White Space

So what if … Lizzie’s insides go as icy as Mom says a Peculiar is, because you need the cold to slow down all that thought-magic. What if it’s a little bit in me, too, only I just don’t know it? Like Dad? Like how the monster-doll sometimes makes me feel?

What if London happens to her?

Meredith. Dad’s face scrunches, like he might cry. Honey, I honestly don’t remember writing her.

Mom’s shaking fingers keep trying to knot and hold themselves still. Then how do you explain that … that thing in our attic? She popped out of the Dark Passages on her own? She and Dad stare at each other, and then Mom whispers, Oh, Frank, is that even possible? Can they … could it do that? Act independently? If it got too much of you, could it have absorbed your ability to—

I don’t know. That’s not the way it’s supposed to— Then a new thought seems to bubble into Dad’s mind, because he glances at Lizzie, his eyebrows knitting to a frown.

And Lizzie thinks, Oh boy. She wonders if Dad remembers what he once said: that even though she’s only five, Lizzie is precocious, which is adult-speak for crap, she’s smarter than us.

Burn it. Mom quick grabs the book and runs to the woodstove and stuffs all that skin into the fire. The scroll, the special White Space Dad makes himself and onto which he pulls his stories, catches with a whump. Lizzie bets the words tried to fly away, but Mom’s trapped those suckers good, slamming the cast iron with a big clang. The pages scream bloody murder as all the White Space turns to ash.

That’s not going to do any good. Thick crayon-black lines of new worry are drawn around Dad’s eyes and along his nose. His voice is all shaky and yet very tired and heavy, which Mom once said is how doom sounds. Like when you know that, oh boy, your car’s about to crash and you can scream yourself silly all you want, but too bad.

Or when you’re Dad, and you finally wake up and understand that not only have you been gone for six solid months you don’t remember, but something very, very bad has slipped from the Dark Passages—and it’s your fault. That all the terrible, awful things happening in that London are because of you, and there’s no thought-magic in that Now to fix it. When you realize that you have to save yourself and especially Mom and get out, fast, and use the Sign of Sure to swoosh from that London to a different Wisconsin.

The book’s in my blood, Dad says in his heavy doom-voice. The energy’s in my brain. I can’t unthink it, Meredith.

You can choose not to dwell on it. You can choose not to write it. Think about something else. Dream up anything else.

But what about this book? I’ve gone too far. The characters are already in motion. If I just stop, I don’t know what will happen.

So what?

Meredith, think. Even without the Mirror, I’ve still had enough juice to pull the characters onto White Space for years. Maybe you’re right, and it’s finally wearing off, but sweetheart, I feel them. The characters will find their way out, somehow. Either they’ll bleed into other stories or each other’s, or worse, but if I don’t reach the end and their stories aren’t resolved … if they really can make the jump on their own—

I don’t care, Frank. Mom shivers as if she just can’t get rid of the really bad dream clinging to her brain, but keeps seeing it happen again and again, no matter where she looks. Do what you have to, but kill them. Kill the book.