“Why?” Xandra asked herself. “Why should I let her in on my secrets?” But right then, while she was still whispering the question, she knew the answer. Or perhaps felt it more than knew it. Felt the answer as a feathery warmth against the skin of her chest. Putting her hand over the spot where, beneath her blouse, the feather hung on its string, she nodded. Belinda was there because of what she had said and done when she saw the feather. How she had known immediately how important it was, and how, before Xandra had told her anything, she had begun to talk about Keys and who got them and what they could do.
So instead of trying to get rid of Belinda, Xandra pulled firmly on the back of her ratty old jacket. “Come on,” she said. “We're not there yet. You have to duck under those heat vents first and then go on around behind the furnace.”
At last Belinda tore herself away from the vacuum cleaners and followed Xandra back into the dimly lit area where in cages of different shapes and sizes all Xandra's orphaned and wounded creatures had lived. And where now, as always, she immediately began to feel better, calmer and less impatient.
“Well, here we are,” she started to say when she noticed that Belinda was staring, looking from side to side in a strange, intense way. In the dim light her wide-set eyes glowed with excitement, or fear, or maybe some of each.
“You kept all your animals here?” she asked. “Without anybody knowing?”
Xandra shrugged. “Well, mostly they didn't know. Or didn't care—at least not as long as they didn't have to do anything about it.”
“And where are they now, the animals?” Belinda whispered.
“Some of them, like the kittens, I found homes for. Like I told you, some of my family are allergic, so I couldn't have them in the house. But most of the rest of them just grew up or got well and flew away or ran away into the forest. And I let the wild ones go on purpose, at least more or less. I don't think wild things ought to be penned up. Anyway, what you came to see, the place where I found the feather, is right over there. In that box.”
Xandra approached the empty carton slowly and solemnly. “Here it is,” she told Belinda. “See, the bowls are still there. This one was for water, and this one had brine shrimp in it. I haven't moved anything since …” She paused and then went on dramatically. “Since the white bird disappeared into thin air.”
Belinda reached out slowly and carefully to touch the bowls, one after the other. Then she put her hand, palm down, on the straw at the center of the box. “Is this where it sat? Where it left the feather?”
Xandra nodded.
Belinda raised her hand, studied the spot where it had been, and then looked around the basement. “And the door was still closed the next morning when the bird was gone?”
Xandra nodded again.
Belinda turned in a slow circle and then came to a stop. “And the feather?” she asked. “You still have it?”
Xandra put her hand over the spot on her chest where she could feel the feather's shimmering warmth. “Of course,” she said. “It's still right here on this string.”
Belinda held out both hands and slowly and carefully Xandra pulled the string over her head and even more slowly put the feather into Belinda's hands.
AS XANDRA PRODUCED the enchanted feather, she was feeling uncertain and more than a little doubtful. She watched carefully through narrowed eyes as Belinda held the feather, staring down to where it lay across her two hands. She went on staring for so long that Xandra began to be impatient.
“What's the matter?” she asked finally. “Why don't you do something?”
Belinda shook her head slowly. “I don't know.” Her voice was faint, almost fearful. “I'm not sure if we should try. I'm not sure if I know enough yet.”
“Yet?” Xandra couldn't keep the impatience out of her voice. “What do you mean, yet?”
“I'm just learning,” Belinda said. “He began to teach me and then …”
“He?” Xandra demanded. “Who is he?”
Belinda's eyes moved to Xandra's face and then quickly flicked away.
“So tell me,” Xandra went on. “Who was teaching you? Do you mean your grandfather? What is he, some kind of wizard, or like that?”
“No.” Belinda's answer was quick and indignant. “Don't say that. He's not a wizard. He's a …” She turned her face away and for a long moment said nothing at all. But then, watching her carefully, Xandra noticed that her expression was changing as she stared down at the feather that still lay across her hands.
