Belinda continued to shake her head. “Promise not to ever do that again. Because next time it might be much worse. Like maybe the Key would stop working, and you wouldn't be able to escape.”
“Escape? Escape from what? From where?”
Belinda's eyes widened. “From the Unseen,” she said.
“The Unseen?” Xandra's voice was a shaky whisper. Somehow it was a frightening, really terrifying thought. “All right,” she said. “I promise. I absolutely promise not to use it again unless you're here to help me. Okay?”
“Okay,” Belinda repeated as she slowly and reluctantly put the feather back in Xandra's hands. “I guess it will be all right—if you keep your promise.” But then she grabbed Xandra's wrist. Narrowing her eyes, she whispered, “Don't do anything at all until I find out about …” Her voice faded to silence, and turning away, she continued down the path, through the gate and out into the woods. Xandra watched her go before she headed for the house. At the bottom of the back steps she came to a stop. With one hand on the railing she turned to look toward the basement door.
Firmly closed now, and gleaming white in the rays of the afternoon sun, the basement door looked like …well, like the rest of the Hobsons' house, strong and sleek and sturdily built. But behind the door … Xandra shuddered. Turning quickly, she ran up the steps.
AS SHE HURRIED up the back steps, Xandra was thinking only of getting to a safe place where she could think calmly about what had happened—or at least what seemed to have happened. To where she would be able to figure out what had really been going on—and how it could seem so absolutely real—and why. Something seemed to be telling her that figuring out the why of it was going to be very important. The why, and maybe most important of all, how much Belinda had to do with it. Belinda—or maybe the mysterious grandfather she always seemed to be not quite mentioning.
As she entered the back hallway, Xandra stopped long enough to nod firmly and with a great deal of determination. Yes, she would see Belinda at school and on the bus tomorrow and she would find out what had really happened in the basement. But in the meantime she would try to come to some sort of understanding of it by herself in the safety and quiet of her own room.
With the enchanted feather safely back around her neck, carefully hidden under her blouse, she was on her way up the stairs to her room when she began to realize that there was one thing that needed to be attended to first. A minor detour, but a very urgent one, had to be made immediately. The problem was that she was suddenly terribly hungry. She swallowed hard. She was, in fact, absolutely ravenous. Hungrier probably than she'd ever been in her entire life. Which actually wasn't too surprising, under the circumstances. Coming that close to being eaten alive was probably enough to make anyone hungry. Changing course, Xandra headed for the kitchen. For the kitchen first and foremost and for something substantial and solidly comforting to eat.
But a moment later, back downstairs and approaching the door, she became aware that the kitchen was already occupied. Occupied, judging by the sound of the voices, by a particular sibling and some of her friends. Along with such kitchen noises as the clatter and clank of plates and glasses and the slamming of the refrigerator door, she was hearing wave after wave of teenage chatter and laughter. Her hand was on the doorknob and she was steeling herself to join a bunch of giggling, shrieking teenage refrigerator raiders when a different sound forced her to back off entirely.
The new voice was a younger one and easily recognizable. High-pitched and as cutesy as a movie star kid's, the voice had to be Gussie's. Xandra winced. If the little rat hadn't already tattled about being shaken and yelled at, she would be sure to the moment Xandra showed up. Now that she had a large adoring audience, she'd be sure to whine about how she'd been mistreated. Xandra paused, undecided, and then gave up. Even if she only so much as dropped by for a moment to grab an apple or a cookie, things were certain to become horribly embarrassing. Hungry and angry, Xandra turned away, crept up the back stairs and headed for her room.
She was nearly there, passing the room of one of the twin siblings, when an alternative to immediate starvation occurred to her. The room belonged to the twin named Nicholas—one of the two siblings who were not only great at all sorts of athletics but also famous for their looks. Bulging with muscles, with mouths full of shiny white teeth and heads covered with thick curly hair, they looked, according to some of the girls at Carter Academy, like Greek gods. As far as Xandra was concerned the Greek-god stuff was ridiculous. Besides, she really resented the fact that she never could tell whether girls she knew, like Marcie and her friends, really liked her, or whether they were only being nice to her now and then because they were hoping she might introduce them to her “Greek-god” siblings.
