White Space (19 page)

If spring ever comes to a place like this
. Swaddled in the space blanket and her parka, still damp with gasoline, she shivered as much from cold as a sudden premonition that, maybe, it was always night here, and cold.
And that’s got something to do with Wyoming. Those license plates are important. But I’ve never
been
to Wyoming
.

“Oh, don’t be a nut just because you can,” she said, watching her breath bunch in a gelid knot. Her eye drifted from the porch and past Eric’s snowmobile to that huge, outsize barn soaring up from the snow. Wisconsin was lousy with
red gable-roofed barns with stone foundations and sliders and haymows and cupolas to draw in air and dry out the hay. But this thing was
ginormous
, much too big—and wrong, too. Why? Her gaze brushed over the exterior walls, then roamed over the gabled roof.

“No cupola,” she said after a moment. “No sliders, not even a ramp.” There was a door but no windows of any kind. The walls were blank. It was as she’d said to Eric: the skeleton of a movie set, someone’s
idea
of what a farm—a barn—should be.

“Or maybe it’s all the barn you need.” Then she thought,
What? Enough barn for whom?

“Hey, Emma, you nut … what if
this
is a
blink?
You ever think about that? Or maybe you’re dreaming.” Hadn’t there been some movie about this? “
Inception
,” she said, and then more loudly: “So, okay, go ahead, kick me. I’d like to wake up now.”

Of course, nothing happened. “Right,” she snorted, watching how her breath smoked in the icy air. “It’s not like Morpheus is going to show up and give you a choice between red and blue. Get a grip.”

Scooping snow from the porch railing, she cupped it in her bare hands, grimacing at the burn. “So that’s real.” She held the snow to her nose and sniffed. Frowned. “But funky.” Snow had an odor, something that she associated with frigid, frosty, old-fashioned trays of ice cubes.
This
particular scent was thicker and metallic, but not aluminum. Copper? The image of Jasper’s heap of a pickup flashed in the middle of her mind. Yeah, same smell: wet, cold rust. Still, this was
real
snow.

And my head hurts
. Brushing powder from her hands, she gingerly probed her bandaged forehead with a forefinger. Beneath the gauze and her skin, she could feel the circle of her titanium skull plate. So
that
, or rather
she
, was—

BLINK
.

“Oh boy.” She was inside, with no memory of having opened the door. She threw a glance at the braided mat upon which she stood. Her shoes were bone-dry: no melting snow, no puddles. To her surprise, the house was a little chilly; she pressed the back of one hand to the tip of her nose.
Cold as a brass button. Bet it’s red as Rudolph’s, too
.

“Okay,”
she breathed, and felt the house fold down a bit, crouch closer—which was … pretty crazy.
Exactly like when I read
The Bell Jar
this past summer; felt that damn thing coming down, trapping me like a lightning bug under a jelly glass
. Yet she heard nothing in the house. Not a creak. Not a crack or pop, none of the tiny settling sounds any normal house made. No
hoosh
of a furnace either. She threw a glance at the ceiling and then down at the floor.
Whoa, no vents. No registers or radiators. So how are they heating this thing?

Except for the gleaming hardwood floor, which held this single colorful braided rug, the foyer was a white-walled cube. No pictures. No paintings. Ahead and to the left, she saw a circular flight of stairs that twisted around and around, seemingly forever. Like the barn, the too-large stairs belonged in a little kid’s fairy-tale version of a mansion or castle, and was all wrong. Another hall—black as a tomb
and lined with closed doors—ran to the left of the stairs and went on a long way.

Just walls and a front door with sidelights. A hall with a lot of doors. Outside, there’s a porch, a swing, hanging planters, but no storm door. No doorbell or peephole
. She threw a look back at the door.
Not even a lock
. Her eyes zeroed in on the smooth brass knob.

“No keyhole,” she said. “It’s just a knob. Everything’s been stripped down to the bare minimum, like the barn. Because this is all the house you need?”
All the house
who
needs?
“Maybe I’m not thinking about this the right way. Maybe”—she cocked her head at the ceiling—“maybe this is all the
house
needs.”

