,” she said to her hand. “Cut that out. Stop!”
Her hand … moved. On its own. Without her telling it to.