Glimmer

by Phoebe Kitanidis

  I waste no time in gratefully pulling on the first pair I get my hands on. They’re baggy and threadbare, but at least they don’t drag under my heels. I spot a gray sweatshirt sleeve poking from underneath the bed, dive for it, and pull it over my head.

  I peek deeper under the bed, hoping to find my shoes. In addition to a ton of dust and a metal baseball bat are a pair of black sneakers. Something small under the bed catches my eye. At first I think it’s a sock, but when I pick it up I realize it’s a dust-covered velvet bag. Heaving with coins, from the sound of it.

  I loosen the drawstring and hold up one coin to the light. “Whoa.” It’s elliptical-shaped, the words embossed on its shiny surface written in an alphabet I don’t recognize. “I think this might be Chinese.”

  “It’s possible. . . .” She bites her lower lip. “Whoever drugged us could have taken us to Asia.”

  I let that sink in. Cold slithers up from the pit of my stomach, spreading toward the eye tattoo I don’t remember getting. How are we supposed to get back home when we don’t know where we are, or where home is?

  Wordlessly I cross the room and join her by the desk. Its surface is stacked with dusty, clothbound books and scraps of onionskin paper with singed edges. A Mac laptop sits open, but it’s password-protected. Figures. She holds up a white envelope and shakes it, excited. “Here’s a report card from Summer Falls Senior High School in Summer Falls, Colorado.”

  I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. We’re in America.

  She unfolds a tripled-up white page. “It’s for someone named Marshall King. Name ring any bells?”

  “Zero.”

  “Not for me either.” She shrugs. “He’s pulling Ds.”

  I’m about to say he sounds too stupid to be our kidnapper when she pushes the laptop screen shut. Half a dozen fat pillar candles appear behind it, arrayed in a semicircle from lightest (the white one, melted down to a nub) to darkest (the barely used black one).

  Fear tightens my chest. A black candle means black magic.

  Wait a minute. Black magic? Where’d that thought come from—some stupid horror movie? Magic doesn’t exist in the real world. Does it? I stand there frozen, suddenly uncertain of which way is up.

  But the girl doesn’t even notice the black candle. Ignoring it, she lifts the cover of the thickest book on the desk and reads aloud in a sarcastic tone, “Darkest Secrets of the Occult.” Her nostrils flare in disgust. “Okay, this guy’s a nutcase.”

  Right. Because only crazy people believe in magic; magic isn’t real, duh. Glad I kept my mouth shut for once. “New theory,” I announce. “Psycho here kidnapped us to use as virgin sacrifices.” That last quip rolls off my tongue before I’ve thought it through, and then my face feels hot and I can’t look at her. From the silence on her end I’d bet money she’s blushing too. Are either one of us virgins? Were we virgins before last night?

  She reaches down to the carpet under the desk chair and holds up a gold chalice, its handle carved to look like two snakes embracing. “Where would you even buy a cup like this?”

  “DarklordMcSpookyPantsdotcom? Free shipping.”

  She glares at me. “Stop making jokes. This is freaking me out.” It’s freaking me out too, which is why I keep making jokes.

  I peer down at the dregs of some thick red liquid at the bottom of the chalice. “There’s no way that could be blood, right?”

  “Jesus.” She drops the golden cup.

  It thumps softly onto the carpet just as heavy footsteps pound the hall. Then a fist bangs on the door.

  “Hey!” a male voice thunders. “You in there?”

  Marshall King.

  Her startled green eyes meet mine, and the strangest feeling runs through me. The danger’s inescapable, just like in my dream. I’m scared, but not for me. For her. I won’t let anything happen to her. I jump to my feet, motioning for her to get away from the door. She looks unsure, but slides down into the corner behind the bed. I reach under the box spring and grab the metal bat.

  “I said, are you in there?”

  The door swings inward, and there in the doorway, dressed all in black, stands a mountain-size bald man.

  Chapter 5

  HER

  “There you are.” I’m frozen behind the unmade bed, clammy with scared sweat, but the huge man in the doorway doesn’t even see me. He’s not really looking inside the room as he rocks from side to side. “Knew you hadn’t gone anywhere.” I can barely hear him over my pounding pulse. “I’m not dead yet.” A note of unmistakable anger enters his voice. “Don’t pretend you can’t hear me.”

