The Unseen (15 page)

I
NSIDE HER OWN
room Xandra slammed the door shut and leaned against it, breathing hard and waiting. Waiting for Clara to knock so she could open the door only a crack and say, “I'm okay. I just want to be by myself for a while.” The knock came, just as Xandra was sure it would, and she said what she'd planned to say. Then she had to say it again more loudly and add, “Go away. I don't want to talk about it.”

She waited until Clara had finished saying a bunch of other stuff about where she would be when Xandra felt like talking, and how she'd talked to the boys but she wanted to hear Xandra's side of it before she talked to their parents. After Clara finally went away, Xandra opened the door a crack to watch her leave. It wasn't until Clara was out of sight that Xandra ran to her bed and climbed in among her animals.

But that didn't help either. Not this time. Even when her head was pillowed on soft, velvety animals of all shapes and sizes, and dozens of others were clutched against her chest. This time, which animals happened to be on top of the pile, and how she felt about them, didn't make any difference. In fact the only thing that mattered was how rotten and mean and treacherous the Twinsters were, and how their friends were even worse, and how much she hated all of them. And worst of all was Belinda, because she was a liar, and the things she said about the enchanted feather and the Unseen creatures were just lies she thought up to make Xandra feel as if everything bad that had happened was all her fault, and as if it would be safe for anyone else to have a Key, but not for Xandra Hobson.

Suddenly Xandra sat straight up, scattering animals in every direction. As a displaced skunk, an alligator, a dolphin, a moose, a tiger and any number of bears tumbled off the bed, she jumped up, ran down the hall and out of the house.

The sun was still fairly high in the western sky when Xandra ran down the back steps and around to the basement door. Around to the sleek, well-painted exterior of a door that, if opened, would reveal a huge clutter of dusty junk, around and behind which a dimly lit passageway led back to a shadowy corner. For a long time, maybe a minute or two, Xandra stood still staring at the door, but not because she was thinking and planning what she was going to do next. She was in no mood to think and plan. She was only waiting for something to push her. The same kind of push that had made her fight the twins and their friends so fiercely and had made her yell at Clara and tell her to go
away. But when the push came in a sudden surge of rage, it wasn't toward the basement door, but out away from the house. Away from the house, through the back gate and out into the forest. She ran into the forest still wearing her school clothes and without any idea where she was heading or what she intended to do when she got there.

She went on running at first across the partly cleared land and then on into the forest on one of the pathways she had followed many times before. A path that twisted and turned around the edge of the marsh, and on between trees and underbrush to where it dropped down over the bank of Cascade Creek. The creek was wider and deeper now than it had been on the day Xandra had waded up it carrying the wounded bird, but she was able to cross it at the narrow spot where three large boulders served as stepping-stones. It wasn't until she'd run deep into the forest that her pace slowed and she finally came to a stop.

It was only then that she allowed herself to wonder what she was doing and why she was there. But wondering didn't bring answers—at least not ones that were clearly understandable. When Xandra began to ask herself where she was going, all she got was a series of vague thoughts and feelings. Old familiar thoughts that brought up expected responses.

She was in the forest because she had always loved being there—and nobody had the right to tell her not to go there. Certainly not Clara, who was only a baby-sitter, and not even Xandra's baby-sitter, at that. And not Henry or Helen, who probably had forgotten, if they'd ever known, that Xandra loved the forest. So she was there because no one had the right to tell her not to be. All right, that was
part of the answer, even if it wasn't the most important part.

And what was she going to do now? That was harder, but it had something to do with the enchanted bird. Turning slowly in a circle, Xandra tried to decide if the small clearing she had just entered was the same one where she'd found the bird. Looking around at the small open space surrounded by overhanging trees, darkened now by lengthening shadows, she wasn't entirely sure it was the same place. She did remember that the clearing where she had found the bird had seemed larger and also deeper in the forest. But wasn't it possible that this was the one, the same small treeless meadow? And then there was the question of why she wanted to find the clearing, maybe even the exact spot, where the bird had been when she'd found and rescued it.

The answer to that one was even less clear and certain but it had something to do with another question that she needed to find an answer to. A question about why she'd been allowed to find and save the bird, and why she had been given the feather that Belinda called a Key. It had to have been for some particular reason. And it didn't make sense for the reason to be that she was somehow too different—too weak and stupid, maybe even too evil—to use it safely.

She suddenly remembered, remembered vividly, Belinda's exact words when she'd said, “It would be too dangerous for
you
to do it again.” And with that memory came the certainty that what she was hearing was that everyone else was better and more special than she. And with that certainty came the quick, flaring anger that had
made her take back the vacuum cleaner and charge into the house, where the twins and their friends had treated her as if she were … As if she were what? Some kind of less-than-human nuisance to be teased and tormented in insulting and embarrassing ways.

At that point, without stopping to think, without even asking herself what she meant to do, Xandra reached under her sweater and pulled out the enchanted feather. When she had it in both her hands, she closed her eyes, lifted it over her head and pressed it briefly to her forehead, before quickly hanging it back around her neck.

It was then, while the strange sensation of growing and stretching was just beginning, that she was suddenly terribly frightened. So frightened that for a moment she wished desperately that she could stop what was happening. She was about to retrieve the feather and try to undo what she had done when the fear began to turn into a strange eager excitement.

This time sounds came first. Even before she opened her eyes, she became aware that she was hearing all sorts of noises. Familiar sounds, like birdcalls and the stirring of branches in a soft breeze, only suddenly louder and far clearer and more distinct. And then other noises, more distant but strangely threatening, like faraway muttering cries and angry buzzes. And smells too. Sharp, caustic odors like smoke drifting from the embers of fires that had burned strange, unnatural fuels.