To her left, something cleared its throat with a faint sputter.

“Huh!” Clapping a hand to her mouth, she held back a scream. She could feel her eyes trying to bug out of their sockets. What
was
that? Coming from that gloomy corridor … Her breath was coming too hard and fast to hear over, and she raked her upper lip with her teeth, focusing on the pain.
Calm down, you nut. Just … music?
No. Concentrating, she worked to reel in the sound and caught a static crackle, a gabble of nonsense syllables, a sizzle and hiss.

“Radio.” The word floated on a sigh of relief.
Freak yourself out, why don’t you?
Or maybe a TV Bode and Chad had left on. Had there been a satellite dish on the roof? She didn’t remember one, and this house was way the hell and gone. No way it got cable. So this was more than likely a radio.

I should look for it. Eventually, they’ll give the call sign, or if I really luck out and there’s a weather band …
She pushed away a sudden woozy sense of déjà vu. Hadn’t this been exactly what she’d said to Lily only a few hours ago?
Well, so what if this
is a weather band?
This was a farm,
duh
; farmers cared about weather just like ships’ pilots and fishermen.
If I can find the radio, I’ll know where we are
.

“Hah,” she muttered, “easy for you to say.” Carefully inching from the mat, she let herself ease a foot away but still close enough to the door to bolt if she needed to.
If the house lets me out
. “Stop it, Emma,” she said. Shutting her eyes, she cocked her head like a dog trying to decipher a command, and listened.
Where
was this coming from?

Well, you could go look, you coward
. But she couldn’t make herself move any further than she already had. A spider of new fear scurried up her neck and stroked another deep shudder. “What are you waiting for, Emma?” she murmured. “An engraved invitation?”

And was she talking
only
to herself?

No
. She ran her eyes over the blank walls, the improbable staircase, the smooth ceiling.
I’m talking to you, House
—and then she sucked in a quick breath as she realized something that neither she nor Eric had seen before, that just hadn’t clicked.

There was
light
in this house, glaring and bright. But there were no fixtures. No bulbs, no lamps, nothing—only that single pole lamp in front of the barn.

Because you wanted to make sure we saw that barn, didn’t you, House? Just in case we happened to miss the fact that it’s as big as a mountain?

“You,” she said to herself, “are creeping yourself out.” With good reason, though: this valley, the house, the stillness, this sudden radio gibberish, if that’s what it even was … none of this belonged.

“You don’t belong either, House.” Her voice came out flat. “It’s like you’re alive. I feel you watching me, waiting for me to make a move …”

SHE
BLINKED
BACK
.

She stood at a bathroom sink, over which a wall-mounted, mirrored medicine chest hung. The glass was fogged with condensation. Her hair was damp, and the air was steamy and smelled of floral shampoo. A fluffy white towel was hung neatly over a steel shower curtain rod. The curtain itself was gauzy white and decorated with the black silhouette of a cat at the lower left staring up at a tiny mouse at the right.

Cat-and-mouse is right
. Looking down at herself, she saw that she now wore fresh jeans and a turquoise turtleneck that brought out the deep sapphire of her eyes.
Must’ve raided a closet or something
. Even
blinked
out, she always
could
color-coordinate.

And now I’m in front of a mirror, and there was a mirror in that
blink
about Lizzie’s dad
. “But this is a bathroom.” Plucking a white washcloth from a towel bar next to the sink, she scrubbed the mirror free of steam. Her face swam to the surface of the glass and firmed. She saw that she’d removed her bandage. Her forehead was a mess. “Just a plain-old vanilla bathroom in a creepy little house, not some huge, weird mirror in a big ba—”

Oh, shit
. “In a big barn.” Her mouth was so dry she had no spit.
Be calm
. She carefully smoothed the washcloth, then folded it in half and draped it over the towel bar.
Think this through
.

“Right. Okay, so there’s a barn,” she said to her reflection. “So what? What does this prove? That you’re still in that weird Lizzie-
blink
? Or only dreaming?”

