White Space

She was also bothered by something else she hadn’t seen. Earlier, as the others bolted from Lizzie’s room, she’d paused, her eye falling on that box of porcelain dolls and the pile of six set off to one side. If we’re book-world characters, this almost makes sense. It would be like playing with Ariel from The Little Mermaid, or Frodo. Or a Captain Kirk action figure. At Holten Prep, there was this one guy who was so seriously obsessed with Stephen King, he snapped up a pair of Carrie action figures for a couple hundred bucks just this past year. She bet there were McDermott fans who did the same. So the dolls weren’t awful. What made them unusual was that they were porcelain. Glass.

And if she was right about what they were and represented … two were missing. Two dolls that should be there weren’t.

“What do you mean, it’s disappeared?” Casey’s skin was drawn down tight over his skull. Purple smudges formed half-moons in the hollows beneath his stormy eyes. Wound around his neck like a talisman was Rima’s scarf, which she’d left in the downstairs family room. “The barn’s got to be there. We’ve searched the whole house. The barn’s the only place left to look.”

“Then we got this huge problem, don’t we?” Bode waved his club at the fog, which hadn’t spilled onto the porch but simply stopped at the very edge. “That stuff’s pea soup. You could wander out five feet and get lost.”

Walling us in. The air was rich with that same metallic stink, too: crushed aluminum and wet copper. It was the smell of blood and this weird snow and the blackness down cellar. Everything that’s happened before keeps happening over and over again. Clamping her hands under her arms, she shivered, hugging herself harder. But I don’t understand what the point is.

“It’s daring us to come and get them,” Eric said, and she had the weirdest sense he’d somehow provided her with an answer. “Rima and Lizzie are insurance, that’s all.”

“Then why cover up the barn?” Bode asked. “Why make the fog worse?”

“Upping the ante. It’s another test.” Eric looked at her. “You said that everything you’ve done is preparation for the next step. What if this is it?”

“Crossing through the fog?” She frowned. “What kind of test would that be?” What he’d said also made her think of something else: what if House wasn’t all Lizzie’s mom, or even a healthy chunk? They’d assumed House was a safe haven. I’m missing something. “I guess I could try finding them with the cynosure and pulling them through?” She heard the question and made a face. “Somehow I don’t think that will work. I really think we’re supposed to do exactly what Lizzie wanted: go over there.”

“So can we stop talking and spouting theories that get us nowhere and just do something here for a change?” Casey’s voice hummed with frustration. “God, Lizzie was right. You guys are overthinking this! Come on, let’s just go!”

“Not so fast, kid.” Bode reached for Casey’s arm, but a single black glare from the younger boy, and Bode thrust his hand into a jacket pocket. “I know you’re hot to trot, and I don’t blame you. But we got to think this through. Remember: other characters … other people, have been here before,” Bode said, grimly. “Things haven’t turned out so great for them. If we’re walking into a fight, we need more and better weapons than the crap we’ve found so far.”

Crap was right. While the boys had been dismantling kitchen chairs for clubs, Emma had unearthed three flashlights, a lighter, and a packet of birthday candles (blue, of course). Toss in the box of fireplace matches and Eric’s Glock, and that was it for weapons. All the long guns—Bode’s rifle and shotgun, the shotgun Casey had retrieved from that church—were gone, left behind in the doomed truck. Not that it would’ve mattered, anyway, because they had no ammunition.

Emma watched as Eric stepped to the edge of the porch and looked down to where his snowmobile ought to be. A thoughtful expression drifted over his face. “What?” she asked.

“Got an idea. Wait a second.” Darting back into the house, he returned a few moments later with a can of Swiss Miss in one hand and the lacy curtains that had hung from the kitchen window bunched in the other.

“Hey, you want to kill someone,” Bode said, “you go for the Nestlé Quik.”

“Ha-ha.” But Eric was grinning.

“What’s the can for?” Casey asked.

“Gas,” Eric said. “There’s a siphon and an empty can in the rumble seat of the Skandic. Big Earl used to …” He stopped, his jaw hardening. “We always carry them, just in case. And there’s a whole quart of oil, too.”

“So what?”

“So we fill up this Swiss Miss can and maybe a couple more. The gas might come in handy.”

“Well, you and Emma are kind of walking gas tanks already,” Bode observed. “But yeah, I see where you’re going.”

“I don’t,” Casey said.