White Space

“Cemetery.” The tombstones were a jostle of rectangles and squares, listing like broken teeth. Beyond, she spotted … was that a snowplow? No, that wasn’t right. The blocky vehicle was outfitted with treads, like a tank, and the discharge chute of a snowblower reared like an orange smokestack to the left of the cab. Instead of a blade, the huge, sharp corkscrew of an auger was mounted at the front of the vehicle.

I know this. The certainty was so bright, it was like a searchlight had flared to life in the center of her brain. The church, the cemetery, and that thing with the auger is a snowcat, and it’s all important. But why? Why do I recognize thi—

A scream, short and sharp, ripped through the air, followed by a loud, rolling BOOOMMM.

Rima knew, instantly: not thunder, or an explosion.

A shotgun.

Coming from the church.

EMMA A Bug Under a Bell Jar

1

“NO. JUST STAY away from me.” Cringing from Kramer’s outstretched hand, Emma slides a slow step back and then another, the rough carpet scratching her bare feet. She is suddenly very cold, and from the heavy overcoat Jasper wears, that faint sparkle of snowmelt on his shoulders, she thinks it’s probably winter.

Of course it’s winter, you nut. Clad only in a coarse flannel nightgown, Emma shivers. It was snowing in the valley. Lily and I crashed in a blizzard. This hallway, this asylum, these people, all belong in a nightmare, a blink, a dream, a hallucination—or it’s House that is peopling this illusion, pilfering her memories for details: the embroidered pictures of flowers, the bowed ridged ceiling with its gas lamps, the low pedestal table to her immediate right with that stuffed toucan trapped under a glass dome.

How could House build this from my mind? She doesn’t know or recognize this as a real place, or from any book. Now, that day in Madison, the one she just left, she almost understands. The bookstore exists; she had bought The Bell Jar that day. The broader details, even her mocha Frappuccino, were correct.

Yet, unless she was taking a cue from all those Dickens novels and stories they listened to when she was young, she has never imagined Jasper as a bearded, middle-aged man in expensive evening clothes, complete with a walking stick. And Kramer, so different: no longer the Great Bloviator in prissy Lennon specs but a Victorian-era shrink decked out in purple panops. It’s as if she’s exchanged one monster for another.

And I’ve never been here before, except in a blink I barely remember. I don’t know anything about asylums except what’s in The Bell Jar, do I? Did Dickens ever—

“Come with me, Emma.” Kramer’s tone carries a note of command. “You and I will go to my office and sort this out”

What, and then you’ll accuse me of stealing a dead guy’s story? She fights for control, her eyes stinging with frightened tears. Stop it; this is a dream, a blink; that’s why it echoes. House is building this from your memories. This isn’t real. But she’s hip-deep in it; this is like being chased by a monster in a nightmare—and, yes, isn’t that exactly what’s happening? You have to run in a nightmare; you don’t know you’re in one until you wake up. She can’t chance that House will rescue her.

“No. I don’t want to sort it out. I’m not going anywhere with you.” Call it a hunch, but if she lets him take control in this hallucination or blink or whatever it is that House is doing, it’s the end. She’ll be trapped here. Behind her—and don’t ask her how; she just knows—this very long corridor is nothing but a blind alley, a dead end.

Which means the only exit from this floor is the way that Jasper and Kramer came in. How am I going to get past them? Kramer is the point of the spear; Jasper hovers just behind Kramer’s left shoulder. Another foot or so back, Graves stands to Jasper’s right. But Weber, the thickset attendant with the strong dress to Jasper’s left, is the one she has to worry about. Her eyes fall to Jasper’s walking stick with its carved ivory handle, and she thinks, Right-handed.

“I will go only if Jasper comes, too, and only him,” she says to Kramer. “But the rest of you back off, okay?”

Kramer hesitates, and Graves, the nurse, says, “Doctor, I don’t think—” at the same moment that Weber grunts, “Them girls know how to make trouble.”