But at the moment, the most interesting thing about this particular twin was that he had a tendency to collect a lot of other things besides sport trophies and stupid girlfriends. Nothing as fascinating as Quincy's exotic fish, actually, but some other fairly interesting junk, including, for instance, one or two of every kind of candy bar known to the civilized world.
Xandra had known about the candy bar collection ever since one day the summer before. She'd been hanging out in Nicholas's room after he and Nelson, the other twin, had gone, as usual, to some sort of ball game. She hadn't exactly been snooping. At least that wasn't how she thought of it. Just checking out some of Nicholas's other more or less interesting collections, such as all kinds of books about Sherlock Holmes and other famous detectives. And she had just happened to come across, at the back of his closet, a huge box full of candy bars. Not just the wrappers—the bars themselves. A really big box full of all kinds of candy bars.
Why would anyone collect that many candy bars? But another question had occurred to her on that day, and that was whether Nicholas kept careful track of his collection. Careful enough to know if one was missing. She hadn't quite gotten up her nerve to test the answer to that question when she'd heard a car in the driveway, slamming doors and teenage boys' voices. So she had run like crazy, leaving the candy bar collection undisturbed, which was probably a good thing. Knowing Nicholas—knowing for instance that he was planning to be a famous detective someday—she had to believe he knew exactly how many bars were in the box, down to the tiniest Tootsie Roll. It had even occurred to her that the reason that sibling collected candy bars was so he could use them as bait to trap chocoholics and other would-be thieves.
She had never risked going back to find out whether Nicholas would know if one of his candy bars disappeared. But, on the other hand, she had never been anywhere near as hungry as she was at that particular minute. She would, she decided, take the risk.
She was backing out of the closet with the first bite of a big Snickers bar already in her mouth when a voice said, “Well, would you look at that. Looks like I caught me a chocolate thief red-handed.”
With the first gulp of Snickers bar caught in her throat, Xandra whirled around to face, not Nicholas, but Quincy. Tall, skinny Quincy, the fish collector, and the oldest and most smart-mouthed of the siblings, who was, at the moment, grinning fiendishly as he moved closer. “Red-handed,” he said again, “or maybe in this case, chocolate-fingered might be a better proof of guilt.”
Xandra tried for the kind of sneer that would imply that Quincy's wisecrack was, as usual, pretty corny. But a good sneer was hard to manage with a mouth full of chocolate.
“So,” Quincy continued, “I guess I'm going to have to decide whether to turn you in or let the Sherlock Holmes of Heritage Avenue make his own deductions.”
Xandra chewed and swallowed while she thought hard and fast. Deciding to pick up on the Sherlock Holmes thing, she said, “Yeah, why don't we see if old Nicholas can figure it out?” She tried to echo Quincy's grin as she went on. “I mean, he probably needs the detecting practice.”
Quincy stepped back into the doorway and spread his long arms and legs, blocking Xandra's escape route. He was still smiling. “Well, you may be righ
t about that. About Nick needing the practice. Not that many criminal types to practice on here on law-abiding old Heritage Avenue.” His grin got more devilish. “But the important question right at this minute is: What should I do about the thief I just caught in the act?” The grin got wider and meaner. “Wouldn't I be encouraging criminal behavior if I let …” He paused and then went on. “How did you happen to know about Nick's candy bars, anyway?”
Xandra decided to try the truth or something close to it. “I was just looking around,” she said. “I came in here a long time ago to look at his other collections and I just happened to see the candy bars. I didn't take one, though. This is the first one I've taken.” Watching Quincy closely, Xandra said, “Why do you think he collects candy bars, anyway? Do you think he just uses them like bait, so he can catch people stealing?”
