The Hidden World (12 page)

Her bed lay cold, with the sheets twisted up just as she had left them. The sun was already gleaming behind the trees, and the house was beginning to fill with light. For a split second she thought she could still hear somebody playing a whistle, very far away, but then the music was gone, and there was silence.

She crossed over to her dressing-table. The girl in the mirror stared back at her very solemnly. ‘I went through the wall,' said the girl in the mirror. ‘I went through the wall and I met roses that talked to me and wolves made of wood.'

As soon as she said that, she whipped around and looked anxiously at her closet, with its walnut veneer. The wolf faces were still there, but smooth and varnished, and showing no sign of sudden life. All the same, she didn't attempt to touch them, and in the morning when she opened the closet doors to get her clothes out she snatched at the handles very quickly, and stepped well back.

She met Renko and Elica by the lockers at school. Sue-Anne was there too, chattering to her friends, and she made a point of turning her back when Jessica arrived. She sniffed loudly, although she didn't dare say anything because Renko was there.

Elica was wearing a colorful scarf on her head so that she actually looked like a gipsy. Renko had his favorite sweatshirt on, emblazoned with the colors of the Connecticut Huskies. His hair was sticking up as if he hadn't combed it since he got out of bed, but Jessica thought that made him look cute, rather than scruffy.

‘I went through!' she said, quietly but excitedly.

‘You went through what?' frowned Renko.

‘The wallpaper. I stood on my bed and walked right through.'

Renko looked at Elica and Elica looked back at Renko.

‘You went through the wallpaper? Like, to where? Solid-brick Land?'

‘You have dream,' Elica suggested. ‘You want this so much lot, you have dream you go.'

‘Elica, I was wide awake. I went through and there's a whole world in there. It's like … Patternworld. Everything's made out of patterns from the real world. The grass, the trees, the birds, the sky, everything. Look – see this –' she took her geography workbook out of her locker and held it up in front of them – ‘this paper has a grass pattern on it, right?, with poppies. Last night I walked through this grass. I walked through this grass until I came to the edge of the book and then I went down a hill and—'

Renko was staring at her very seriously with his pale-gray eyes. ‘Jessica,' he said.

‘What? You don't believe me? Renko, I swear to you. I swear on the Holy Bible I went there. I went through. You heard those children calling for help. I saw one of them. I actually saw her. She was down by this river and she said her name was Phoebe. Only these wolves came after me and I had to run.'

‘Wolves?'

‘Well, not real wolves. Wooden wolves, from my closet doors.'

Renko slowly shook his head. ‘Come on, Jessica. Maybe the Sheriff was right. Maybe that blow on the nut … Look, I'm not saying you don't, like, genuinely believe this stuff, but nobody can walk through wallpaper, and there's no world with wooden wolves in it, I promise you.'

‘I have to go back. The Stain's coming to take those children, and if I don't save them then nobody will.'

‘Jessica, have you heard yourself?'

Jessica suddenly found that her eyes were filling up with tears. ‘I thought you believed me. You heard those children yourself.'

‘Hearing some kids' voices down a chimney isn't the same thing as walking through a solid wall.'

‘You don't cry, Jessica,' said Elica. ‘You have a dream of this place, so what? Is bad? This is good to dream of other place. Like my father dream of America and always say, one day I will take you to this place with happy people and kindness and golden arches.'

Jessica wiped her eyes with a tissue and blew her nose. ‘I'm sorry … I didn't sleep very much, that's all. But I was there, Renko, I absolutely promise you. Look,' she showed the pinprick marks in her hands that the hatpins had made, marks she had taken care to conceal from Grannie at breakfast.

‘OK, OK,' said Renko, and put his arm around her shoulder – a gesture which didn't go unnoticed by Sue-Anne, who gave a dismissive toss of her curls and said, ‘No taste, some people!'

They left the lockers and started to walk along the corridor to their English class. Jessica said, ‘Listen … how about sleeping over tonight?'

‘What?'

‘If you both sleep over, I can prove it to you. I can actually take you there.'

Renko stopped. ‘You're really serious about this, aren't you?'

