The Unseen (8 page)

She was feeling safe now. Safe and sound behind the firmly closed door of her own room. Her own private space with its rain forest mural along one wall, its built-in bookshelves along two others, and above the shelves her huge collection of beautifully framed pictures of enchanted places. Paintings by people with names like Boyle and Bosch and Brueghel, of beautiful half-human creatures, haunted forests, and fairy-tale castles, were everywhere, filling up every bit of empty wall space. And against the far wall, her bed, piled high with her huge collection of stuffed animals. Kicking off her shoes, Xandra climbed onto her bed, pushing her way into the middle of the stack. Now that she was surrounded by her own safe and silent creatures, the weird things that had happened in the basement were beginning to seem more and more unreal.

Digging under the enormous pile of dogs, cats, raccoons and hedgehogs—as well as the yard-long velvet alligator—she picked up her favorite, an almost life-sized skunk. With the soft and cuddly stuffed Stinky draped across her lap, she stroked its long white-striped tail and tried unsuccessfully to blot out the vivid memories that kept rising up behind her eyes. Could all of it, the whole thing, the swelling, bulging clumps of darkness, the flashing eyes and the cruel piercing teeth, have been nothing more than a dream? Not an ordinary, sound-asleep-type dream, she knew that. No normal dream images were ever that sharp and clear and long-lasting. But as she once again ran her hand down over her smooth, unbitten ankles, she began to wonder if it all could have been some extraordinary kind of nightmare.

She could almost believe that was true. But then again,
there was the fact that the incredibly sharp-edged images were still right there in her mind's eye, refusing to fade away as a normal dream always did. Was there such a thing as an enchanted nightmare? Xandra wished she knew, wished there was some way of knowing for sure.

But of course there might be a way. Belinda probably knew—or could find out. Belinda and her grandfather—that must have been who she had meant when she had said that
he
should have warned her about what might happen. So tomorrow, Xandra promised herself, she would find out exactly what Belinda knew. And in the meantime she would find other things to put her mind on. Things like …A glance at her watch told her that the first thing she had to put her mind on was getting ready for dinner, and after that … After dinner the only alternative to a lonely evening of frightening memories might have to be …television.

Xandra had never been crazy about TV because of the Hobson Habitat rule that kids couldn't have televisions in their own rooms. Which meant that a person with so many older and stronger siblings never got to hold the remote and decide what to watch. But on that night, she decided almost anything would be better than watching the nightmare scenes her own mind kept producing when there was nothing to blot them out.

But wouldn't you know it, nearly the whole family was in the family room that night and most of the time nothing at all was happening except a lot of talk. Both the parents were at home by then and all that was going on were conversations about one of two topics—money and Mozart. Actually Mozart came first, because one of the
siblings was getting ready to play a Mozart thing at a concert and she was fussing about how hard it was to play and how scared she was. And the rest of the family were all telling her she'd be great and she shouldn't be nervous. Xandra didn't say anything, but what she thought was that some people just pretended to be nervous to get attention. In Xandra's opinion that particular sibling, the fourteen-year-old named Victoria, wasn't ever really nervous or the least bit uncertain about what and who she was, and probably not about what she could or couldn't do either.

And Xandra ought to know. After all, she and Victoria were only two years apart in age, and until Gussie turned up, the only females. Except for Helen, of course, the mother of all of them. But since Helen was a very successful and extremely busy lawyer, she hardly counted as part of the family. There had been a time, back before Gussie was born, that Tory, as Xandra used to call Victoria, had been a little bit better than your average sibling. A certain period when she and Xandra used to have secrets and play games together. But then, as she got older and more perfect on the piano, as well as in a lot of other ways, she got tired of games and of Xandra too. But she obviously wasn't tired of being the center of attention while everybody told her how incredibly talented she was and how she was going to steal the whole show at the recital.

The other topic, the one about money, was started, as usual, by Henry, the father of the Hobson family. Henry was something called a stockbroker, which, as Xandra understood it, meant that he did very important things with money. Things like moving it around the world in complicated, mysterious ways, and making a lot of it that
he got to keep for himself. For himself and for his big beautiful family was what he always said. Xandra had heard him say that and a lot of other things about money many times before. So the boring talk about Mozart and money went on and on, but at least boring was better than terrifying.

At last the evening and a fairly sleepless night were over and Xandra was on her way to school and to the all-important meeting with Belinda. But if what you had to say was too urgent to wait for the bus ride to the downtown terminal, what then? What then, if it was a sunny morning and lots of people were hanging around in the outdoor lunch area? The only answer was that she would have to find another private place like … like the storage room behind the auditorium stage. Which meant she would have to let Belinda know that they absolutely had to talk, in some fairly unnoticeable way, like sliding a note through the crack at the bottom of her locker.

But even after Xandra wrote the message and got it into the locker, Belinda didn't show up. Xandra waited among the old dusty stage sets and costume racks until the first bell rang, wondering and worrying that Belinda might have skipped school that day or perhaps had failed to find the note. And then, after she'd given up and was making her way back down the crowded hall, there she was. There Belinda was, looking perfectly normal—normal for Belinda at least—heading down the hall toward Mr. Fernandez's first-period class.

