“OKAY, WHICH ONE do you want?” Xandra asked as the shopping cart bounced down the last basement step.
There was something about the way Belinda answered, “Which one? You mean I can have whichever one I like best?” that made Xandra think of the way a little kid like Gussie would sound if you took her into a toy store and said, “Take your pick.” So that was exactly what she said to Belinda.
“Sure.” Her sweeping motion took in the whole area. “Take your pick.” And that was all she needed to say for a long time. As Belinda lined up vacuum cleaners and went from one to another, checking out each one carefully and thoroughly, Xandra stood back where she could keep an eye not only on Belinda, but also on whatever else might be going on in the farthest dark corners and the shadowy passageways between stacks of boxes.
So while Belinda wound and unwound electric cords and fiddled with all sorts of attachments, Xandra kept an eye out for … creatures of the Unseen, or whatever you wanted to call them. But nothing had happened by the time Belinda made her final selection, at least not for sure. There had been a couple of times when Xandra had been able, by squinting her eyes almost shut, to see, or almost see, something that looked like a moving shadow or a momentary slash of fiery light. But nothing for sure. She was still squinting, watching what seemed to be a shadowy figure against the right-hand wall, when Belinda tapped her on the left shoulder and said, “Okay. I think I've decided.”
“Oh!” Xandra jumped and swallowed hard before she could say, “Oh. That one? Okay. Let's wrap it up.”
While they taped wrapping paper around the chosen vacuum, Belinda did quite a lot of talking. At least quite a lot compared to the amount she'd been doing recently. Mostly she talked about how much easier it was going to be to keep both of the cabins clean now that she had a vacuum cleaner.
“And Ezra's house too,” she said, smiling ruefully. “You wouldn't believe how dirty that big old house is.”
“Do you have to clean his house too?” Xandra was shocked.
Belinda shook her head. “I don't have to, but I tried to once. That was when our old vacuum cleaner broke. I think it was Ezra's house that finished it off.”
That stopped Xandra for a moment while she considered what it would be like to have to clean two cabins and a big superdirty house. It wasn't an easy thing to imagine for someone who had never cleaned her own room, except for now and then having to pile all her animals back on the bed when an extra-fussy cleaning lady insisted. Thinking about what a big help the vacuum was going to be, she really was feeling good about what she was doing, congratulating herself on doing such a good deed, without bothering to remember that it had been Gussie who gave her the idea. And for about the same length of time she also forgot the real reason they were in the basement.
Suddenly remembering, just as they had finished stuffing the carefully wrapped vacuum into the shopping cart, she said, “Okay, it's all ready. But now there's something I want you to do for me.”
“All right. What do you want me to do?” Belinda's smile was wide and friendly, but when Xandra told her what she wanted, it quickly faded. “No,” she said, frowning and shaking her head. “I can't. I won't.”
Fighting down the familiar flush of anger, Xandra tried to be reasonable and convincing as she started to tell Belinda about the good, friendly creatures she had sensed when she had only held the Key in her hand, in her own room and again in the secret hideout behind the furnace. “I didn't really do it, because I promised you I wouldn't, but I held it like this”—she pulled the feather out from under her sweater—“and something, some good, friendly things were almost there and there weren't any of those—those other creatures.”
But Belinda just went on shaking her head and refusing to listen or even to explain why she was being so stubborn.
When the rush of anger was too strong to resist, Xandra almost yelled, “Why not? You told me it would be all right after you learned more about how to do it. Haven't you learned anything by now?”
Belinda's nod was slow in coming. Slow and uncertain. “Yes,” she said reluctantly. “I learned why it would be so dangerous for you to do it again.”
“So dangerous for me.” Xandra copied the emphasis that made it clear that she was the only one Belinda was talking about. There she was, doing it again. Saying that using an enchanted gift would be all right for most people but not for Xandra. All right for everybody except Xandra, maybe. Like everything else that most people could do, or be, but not Xandra Hobson.
Grabbing the cart away from Belinda, Xandra dumped the vacuum cleaner out on the floor. Then she stomped up the stairs, out the basement door and around the house to the back door. She was still stomping when she got to the landing where a window looked down on the long curved driveway, from which it was possible to see who was arriving at the Hobsons' house—or leaving it. And sure enough, there she was. There went the creepy granddaughter of an even creepier old man, pushing her shopping cart as she turned out onto the avenue. An empty shopping cart. Xandra was gritting her teeth and telling herself, “It serves her right,” as she turned quickly away and went up the stairs.
It was right then, while she was still fuming about Belinda, that Xandra began to hear loud noises. She'd only gone a few feet down the upstairs hall when she saw why. The door leading to the room of the Twinster sibling named Nelson was wide open, and noises weren't the only things coming through it. Along with shouts and loud laughter, also coming out through the open door, and stretching clear across the hall, was a long strip of bright green artificial grass. Just as Xandra approached the grass, a little white ball came rolling toward her. She knew what it was, of course. She recognized it immediately as the putting practice green that had been one of Quincy's favorite presents on his eighteenth birthday. And she also knew how special and private it was to Quincy, who had finally found a sport he might be as good at, or almost as good at, as his superjock brothers.
