The Unseen

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  In between and even worse than the spells of counting and dozing were the moments of wide-awake alertness. Moments in which she repeatedly turned her head from side to side, listening intently and hearing … almost nothing. Hearing nothing more than a faint rustling, only a breath of wind in the branches above her head—or the stealthy approach of a mountain lion? Or perhaps only sensing the presence of invisible, unformed shapes of the Unseen. Forms that were, according to Belinda, “always there, always everywhere.” Constantly changing shapes that were around everyone, just waiting for a Key to bring them into fierce, painful reality.

  The Key. Thinking about it, imagining it hanging there under her sweater, Xandra could feel, or at least imagine that she felt, a tiny area of warmth in the center of her chest. But she was not tempted to pull on the string that held it. The memory of what it had done, what it had caused to happen, was too fresh in her mind. As terrible as things were at the moment, as much as she was threatened by the cold, and the real-life dangers of the nighttime forest, it was not nearly as bad as the possibility of another attack by the evil creatures of the Unseen world. Instead she only pressed her freezing hands against her chest and imagined that, even through the sweater, she could feel a slight echo of the feather's warmth and power.

  Later, probably much later, coming up out of a period of semiconsciousness, Xandra opened her eyes to a slight change in the density of the surrounding darkness. True, it was still very dark in her immediate vicinity, but looking up, she could now see that in one direction the sky had become a little more transparent. Sunrise was on the way and with it came some idea of east and west. Knowing that sunrise was in the east, and that the Hobson Habitat was directly to the east of the forest, Xandra knew in what direction she should try to move. Stumbling to her feet, she began to shuffle toward the light.

  At first her progress was very slow. In areas where the forest canopy was heavy, she still had to feel her way, continuing to head in the right direction only by catching glimpses now and then of the brightening eastern sky. But as the long minutes of slow, shuffling progress crept by, the light increased, making it possible for her to find trails and then familiar pathways. By the time she reached the area where a familiar slope led down to Cascade Creek, she was almost running. It was then, while she was skidding down the slope toward the stream, that she stepped on a loose rock, tripped and fell hard, twisting her left ankle.

  The pain was awful. So bad that for a time she was not aware of anything else. As she lay on her side, clutching her ankle, with her eyes squeezed shut, her mind was emptied of thought and memory. Perhaps she was crying, or even screaming, as they claimed afterward. She couldn't remember. But she would always remember what they said when they found her.

  LYING ON THE RIVERBANK, clutching her ankle and crying, maybe screaming, the first thing she heard was Nicholas, or else it was Nelson, saying, “Hey. Look what I found. We thought you'd be out here somewhere.”

  And then the other one, Nelson or else Nicholas, said, “You can stop yelling now. You're about to be rescued.”

  And when she opened her eyes, there they were bending over her. And for once the two of them, two Greek-god faces under helmets of curly blond hair, did look amazingly beautiful. In fact, just about the most beautiful thing Xandra ever remembered seeing in her whole life. Still clutching her ankle, she caught her breath and managed to say, “Hi.” And then, “It's my leg. I think it's broken.”

  “Oh yeah?” One of them, Nelson it turned out to be, grabbed her shoulders and lifted her to a sitting position. “Look at her leg, Nick.”

  So it must have been Nicholas who knelt down and peeled her fingers off her wounded leg. “Here, let me see,” he said as he ran his fingers around her ankle.

  “What do you think?” Nelson asked. “Is it broken?”

  “I'm not sure,” Nicholas said. “It might be. Or else sprained. Anyway I think it's starting to swell. You ought to have an ice pack, but right now …”

  “Well, we could at least do a bandage,” Nelson said. “I think we ought to do a bandage. You know, a figure-eight bandage.” Releasing her ankle, he stood up, scratching his head as he looked around, looked around some more and then suddenly started unzipping his heavy jacket. He took the jacket off first, and then his shirt. And then, standing there naked to the waist in the freezing air, Nelson started ripping a good cotton shirt into long strips.

