Ilsa Bick - White Space

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

1

AT FIRST, MOMthinks 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 UPand 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 getting 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 .