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.
What do you think you just did, Meredith? You can destroy the manuscript or my notes, but it’s still here. Dad presses a fist to his chest. The book’s inside. You’d have to kill me.
Then use them in another story. Take the characters, change their names, and—
It doesn’t work that way, and you know it. They’re all infected. Their original stories would break any new book-world wide open. That’s why I send all my notes and ideas for new work away to London for safekeeping in the first place. Hell—Dad lets out a weird, high laugh that sounds a lot like the way the crazy lady looks—you might as well seal me into a Peculiar, if you really want to be sure.
What about the Mirror?
You mean, destroy it? Meredith, you were the one who said it would take a tremendous amount of energy. Simply breaking it wouldn’t work, right?
Yes, that’s right. A glassy red bead of blood swells and trembles on Mom’s lower lip, followed by another and then another. Maybe we should take it back to the island, where the barrier’s thinnest. Let the island swallow it up.
Meredith, no. Think. Honey … it’s a tool. You can’t go back, and I won’t lose you ag— Dad stops a second. I won’t let us lose each other and what we have, how much we’ve accomplished. If the Mirror and panops and Peculiars exist, there has to be something, somewhere, that will help us use them more safely. We just haven’t found it yet. Maybe that’s what we need to concentrate on.
That could take years, Frank.
So what? What’s time to us?
Plenty, if we end up dead in another …
No one is going to die, Meredith. I won’t let that happen.
Then what if … Mom’s nibbled her poor lip so bad her chin is smeary with blood. What if you stopped writing? I don’t mean forever. Just for now. Like with the Mirror. Take a break. You feel all that accumulated energy from them now, right? Your … your juice? So let the characters fade. Maybe they’ll die on their own. People have abandoned ideas and stories before.
It wouldn’t work. Every book is like a virus. Eventually, the stories find a way out, no matter what. Dad cups Mom’s face in his hands. Meredith, they live in my blood. They are as real to me as you and Lizzie. I’ve got to write. I can’t stop. I’ll go crazy.
Oh, Frank. Big, scared tears roll down Mom’s cheeks. She hooks her hands over Dad’s wrists like she might fall if she doesn’t. I know it’s hard, that it hurts, but you’ve got to try. We’ve got Lizzie to think about now. After so long, so many times that I … that we l-lost … Frank, she’s just a little girl. What about her? What if one of those things—
I’ll be okay. Lizzie can tell they’ve forgotten her, because they jump as if she’s suddenly popped into this Now right out of the Dark Passages. I bet I can help.