White Space (10 page)

Because when her father turned from that mirror … his face was gone. No eyes, no nose, no mouth. Nothing but a shuddering, churning blank.

Then this thing with no face raised her dad’s hands like a
policeman stopping traffic. The cuts were gone. Her father’s palms were smooth—until the skin split and lids peeled back and there were eyes, one on each palm. They were not her father’s eyes, because they were not hers. Like father, like daughter, their eyes are identical: a deep indigo with a tiny fleck of gold on one iris. Lizzie’s birthmark floats in her right eye and is the mirror image to her father’s on his left.

But the eyes that stared from her father’s palms were whisper-man black. The whisper-man was in there, and her dad was the glove, just as Mom said he’d been, years back and before Lizzie, in the other London.

But what if I can make the whisper-man want
me
instead?
This is a new thought, and so stunning Lizzie’s chest empties of air.
If I can get it to leave Dad and slip into me—

There is a sudden, massive flash. The light is so bright the inside of the car fires the color of hot gold. A split second later, Lizzie hears the rolling thunder of an explosion.

“Oh God,” Mom says. In that molten glow, Lizzie sees the shine of her mother’s tears. “Oh God, forgive me.”

“No, Momma, no!” She could’ve
fixed
it; she could’ve made it
better
. “Why did you do that?”

“You don’t understand.” He mother drags a hand across her eyes like a weary child. “It was the only thing left.”

“No, it wasn’t! I could’ve fixed things, I could’ve
helped—
”

From the backseat comes a flat, mechanical beep. Her mother gasps. The sound is so jarring and out of place it seems to come from the deep, dark valley of a dream.

“It’s your phone,” Lizzie says.

“I know that,” Mom says.

Beep
.

“Should I answer?” Lizzie asks.

Beep
.

“No,” her mother says.

“But what if …” Like a birthday wish, Lizzie’s afraid to say it out loud. “Mom, what if it’s Dad?”

Beep
.

“It might be his voice, but it wouldn’t be him, Lizzie. Your father’s gone.”

Beep
.

“But what
if—
”

“I said no!” her mother snapped. “Sit down and—”

No
, Lizzie thinks, furiously. Against her palms, she feels the sudden tingling surge as the Sign of Sure, sewn on her memory quilt, feeds on her thoughts: all that energy stored up in her brain that wants to whisk her through the Dark Passages, that must find a way out.
No, Momma’s wrong; I can fix this. I’ll make it want me. I’ll build a forever
-Now
and swoosh the whisper-man there with the Sign of Sure
.

She unbuckles her belt.

“What are you doing?” her mother raps. “Sit down, young lady.”

“I don’t have to listen to
you
,” Lizzie spits, and then she is scrambling up, twisting around in her seat, reaching for her mother’s purse. Through the rear window, she can see the forest’s black walls squeezing the road, as if her past is a book whose covers are slowly, inexorably closing. Then, in the sky, she sees something else, and for a second, her heart forgets how to beat.

“M-Mom?” The word comes out in a rusty whisper. Her throat clenches as tight as a fist. “M-Mom, the s-sky … i-it’s …”

“Oh no.” Her mother’s eyes flick to the rearview, and then she cups a hand to her mouth as if she might be sick. “Oh my God, what have I done?”

“Mom?” Lizzie can’t look away. “Mom, what
is
that?”

“The Peculiars … all that stored energy, I’d hoped it would be enough to take out the Mirror, but I didn’t stop to think that your father had already opened the gateway; he’d
bound
that thing and … My God, I’ve only given it more
fuel
.” Mom sounds as broken as the Peculiars and the Mirror. “What did I
do
?”

Behind them, the sky is moving. High above the trees, something steams across the night: a boiling wall of white so dense that the stars are winking out, one by one.

Something has bled into this world, all right. Something is storming after them. Something is running them down.

Not an aurora.

Not clouds.

What is coming for them is the fog.

“EMMA.” PAUSE. “EMMA.”

A voice, very distant, as tinny as a radio. For a horrible second, her ears heard that weird hiss—
peekaboo, I see you
—and she thought,
Kramer?

“Emma?”

She didn’t answer. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t. God, she was freezing. She hurt. The cold was intense, the snow burning across her skin like a blowtorch. When she pulled in a breath, she heard a jerky little cry jump out of her mouth as something with claws grabbed her ribs and ripped her chest.