  The dark-eyed boy squares his stance. “Don’t get any closer.” He’s as scared as I am.

  “Huh? Why not?” The big man tilts his pale face, rubs his salt-and-pepper chin stubble in confusion. Then he finally looks straight ahead. At me, with my obvious bed hair, my tight, white, slutty look-at-me skirt and top. My throat seizes. I’m ready to run. But his bloodshot eyes light up. “Whoa, hey there! Almost didn’t recognize you.” He rushes toward me and I let out a scream, but the dark-eyed boy steps between us, his cool, carved face intense, the baseball bat in his hands.

  “Don’t touch her,” he says, brandishing the bat. “Who are you?” he demands. “What drug did you give us?”

  I add my voice to his. “How’d we end up in this place? What’s going on?”

  The man’s mouth opens wide. “I don’t believe it,” he whispers, fingers twisting the bottom of his faded heavy-metal band T-shirt. “We never should have brought him here,” he says, as if he’s talking to someone else, someone who’s not even there.

  With a stumbling step forward, he reaches into the pocket of his jeans.

  The dark-eyed boy pivots toward the closed window, aims the bat over his head, and cracks it down, shattering the glass.

  “No!” the big man roars, sounding crazed now. “Please, stop it. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  Smash. He brings the bat down again and again. Crystal shards flying free, out into the vibrant blue sky.

  The man dives at the dark-eyed boy, trying to take him down from the knees. “Stop it, stop or you’ll break down the wards!”

  Whatever that means. Not waiting to find out, I slip around them to the window and stare down. Ten feet below is an overgrown side yard. Jagged pieces of glass sparkle from the windowsill. Grabbing the bulky comforter off the floor, I toss it on the sill and jump through the frame.

  Behind me I hear a yell of pain, coming from the man, I think. Then I’m dropping, tumbling to the ground outside. I land in tall, soft grass. Flat on my butt.

  For a moment I just sit there, dazed by the sunlight, by the sheer beauty of the world outside that bedroom. The lawn is Technicolor green, dewy-soft, thick with dandelions. Drenched yellow petals, cobweb fluff, and bare stems. Then there’s a thump in the grass, and I turn to see that the dark-eyed boy has landed in a crouch behind me.

  “Walk wide, most of the glass fell near the rosebush.” He’s already on his feet, holding his outstretched hand to me. “Let’s go!”

  I hesitate only for a moment, looking back up toward the bedroom. The gnarled, thin branches of a rosebush loom over us, its bloodred blooms climbing halfway to the broken window, where the big man still stands watching us, his face a mask of rage and devastation. Then he’s gone from the window. No doubt heading for the door.

  Groaning, I haul myself up to my feet, and we sprint down the sidewalk. The sleepy suburban street is silent except for birds, and our footfalls echo off the wood-panel houses. We zip down six or seven sunny blocks, burning off adrenaline, then cross one street over and go another ten blocks. Each house looks almost exactly like the one before it: two stories, painted white or yellow, trimmed with brown or dark green shutters. Frantically, my eyes hunt for a landmark to pass on to the police, but there are no street signs anywhere. Where are we?

  After each block I twist around to squint behind me through the glittering sunlight, expect
ing to see the big man gaining on us, his agitated, desperate face in my face. Each time he isn’t there, I feel a surge of gratitude, of elation. “He’s not following,” I say, finally. “We lost him.” We slow to a brisk walk.

  “Guess I really scared the bastard,” he says with equal measures of pride and surprise. “I didn’t even have to hit him,” he adds. “Once I broke that window he just about fell apart. It was almost too easy.”

  I resist the urge to roll my eyes. It’s not his fault I didn’t think to grab that bat myself but stood there panicking like a moron instead. “Breaking the glass was inspired,” I admit.

  He shrugs. “I did what I had to do.” I think back to how hurt and offended he looked when I told him I’d thought he drugged me. Now it makes sense. He’s the hero type.