Afterward, a long time afterward, it occurred to Xandra that she might have just ignored the fact that the Twinsters were, as usual, up to no good. She might have stepped over the strip of putting green and gone on down the hall—if she hadn't been angry already. But she was angry—at Belinda and her grandfather, and more or less at the whole world.
And so, as loud teenage voices yelled, “Good shot,” and, “Way to go, Nicko,” Xandra stuck one foot in front of the golf ball, picked it up and walked down the strip of grass to the door. And there they were, a whole roomful of teenage boys: the two Twinsters and three of their friends. One of the Twinsters, Nicholas, apparently, was standing over the grass strip holding a putter, and four other long-legged teenagers were draped across the floor and over various pieces of furniture. There was a split second of quiet when Xandra appeared in the doorway and then a chorus of remarks like “Uh-oh, a kid-sister hazard,” “Too bad, you lose” and “There goes your trophy, Hobson.”
Nicholas grabbed Xandra's hand, took away the golf ball and pulled her into the room. “Tell them,” he yelled. “It was about to go into the cup, wasn't it, Alexandra? You saw it. You tell them.”
Xandra shrugged. “I don't know where it was going,” she said. She stared up at Nicholas and then turned to look at Nelson. “I thought Quincy said nobody could use his putting game,” she said coldly. “I'm going to tell him.” She'd turned around to walk out of the room and would have, except that Nicholas hadn't turned loose of her arm.
And then Nelson grabbed her other arm and dragged her back into the room and everyone began yelling at her. Yelling things like “Wow, what's eating you, kid?” and “Nothing like having a live-in stool pigeon.” And “Why don't you tape her mouth shut, Hobson?”
Then Nicholas was saying, “Okay. Good idea. Here. Hold her a minute.”
One of the others, a tall skinny guy with lots of acne, grabbed her left arm and he and Nelson held her while Nicholas went away and came back with a roll of the kind of heavy tape that gets wrapped around the handles of baseball bats. Nicholas
was heading in her direction and pulling loose a long strip of tape when Xandra managed to kick one guy hard enough to make him turn loose of her arm and grab his wounded ankle. Then she socked Nelson on the chin, pulled her right arm free and ran for the door. But Nicholas yelled at the other guys to catch her and they did. Catching her by her arms and hair, they dragged her across the room while she fought back, kicking and slugging as hard as she could. Then somebody stuck out a foot and tripped her and she was on the floor and they were all holding her down while Nicholas started to stretch the nasty-tasting tape across her mouth.
She wasn't afraid. Not for a minute. It wasn't that she didn't think they might really hurt her. In fact she was far too angry to think anything at all. Her mind was full of nothing but boiling, swelling rage, and she was still fighting, kicking, squirming and trying to bite—when suddenly everything went quiet. Jerking her arms free, Xandra sat up, turned around and saw Clara standing in the doorway.
Clara was just standing there, not saying anything at all, while Nelson said, “Hi, Clara. We were just playing with her. We weren't going to hurt her.” Nicholas started saying something about how she had kicked his golf ball just as he was about to win the game. Xandra didn't say anything, but as she started for the door, she stopped long enough to give the last guy to turn her loose a hard kick in the shin. Then she pushed past Clara and ran down the hall.
INSIDE HER OWN room Xandra slammed the door shut and leaned against it, breathing hard and waiting. Waiting for Clara to knock so she could open the door only a crack and say, “I'm okay. I just want to be by myself for a while.” The knock came, just as Xandra was sure it would, and she said what she'd planned to say. Then she had to say it again more loudly and add, “Go away. I don't want to talk about it.”
She waited until Clara had finished saying a bunch of other stuff about where she would be when Xandra felt like talking, and how she'd talked to the boys but she wanted to hear Xandra's side of it before she talked to their parents. After Clara finally went away, Xandra opened the door a crack to watch her leave. It wasn't until Clara was out of sight that Xandra ran to her bed and climbed in among her animals.
But that didn't help either. Not this time. Even when her head was pillowed on soft, velvety animals of all shapes and sizes, and dozens of others were clutched against her chest. This time, which animals happened to be on top of the pile, and how she felt about them, didn't make any difference. In fact the only thing that mattered was how rotten and mean and treacherous the Twinsters were, and how their friends were even worse, and how much she hated all of them. And worst of all was Belinda, because she was a liar, and the things she said about the enchanted feather and the Unseen creatures were just lies she thought up to make Xandra feel as if everything bad that had happened was all her fault, and as if it would be safe for anyone else to have a Key, but not for Xandra Hobson.
Suddenly Xandra sat straight up, scattering animals in every direction. As a displaced skunk, an alligator, a dolphin, a moose, a tiger and any number of bears tumbled off the bed, she jumped up, ran down the hall and out of the house.
