White Space Read online

  EGMONT

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  First published by Egmont USA, 2014

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 806

  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © Ilsa J. Bick, 2014

  All rights reserved

  www.egmontusa.com

  www.ilsajbick.com

  Typography by Torborg Davern

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Bick, Ilsa J.

  White space / Ilsa J. Bick.

  1 online resource. – (Dark Passages; book 1) Summary: A seventeen-year-old girl jumps between the lines of books and into the white space where realities are created and destroyed–but who may herself be nothing more than a character written into being from an alternative universe.

  Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

  ISBN 978-1-60684-420-5 (e-Book) – ISBN 978-1-60684-419-9 (hardback) [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Horror stories. 3. Science fiction.] I.

  Title.

  PZ7.B47234

  [Fic]–dc23

  2013037565

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  v3.1

  For Sarah:

  This time, you live.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  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

  Father, this thick air is murderous.

  —SYLVIA PLATH

  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 gett
ing 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.

  Mom doesn’t seem to hear. Or maybe … She presses a hand to her lips, like she might catch the words before they pop out of the dark and become real. Or maybe it’s stronger and you’re healing faster. This is what the key warned us about. Every time you take it in, it leaves a little bit of itself behind, and vice versa.

  The manuscript doesn’t say exactly that. The key says stain, like an old watermark. You could say that about any experience, Meredith.

  Yes, but some stains have a way of not coming out. Mom’s jaw sets in a don’t try to talk your way outta this one, buster jut Lizzie knows. She saw it just last week, when Mom set out an apple pie to cool and then didn’t buy Lizzie’s explanation when she said the cat must’ve done it. (Sometimes, Lizzie thinks they really ought to get a dog; they’ll eat anything.) Maybe it can make you activate the Mirror without you being aware or having any memory of doing it.

  Now, Meredith … Dad says her name as if Mom is five, like Lizzie, and bawling her head off over a scraped knee. You’re getting hysterical over nothing. You saw my hands. Besides, I can’t go through the Dark Passages to any other Now because you have the Sign of Sure, remember? Without it, I’ve got no way of getting back to this Now, and I would never risk that. Sweetheart, please believe me. That woman in the attic? She’s just some weird, demented vagrant.

  Maybe she is. Mom’s mouth goes as thin as one of the seams on Lizzie’s memory quilt: scraps of every bit of clothing Lizzie’s ever worn sewn into special patterns and decorated with Mom’s thought-magic glass, including the twinkly Sign of Sure, which Mom didn’t make but is like the panops and Dickens Mirror—very old and from some other Now. Then let’s talk about you, all right? I know you, Frank. It’s been years since London, and it’s all wearing off, isn’t it? You’re having trouble with this new book. So you’re tempted, aren’t you? When he doesn’t answer, Mom grabs his arm. Talk to me.

  I … All of a sudden, Dad can’t look Mom in the eye. It’s just a little writer’s block.

  I knew it. Mom’s face crinkles, like she’s as sick as Lizzie after all that apple pie. God, I knew we should’ve found a way to destroy that thing, because it’s never little with you, Frank. When the book just isn’t coming, you get desperate. That’s exactly how you were in London, and look what happened.

  No. Dad’s jaw is working, like there’s a bad taste, or a ton of words piled up on his tongue that he knows he oughtn’t let slip between his teeth; enough words for a whole other and much scarier story, the kind he writes best: books guaranteed to melt your eyeballs. That wasn’t exactly how I felt in London. There were … other things going on.

  Like what? When Dad doesn’t answer, Mom crosses her arms over her chest. Like what, Frank?

  Things you obviously can’t or don’t want to remember, Meredith.

  And just what does that mean?

  Only that things happened. Dad looks away. When you … when we weren’t together. That’s when things were—Dad licks his lips—bad.

  Yes, as in desperate. Do you even remember what you said?

  Yes. Dad’s lips must be very stiff, because he’s having a hard time getting his mouth to move. I said I felt … crowded.

  You said it felt like your skin was too tight, like there was something growing in your chest. You even worried you might have cancer, remember? Mom shakes her head. I just never connected the dots or understood how much you craved the rush. I should’ve known you’d lose control.

  Me? Lose control? Dad gives a tired little laugh. Oh, Meredith, you have no idea. You really don’t. Do you … can you even remember what we were like before the Mirror?

  Remember? For a second, Mom looks confused. Her eyelids flutter as if there’s been a sudden strong breeze, or Dad’s thrown her off with a trick question. I’m not sure what you … Mom’s eyebrows pull together. What else is there to remember? I mean, it was so long ago.

  But I remember you in the beginning, Meredith. Dad’s face changes a little, like something inside hurts. Every detail. Each moment. Where we met. Your hair. Your smell. Everything.