Suddenly Belinda breathed deeply, and enclosing the feather in both hands, she raised them over her head and then pressed the feather against her forehead. She held it there for a long minute before she slowly took it away and stared at Xandra.
“What is it? What happened?” Xandra asked urgently, but Belinda only shook her head. “Nothing,” she whispered. “Nothing happened because it isn't mine. But if you did it …” She grabbed Xandra's hand and put the feather in it.
“Now you,” she said. “Hold it between your hands and raise them like this. Now put the feather on your forehead.”
Xandra did as she was told. Holding the feather between her hands, she raised them over her head and then pressed the feather to her forehead. She held it there as time passed—an amount of time that was too short to measure yet seemed to stretch out into a timeless forever. At last, out of that far distant forever, Xandra heard Belinda's voice calling her name, asking, “Xandra. Did you feel it? Did you feel something happening?”
“I don't know,” Xandra started to say, and then suddenly she did. It was as if something was moving and stretching inside her eyes. Only her eyes at first and then deep into her whole face, her ears, her nose, and then her hands and fingers as well. When the sensation began to fade, it left her feeling confused and bewildered. “What happened?” she whispered. “What happened to me? Do I look different?”
“Your eyes,” Belinda whispered back. “They're different. The dark part is bigger. Did it hurt?”
“No,” Xandra said uncertainly. “No, not exactly. There was just a feeling. Like a swelling and a kind of tingle.” She turned her head from one side to the other and then whispered, “Look. Look over there. And there too.”
“Where. At what?” Belinda asked. “What are you seeing?”
Xandra looked again but for a brief moment there was nothing. At least nothing she hadn't seen a hundred times before—except that …
There she was in her own private hideout, where every object was completely familiar, and for the first few moments everything looked the same as it always had—except that everything, every cage and cupboard and box, suddenly seemed to have clear, almost transparent surfaces. And beneath the surfaces there seemed to be an endless shimmering movement, as if the atoms and molecules had somehow become visible.
Fascinated by the new glitter and gleam of ordinary objects, Xandra needed a minute to become aware of some less familiar, and less stationary, shapes. And when she did begin to notice them, they at first seemed to be nothing more than moving shadows. Shadows that looked like small clumps of darkness that constantly changed in shape and color as they moved nearer and then faded away.
There were smells too, and noises. The familiar musty animal odors of pen and cage were stronger now, among them the warm, milky scent of young kittens. The sounds were familiar too, chirps and clucks and clicks and soft growls and grunts. And now, little by little, some of the moving shadows were coming nearer and taking on more recognizable shapes.
Startled and a little frightened, Xandra began to back away. “Look,” she said. “It's like there's something over there that keeps moving. Like dark fuzzy clouds that keep moving around. Do you see them? What are they?”
Belinda was right beside her. “I don't see them,” she said. “What do they look like?” Ignoring Belinda's question, Xandra was bending down and putting out her hand, reaching out until she almost seemed to touch the nearest cloudy blur. Reaching out, and then suddenly snatching her hand
away.
“How did it feel?” Belinda asked. “Did it hurt your fingers when you touched it?”
Xandra shook her head. “No, not hurt. But I could feel it. I could feel a difference—like a shivering. A kind of aliveness. Just a kind of warm aliveness. Everything feels alive, and there are noises too. Don't you hear anything?”
“Noises?” Belinda cocked her head, listening. “No, not really. What do they sound like?”
“A kind of soft buzzing noise, like tiny motors. Or like purring. Like purring kittens,” Xandra said. “And bird sounds too. Like birds chirping and a kind of clicking noise. Like …” She paused. “Like running a stick along fence posts.”
Belinda was nodding. “The baby owl?” she asked.
“Yes,” Xandra whispered excitedly. “Like the noise Ratchet made when he wanted to be fed.” She was turning in a circle, trying to tell where the sounds were coming from, when she noticed something else. A familiar musty warning odor that most people hated but that could be quite interesting when it wasn't too strong. “Look. Look over there,” she said.
