“Huh!” Clapping a hand to her mouth, she held back a scream. She could feel her eyes trying to bug out of their sockets. What was that? Coming from that gloomy corridor … Her breath was coming too hard and fast to hear over, and she raked her upper lip with her teeth, focusing on the pain. Calm down, you nut. Just … music? No. Concentrating, she worked to reel in the sound and caught a static crackle, a gabble of nonsense syllables, a sizzle and hiss.
“Radio.” The word floated on a sigh of relief. Freak yourself out, why don’t you? Or maybe a TV Bode and Chad had left on. Had there been a satellite dish on the roof? She didn’t remember one, and this house was way the hell and gone. No way it got cable. So this was more than likely a radio.
I should look for it. Eventually, they’ll give the call sign, or if I really luck out and there’s a weather band … She pushed away a sudden woozy sense of déjà vu. Hadn’t this been exactly what she’d said to Lily only a few hours ago? Well, so what if this is a weather band? This was a farm, duh; farmers cared about weather just like ships’ pilots and fishermen. If I can find the radio, I’ll know where we are.
“Hah,” she muttered, “easy for you to say.” Carefully inching from the mat, she let herself ease a foot away but still close enough to the door to bolt if she needed to. If the house lets me out. “Stop it, Emma,” she said. Shutting her eyes, she cocked her head like a dog trying to decipher a command, and listened. Where was this coming from?
Well, you could go look, you coward. But she couldn’t make herself move any further than she already had. A spider of new fear scurried up her neck and stroked another deep shudder. “What are you waiting for, Emma?” she murmured. “An engraved invitation?”
And was she talking only to herself?
No. She ran her eyes over the blank walls, the improbable staircase, the smooth ceiling. I’m talking to you, House—and then she sucked in a quick breath as she realized something that neither she nor Eric had seen before, that just hadn’t clicked.
There was light in this house, glaring and bright. But there were no fixtures. No bulbs, no lamps, nothing—only that single pole lamp in front of the barn.
Because you wanted to make sure we saw that barn, didn’t you, House? Just in case we happened to miss the fact that it’s as big as a mountain?
“You,” she said to herself, “are creeping yourself out.” With good reason, though: this valley, the house, the stillness, this sudden radio gibberish, if that’s what it even was … none of this belonged.
“You don’t belong either, House.” Her voice came out flat. “It’s like you’re alive. I feel you watching me, waiting for me to make a move …”
3
SHE BLINKED BACK.
She stood at a bathroom sink, over which a wall-mounted, mirrored medicine chest hung. The glass was fogged with condensation. Her hair was damp, and the air was steamy and smelled of floral shampoo. A fluffy white towel was hung neatly over a steel shower curtain rod. The curtain itself was gauzy white and decorated with the black silhouette of a cat at the lower left staring up at a tiny mouse at the right.
Cat-and-mouse is right. Looking down at herself, she saw that she now wore fresh jeans and a turquoise turtleneck that brought out the deep sapphire of her eyes. Must’ve raided a closet or something. Even blinked out, she always could color-coordinate.
And now I’m in front of a mirror, and there was a mirror in that blink about Lizzie’s dad. “But this is a bathroom.” Plucking a white washcloth from a towel bar next to the sink, she scrubbed the mirror free of steam. Her face swam to the surface of the glass and firmed. She saw that she’d removed her bandage. Her forehead was a mess. “Just a plain-old vanilla bathroom in a creepy little house, not some huge, weird mirror in a big ba—”
Oh, shit. “In a big barn.” Her mouth was so dry she had no spit. Be calm. She carefully smoothed the washcloth, then folded it in half and draped it over the towel bar. Think this through.
“Right. Okay, so there’s a barn,” she said to her reflection. “So what? What does this prove? That you’re still in that weird Lizzie-blink? Or only dreaming?”
Yet Lily was dead. That was no dream. And her forehead hurt. Squinting at her reflection, she gingerly finger-walked the wound. The ragged edges were raw, and a purplish lump bulged like a unicorn’s horn. Touching it sent off a sparkle of pain.
“So this is real.” At the wave of relief, she gave a tremulous laugh. “Of course it is. I’ve been scared in dreams, but I’ve never gotten all banged up or cut, and if I have, I don’t remember, and I’ve never felt pain.” Lucky I didn’t crack my skull either. Can that happen if you’ve already got plates—
She never finished that thought. She felt the words curl in on themselves as tightly as snails withdrawing into their shells.
Because that was when her brain finally caught up to what was going on with that mirror—and, more to the point, what was happening in it.
“Oh, holy shit,” she said.
4
LOOK IN A mirror, any mirror, even the goofy ones at the county fair. Raise your right hand. From your reflection’s perspective, you’re raising your left hand, so your reflection raises its left. Equal but opposite. Put your right hand on the glass and your reflection’s left hand floats to meet you.
But when Emma raised her right hand, her reflection lifted its right. Equal … but not opposite.
“What?” Startled, she took a step back—
And watched her reflection take a step forward.
“Oh God.” A sudden cold sweat started on her upper lip. That can’t be happening. I hit my head. That’s what this is. I’ve been blinking a lot. I’m seeing things. “It’s all head trauma,” she said, and let her right hand drift up again. “This is nothing but—”
The rest wouldn’t come, because, this time, her reflection did nothing. Not a thing. Didn’t move its hand. Didn’t step back either.
“Stop that,” she said to her reflection. “What’s—” Ohhh, God. She heard her breath gush from her mouth. She was talking. Her mouth had moved.
But her reflection’s hadn’t. That thing with her face hadn’t matched her words at all but only stared, mute and waxen as a doll, as soulless as a mannequin.
Get out. Her knees were beginning to shake. In another second, if she didn’t get moving, her legs would give out and she’d fall, maybe faint. Get out of this house while you still can. Run, ru—