“Emma?” The voice was closer now, on her right, and it wasn’t the radio or Kramer at all. Why would she even think that? “Emma, come on, wake up.”

A … a boy? Where? Emma tried moving her head. There was a liquid sound, and then a thick, choking chemical funk.

“Emma, can you hear me?”

Her neck screamed. So did her back. Her forehead
throbbed, a lancet of pain stabbing right between her eyes, not only from the
blink
but …

We crashed. I’m still in the van, but I saw that little girl again, too, and someone or
something
was
 … 
chasing her?
But what? She couldn’t remember. The threads of the vision were fraying, unraveling. Didn’t matter. She dragged a hand to her aching forehead. She felt the familiar nubbins and that bigger circle of her skull plate just beneath her skin, but also something wet and sticky that was not gasoline.

Blood. Cut. How deep?
Her fingers slid over torn flesh but not metal. She must’ve hit pretty hard. Her head was swimmy and she was already dizzy from gas fumes. Her stomach did a long, slow roll.
No, please, I don’t want to puke
.

“Emma, can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” she breathed. She tried prying her lids open. They felt sewn shut, and she had to work to make her muscles obey. Then the darkness peeled away, and she winced against a stab of silver-blue light. “Bright.”

“Sorry.” The featureless blot of the boy’s head and shoulders moved between her and the snowmobile’s headlight.

“Better?”

“Uh,” she said, and swallowed, waiting for her stomach to slither back down where it belonged. It was only then that she realized he was on his hands and knees, peering through a window. The van had flipped. She was lying on the roof. Or was it the ceiling? She couldn’t think. What was the last thing she remembered from
this
world? The sensation of whizzing through space, a free fall, and then the
bang
as the van plowed into something nose-first. Her back had slammed the windshield, and she’d rebounded, flying past the steering wheel,
her shoulder clipping the driver’s side headrest as she shot for the rear window, as Lily screamed and
screamed
.

“Lily?” Her voice came out in a weak little wheeze. “Lil?”

“Hey.” The boy squirmed in, sloshing through gasoline until his face was right up to hers: so close she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. “Hey, look at me, stay with me. Here,” he said, lacing his fingers around her left hand. “Feel that? Remember me? Eric?”

“Yes, I … I do. I remember.” It took a lot of work and concentration to swallow. “But where’s Lil?”

“We need to get her out of there.” Another boy, a voice she didn’t recognize. “That gas isn’t stopping. I’ve never seen so much gasoline. How much you think this thing
holds
?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Eric tossed the words over his shoulder, while his eyes never left hers. “You guys got a blanket or maybe a first aid kit? She’s bleeding pretty bad.”

“First aid kit in the trunk,” the boy said again. “Hang on.”

A girl’s voice: “I’ll come with you.” The boy and girl moved off, their voices dissipating like smoke.

“You’re going to be okay.” Eric’s grip on her hand tightened. “I’ve got you now, Emma. You just keep looking at me. Don’t worry about anything else, all right? Can you tell me what hurts?”

Everything?
“My head. Chest. Hurts to breathe. I think I hit the steering wheel.”

“Might be nothing more than a bruise. What about your neck?”

“Eric.” She swallowed back against another tidal surge of nausea. “Where’s Lily?” When he hesitated, she thought,
Oh God
. “Lily … she … she’s dead, isn’t she? I got her killed,
didn’t I? Where is she? Is she”—ignoring the knifing pain in her neck and shoulders, Emma tried to turn her head—“was she thrown or is she still …”

“Emma, does it really matter? Seeing won’t change anything.”

No
. She used her eyes the way she might her fingers, tracing the shape of his nose, that line of jaw, tangling in hair that was wavy, black, and thick. Even in the gloom, she could see the deep blue of his eyes.
You don’t understand, Eric. Seeing is believing. Seeing changes everything
. Aloud, she said, “Thank you for not leaving us.”