  “Hey, good thinking,” Nicholas said, and a second later he was tearing up his shirt too. And then there the Twinsters were, half naked in the awful cold, down on their knees wrapping Xandra's ankle in what remained of their shirts. It must have been a pretty weird scene, and later Xandra was amazed just remembering it. But right then, when it was actually happening, her mind didn't have much room for anything but pain.

  The wrapping hurt, especially at first, but as the bandage got wider and firmer, the pain in her ankle did seem to become a little more bearable. But not the cold. Now that the ankle was feeling a little better, she was once more aware of how hard she was shaking and chattering. And looking at the goose bumps on her half-naked brothers wasn't helping at all.

  “How's that?” Nicholas asked when the last strip of shirt had been wrapped and tied. “Any better?”

  She nodded, held back a sob, nodded again and said, “Better.” And then, “You'll freeze. Put on your jackets.”

  One of them, she'd lost track again, laughed and said, “Hey. Good thinking.” But before he could get both arms into his jacket, the other one said, “No way, Nelson. We'll need both of them for the stretcher. You remember, don't you? The jacket stretcher.”

  “Hey. Yeah, you're right,” Nelson said as they both disappeared into the bushes while Xandra sat there shaking and wondering what in the world they thought they were doing. But in a few minutes they were back, stripping the branches off two long straight saplings, which they proceeded to run through the sleeves of the jackets, all the time arguing about how to do whatever it was they were trying to do.

  Shivering more and more violently as she watched them pulling the poles out of the sleeves, yelling at each other, putting the poles back in again and then having trouble getting the zippers pulled up, Xandra felt …well, okay, impatient, all right, but at the same time not quite as impatient as you might expect, considering that she was nearly frozen solid and about to die of a broken leg. But by the time the stretcher was finally put together, and she was being carried on it while the twins waded through the creek in their good shoes, the whole scene began to seem too weirdly outrageous to take seriously. With half-frozen tears still running down her cheeks, she began to laugh.

  “Wha-wha-what's she doing n-now?” Nelson asked, looking back at her over his bare shoulder.

  Nicholas's teeth were chattering too. “You g-g-got me. Hysterics, I guess.”

  Nelson began to grin. “Yeah, hys-hys-hys-t-t-terics,” he said, and his exaggerated stammer made Nicholas laugh even harder. They were all three laughing wildly as they went up the back stairs and into the house, but when they got as far as the kitchen, the Twinsters only stopped long enough to lift Xandra off the jacket stretcher onto the kitchen floor and shout a few things like “Hey, everybody. Here she is. We found her.” And then, “Come and get her. We're going to be late for practice.” Then, taking their jackets with them, they disappeared.

  Clara was the first one to show up, with Gussie right behind her. Dropping to her knees, Clara pulled Xandra into her arms, whispering, “Thank God. Oh, thank God,” and then, “Are you all right, baby?”

  Handicapped by her chattering teeth as well as the huge lump that had suddenly taken over her throat, Xandra could only nod. “All r-r-right. I'm all r-r-right,” she finally managed.

  Clara touched Xandra's hands and face and whispered, “But you're so cold, darling. You're just about frozen.” And then Clara was on her feet and running out of the room, which left only Gussie. Gussie, still dressed in her flannel nightgown and clutching Debbie, her enormous life-s
ized doll, against her chest, was staring at Xandra with wide tearful eyes and whispering, “We were crying. Clara was crying and so were we.”

  “We?” Xandra asked. “Who else was crying?”

  “We were.” Gussie held out her doll. “Debbie and me.” She was demonstrating, sniffing and sobbing and wiping imaginary tears off Debbie's big plastic face, when Clara ran back into the room carrying an armload of pillows and blankets and hot-water bottles. And while Clara filled hot-water bottles and arranged pillows and blankets, Gussie walked around them in a circle, dragging Debbie by one shoeless plastic foot and asking endless questions. Questions like “Where you been, Xandra? Why were we crying? Why are you lying on the floor?”