After glancing quickly around to be sure no one important was watching, Xandra hurried to catch up. When they
were side by side, she punched Belinda with her elbow and whispered out of the corner of her mouth, “Didn't you get my note?”

“This note?” Belinda stopped walking and pulled the tightly folded piece of notebook paper out of the pocket of her disgusting jacket. “Yes, I read it.”

Reluctantly Xandra stopped too, long enough to inspect the note, which was hers, all right. And then to say in an exasperated tone of voice, “Then why didn't you come? I waited there for a long time.”

Belinda looked worried. “I couldn't,” she said.

“Why not?” Xandra was getting upset. So furious, in fact, that for a moment she forgot to worry about who might be watching. “What do you mean you couldn't?”

Belinda sighed. “Because I wasn't ready. I didn't get to talk …” She paused. “I didn't get to talk to …”

“Who?” Xandra demanded. “Who didn't you get to talk to? Your grandfather?”

Belinda shook her head but Xandra noticed that her hands were twisting nervously. “To a person who might know about …” Belinda paused.

“Who might know about what?” Xandra insisted.

“About why it happened the way it did.” She reached out, grabbed Xandra's arm and shook it. “Don't worry. I'll find out soon. Tonight, I think. And then we'll talk. All right?”

“No,” Xandra said. “It's not all right. I want to know right now. Why can't we talk right now?”

Belinda looked around, her worried frown changing to a teasing smile. “Right now? Right here?”

“Well.” Xandra looked around too and saw Marcie and
a bunch of her friends heading toward them. “Well, when then?” she asked. “When can we talk?”

“Tomorrow,” Belinda said. “Maybe tomorrow after I've found out more about it. All right?”

It wasn't really all right but Xandra shrugged and said it was. Then she stopped to wait for Marcie while Belinda started down the hall. Started, but then suddenly turned and came back. Grabbing Xandra's arm again, she leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “Don't forget your promise not to do anything. Anything with the Key, I mean. It's terribly important.”

“Hey, turn loose.” Pulling her arm free, Xandra said, “Don't worry. I won't.”

As Belinda disappeared into the crowd, Marcie and her Mob of friends caught up and a girl named Katlyn said, “Hey, Alexandra. Who's your new friend?” And at the same time Marcie herself asked, “What was that freak telling you, Alexandra?” Marcie was laughing and so were all the rest of them. That was the way it was with the Mob. Whatever Marcie did, they all did.

Suddenly Xandra was angry at all of them. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing you'd understand.” Then she turned her back on the Mob and stomped into the classroom.

E
VEN THOUGH THERE
was a lot to do at school the rest of that day, the hours crept by slowly. But the last class was finally over, followed by a frustrating bus ride home during which Belinda refused to talk about anything important. And then another long school day had to be lived through before Xandra could hope to get some answers to her questions. Answers to the terribly important questions about what had really happened in the basement, and what had only seemed to be happening, as well as what might happen next.

“Okay, what did you find out?” Xandra started before Belinda had finished stowing her book bag in the overhead rack. “What were those things? And what was going on? I mean, were those awful things real, or did we kind of dream them?”

Belinda stared at Xandra thoughtfully for a long time before she answered. “A dream? Maybe you could call it that.” She nodded. “Yes. Maybe that's how you ought to think about it.”

Suddenly Xandra was angry. “I don't want to know how I
ought
to think about it. What I want to know is what were they. What were those awful dark blobs full of eyes and teeth?”

Belinda shook her head, her eyes on the ground. “I don't know. That is, I don't know how to explain.”

“Why not?” Xandra insisted. “Because you really don't know how or because … Or maybe because your grandfather told you not to tell me.”

Belinda looked up quickly. For a long moment they stared at each other before Belinda took a deep breath and said, “No. Not exactly. He did tell me it was a mistake to show you how to use the Key. He said I made a mistake to ask him if I could, and he made a mistake too, because you were …” Belinda paused and then went on. “Because things were different than what he expected.”

“Different?” Xandra interrupted impatiently. “What does that mean?”

There was a long pause. “My grandfather said he thought you—he thought the whole thing would be very different, that's all.” Belinda was silent for a moment before she took a deep breath and said, “He said we shouldn't—you shouldn't—use the Key like that anymore. Not ever.”

Xandra's frustration was about to boil over when Belinda reached out toward her and said, “Wait. You shouldn't get angry.”

“Why not? Why shouldn't I be angry? You and your witch doctor grandfather …”

Belinda glanced up, obviously checking to see if anyone had overheard. “Shhh,” she pleaded. “Don't say things like that.” There was concern, maybe even fright, in her voice and in her dark eyes.

Watching her closely, Xandra asked, “Like what? Like calling your grandfather a witch doctor? Isn't he something like that? He must be.”

Belinda shook her head decisively. “No. Nothing like that.”

“What is he, then?” Xandra demanded. “If he's not a witch doctor or some kind of wizard, how come he knows about things like my enchanted feather and what would happen to me if I used it?”

“He's just a very wise person. And he wouldn't have told me how to use the Key if I hadn't begged him to. It was my fault. And he didn't expect what happened. Not at all.” Belinda turned away and then slowly turned back. She was speaking hesitantly, uncertainly, as she went on. “Maybe it would be better if you asked him about it yourself. If I could take you to see him, would you go? Would you do that?”