“Where?” Belinda asked.
“Something over there on the floor, by that big box. I see it.” As Xandra moved toward the box, Belinda was beside her talking excitedly. “Does it look like an animal?” she said. “When I told my grandfather about your Key he said that things like animals were what you might see. Animals like the ones you took care of. Only with the Key they would be animals from the Unseen.”
“From the Unseen? What does that mean? Is it a place?”
“It's… well, it's …” Belinda was stumbling. “It's not really a place, because it's everywhere, all the time, only most people can't see it.” Shrugging and throwing out her hands helplessly, she went on, “I don't know how to tell you.”
“Animals from the Unseen?” Xandra murmured questioningly as she moved forward and knelt down on the dusty floor next to a big carton. The musty smell was stronger now and very familiar. She reached out toward something that kept emerging from behind the box and then fading back behind it. A something that might have looked very familiar if parts of it hadn't kept blurring in and out of sight. Parts like a pointed black nose, a white-striped back and tail and black, beady eyes. Its cool little nose was snuffling gently over Xandra's hand when it suddenly stilled, dimmed and faded away behind the box.
As Xandra got to her feet, Belinda was standing beside her. “Did you see him?” Xandra asked excitedly. “I think it was Stinky. You know, the baby skunk I raised. He ran away a long time ago but I think he's come back. Only he's …” She paused. “Only he's different.”
“Yes, yes, it's all different. Changing.” Belinda had moved back to where she could peer out around the furnace. There was a sharp intensity to her voice, and her face had stiffened into a nervous mask. “Different,” she repeated. “Something is changing.” She grabbed Xandra's arm. “Maybe we've seen enough for now. I think we ought to get out of here.”
“Go? Why?” Xandra was disappointed. “I'd like to see some other things, like maybe there will be some of my birds, and the garter snake. I had a pet garter snake once.”
“I know. You told me.” Belinda still seemed distracted and anxious. “I don't know,” she said. “It's just that something out there in the other room is changing. I didn't feel it at first but now it seems to be getting worse. I can feel it, like in the air. A feeling in the air that just isn't … the way it should be.”
“The air?” Xandra said. “What's wrong with the air?” She sniffed and then grinned. “Smells all right to me, or not any worse than usual anyway. I smelled Stinky a little while ago. But only a little bit. I always liked his smell as long as it wasn't too strong.”
She stopped and sniffed again. And then suddenly she, too, was aware of a difference. And the smells were a part of it. A strange smoky odor that made her nostrils burn and her throat stiffen seemed to be drifting in, blotting out the soft musky smell of baby animals.
“Come on. We have to go.” Belinda was grabbing her arm and pulling her from behind the furnace to where she could see out through the storage area and on to the basement door. “Look, what do you see now? Look over there.”
Xandra looked but there was nothing to see. Nothing at all. Not even the boxes and trunks that had always been there. It was as if everything had suddenly been swallowed up into thick dark clumps of shadow. Strange blobs of darkness that seemed to come not so much from a lack of light, but as if the dark was flowing out from its own center, ballooning outward to engulf everything around it. There were sounds and smells too. Grinding, growling, rasping noises and strange, disgusting smells, Smells like dead things, and the burnt-out scent of wet ashes.
As Xandra began to move toward the basement door, pulled along by Belinda, the black haze grew and spread around them. And now, as the clumps grew larger, they became more transparent so that it was possible to see what they had been hiding. To see that what had seemed a dense, empty fog was actually alive with a crowded confusion of moving shapes that formed and reformed in the surrounding pools of darkness. Faded and then reappeared, becoming more and more distinct.
And then the vague bulges were forming into recognizable shapes. Some of them now seemed to resemble vaguely human forms, hunchbacked and heavy-headed, while others were only surging bulges that oozed along the floor like enormous ugly worms. But all of them, the almost-human figures as well as the worm-shaped ones, now seemed to have faces. Faces that were only empty ovals except for fiery red eyes above dark gaping mouths. Enormous, wide-open mouths that grew larger moment by moment as they shut and opened again. Then the faces were everywhere, faces with fiery eyes and enormous mouths edged with sharp slashes of glittering light.