The sun was still fairly high in the western sky when Xandra ran down the back steps and around to the basement door. Around to the sleek, well-painted exterior of a door that, if opened, would reveal a huge clutter of dusty junk, around and behind which a dimly lit passageway led back to a shadowy corner. For a long time, maybe a minute or two, Xandra stood still staring at the door, but not because she was thinking and planning what she was going to do next. She was in no mood to think and plan. She was only waiting for something to push her. The same kind of push that had made her fight the twins and their friends so fiercely and had made her yell at Clara and tell her to go away. But when the push came in a sudden surge of rage, it wasn't toward the basement door, but out away from the house. Away from the house, through the back gate and out into the forest. She ran into the forest still wearing her school clothes and without any idea where she was heading or what she intended to do when she got there.
She went on running at first across the partly cleared land and then on into the forest on one of the pathways she had followed many times before. A path that twisted and turned around the edge of the marsh, and on between trees and underbrush to where it dropped down over the bank of Cascade Creek. The creek was wider and deeper now than it had been on the day Xandra had waded up it carrying the wounded bird, but she was able to cross it at the narrow spot where three large boulders served as stepping-stones. It wasn't until she'd run deep into the forest that her pace slowed and she finally came to a stop.
It was only then that she allowed herself to wonder what she was doing and why she was there. But wondering didn't bring answers—at least not ones that were clearly understandable. When Xandra began to ask herself where she was going, all she got was a series of vague thoughts and feelings. Old familiar thoughts that brought up expected responses.
She was in the forest because she had always loved being there—and nobody had the right to tell her not to go there. Certainly not Clara, who was only a baby-sitter, and not even Xandra's baby-sitter, at that. And not Henry or Helen, who probably had forgotten, if they'd ever known, that Xandra loved the forest. So she was there because no one had the right to tell her not to be. All right, that was part of the answer, even if it wasn't the most important part.
And what was she going to do now? That was harder, but it had something to do with the enchanted bird. Turning slowly in a circle, Xandra tried to decide if the small clearing she had just entered was the same one where she'd found the bird. Looking around at the small open space surrounded by overhanging trees, darkened now by lengthening shadows, she wasn't entirely sure it was the same place. She did remember that the clearing where she had found the bird had seemed larger and also deeper in the forest. But wasn't it possible that this was the one, the same small treeless meadow? And then there was the question of why she wanted to find the clearing, maybe even the exact spot, where the bird had been when she'd found and rescued it.
The answer to that one was even less clear and certain but it had something to do with another question that she needed to find an answer to. A question about why she'd been allowed to find and save the bird, and why she had been given the feather that Belinda called a Key. It had to have been for some particular reason. And it didn't make sense for the reason to be that she was somehow too different—too weak and stupid, maybe even too evil—to use it safely.
She suddenly remembered, remembered vividly, Belinda's exact words when she'd said, “It would be too dangerous for you to do it again.” And with that memory came the certainty that what she was hearing was that everyone else was better and more special than she. And with that certainty came the quick, flaring anger that had made her take back the vacuum cleaner and charge into the house, where the twins and their friends had treated her as if she were … As if she were what? Some kind of less-than-human nuisance to be teased and tormented in insulting and embarrassing ways.
At that point, without stopping to think, without even asking herself what she meant to do, Xandra reached under her sweater and pulled out the enchanted feather. When she had it in both her hands, she closed her eyes, lifted it over her head and pressed it briefly to her forehead, before quickly hanging it back around her neck.
It was then, while the strange sensation of growing and stretching was just beginning, that she was suddenly terribly frightened. So frightened that for a moment she wished desperately that she could stop what was happening. She was about to retrieve the feather and try to undo what she had done when the fear began to turn into a strange eager excitement.
This time sounds came first. Even before she opened her eyes, she became aware that she was hearing all sorts of noises. Familiar sounds, like birdcalls and the stirring of branches in a soft breeze, only suddenly louder and far clearer and more distinct. And then other noises, more distant but strangely threatening, like faraway muttering cries and angry buzzes. And
smells too. Sharp, caustic odors like smoke drifting from the embers of fires that had burned strange, unnatural fuels.
Opening her eyes was difficult at first, almost painful, but what she saw as they opened wider was fascinating—and then terrifying. All around her the forest itself was weirdly beautiful in a sparkling, sharp-edged way, as if every leaf and twig were clearly and distinctly visible. Visible and at the same time almost transparent, so that if you looked closely, you could see into and through everything you focused on—see the veins pulsing through each leaf, tiny, microscopic insects crawling everywhere and sap oozing up and down inside the trunks of the trees.
Xandra turned in a slow circle, focusing upward at first on leaves that glittered with growing, flowing life, and then down to the forest floor, where tiny creatures she'd never seen before were scurrying in all directions. She was kneeling, staring in wonder at the ground around her, when the strange muttering sounds, louder now and closer, brought her quickly to her feet.
It was then that she began to see what had been Unseen. Shapes and shadows moving through the under-growth and between the trunks of trees, close by and coming closer. Nothing more than clumps of darkness at first, but with swiftly changing outlines, which as they came nearer began to condense into definite forms and figures. Some of the creatures of the Unseen were animal-like, sinister humpbacked shadows, like misshapen hyenas or bears. But others looked vaguely human. Short and stooped, but definitely upright figures, draped in hooded robes. And all of them seemed to be gliding smoothly through the underbrush that surrounded the clearing.
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