  What type am I? Am I a prodigy? A science nerd? A hacker? Why was I chosen to be kidnapped and taken from my home? The questions only stir a gnawing hunger in me for the truth, no matter how shattering.

  “I’m going to ring these people’s doorbell.” I point to the nearest house. “We can use their phone to call nine-one-one.”

  “Great idea.”

  No one answers though, so we run back down the front steps and move on to the next house. And the next.

  The narrow, tree-lined street’s empty of cars.

  “Everyone’s at work,” I say, realizing. Duh. “Or school.”

  He shakes his head. “There’s got to be one person in this town who works from home. A stay-at-home parent. A retired person.”

  At the sixth house, a German shepherd growls at us from a side yard, then hurls itself against the fence. Dark-Eyed Boy puts his arm around me and together we back away slowly.

  After twenty-three doors, in an untamed front yard infested by giant sunflowers, a tiny, wrinkled lady with her salt-and-pepper hair in pigtails answers.

  “My goodness.” She adjusts her glasses with shaking fingers and peers up at us. “Why did I think it was a school day?”

  “Ma’am, we need a doctor.” Dark-Eyed Boy’s voice sounds different, his cool intensity replaced by Boy Scout charm. “Can we please use your phone?”

  “Who is it, Hazel?” a grouchy old male voice calls from inside.

  Hazel shuffles back and opens the door wider, revealing her faded flower-sprigged housedress and teal terrycloth slippers. She’s a lot older than I initially thought. “It’s kids,” she yells back, sounding happy but confused. “But shouldn’t you be in school, or, wait . . . Is it summer already? I thought it was fair weekend. What month is it now?” she asks pleasantly.

  Dark-Eyed Boy and I exchange a glance as if to say, Did she really ask what month it is? Then again it’s not like we know either. Senility has lots in common with amnesia.

  “We just need your phone,” I say, trying to get things back on track. “To call nine-one-one.”

  “Golly, nine-one-one!” Hazel shakes her pigtails and smiles a toothless smile. “You mean like on TV shows?” She mimics a siren.

  “Excuse me.” Dark-Eyed Boy cuts her off. He sounds impatient now, like himself again. “Do you have a phone we can use? Or internet access?”

  “Please,” I add. “We’re stranded. We have no one else to ask.”

  “Hold on, just let me think on this . . . Phone . . . Phone bill . . .” The woman pauses and tugs at her pigtail. Then she blinks. “Hey, what were we talking about?”

  A chill rakes the back of my neck. I may not know my past, but she can’t even hold on to the present moment. I’d rather die than live like her.

  Dark-Eyed Boy swallows. “Never mind. Do you know where the nearest hospital is?”

  “You mean the Main Street Clinic,” she says. “If they’re still open, that is. I stay away from doctors, that’s why I’m healthy as a horse. That’s what my daughter says—stay away from the doctor. He’ll just make you sick.”

  I don’t bother to tell her she and her daughter have got it backward. “Just please tell us which way is Main Street?” I pray she remembers that at least.

  But instead of answering me Hazel chuckles, puts her hand on the door. “I’m real busy today,” she says, with a proud smile. “Mayor’s wife asked me to bake twelve dozen cookies for the fair. Want a hot snickerdoodle, you come back in an hour. You too, young man.” With that, she lets the door click shut.

  We trudge back to the sidewalk, somewhat stunned.

  “Well, that was weird.” I sigh. “She was a lot older and, um, battier than I first thought.”

  “It’s okay, we still learned something.” He puts his hands on my shoulders. “All we have to do is get to the Main Street Clinic.”

  “But we don’t even know which way to go.”

  “We can guess,” he says. “I say we start heading north.”

  “Why north?” I’m starting to get annoyed at the way he talks. His eternal confidence, his lightning-bolt decision making. Let’s do this, I say we do that. “Which way is north anyway?”

  “I don’t know, all right?” He throws his hands up. “It seemed better than standing here arguing, giving Dr. Psycho a chance to catch up with us. You have a better idea? Speak up.”

  I’m about to say that I did speak up, and that having a plan doesn’t mean you have a good plan, when out of the corner of my eye, I see a moving dot. A block away, a woman in a sundress is pushing a baby stroller up the street. “Oh, thank god! We’ll just ask her to point out Main Street.”