“Not the way I’m made.” He cupped her cheek. “Come on,” he said, gently. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“OH BOY.” TONY
was kneeling in deep snow by the Camry’s rear tire. “This is not good.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” said Casey, smearing ice from his cheeks. He grimaced as snowmelt trickled down his neck to soak the collar of Big Earl’s shirt. Casey hadn’t wanted the thing, but his was shredded, cut to ribbons by Big Earl’s switch, and blood-soaked to boot. At first, shrugging into Big Earl’s oversize flannel had been like slipping on the slack, discarded husk of a gigantic python, and just about as pleasant. The thing was a little better now, but that wasn’t saying much, all things considered. The shirt felt … 
squirmy
. Not alive, exactly, but every now and again, he thought he could feel it actually moving in tiny creeps, as if trying to worm into and wrap itself around the muscles and bones of his much smaller, slighter frame. Which, of course, was crazy; the thing was just a dead man’s shirt. Still … he could feel his skin flinch and cringe, withdrawing the way cats slithered low to the ground when they just didn’t want to be touched. He
shrugged, wincing as old flannel raked raw flesh and clotted blood. “Man, that tire’s flatter than a pancake.”

“Wh-what happened?” said Rima, doing the freezing person two-step. “I thought you were being c-careful.”

“I was, but …” Tony sighed, his breath huffing in white steam the wind grabbed and tore apart. “If I had to guess, I’d say one of these downed spruces. Branches are sharp as spears. Probably drove over one buried under the snow.”

“Do you have a spare?” asked Emma, shivering. Gasoline didn’t freeze, and she and Eric were drenched, the stink hanging over them in a noxious cloud. Tony had dredged up a space blanket for her, but it didn’t seem to be doing much—not that this broke Casey’s heart or anything. “Or maybe a pump you could run off the battery?”

“The car’s buried,” Casey said, impatiently. Idiot. She looked like hell, too. In the flashlights, the shock-hollows beneath her eyes were purple smudges. Wouldn’t let Eric touch the gash on her forehead, but had bandaged it herself. Not such a hot job either. She also seemed kind of out of it: like she zoned every so often.

She’s probably high
. Big Earl’s voice misted over his mind.
Or drunk. Probably why she crashed
.

Now, he’d had Big Earl in his head about as many times as he’d slid into the old fart’s clothes. Like
never
. The fact that he did hear Big Earl now should’ve freaked him out, but Casey was surprised to find that he was more … interested.

“Look,” Casey said to Emma, “you can change the tire five times, if that’ll make you happy. Even if you manage to get the tire to reinflate, take a look around. Snow’s way too deep. There’s no way this car’s going anywhere.”

“Wow,” Rima said. “N-n-negative often?”

“No.”
He wanted to smack her, and this was also a new impulse. Big Earl had been the one to hit first and never ask questions later. “I’m just saying.”

“But if he’s got a spare or a pump, it’s worth a try,” Eric said. “We can’t be any worse off than we are now.”

Oh, wanna bet?
Casey wasn’t sure if that was his voice or his dad’s—not that it mattered, because he agreed. But he kept his mouth shut. None of these people had a clue, but he knew:
This valley is wrong. It doesn’t belong
. The valley was a big black mouth and that road was its throat, and they were at the bottom, in the dark and the cold and the snow that just kept coming, like dirt filling a grave.

Which they could use, come to think of it. Casey’s eyes slid to the van. Through the window, he could make out a fur-trimmed parka that had once been white but was now oozy with blood and lumpy-bumpy from the body underneath.

“Well …” Tony looked uncomfortable. “I think we’re already worse off. I don’t have a pump, and my spare’s leaning against the wall of our garage. I did lawns this summer, so I took it out to make room for the mower. Just never got around to putting it back.”

“So what do we do?” Emma asked.

“We get you someplace warm,” Eric said.

“You know, we’re all kind of cold,” Casey said. He saw the sharp look Rima threw his way.
Yeah, yeah, bite me
.

“Ease up, Case,” Eric said.

“Ease up?” It figured. Eric got to play G.I. Joe; poor widdle Emma was saved; and still, here they were, oh-so-screwed.
“In case you haven’t noticed, no one’s going anywhere warm. We’re
stuck
.”

“Yes, but we still have the sleds.”

“Which won’t fit everybody.”

“Case, I know,” Eric said, “but getting upset won’t—”

“You know, I’ll feel whatever I want.” Casey’s fists bunched. He took a step toward his brother and enjoyed the surprise in Eric’s eyes. “Quit bossing me around.”