Or pull her into mine. A weird thought. And this last blink … “Want me, wear me,” she whispered, hugging herself against the cold. Tony’s space blanket let out a tired crinkle like soggy cellophane. “What does that mean, Lizzie?” Made about as much sense as Jasper going on about … “Dark Passages,” she said, slowly, to the still, cold night. “Lizzie knows about them—and different Nows? Like Jasper? But Jasper was drunk half the time.”
Was Jasper talking about something that exists? The fingers of another shiver skipped up the rungs of her spine. No matter how many times she’d asked, her guardian never had explained. In the end, she’d chalked it up to the fact that he was pretty permanently pickled. But what if the Dark Passages and the Nows are why he drank? Not just to forget or because he was so freaked. What if Jasper drank so it—they?—couldn’t find him? This idea had an itchy, tip-of-the-tongue feeling, something that felt true. As if I once knew this but … forgot?
Another, more bizarre thought: Or is this something I was made to forget?
“Oh, don’t be stupid, you nut.” A flare of impatience. “Jasper was soaked, and the blinks are seizures. They’re hallucinations, like dreams. Of course, you’re going to slot in stuff you know about. That’s the way dreams and hallucinations are.” Yeah, but she didn’t know a Lizzie.
“Emma, stop, you’re not going to solve this right now.” She really ought to go inside. Yet the idea made a twist of fear coil in her gut. Why? It was stupid. There was light inside the house, and it was warm. There was food. She could still smell the faint, rich aroma of cheddar from a mac and cheese casserole. Bode and Chad seemed fine, if a little odd.
But this farmhouse … I have seen you before, over and over again. In the blinks? Yes, and no: she thought she’d actually seen a picture of the house somewhere. She ran her eyes over the porch railing, the bay window, that snow-covered swing on its chains. Come spring, she’d bet money a froth of red geraniums would replace the mounds of white humped in those hanging planters.
If spring ever comes to a place like this. Swaddled in the space blanket and her parka, still damp with gasoline, she shivered as much from cold as a sudden premonition that, maybe, it was always night here, and cold. And that’s got something to do with Wyoming. Those license plates are important. But I’ve never been to Wyoming.
“Oh, don’t be a nut just because you can,” she said, watching her breath bunch in a gelid knot. Her eye drifted from the porch and past Eric’s snowmobile to that huge, outsize barn soaring up from the snow. Wisconsin was lousy with red gable-roofed barns with stone foundations and sliders and haymows and cupolas to draw in air and dry out the hay. But this thing was ginormous, much too big—and wrong, too. Why? Her gaze brushed over the exterior walls, then roamed over the gabled roof.
“No cupola,” she said after a moment. “No sliders, not even a ramp.” There was a door but no windows of any kind. The walls were blank. It was as she’d said to Eric: the skeleton of a movie set, someone’s idea of what a farm—a barn—should be.
“Or maybe it’s all the barn you need.” Then she thought, What? Enough barn for whom?
“Hey, Emma, you nut … what if this is a blink? You ever think about that? Or maybe you’re dreaming.” Hadn’t there been some movie about this? “Inception,” she said, and then more loudly: “So, okay, go ahead, kick me. I’d like to wake up now.”
Of course, nothing happened. “Right,” she snorted, watching how her breath smoked in the icy air. “It’s not like Morpheus is going to show up and give you a choice between red and blue. Get a grip.”
Scooping snow from the porch railing, she cupped it in her bare hands, grimacing at the burn. “So that’s real.” She held the snow to her nose and sniffed. Frowned. “But funky.” Snow had an odor, something that she associated with frigid, frosty, old-fashioned trays of ice cubes. This particular scent was thicker and metallic, but not aluminum. Copper? The image of Jasper’s heap of a pickup flashed in the middle of her mind. Yeah, same smell: wet, cold rust. Still, this was real snow.
And my head hurts. Brushing powder from her hands, she gingerly probed her bandaged forehead with a forefinger. Beneath the gauze and her skin, she could feel the circle of her titanium skull plate. So that, or rather she, was—
2
BLINK.
“Oh boy.” She was inside, with no memory of having opened the door. She threw a glance at the braided mat upon which she stood. Her shoes were bone-dry: no melting snow, no puddles. To her surprise, the house was a little chilly; she pressed the back of one hand to the tip of her nose. Cold as a brass button. Bet it’s red as Rudolph’s, too.
“Okay,” she breathed, and felt the house fold down a bit, crouch closer—which was … pretty crazy. Exactly like when I read The Bell Jar this past summer; felt that damn thing coming down, trapping me like a lightning bug under a jelly glass. Yet she heard nothing in the house. Not a creak. Not a crack or pop, none of the tiny settling sounds any normal house made. No hoosh of a furnace either. She threw a glance at the ceiling and then down at the floor. Whoa, no vents. No registers or radiators. So how are they heating this thing?
Except for the gleaming hardwood floor, which held this single colorful braided rug, the foyer was a white-walled cube. No pictures. No paintings. Ahead and to the left, she saw a circular flight of stairs that twisted around and around, seemingly forever. Like the barn, the too-large stairs belonged in a little kid’s fairy-tale version of a mansion or castle, and was all wrong. Another hall—black as a tomb and lined with closed doors—ran to the left of the stairs and went on a long way.
Just walls and a front door with sidelights. A hall with a lot of doors. Outside, there’s a porch, a swing, hanging planters, but no storm door. No doorbell or peephole. She threw a look back at the door. Not even a lock. Her eyes zeroed in on the smooth brass knob.
“No keyhole,” she said. “It’s just a knob. Everything’s been stripped down to the bare minimum, like the barn. Because this is all the house you need?” All the house who needs? “Maybe I’m not thinking about this the right way. Maybe”—she cocked her head at the ceiling—“maybe this is all the house needs.”
To her left, something cleared its throat with a faint sputter.