White Space

Her fingers ghosted over the beads that spelled his name. “Concentrated on all of you.” She felt the flush creeping through her cheeks and dropped her eyes to the quilt. “It was weird. You think you remember what someone looks like, but all you’ve got are outlines, a fuzzy snapshot. I just kept concentrating on filling you in, but it was really hard.” She looked up to find Eric’s eyes, intent, on her face. “Even with the cynosure, I’m not sure it would’ve worked if you hadn’t …” She slicked her lips. “If you hadn’t called me.” If you hadn’t told me to feel you. She remembered that moment so well: groping around in the dark with her mind, trying to conjure up his face or Rima’s. Then, that indescribable sensation of something flooding her brain—Eric’s voice, his … energy?—and then it was like something out of that unfinished painting of Dickens surrounded by the ill-defined outlines of his characters. Eric faded in: first a suggestion, then an outline, and finally him.

“When you did that, and I got a sense of you,” she said, “I gave you color, and then there you were.”

“So do that again,” Casey said. “Give Rima and Lizzie color.”

“But that was to bring you guys to me,” she said. “This would be going somewhere and trying to take you along.” Without dropping you on the way.

“Our only other alternative is walking into that fog, either one at a time or all together,” Bode said.

“And we know that won’t cut it,” Eric said.

“I could get us all killed.” Her hand closed over the Eric beads. “I should do this alone. If something happens, then you guys figure out something else.”

“Not a chance.” Eric cupped the back of her hand in both of his. “She brought us in combinations for a reason. We stick together.”

“Damn straight,” Bode grunted. “I don’t buy all this multiverse jazz, but if we’re all part of each other? We’re stronger together.”

“He’s right. Give Rima color.” Casey’s voice hummed with urgency. “Please.”

“Okay.” Letting go of a long breath, she searched the quilt until she found what she wanted. “Casey, let me see those scissors for a sec.”

Casey handed them over. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t think the entire quilt is necessary. Lizzie might need it because she’s only five,” she said, taking the proffered scissors, then picking at the web of thread cupping the galaxy pendant. “The beads and fabric might be prompts.”

“So you think the cynosure is the only device?” Eric asked.

“Pretty sure. It’s the only thing on this quilt that keeps popping up in everything House shows me.” Teasing the glass orb free, she watched how it shimmered in the fan of weak porch light. Now that she actually held it, she saw that its designer had done a pull loop. Clearly, the cynosure was to be worn like a pendant on a necklace. “This is exactly what I was going to make, but I’m not nearly skilled enough. It would take me years of flamework to make glass sculptures this detailed. But the urge to do it has been eating at me for a long time, like insisting it gets done, you know? Can’t be a coincidence.”

“Here, use this.” Eric reached a hand beneath his collar. There was a muted clack of metal as he reeled out a beaded chain. “Safer than your pocket.”

“Aren’t you supposed to wear them all the time?” she asked as he threaded the pendant onto the chain. The glass butted against Eric’s dog tags with a dull tick.

“In the field. Technically, I’m not supposed to wear them when I’m not in uniform, but I just like them.” His lips flickered in a brief smile. “I trust you to give them back.”

“Thank you,” she said, hoping the heat she felt at the back of her neck hadn’t crawled around to her cheeks. She let her palm linger over his dog tags, still warm from his body. This is real, too. She held out her hands. “Lizzie’s always talking about dropping people.”

“Hey, I hear that,” Bode said, taking her left hand in his rough, callused paw and reaching for Casey. “Hang on ti—” He broke off.

“Bode?” Casey turned the older boy a curious look. “You okay? You just about jumped out of your skin.”

“Yeah, I’m cool.” Yet a sudden strain arrowed through Bode’s face, and Emma saw his eyes dart a question at the younger boy. “Just …” Bode’s throat bobbed in a swallow. “Let’s go, okay? The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

“You can do this,” Eric said to her. His grip, sure and warm, tightened around her right hand.

Glad you think so. She closed her eyes. Her thoughts would not be still, flitting from one image to the next, and she felt a splinter of panic. What should she think about? Rima? Lizzie? No, this was the reverse: putting them onto and into a blank. She thought of the door down cellar; watched the memory of her hand reaching toward that inky cold; remembered the blackness dimpling as her palm pressed that odd, glassy membrane.