  A few minutes later, when other people began to show up, Xandra was still on the kitchen floor but wrapped up like a mummy. Warmer now, and not in quite as much pain, she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open. The parents came in next, Helen first and then Henry. Henry's hair was on end and he was still in his bathrobe, but Helen seemed to be dressed for the courtroom, as always, and looking and acting more like a famous lawyer than someone who had just found her lost kid. But when she saw Xandra lying on the kitchen floor bundled up like a mummy, she did get a little less dignified-looking, at least for a minute. She even got down on the floor beside Xandra before she started asking lawyerish questions. Questions like “Where have you been?” And “Why?”

  “Why”! Even before she got around to “How's your leg? The boys said you'd hurt it.”

  Then the doorbell was ringing and Henry left with Gussie running after him, and a minute later Gussie came back talking about policemen. Getting down on her hands and knees, she put her mouth near Xandra's ear and whispered, “There are two policemen in the hall talking to Daddy.”

  “Police?” Xandra asked her mother. “Why are the police here?” For an anxious moment she wondered if you could be put in jail for running away and getting lost.

  Her mother was smiling as she got to her feet. “We called them a few minutes ago,” she said, “when we realized you really were missing and not just …” Her smile disappeared as she went on, “and not just hiding out again.”

  The kitchen door opened and Henry came in, along with two policemen. And then both of the policemen were asking questions and everyone was answering them, even the ones that no one could really answer except Xandra herself.

  “Yes,” Henry said, “there was a misunderstanding with her brothers, and she must have run out of the house….”

  “A misunderstanding?” one of the policemen asked.

  “Well, let's be accurate, Henry,” Helen said. “According to Clara, here, who was the only eyewitness, it was a bit of a brawl.” She smiled, showing all of her beautiful white teeth. “You know, Officer, the kind of intrafamily altercation most kids indulge in from time to time.”

  For a while no one asked Xandra to describe the “altercation” or what had happened afterward, but when one of the policemen knelt down beside her and asked, “Where were you? Where did you go?” she managed to answer, “Into the forest. I was lost in the forest.”

  His next question was “Who was with you? Did someone take you or meet you there?”

  “No one was with me. No one took me there. I went by myself and got lost. And I think I broke my leg.”

  “Broke your leg? Then how did you get home?” the policeman asked.

  “They found me. The same two brothers who beat up on …,” Xandra had begun when Helen took over and explained how two of her sons had gone out looking for their sister and had found her and brought her home. And when the policemen asked to talk to the rescuers, it was Henry who explained why they weren't there. He was chuckling as he said, “There was an important early-morning practice at the high school, and you fellows have probably heard about Coach Macafee's attitude toward missing a practice. I'm afraid the need to rescue a little sister with a broken leg wouldn't have gotten them out of Macafee's doghouse.”

  So then Clara unwrapped enough blankets to expose Xandra's injured leg, and everyone had to get down on the kitchen floor and examine it and say whether they thought it was broken or sprained, and all Xandra could do was wish they'd all go away and let her sleep. Victoria had turned up by then, and Quincy too, and both of them had to ask the same old questions and hear everybody's version of the answers. Xandra's ankle was still hurting some and she was feeling more and more exhausted and sleepy. She was on the verge of yelling, “Go away, all of you. Go away and leave me alone.” But nobody left until the tall policeman said he didn't think he was needed any longer and that the next thing that ought to be done was to “get that child to a doctor.” And even though she resented being called a child, Xandra was pleased with the result, which was that a lot of Hobsons left the room.

  IT WAS CLARA who drove Xandra to the doctor's office. Henry himself was going to take her, but when Clara offered to do it, he quickly accepted. “Could you?” he said to Clara. “There's an important meeting this morning and there's a huge amount of due diligence that will need to be done beforehand.”

  Xandra wasn't sure what due diligence was, but it was obviously a lot more urgent than a broken leg. Particularly if the broken leg was no more than what a certain person deserved for running away and getting her leg broken and taking all the Hobsons' minds off more important things. That wasn't exactly what Henry said but it was pretty obvious that was what he was thinking. And what he went on thinking and hinting about while he carried Xandra out to Clara's car.