Opening her eyes was difficult at first, almost painful, but what she saw as they opened wider was fascinating—and then terrifying. All around her the forest itself was weirdly beautiful in a sparkling, sharp-edged way, as if
every leaf and twig were clearly and distinctly visible. Visible and at the same time almost transparent, so that if you looked closely, you could see into and through everything you focused on—see the veins pulsing through each leaf, tiny, microscopic insects crawling everywhere and sap oozing up and down inside the trunks of the trees.

Xandra turned in a slow circle, focusing upward at first on leaves that glittered with growing, flowing life, and then down to the forest floor, where tiny creatures she'd never seen before were scurrying in all directions. She was kneeling, staring in wonder at the ground around her, when the strange muttering sounds, louder now and closer, brought her quickly to her feet.

It was then that she began to see what had been Unseen. Shapes and shadows moving through the under-growth and between the trunks of trees, close by and coming closer. Nothing more than clumps of darkness at first, but with swiftly changing outlines, which as they came nearer began to condense into definite forms and figures. Some of the creatures of the Unseen were animal-like, sinister humpbacked shadows, like misshapen hyenas or bears. But others looked vaguely human. Short and stooped, but definitely upright figures, draped in hooded robes. And all of them seemed to be gliding smoothly through the underbrush that surrounded the clearing.

Gasping with fear, Xandra backed away as she desperately tried to pull the Key up from under her sweater where she could …Or could she? Even as she pressed the feather against her forehead, the humpbacked creatures moved closer as if … As if it was no longer working, just as Belinda had said it might happen.

Suddenly feeling terribly threatened, Xandra backed away and went on backing—out of the open clearing and down a narrow pathway between tall trees. Once out of sight of the monstrous figures, she turned and began to run. To run as fast as she could but, it soon became obvious, not fast enough. The creatures were running with her. She could hear their thudding footsteps, muttering, moaning voices and the snapping of twigs and swishing of branches as they ran beside her. Now and then she caught glimpses of humped backs and round-hooded heads. But she went on running until she tripped on a fallen tree limb and fell hard. Bruised and breathless, she scrambled to her feet and saw that it was too late. They were all around her.

On every side creatures of the Unseen oozed forward: humped and hooded almost-human shapes, and others that slithered across the ground like gigantic worms. Supported by their strange bloated bodies, their huge heads were almost faceless except for flaming eyes and the sharp, metallic glitter of teeth. And then they were attacking, just as they had done before.

Just as before, Xandra first smelled the awful stench of their breath, and almost immediately afterward, she began to feel their razor-sharp teeth. The teeth slashed and stabbed, ripping into her arms and legs and then her face and neck. She fought back, screaming in pain and hitting out with both fists. Striking out as hard as she could, she felt her knuckles thudding into objects that gave way under the blows and then once more surged forward. But although she struck again and again, and now and then the creatures seemed to fall back as if she had succeeded
in fighting them off, a moment later they were back as fiercely punishing as ever. And once again she felt the fiery pain of their attacks. At last, when it became horribly clear that she would not be able to drive them away, she began to scream.

“Help,” she shrieked. “Help me.”

Her screams seemed to go on and on, repeating themselves as they echoed through the air, splintering into thin metallic sounds shredded by the jewel-sharp edges of the surrounding leaves and branches. “Help,” Xandra cried, and her cries spread and multiplied as they reverberated through the forest. Over and over again, “Help. Help me.”

Xandra was still screaming when something soft and swift brushed against her face, and turning her head to follow its touch, she saw a feathery wisp of light drifting away from her down a narrow passageway. Forcing her way between clinging, slashing clumps of darkness, she ran, following the feathered phantom. Once again she was running, following fleeting glimpses of winglike shafts of light, down a path that turned, twisted and broke out into a small meadow. A clearing that this time she recognized immediately and with absolute certainty. It was the place where she had found the white bird.

This time there was no doubt. The flat, almost circular open space was surrounded by tall trees, and there, just before her, was the fern-covered mound where the wounded bird had fallen. Staggering forward, Xandra collapsed, reaching out with both hands toward the mound.

Sometime afterward, how long she couldn't even guess, she became aware that all around her there were sounds
and movements, but the sounds were not growls or moans, and the movements she was sensing didn't seem to be rapid or violent. But still, something was there.

Pushing herself to a sitting position, she glanced fearfully from side to side, but there was nothing to see except a carpet of ferns and vines encircled by tall trees. Vines and trees whose leaves glittered and pulsed with life, which meant that she was still in the world of the Unseen. But an Unseen that here in the white bird's meadow was not the same. The difference was everywhere, in the gentle touch of the breeze and the soft musky odors it carried. As well as in the absence of dark-robed creatures creeping toward her over the forest floor. No shadowy dark-robed shapes anywhere at all, and yet she felt she was not alone.

S
ITTING AMONG THE
vines in the white bird's meadow, and hugging her knees against her chest, Xandra stared long and carefully in every direction. That she was still in the world of the Unseen was obvious. All around her the forest sparkled and surged with life, as did every strand of ivy and fern that covered the forest floor. And although the savage creatures were no longer attacking, the pain from their bites still throbbed and burned all over her body. Yes, the injuries were still unhealed. All over her arms and legs, and on her face and neck too, the wounds were raw and painful. But where were her attackers now? Where had they gone and why had they stopped tormenting her?