The Unseen (12 page)

X
ANDRA DIDN'T BELIEVE
what Belinda had said about mirrors and reflections.

She went on telling herself how much she didn't believe it as she hurried across the lawn and up the front steps of the school. She didn't believe it for one minute, and she was just going to forget all about it. And when she caught up with Marcie and her pals, she really did put it right out of her mind—or thought she did.

For once, in spite of having just seen her talking to Belinda again, most of the Mob were pretty friendly. At least they were after Lisa started sneering about seeing Xandra visiting with her “special friend,” and Xandra shut her up by saying, “Yeah, I was talking to Belinda and you'll never guess all the things she was telling me about you.”

That really got Lisa's attention. “About me? What sort of things about me?”

Xandra shrugged and said, “Oh, a lot of personal stuff. She has these special powers. Ways to find out about other people's secrets.”

The whole bunch of them, all the girls in Marcie's group, were listening now, leaning close in a tight circle, asking questions and begging her to tell them more. So she did. More stuff about how Belinda had a grandfather who was a kind of wizard who was teaching her how to work all kinds of magic spells and find out things about everyone she met. She was still talking when they got to language arts class.

The hours went by quickly that day, with lots to think over as well as talk about. But Xandra was not having any more talks with Belinda. Feeling that she'd heard enough about ugly monsters who were like mirrors, Xandra made it a point to catch the early bus that went directly to Heritage Avenue. And then she was home again, back at the Hobson Habitat, and there she did have a rather unusual talk, but not of course with Belinda.

She was walking down the front hall on her way to the stairs when it happened. As she walked past the door to what was sometimes called the music room, she was hearing but not really listening to what sounded like a rerun of “the perfect one's” recital. But as she passed the door, the music stopped and someone called her name.

“Hey, Xandra,” Victoria was calling. “Come in here. I want to talk to you.”

Xandra was surprised. It wasn't very often that any of
the siblings wanted to talk to her enough to stop whatever they were doing. Particularly not if it was something as important as Mozart.

“Yeah?” she said, sticking her head in the door. “You want to talk to me right now? You look pretty busy.”

Victoria got up from the piano bench. “Not really,” she said, shrugging. “I'm just going over the mistakes I made.”

“Mistakes? I didn't hear any mistakes.” She considered going on to say, I didn't think you ever made a mistake, but decided against it.

“Really?” Victoria looked pleased and hopeful. “That's good. I thought everyone heard them.”

Shaking her head, Xandra said, “I'll bet no one heard any mistakes except you and maybe Mr. Randolph.” Mr. Randolph was the piano teacher who had started all the Hobson siblings on the piano and given up quickly on most of them. Especially quickly on Xandra.

Victoria sat down on the music room couch and patted the place beside her. “I hope you're right. Come on in here. I want to talk to you.”

“About what, for instance?” Reminding herself that it was usually bad news when any of the siblings wanted to talk to her, Xandra was expecting the worst as she stopped just inside the door. But it turned out that all Victoria wanted to talk about was the dressing-up game she and Xandra used to play. The game that Xandra had reminded her of the night before in the restaurant.

“We called it playing the Ragbag Game, didn't we?” Tory said. “I'd sort of forgotten about it but I really remembered when you mentioned it. I wonder if all those ragbags are still there.”

“Probably,” Xandra said. “Who knows.” There had been an awful lot of ragbags in the attic of the Habitat. Some of them were full of things that Clara saved for housecleaning or silver polishing, but some others held great stuff like Helen's old furs and formals and even some things left over from Halloweens and fancy costume parties.

“Do you remember the time we made up a crazy play and I was Cleopatra and you were Tarzan?” Tory said, beginning to giggle. “And my Egyptian wig kept sliding down over my eyes just when I was supposed to do one of my speeches?”

“Yeah, I remember.” Xandra tried and failed to hold back a smile. “Yeah, and I kept losing my loincloth.” They went on remembering things and Tory went on giggling until Quincy went past the door. When he peeked in to see what all the laughing was about, Tory jumped up and ran to ask him something about what you had to do to get into the driver education class. Xandra started to leave, thinking, “Well, so much for the good old Ragbag days.” But before she turned the corner, Tory called after her, “Let's talk about it some more later. Okay, Xandra?”

Back in her own room, Xandra didn't get back to thinking about Belinda and the mirror thing right away, and when she did she was surer than ever that it wasn't true. None of those crazy lies about how the monsters reflected things about the person who owned the Key could possibly be true.

And that stuff about the Unseen creatures being everywhere, all the time. That was even more ridiculous. Suddenly remembering how she had imagined seeing, or maybe really did see, some shadowy shapes right there in
her own room, she quickly climbed up on her bed and dug her way down into the bottom of her pile of animals. Clutching some of her favorites against her chest, she squinted and began once again to glance quickly from side to side.

But this time nothing happened, at least not at first. No dark shapes lurked at the edges of bookcases or in the corners of the room. She tried it again, squinting even more, but still no cloudy shapes or flickering shadows. But then, as she was cuddling down into a more comfortable position, rearranging dogs and teddy bears, a dolphin, two plush tigers and then a plaid elephant, she suddenly felt something strange. A squirming, snuggling movement, near her right arm at first, and then against her left leg. A shifting snuggle and then a warm, damp, breathy touch on her wrist. Warm and damp and friendly like the nose of a kitten, or perhaps of a baby skunk. Even though Xandra quickly dug down through all the animals, running her hands over one muzzle after another, she couldn't find a single one that felt the least bit warm or damp.

