White Space

“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 …”

3

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.

4

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.