Quincy chuckled. “Might be part of it. But I think it's mostly because Nelson collects candy bars too. I don't know who started it but they both do it. You know how it is with the Twinsters. Anything one of them does, the other one has to do it faster and higher and bigger and better, or die trying.”
Xandra felt confused. A part of it was surprise that she and Quincy were actually having a kind of conversation and that she was learning some things. She'd always had a suspicion that Quincy, who definitely wasn't the contact-sport type, kind of hated it that the twins were such famous jocks. But she hadn't thought about the twins being jealous of each other.
“I didn't know that,” she said. “I never knew that they ever tried to beat each other out. I thought they always just liked to gang up on other people. Being twins was probably what did it.” She shrugged and raised her eyebrows. “Like, it's always two against one in your favor.” Quincy laughed, so she went on, “What did you call them? The Twinsters?”
Quincy nodded. “You got it. Good name for those two, huh? As in, twin gangsters.”
Xandra was beginning to feel that she might also be learning something about Quincy himself. The confused feeling was warming into a kind of curiosity when Quincy's grin returned with a vengeance. “So,” he said, “I wonder if people who steal candy bars are also into stealing fish food?”
A sudden stab of fear shot through Xandra—fear for her very private secret—and with the fear came anger. Her throat was tightening and her eyes were blinking fiercely as she said, “What are you talking about? I don't know what you're talking about.”
Quincy made a snorting noise. “I'll bet you do,” he said. “I'm talking about brine shrimp. I'm talking about a lot of my brine shrimp that just up and disappeared out of the refrigerator a while back.”
Xandra tried to push past her oldest, meanest sibling and escape from the room. But his long arms moved to hold her back. “Okay,” he said. “You tell me what you did with my brine shrimp and I'll let you go. Okay?”
Suddenly feeling absolutely desperate, Xandra struggled fiercely. Clutching the remains of the Snickers bar in first one fist and then the other, she swung both of them and also kicked as hard as she could. But Quincy hit back. Before she got away, Xandra had been swatted on the backside and slapped on the side of the face, and when she finally made it back to her room, she was teeth-clenchingly, mind-numbingly angry. It took several minutes before she was able to calm down enough to start thinking about anything else. Even about the important question of what had happened to her in the basement less than an hour before. What had happened—and why?
XANDRA MUST HAVE eaten the squashed candy bar without really noticing she was doing it, certainly without enjoying it. By the time she could think about anything except how furious she was at Quincy, Nicholas's candy bar had disappeared. Nothing remained except a few chocolate-colored smears on her fingers and around her mouth. The only good news was that the worst of her hunger pangs had vanished along with the candy. It wasn't until then that she could stop concentrating on her stomach—not to mention what she wished she'd done to a certain big bully of a sibling—and turn her thoughts back to something a thousand times more important. Dreadfully, horribly important, but right at the moment, and in that particular place, almost too horrible to be believed.
She was feeling safe now. Safe and sound behind the firmly closed door of her own room. Her own private space with its rain forest mural along one wall, its built-in bookshelves along two others, and above the shelves her huge collection of beautifully framed pictures of enchanted places. Paintings by people with names like Boyle and Bosch and Brueghel, of beautiful half-human creatures, haunted forests, and fairy-tale castles, were everywhere, filling up every bit of empty wall space. And against the far wall, her bed, piled high with her huge collection of stuffed animals. Kicking off her shoes, Xandra climbed onto her bed, pushing her way into the middle of the stack. Now that she was surrounded by her own safe and silent creatures, the weird things that had happened in the basement were beginning to seem more and more unreal.
Digging under the enormous pile of dogs, cats, raccoons and hedgehogs—as well as the yard-long velvet alligator—she picked up her favorite, an almost life-sized skunk. With the soft and cuddly stuffed Stinky draped across her lap, she stroked its long white-striped tail and tried unsuccessfully to blot out the vivid memories that kept rising up behind her eyes. Could all of it, the whole thing, the swelling, bulging clumps of darkness, the flashing eyes and the cruel piercing teeth, have been nothing more than a dream? Not an ordinary, sound-asleep-type dream, she knew that. No normal dream images were ever that sharp and clear and long-lasting. But as she once again ran her hand down over her smooth, unbitten ankles, she began to wonder if it all could have been some extraordinary kind of nightmare.
