White Space
Dark Passages - 1
by
Ilsa J. Bick
For Sarah:
This time, you live.
Father, this thick air is murderous.
Contents
Part One: Come And Play
Lizzie: Uh-Oh
Emma: Blink
Lizzie: Save Dad
Emma: Eyes, and Nothing Else
Eric: Poof
Eric: A Gasp in Time
Rima: So Never Digging Around a Goodwill Ghost-Bin
Part Two: The Valley
Lizzie: Whisper-Man Black
Emma: Not the Way I’m Made
Casey: Dead Man’s Shirt
Lizzie: I Want to Tell You a Story
Rima: Soother of the Dead
Tony: Maybe God’s Just a Kid
Eric: Devil Dog
Tony: It’s a Mirror
Casey: This Is Creepy
Tony: She Has to Be Here
Tony: Get Up, or You’re Dead
Casey: Full Fathom Five
Eric: A Night Coming On Fast
Casey: Where’s His Tongue?
Tony: A Thing with Eyes
Rima: Don’t Look Back
Part Three: The Fog
Lizzie: Wear Me
Emma: A Choice Between Red and Blue
Lizzie: Mom Makes Her Mistake
Emma: Between the Lines
Emma: As He Will Be
Emma: What the Cat Already Sees
Rima: That’s No Cloud
Bode: A Real Long Way from Jasper
Eric: One Step Away From Dead
Rima: No Time
Emma: Black Dagger
Emma: Them Dark Ones Is Cagey
Rima: Where the Dead Live
Rima: Tell Me You See That
Emma: A Bug Under a Bell Jar
Rima: What She Was Made For
Emma: This Is Your Now
Emma: The Opposite Ends to a Single Sentence
Emma: Space Tears
Rima: Something Inside
Emma: Just One Piece
Rima: I Don’t Know Who You Are
Emma: Find Your Story
Casey: What Killed Tony
Emma: All I Am
Rima: The Thing That Had Been Father Preston
Emma: Whatever They Make Will Be Real
Casey and Rima: Fight
Bode: Whatever This Place Makes Next
Casey and Rima: Look at Her Face
Rima: Doomsday Sky
Rima: Think My Hand
Rima: The Thickness of a Single Molecule
Part Four: Hell Is Cold
Emma: Outside of Time
Emma: Down Cellar
Emma: All Me
Emma: Tangled
Eric: What Does That Make Us?
Rima: A Safe Place
Part Five: Whisper-Man
Emma: Remember Him
Emma: Monsters Are Us
Rima: Blood Have the Power
Bode: Either Way, You Lose
Bode: Dead End
Rima: The Worst and Last Mistake of Her Life
Bode: The Shape of His Future
Bode: Into the Black
Emma: Push
Rima: Blood Binds
Emma: To the End of Time
Eric: My Nightmare
Emma: Monster-Doll
Eric: Write the Person
Eric: The Other Shoe Drops
Rima: A Whisper, Like Blood
Eric: To My Heart, Across Times, to the Death
The Whisper-Man: There Is Another
Emma: What Endures
Emma: Where I Belong
Part Six: The Sign of Sure
Emma: Elizabeth
Acknowledgments
PART ONE
COME AND PLAY
LIZZIE
Uh-Oh
1
AT FIRST, MOM thinks there are mice because of that scritch-scritch-scritching in the walls. This is very weird. Marmalade, the orange tom, is such a good mouser. But then Mom spies a dirty footprint high up on the wall of her walk-in closet.
A footprint. On the wall.
That’s when Mom feels someone watching, too. So she turns her head real slow, her gaze inching up to the ceiling vent—and there they are: two glittery violet eyes pressed against the grate like an animal’s at the zoo.
A crazy lady is in the attic. The attic.
The sheriff thinks she’s been hiding since fall and sneaking out for food at night: She coulda slipped in when the contractors were here. It happens.
Well yeah, okay, that might happen to normal people who live in towns and cities and don’t know how to reach through to the Dark Passages and pull things onto White Space, or travel between Nows. But Lizzie knows better. The crazy lady is something out of a bad dream: a rat’s nest of greasy hair; skin all smeary like she’s taken a bath in oozy old blood. Her hands, sooty and man-sized, are hard with callus, the cracked nails rimed with grime. She smells really bad, too, like someone raised by mole rats or bears. When the sheriff tries asking questions, the crazy lady only stares and stares. She doesn’t utter one single, solitary peep.
Because she can’t. She has no tongue. No teeth. Not a thing, except this gluey, gucky, purple maw, as if the crazy lady spends all her time slurping blood jelly.
So, really, she’s just about what Lizzie expects. Which is kind of bad, considering.
Like … uh-oh.
2
DAD SWEARS UP and down that he didn’t have anything to do with it: I told you, Meredith. After what happened in London, I’m done.
Mom isn’t having any of that. Really? Pulling out her panops, she extends the temple arms, flips out the two extra side lenses, and then hooks the spectacles behind her ears. Show me your hands, Frank.
Oh, for God’s … Sighing, Dad lets Mom get a good look, front and back. See? Not a scratch.
I see, but that doesn’t prove anything. You’ve brought back hangers-on from the Dark Passages before and not realized it. Taking a step back, Mom peers at Dad through purple lenses. Turn around, Frank.
Waste of time, I’m telling you. Holding out his arms, Dad does a slow turn like the tiny pink ballerina in Lizzie’s music box. (There’s nothing special about getting into her head; she’s only plastic and a little boring. No book-world, nowhere to go, no roommate, no hot shop, no mocha Frappuccinos, not even homework. That silly thing’s got nothing to do but twirl and twirl, although Lizzie loves the little brass nib that trips a hidden compartment. Just think of the secrets she could hide, the way Dad does with some of his characters.) Nothing hanging on, is there?
No. Pulling off the panops and flipping the extra side lenses shut, Mom chews her lower lip for a second. What about the Peculiars? If one’s cracked …
Dad shakes his head. Already checked. No dings, no nicks, not even a hairline fracture. There’s no way anything leaked out. Come on, honey, you’re the science whiz. You’ve done the calculations. Once you seal a Peculiar, nothing can get in or out, right? When Mom nods, Dad throws out his hands, like a magician going ta-da. See? I’ve kept my end of the bargain. I haven’t reached into the Mirror to invite or bind it since London.
Unless you don’t remember. You’ve lost time before. There are six entire months from London you don’t recall at all.
Oh, believe me, Meredith. Dad’s face grows still and as frozen as the expression of one of Lizzie’s special dolls—except for his dark blue eyes. Usually so bright, they dim the way a fire does as it dies. I remember more than you think.