  What are we …? Now Mom looks a little scared, as if she’s being asked to play a silly little piano piece that she never practiced because she thought it was so easy and only now realizes this was a big mistake. What are we talking about? The beginning of what? Do you mean when you couldn’t sell anything? Is that it? When the publisher canceled your contract for the second book because the first one didn’t do well? Or … or … Mom’s eyes drop as if the answer’s fallen out of her brain and gone boinka-boinka-boinka onto the floor. Or when we lived in that miserable little trailer and you taught grade school English and we had to live on food stamps …

  No, Meredith. Dad captures her hands in his. That’s all stuff in any article or bio or on the back of a book jacket, for God’s sake. I mean … do you remember what I was back then? Do you remember how much I loved you? How I would do anything to keep you from … Turning Mom’s hands, Dad kisses each palm and both wrists—and the long, stripy scars from where Mom hurt herself way before Lizzie. Oh, Meredith … Love, that man is still here. I’m right in front of you.

  Of course. Mom’s eyes are shiny and wet. Of course I know that. But that … Taking back her hands, she blows out, getting rid of the bad. That’s not what we’re talking about. Don’t try to change the subject, Frank. We’re talking about you, not me. Don’t you realize we almost lost you in London? Do you know how hard it was to put that thing back into the Dark Passages because you didn’t want to let go?

  Yes. At that, Dad’s face crumples, caving in on itself as a sand castle collapses beneath waves that just won’t stop. But that wasn’t the only reason.

  Because it’s an addiction, Frank. Mom grips Dad’s arm so hard her fingers star to a claw. You let it trick you into believing you were in control; that what you wrote was your idea. That what’s on the page stays on the page. Dad mumbles something Lizzie can’t catch, and Mom says, Excuse me?

  I said, you should know.

  What does that mean? Don’t try to put London on me. That was not my fault. The skin around Mom’s mouth is as white as the special skin-scrolls onto which Dad pulls his stories. You were the one who put together that letter by Collins and then his story about Dee’s Black Mirror with what Mary Dickens wrote about her father. It was you who realized all the mirrors Dickens installed in the chalet weren’t even listed when Gad’s Hill went up for auction.

  Yes, all right, fine. But you were obsessed with the possibility that the Mirror might be real; who insisted we prowl London for that damned key. You wouldn’t leave until we figured out which island and tracked down the panops, the Sign of Sure, and that Mirror. (Only Dad says another, very bad wo
rd along with that Mirror, so Lizzie knows they’ve totally forgotten she’s there.) Dad aims a finger at Mom. You didn’t mind using the Mirror when you needed it. But I suppose that’s okay, right? Because you’re just so good at knowing when to stop. You’ve got so much self-control. Dad’s laugh is crackly as a crow’s. Take a look at your arms, Meredith, and then tell me you know how and when to stop.

  That’s not fair. That was different. I was different then. I was … Mom’s mouth quivers, and her eyes have that confused look again, as if she’s been telling a fib and lost the thread of the lie. I was—her mouth twists as she works to knot words together—we were … that is, I had to … I was trying to …

  What, Meredith? What did you have to do? What are you remembering? Now Dad looks a little excited, like he wants to grab Mom’s arms again but doesn’t dare because he might break some spell. Tell me, Meredith; tell me fast. Don’t hold back.

  Hold back? I … Mom hugs her middle the way Lizzie does when she has a tummy-ache. I don’t understand. Why are you badgering me like this? I don’t know what you want me to say.

  What’s there, Sweetheart; say what’s right on the tip of your tongue.

  There’s nothing! Mom is gasping now, her voice all tight and little-girl shrill. Nothing, Frank, nothing’s there, there’s nothing to say! You’re confusing me. I’m not that woman anymore.

  Oh God. Dad lets out a laugh that is only air, no real sound to it at all, the way a dog laughs. God, don’t I know.

  Then, if you love me, Frank, you’ll stop this! Just … just stop, stop!

  All right, all right. Dad’s hands are up, patting the air as if Mom has turned into some scared little animal backed into a corner and, he’s afraid, might bite. Okay. Calm down. I just thought—

  What? The word comes out broken. What did you think? This isn’t about me! This isn’t my fault!

  No, Sweetheart, of course it isn’t. I’m sorry. I just … Dad forks hair from his eyes with one hand. I don’t understand. So close … but there’s some spark, an essence I can’t quite wrap my hands around and put where it belongs … Shaking his head, he bites down on the rest and sighs. His shoulders slump like he’s suddenly so tired he can barely stand. I’m sorry. You’re right. You’re not the woman you were then. We were talking about me.