As Xandra stared in wonder, she became aware of Belinda's hands on her arms, pulling her away from the swirling, heaving darkness. “Can you see them? What are they?” Xandra gasped.
“I can't see them,” Belinda whispered, “but I think I know why they're here. I think they're dangerous.” Her voice was louder and more urgent as she went on. “We have to get out of here, right now.”
“Yes, let's get out.” Xandra turned toward the basement door. “Here. This way. Come this way.”
But now the clumps were there too. The swarming black cloud was all around them, surging pools of darkness, full of fiery eyes and cavernous mouths. Xandra was turning in a circle, looking frantically for an escape route, for a gap in the surrounding circle of mouths and eyes, when she became aware that Belinda was whispering, “The Key, Xandra. Where is it?”
“The Key?” Xandra gasped, and then, “Oh, the feather.” Pulling it over her head, she pressed it into Belinda's hands. “Can you do it? Can you get us out of here?”
“I don't know. I don't think I can,” Belinda whispered as she took the feather. She held it in both hands, raised it over her head and then pressed it against her forehead. Nothing changed except that the threatening mouths moved in closer, and the angry grinding, grunting sounds grew louder. And then Xandra began to smell their hot breath and feel it on her bare legs and arms.
“Hurry, hurry, they're breathing on me,” Xandra screamed. Her scream turned into shrieks of pain as needle-sharp fangs began to sink into her bare skin, on her legs first and then moving up to her arms as she threw them up to protect her face. The pain was sharp and deep and she could feel the hot blood oozing out and running down her legs and arms. She was still screaming when Belinda pressed the feather into her hands and guided them up over her head and then against her forehead. As Belinda pushed her forward, the dark clouds began to fade and pull away, and suddenly she was stumbling out through the open door. Out into daylight and fresh air. “Where did they go?” Xandra gasped. “What happened? What did you do? Was it the feather?”
“It was.” Belinda's voice was faint and uncertain. “It was the Key. Your Key. You were the one who did it.” She slammed the basement door behind them. “Are you all right?”
“All right? No, I'm
not all right.” Xandra's voice was still pitched at the edge of a scream. “They bit me. See, they bit me all …” Her high-pitched shriek faded away to nothing as she began to realize that the pain was gone. All of it—gone. And the wounds, the terrible deep wounds, were … She bent to run her hands over her smooth unbitten ankles. And all the blood? It was gone too. “But they bit me,” she said. “It was horrible.” She straightened up to stare at Belinda. “Didn't they bite you?”
Belinda looked uncertain. “No,” she said. “I don't think they bit me.” She looked down at her legs. “But I could tell what was happening to you.”
It made no sense. Xandra stared at Belinda angrily. “It can't be real,” she said. “Things don't happen like that. You don't get big holes chewed in you and all that blood, and then it's all healed over in just a minute.”
“I know,” Belinda said. “I don't understand it.” She paused, frowning and shaking her head. “I'll find out, though. He should have told me what might happen. He should have told me more about what to do.”
“You mean your grandfather?”
Belinda's eyes flicked to Xandra's face and then as quickly shifted away. “Never mind,” she said. “But I think I can find out about … about what happened. I can tell you more about it after I have a chance to …” She nodded. “Yes, maybe then. But until I find out, you'd better …” Reaching out, she snatched the feather out of Xandra's hand.
She turned quickly and started back down the path that led to the back gate. Xandra ran after her. “Wait,” she said. “My feather. Give me back my feather.”
But Belinda shook her head as she clutched the feather against her chest.
“No. No, I mustn't. You mustn't. It's too dangerous.”
“But it's mine.”
The Unseen Page 4