  “What are you talking about?” He spins, not even looking in the right direction.

  “Down the hill.” I point to her stroller’s wheels, rolling toward us along the bumpy sidewalk.

  “I don’t see anything.” He still sounds irritated.

  She’s only half a block away now. A tall Asian woman, glamorous-looking, like she stepped out of the pages of a Tokyo fashion magazine. Glossy hair in an updo, iridescent silver eye shadow, blue knee-length dress with a tiny matching shrug over it, and clear high-heeled sandals. I smile at her. Please be carrying a cell phone. Then I look into the stroller’s buggy and see only a white rattle resting on the pink blanket. Where’s the baby? No baby. She’s pushing an empty stroller. A chill twists its way down my spine.

  There’s got to be some explanation. Maybe she’s on her way to loan the stroller to a friend with a new baby. Or test-driving it before she buys it used.

  Or maybe she’s bat-shit crazy.

  The woman’s eyes lock on mine with a hungry focus, and that’s when her skin starts to shimmer ever so slightly. Tiny hairs rise on the back of my neck.

  “Run!” I yell, and I’m half a block away myself before I turn to see Dark-Eyed Boy’s still standing there, looking at me quizzically. The shimmering woman reaches out her long ghostly arms toward him. My breath catches in my throat. But before she can touch him, a faint blue light flashes between them, and instantly she’s blown back five feet, thrown onto her back.

  Holy shit.

  Chapter 6

  HIM

  “Hey, what are we running from?” I yell, but she’s already sixty feet away.

  That’s when I feel the stinging zap in my chest. A soft blue light blinks across my vision.

  What the hell?

  Am I cracking up, having some kind of flashback?

  Slowly I catch up to the girl, dreading telling her the truth, that I failed to see whatever she was warning me away from. That instead I saw some weird blue light. That there’s a nonzero chance I’m losing my marbles.

  But as I approach she’s looking up at me with wide-eyed awe. “What did you do to that woman?”

  “Nothing, I . . .” Never even noticed her. I look around, desperately hoping I’ll catch a glimpse this time. “She must have gone away.”

  “No, she’s right there!” The girl points at the empty street. “She wandered back to her baby-free stroller and now she’s shambling away. How can you not see her?”

  My heart sinks. Either the woman is there or she isn’t. And either way . . . “One of us is imag
ining things,” I say quietly. If it’s her, then I’d still have my wits about me to look out for her till we get help . . . but the blue light thing makes me fear we’re both losing touch. “Come on, let’s get back to looking for Main Street.” I put my hand on her shoulder, but she pushes it off.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” she snaps. “There’s no way I imagined all that. I’m telling you, the lady started to shimmer. Her eyes went all hyperfocused like she was in a trance, and then she went for us.”

  I blow out my lower lip with my breath. “I’m trying to keep an open mind here. But you realize how crazy that sounds?”

  “I’m not going to lie to you just so I don’t sound crazy.”

  I swallow. That one hit home, since I was doing exactly that in censoring my blue-light moment. “If she was going to attack us,” I say, “what stopped her?”

  “I thought you did, somehow,” she says. “There was this blue light all around you and she flew back and landed—”

  “Wait a minute, you saw the blue light?”

  She nods.

  I don’t know whether to be relieved or just more confused. If two people see something, does that make it real? I touch my chest where I’d felt the zap. My fingertip’s pressing right on the smooth texture of my tattoo, the Egyptian eye. I shake my head. “There’s got to be some logical explanation.”

  “Can you even consider the possibility that I saw something you didn’t? Or couldn’t?”

  “I do believe you that you saw something,” I assure her. “Or think you did . . .” Wrong thing to say. Error. Massive fail.

  “In other words, you think I’m losing it.” She burns me with her retinas of judgment. “You think whatever caused our memory loss is eating the rest of my brain. Well, I know what I saw.”

  “Then why didn’t I see it too?”

  She shakes her head like it’s a stupid question. “Not the point.”

  “Okay, what is the point then?”

  She says nothing.

  “I’m sorry, what do you want me to say?”