‘Well, let's put it this way: if it's real, I want you to see it. But if it's only that knock on the head, giving me delusions, then I want to know about that, too, so that I can go to the doctor.'

‘I don't know,' said Renko. ‘Anyway, won't your grandmother worry about – you know …?'

‘Please,' Jessica begged him. ‘What have you got to lose?'

G
rannie apologized because she hadn't been expecting visitors and she had only corned-beef hash for supper. Renko didn't seem to mind: he cleared his plate and asked for seconds.

‘You're sure it's OK if Renko and Elica sleep over?' Jessica asked her as she helped Grannie to dry the dishes.

‘I couldn't be more pleased, sweetheart. You don't want to be spending all of your time with old relics like us.'

‘You're not relics. I love you, both of you.'

‘All the same, we're old, and you need to be mixing with young folks, with young ideas. Your Grandpa Willy thinks garage music is what they play at the filling-station. Just you be sensible.' And she gave Jessica a meaningful glance.

‘Yes, Grannie,' Jessica replied.

After supper they went upstairs to Jessica's bedroom. ‘I'm supposed to meet Phoebe by the ocean,' said Jessica. ‘I don't know how to get there, but I guess the roses might help us, if we can find them.'

Renko sat in the swivel chair in front of Jessica's desk, swinging himself from side to side. He didn't say anything, but she could tell by the expression on his face that he still didn't believe her at all. Elica stood in front of the mirror and pinned up her hair with some of Jessica's sparkly barrettes. ‘I look like princess, yes?'

‘We'll have to take my flashlight, just in case the wooden wolves come after us.'

‘Sure,' said Renko. ‘Wouldn't like to be eaten alive by a closet door, would we?'

‘Please, Renko. Don't make fun. You have to believe you can do this, otherwise you won't be able to.'

‘OK, OK.' He nodded toward the wallpaper. ‘What time are you planning on going?'

‘As soon as my granny and grandpa have gone to bed. I don't want them coming in here and finding us gone.'

Elica said, ‘You believe this so much. I don't want you to have disappointment.'

‘I don't think I will, Elica. And I don't think you will either.'

They talked and played music until well after ten, when Grandpa Willy came in to wish them good-night. ‘Don't stay up all night, kids. It's school in the morning, remember.'

Grannie came in behind him with milk and home-made cinnamon cookies. ‘I used to love slumber parties when I was young. My mother used to make us a whole picnic, with fried chicken and jellies and everything.'

She kissed Jessica good-night and then followed Grandpa across the landing.

‘Did you let the cat in?'

‘I thought the darn cat was in already.'

‘You know she wasn't in. You put her out yourself.'

‘I know I did, but I thought you let her back in again. She never stays out long in the snow.'

‘I can't trust you to do anything.'

‘I can trust you, though. I can trust you to nag me into an early grave.'

Grandpa went down to let the cat in, grumbling all the way, and then he came back up again, still grumbling. At last Jessica heard their bedroom door close. She turned to Renko and Elica and said, ‘OK … we can go now. Are you ready for this?'

Renko approached the wall, and knocked on it. ‘Seems pretty solid to me.'

‘The wall is, yes. But the pattern on the wallpaper isn't.'

‘Right … you'd better show us how it's done.'

Jessica came and stood beside him, her nose only centimeters away from the wallpaper. ‘There's nothing difficult about it. All you have to do is take a breath and step forward. Like this.'

She took a single step toward the wall and felt it give way. A moment's struggling against it and she was through, standing in the overgrown garden under a pale morning sky. She turned around and she could dimly see Renko and Elica standing in her bedroom, their mouths both open in stupefaction. She could even hear them talking, although their voices were very muffled.

‘Where did she go?'

‘I am not knowing, Renko. She disappear like
poof
!'

Jessica went back to the wall and shouted at them. ‘I'm here! I'm inside the pattern! All you have to do is take a step!'

‘I can hear her,' said Renko. ‘She must be there, I can hear her!' But still he wouldn't step forward.

‘Come on!' Jessica shouted. ‘It's easy!'