  But at least Henry didn't ask any more questions about exactly where Xandra had been all night and what had happened there—questions that Xandra wasn't anywhere near being able to deal with as yet. And which she felt certain Clara would insist on asking as soon as they were in the car. But, to her surprise, it didn't happen. Clara only asked if she was ready to talk about it, and when Xandra shook her head, she didn't say anything more.

  According to Dr. Frank, the ankle wasn't broken. Dr. Frank, who, for years and years, had treated everyone in the Hobson family for things like stomach upsets and sore throats, said it was only a bad sprain. He also said all the usual things about the talented and beautiful Hobsons, and then looked at Xandra as if he were thinking, “So where'd they find you, kid?” After he'd rewrapped her ankle in a kind of removable cast, he brought out some crutches and had her try them out for size. “There you are, young lady,” he said cheerfully. “Wrap that ankle in an ice pack for the rest of the day, and then with just a few more days at home with your foot up, maybe even by Thursday or Friday of next week, you should be able to go back to school. That is, if you use the crutches and promise not to try to walk on that bum foot for a couple of weeks.”

  Xandra was in no mood for cheerfulness. “Why can't I go back right away? I'll bet I can walk on those things right now.” Grabbing the crutches away from Clara, and struggling to stand on her one good leg, she went on, “See? Just watch me.” She made a good job of it too, keeping her balance on one leg without too much difficulty and swinging forward on the crutches, but the stubborn man wouldn't say yes. Instead he just laughed and told Clara he was pleased to know at least one student who seemed to hate the thought of missing a single day of school.

  Of course Xandra couldn't tell him that it wasn't getting back to school that was so life-and-death important, but that seeing Belinda as soon as possible might be. Seeing Belinda to tell her what had happened in the forest and to ask some questions that had suddenly become much more urgent. So there was nothing more she could say, and the verdict was in. It would be several days, maybe even a week, before she would have a chance to talk to Belinda.

  After making another appointment, Clara took Xandra home—but only as far as the lower floor of the house. Xandra very much wanted to go to her own room but Clara said, “I don't think I can carry you the way I used to, darling, so I guess you'll just have to wait until your father or one of your big brothers shows up. I'll just run up and get some of your things and then I'l
l help you clean up a little in the guest bathroom. Then I'll fix you a place in the family room where you can sit with your leg up and wrapped in an ice pack.”

  The family room. All day. Xandra hated the idea but at the moment she was just too tired to argue or even complain. “There now, baby.” Clara looked worried as she arranged a stack of books and the TV remote on the lamp stand next to Xandra's chair. “I'm going to have to leave now. I have to go to the dentist and then run a few errands. I've left a nice lunch for you in the breakfast room and Geraldine will bring you a fresh ice pack when she comes in. Do you think you'll be all right by yourself for a little while? Otto will be mulching the flower beds all afternoon, and Mildred from the cleaning service is due around one o'clock.”

  Xandra shrugged and said she didn't need anyone, especially not Mildred, and she'd be okay. A grudging okay, which probably made Clara feel even more guilty about going off and leaving her “baby” all alone. Her ex- baby, actually. But since she went ahead and left anyway, maybe not quite guilty enough.

  So there she was, with a stack of books and the TV remote within easy reach, right in front of the big-screen TV, with nobody else around to decide what they were going to watch. For a few minutes it seemed like an interesting opportunity, but after flipping through the channels, she decided that she just wasn't in the TV mood. The crutches were close by, leaning against the footstool, and around noon Xandra used them for a trip to the breakfast room for lunch, but that was as far as she managed to get.

  It was an amazingly long day, with nothing to do but doze off into sleeping nightmares and then wake up to wide-awake ones. To suddenly come back to the daytime world and sit staring into space as she went back over everything that had happened during that horrible night in the forest. Over and over again she brought back what she had done with the Key and how it had allowed the monsters to attack her, except when she was in the white bird's meadow, where the creatures of the Unseen were warm and friendly. The rest of the morning and all afternoon the dreams, sleeping and wide awake, went on and on.