So perhaps that was the end of it. And if it was, maybe the enchanted feather was a gift after all, instead of an evil charm that created a swarm of flesh-eating monsters. What if the appearance of the sharp-fanged creatures had only been some kind of mistake that would never happen again?

Pulling the feather out from under her blouse, Xandra turned it from side to side, thinking about how at first she had imagined it to be a wonderful thank-you gift from the enchanted bird she had rescued from the hunters and their dog. A gift like an Aladdin's lamp that would grant
wonderful wishes and answer all kinds of secret questions. While she was still lying there among her animal buddies, Xandra found she was beginning to think about other magical possibilities that might begin with …Perhaps with another visit to the basement? To the secret place behind the furnace where all her animals had lived and where she had first seen the enchanted feather.

During the next few days Xandra continued to think about the things that had happened in the basement. Mostly about what had happened after she had used the Key, but before the sinister clumps of darkness began to appear. She thought particularly about the fuzzy little shape that had looked and acted a lot like Stinky. Would he come back again if she went back to her basement hideout? As time went by she became more and more sure that some of her other basement orphans might turn up again if she was brave enough to go looking for them.

She didn't, however, do anything right away. At home and at school she went on doing ordinary things, which, as usual, included a lot of reading and daydreaming. And although she did see Belinda every day, she didn't make any special effort to talk to her. After the day Belinda had told her that the monsters were her own reflection, Xandra had quit riding the downtown bus. Belinda, she told herself, must have wanted it that way since she didn't even bother to ask Xandra why she'd stopped riding with her. So that was it, and everyone seemed to be happy, except that once in a while Xandra found herself thinking of something she'd like to say about a book or an idea, the
kind of thing she wouldn't be able to discuss with most of the people she knew. At those times she wished that—that things could be different.

And every evening, back in her own room, Xandra climbed onto her bed and snuggled down among her animals and waited to see if anything would happen. But nothing did. So that's that, she told herself. It's all over. But the truth was, she didn't want to believe it. To believe that the whole enchanted feather thing was over, or else that it had never really happened in the first place.

It wasn't until Saturday morning that she finally made up her mind to go back to her basement hideout in spite of what had happened, or what she thought had happened, the last time she was there. “Just to look around,” she whispered, imagining that she was talking to Belinda. “I won't try to use the Key. I just want to go back to where I took care of the animals. What would be wrong with that?”

So it was that early on a Saturday morning, while most of the Hobsons were still asleep, Xandra crept down the back stairs and around the house until she came to the steps that led down to the basement. On the bottom stair she stopped for a moment, for one last aboveground, daylight moment, before she took a deep breath and opened the door.

I
NSIDE THE BASEMENT
everything looked pretty much the same as ever. Even in the dim light it was possible to see that the boxes, trunks and barrels were right where they'd always been, as well as all the stacks of bicycles, skateboards, scooters and vacuum cleaners. Taking one careful step at a time, Xandra moved forward, stopping again and again to check all the dark corners and crevices behind the boxes and between the stacks. Crevices where the dusty light barely penetrated, and where, if she looked too long and hard, she could imagine thickening pools of darkness. But where, if she shook her head hard and blinked, there seemed to be only normal shadows. Shaking and blinking every few steps, Xandra moved toward the furnace and around behind it to her own secret hideout.

There too everything was just as it always had been. A
faint animal odor, warm and musty, still hung heavy in the air. And by the dim light that barely filtered in through the high narrow windows, it was possible to see as far as where the old kibble cabinet leaned back against the wall. And on past that to the double row of boxes and cages that had held so many animals and birds.

And only a few feet farther on was the padded box where she'd put the wounded bird, and where, early the next morning, she had found the enchanted feather. The two bowls that had held water and brine shrimp were still right where she had put them, and the small dent where the bird had sat was clearly visible. Standing beside the box, Xandra surveyed the whole area carefully and decided that it hadn't changed and wasn't about to. Even though she waited for quite a long time, nothing at all happened, except that the anxious and fearful feeling she'd come in with gradually changed to disappointment. Yes, definitely disappointment that there wasn't at least a hint of friendly creatures of the Unseen. No creatures, and not even the slightest hint of threatening monsters.

Another long minute passed before Xandra suddenly reached for the string that held the feather. As she pulled it out from under her shirt, she was whispering to an imaginary Belinda, “Don't worry. I'm not going to do the forehead thing. I'm just going to hold it here in my hand while I put the other one right here where the bird sat. See? Just like you did when you were here.”

She was still demonstrating and imagining Belinda's response when she suddenly became aware of something strange. A rustle first, a soft, brushing noise, and then a feathery puff of air against her cheek. Her hand, the one
holding the feather, went to her cheek as she turned to follow the diminishing sound. Turned toward where, on top of the cabinet, a strange mix of shadow and splintered light was beginning to take on a familiar shape. The big-headed, flat-faced, round-eyed shape of a fledgling barn owl.