Yet Lily was dead. That was no dream. And her forehead hurt. Squinting at her reflection, she gingerly finger-walked the wound. The ragged edges were raw, and a purplish lump bulged like a unicorn’s horn. Touching it sent off a sparkle of pain.

“So this is real.” At the wave of relief, she gave a tremulous laugh. “Of course it is. I’ve been scared in dreams, but I’ve never gotten all banged up or cut, and if I have, I don’t remember, and I’ve never felt pain.”
Lucky I didn’t crack my skull either. Can that happen if you’ve already got plates—

She never finished that thought. She felt the words curl in on themselves as tightly as snails withdrawing into their shells.

Because that was when her brain finally caught up to what was going on with that mirror—and, more to the point, what was happening
in
it.

“Oh, holy shit,” she said.

LOOK IN A
mirror, any mirror, even the goofy ones at the county fair. Raise your right hand. From your reflection’s perspective, you’re raising your
left
hand, so your reflection raises
its
left. Equal but opposite. Put your right hand on the glass and your reflection’s left hand floats to meet you.

But when Emma raised her right hand, her reflection lifted
its
right. Equal … but
not
opposite.

“What?” Startled, she took a step back—

And watched her reflection take a step
forward
.

“Oh God.” A sudden cold sweat started on her upper lip.
That can’t be happening. I hit my head. That’s what this is. I’ve been
blinking
a lot. I’m seeing things
. “It’s all head trauma,” she said, and let her right hand drift up again. “This is nothing but—”

The rest wouldn’t come, because, this time, her reflection did nothing. Not a thing. Didn’t move its hand. Didn’t step back either.

“Stop that,” she said to her reflection. “What’s—”
Ohhh, God
. She heard her breath gush from her mouth. She was talking. Her mouth had moved.

But her reflection’s hadn’t. That thing with her face hadn’t matched her words at all but only stared, mute and waxen as a doll, as soulless as a mannequin.

Get out
. Her knees were beginning to shake. In another second, if she didn’t get moving, her legs would give out and she’d fall, maybe faint.
Get out of this house while you still can. Run, ru—

Her reflection moved toward her.

“Oh shit.” Emma breathed. Rooted to the spot, she watched as her reflection took a step and then another and another until it was plastered against the glass, its features flattening like those of a kid peering into the darkened front of a candy store.
Run, you nut, run
. But she couldn’t make herself move. It was as if she’d turned to stone.

Something tugged her wrist.

“What?” She stared at her right hand, which was starting to jitter. Her fingers twitched. “Stop that,” she said to her hand. “Cut that out.
Stop!
”

Her hand … 
moved
. On its own. Without her telling it to.

No. Stop
, she thought to her hand.
Stop what you’re doing
. “Don’t, Emma,” she said, hoarsely, as her fingers floated for the mirror. “Don’t,
don’t
!”

Her hand didn’t care. She watched herself reach for the glass and thought back to earlier that day: that strange compulsion to push
through
her driver’s side window
—where the barrier’s thinnest
—and bleed to some other time and place.

“Bleed,” she said, and felt her heart give a tremendous lurch.
In my
blink,
Lizzie’s dad cut himself. When his blood touched that weird mirror, the glass began to change
.

“Don’t touch it,” she quavered. All the tiny hairs on her neck and arms bristled. This wasn’t the same mirror; she hadn’t cut herself. But then why wasn’t her hand obeying? Whoever heard of a reflection that acted more like a double trapped on the other side of the glass?
Alice in Wonderland syndrome is right
. “Emma, don’t do this.”

But her hand just wouldn’t listen. As her fingers met the bathroom mirror’s silvered glass, a startled cry tore from her lips. The icy mirror burned; her fingers instantly numbed, and yet she was still reaching, pressing,
pushing …

This is like when I was twelve and wandered down into Jasper’s cellar to find a book
, she thought with stupefied horror.
I couldn’t stop myself back then either
. This was a nightmare, like Neo at the mirror, after he’d swallowed the red pill.
Stop, I want the blue pill
, she thought, crazily, as she kept
pushing
. “Help,” she panted, “somebody, help, he—”

Now, the glass dimpled. It
rippled
and
swam
. It opened itself like a mouth.