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 smelclass="underline" 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.
“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?”