She could almost believe that was true. But then again, there was the fact that the incredibly sharp-edged images were still right there in her mind's eye, refusing to fade away as a normal dream always did. Was there such a thing as an enchanted nightmare? Xandra wished she knew, wished there was some way of knowing for sure.
But of course there might be a way. Belinda probably knew—or could find out. Belinda and her grandfather—that must have been who she had meant when she had said that he should have warned her about what might happen. So tomorrow, Xandra promised herself, she would find out exactly what Belinda knew. And in the meantime she would find other things to put her mind on. Things like …A glance at her watch told her that the first thing she had to put her mind on was getting ready for dinner, and after that … After dinner the only alternative to a lonely evening of frightening memories might have to be …television.
Xandra had never been crazy about TV because of the Hobson Habitat rule that kids couldn't have televisions in their own rooms. Which meant that a person with so many older and stronger siblings never got to hold the remote and decide what to watch. But on that night, she decided almost anything would be better than watching the nightmare scenes her own mind kept producing when there was nothing to blot them out.
But wouldn't you know it, nearly the whole family was in the family room that night and most of the time nothing at all was happening except a lot of talk. Both the parents were at home by then and all that was going on were conversations about one of two topics—money and Mozart. Actually Mozart came first, because one of the siblings was getting ready to play a Mozart thing at a concert and she was fussing about how hard it was to play and how scared she was. And the rest of the family were all telling her she'd be great and she shouldn't be nervous. Xandra didn't say anything, but what she thought was that some people just pretended to be nervous to get attention. In Xandra's opinion that particular sibling, the fourteen-year-old named Victoria, wasn't ever really nervous or the least bit uncertain about what and who she was, and probably not about what she could or couldn't do either.
And Xandra ought to know. After all, she and Victoria were only two years apart in age, and until Gussie turned up, the only females. Except for Helen, of course, the mother of all of them. But since Helen was a very successful and extremely busy lawyer, she hardly counted a
s part of the family. There had been a time, back before Gussie was born, that Tory, as Xandra used to call Victoria, had been a little bit better than your average sibling. A certain period when she and Xandra used to have secrets and play games together. But then, as she got older and more perfect on the piano, as well as in a lot of other ways, she got tired of games and of Xandra too. But she obviously wasn't tired of being the center of attention while everybody told her how incredibly talented she was and how she was going to steal the whole show at the recital.
The other topic, the one about money, was started, as usual, by Henry, the father of the Hobson family. Henry was something called a stockbroker, which, as Xandra understood it, meant that he did very important things with money. Things like moving it around the world in complicated, mysterious ways, and making a lot of it that he got to keep for himself. For himself and for his big beautiful family was what he always said. Xandra had heard him say that and a lot of other things about money many times before. So the boring talk about Mozart and money went on and on, but at least boring was better than terrifying.
At last the evening and a fairly sleepless night were over and Xandra was on her way to school and to the all-important meeting with Belinda. But if what you had to say was too urgent to wait for the bus ride to the downtown terminal, what then? What then, if it was a sunny morning and lots of people were hanging around in the outdoor lunch area? The only answer was that she would have to find another private place like … like the storage room behind the auditorium stage. Which meant she would have to let Belinda know that they absolutely had to talk, in some fairly unnoticeable way, like sliding a note through the crack at the bottom of her locker.
But even after Xandra wrote the message and got it into the locker, Belinda didn't show up. Xandra waited among the old dusty stage sets and costume racks until the first bell rang, wondering and worrying that Belinda might have skipped school that day or perhaps had failed to find the note. And then, after she'd given up and was making her way back down the crowded hall, there she was. There Belinda was, looking perfectly normal—normal for Belinda at least—heading down the hall toward Mr. Fernandez's first-period class.
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