Renko didn't move and Elica even backed away a little. Exasperated, Jessica plunged her hand in between the roses and took hold of Renko's sleeve. She pulled him and, like somebody stepping through a curtained window, he appeared in the garden.

He looked around him and slowly shook his head. ‘You were right. Holy Moly. I can't believe it. You can get through.'

‘Now you, Elica!' called Jessica. She pushed her hand through the wallpaper again, caught hold of Elica's arm and pulled her into the garden too.

‘Is magic,' said Elica, wide-eyed. She looked back at the wallpaper and touched it, just to make sure that she was really on the other side.

‘Look at these bushes,' Renko enthused. ‘They're all made out of that leaf pattern on your grandma's couch. And these apples … I saw those same apples on the supper plates on her dresser. Only those were painted, and these are for real.'

‘The flowers!' said Elica. ‘All this daisy from tablecloth!'

High above their heads, swans flew that weren't swans at all, but curly moldings from the dining-room chairs; and in the distance they could see trees that were clusters of green lampshades, with fringes all around them.

‘I can't believe we're here,' said Renko. ‘I thought you were going bananas, I really did.'

‘Maybe we are all banana,' put in Elica.

Renko picked one of the apples and bit into it. ‘You're telling me I'm imagining this apple? I can feel it; I can taste it.'

But Jessica was growing anxious. ‘We have to find out where the ocean is. Time passes real quick here. Like one minute it's morning and the next minute the sun's going down. At least the roses were here before, to show me the way.'

As if it had been listening to her, one of the roses appeared from underneath the overgrown bushes and stalked toward her, its mean little face uplifted.

‘Is walking flower!' gasped Elica. ‘Is flower with face!'

‘I've seen everything now,' said Renko. ‘How am I going to tell the guys at school about this? “Oh, hi, Brad, I went through the wall in Jessica's bedroom last night and met this rose-bush that walked.”'

‘And talked,' hissed the rose.

‘Oh, yes,' said Renko, laughing in amazement. ‘That would make it a whole lot more believable.'

‘You came back,' the rose said to Jessica in a withering tone. ‘Didn't the Light People tell you not to?'

‘I have to save the children. I can't just leave them here until the Stain takes them.'

‘Many people try to save their friends and their loved ones, but hardly anyone succeeds. You should go back.'

‘I want to see Phoebe. She said she'd meet me beside the sea.'

‘You can't save her. You can't save anybody.'

‘I have to try.'

The rose turned its face so that its petals were muffled by the breeze, altering its expression, making it appear softer. ‘Yes, well. I suppose you have to try. It doesn't really matter if it's impossible, does it, so long as you try?'

‘Then tell me where the ocean is.'

‘Out of the garden and off to the left and down the zigzag path. But don't let the darkness catch up with you, and whatever you do watch out for the robes.'

‘The robes? What are the robes?'

‘You'll know when you see them,' said the rose. ‘And then you'll know that running's no use.'

‘How much time do we have before it gets dark?' asked Renko. He was obviously embarrassed that he was talking to a flower, but there wasn't any alternative.

‘As long as it takes for the light to fade away,' the rose replied unhelpfully.

‘Yes, but how long is that exactly?'

‘Exactly long enough for you to wish that you hadn't wasted your time asking.'

‘Then we'd better go, hadn't we?'

Jessica said, ‘Wait, Renko. You two don't have to come with me. If the rose is right, and it's dangerous—'

‘If it's dangerous, that's all the more reason I ought to come.'

‘Elica?' asked Jessica. ‘How about you?'

‘In Romania for gipsies there was much dangerous. We laugh at dangerous. Ha! Ha! Who cares about you, dangerous? I will come too.'

‘All right, then. You've got the flashlight, haven't you, in case we meet any of those wooden wolves?'

‘Least of your problems, wooden wolves,' said the rose sniffily.

They left the garden and started to walk up a long diagonal slope. The ground was thick with tiny purple-and-white flowers, which Jessica recognized as one of the diamond patches on her grandmother's quilt. By the time they reached the top of the slope they could already smell the sea, and they could see a thin glitter on the horizon, underneath a cloudbank of embroidered cushions.