Others See Us

by William Sleator

  A wrong move, made out of desperation and because of the distracting agony of squelching my thoughts for so long. I had succeeded only in making Annelise suspicious—and more curious. “Gee, how thoughtful of you, Jared,” she said with a cool smile. “But I think I’ll go along just the same. I’m not chicken. I like the idea of doing something kind of wild. Anyway, Grandma wants us both to go. If I didn’t help, too, I might not get my notebook back.”

  I couldn’t keep this up for another instant. “Sure, Annelise. Just an idea. I’m going outside. They’ll start wondering why we were in here for so long.”

  I put my hand on the door, turning from the dark kitchen toward the brilliant sunlight, unleashing my thoughts at last.

  The new telescope, the screen door, the expensive shingles on Grandma’s house, the sparkling refrigerator, Grandma saying nothing this year about how poor she was.

  She had somehow gotten her hands on people’s cards and stolen money from the ATM. She had blackmailed the detested Winstons next door, forcing them to put their house on the market when prices were way down. How soon would Grandma—with plenty of stolen money at her disposal—grab up the property?

  Grandma had said she had trouble getting out of the swamp; it had taken me only seconds. She had been exposed to the water longer than I had. Her powers must be greater than mine. It scared me, knowing how ingenious and cold-blooded she was, to think of how closely I had come to being discovered inside Grandma’s mind. What would she do if she ever caught me?

  And what had I learned by taking the enormous risk of going in there? Only that she was the one who had our journals, which she had told us anyway almost as soon as I got out.

  No, that wasn’t all I picked up. I had learned something else, something that might be very important. Things might not be so bad after all.

  Because I had also seen, in the clean and cozy and inviting cottage of her mind, Grandma’s magic photo album. The photo of me was handsome and virtuous; Annelise was a slimy object of horror. To Grandma, Annelise was the ruthless enemy, I was the good-hearted innocent she wanted to protect. I had felt this so strongly from Grandma it had almost seduced me into revealing myself to her.

  I still had a lot of questions; I was still in danger. But perhaps not as much danger as I had thought a moment ago. It had been worth the risk to find that out. Grandma was unscrupulous, but she might not be a total villain. The benign atmosphere of her secret cottage proved that, didn’t it? She cared about some people, at any rate, and I seemed to be one of them.

  It was Annelise who cared about no one, Annelise who would be the real danger if she gained access to the swamp.

  The screen door thudded behind us. Mom and Dad were nowhere in sight, Annelise’s parents still apparently out in the sailboat. The others were packing up from the beach for the move toward their cottages for lunch.

  Aunt Maggie glanced toward us. “Your parents seem to have deserted you, Annelise,” she called out. “You and Jared want to have a sandwich with us?”

  “I’ll go out for fried clams,” Eric eagerly offered. He was dying for Annelise to have lunch with them.

  Lindie was vigorously shaking sand out of a beach towel. Hefty she might be, but there was no jiggle of flab. Swimming had done her good; her movements had the brisk efficiency of an athlete, a refreshing contrast with Annelise’s self-conscious slouch as she sidled past me, brushing away a fly. “Sure, thanks a lot, I adore fried clams,” Annelise said, smiling so sweetly, basking in her power as Eric happily blushed.

  Lindie noted Annelise’s slouch, aware that it was intentionally provocative. But it did not occur to her that any male might not be taken in by it or might see Lindie as in any way appealing in comparison.

  Lindie did not want Annelise or me in their house; she did not want to be confronted by my typical male adoration of Annelise as much as she did not want to be confronted by fried clams. Confining herself to lettuce would be even more difficult under our pitying gaze. But she couldn’t gracefully prevent us from coming. She was trying, instead, to figure out how to absent herself from the meal in some natural, unnoticeable way.

  She was also aching with that other, deeply hidden worry. I was on the verge of focusing in on it now. My exploration of Grandma’s mind seemed to have enhanced my powers considerably.

  “Don’t get any fried clams for me,” I said. “My track coach says they’re a no-no. I’ll just have a salad at home.”

  Lindie was surprised at my interest in salad. But what really impressed her was my refusal of an offer to have lunch in Annelise’s presence. It occurred to her for the first time that I might not be Annelise’s usual dupe.

  And at that moment the hard shell that was hiding her worry from me softened, and I reached in and pulled it out: Lindie had cheated to get into Harvard.

  I couldn’t read all the details. It had something to do with her math SATs. Her family lived in New Jersey, where the tests were made, and she had managed to get a copy of the test in advance from someone called Zippy. Math was her worst subject. She had been terrified that a low score would ruin her chances, and she had done this rash thing. It had been too tempting to resist.

  The simple fear of getting caught was only part of what tormented her. What she found really intolerable was that she had cheated at all. In her eyes, it made her more despicable than anyone else in the family—even Annelise. And it also increased her determination to be as honest as possible about everything else.

  But she wasn’t consciously thinking about all this right now. She smiled at me as she finished folding the towel. “We have plenty of salad stuff, Jared,” she said.

  “Okay. Thanks,” I said, smiling back at her. And all at once I looked forward very, very much to having lunch with Lindie. I simply wanted to be with her. Eric and Bruce and every other boy in the vicinity were welcome to Annelise. My only concern about Annelise was how to keep her out of the swamp.

  I was aware now that Annelise couldn’t stand the way I was smiling at Lindie. Annelise already had Eric and Bruce; she saw me as a contemptible slug. Yet Annelise interpreted any attention I paid to Lindie as a brutal slap in the face to herself. Admiration from others was an addictive drug to her. She had to have it. She was a lot sicker than I had realized.

  But Grandma must have known.

  Why on earth did Grandma want Annelise to get anywhere near the swamp?

  ten

  Grandma had given us detailed instructions.

  I lay miserably in bed in the dark while the illuminated dial on my wristwatch crawled so slowly toward 3:00 A.M. I itched to get up and pace but knew that might keep Mom and Dad awake, and they had to be so deeply asleep that they would not hear me leaving the cottage.

  I worried about Annelise falling in the swamp. I thought about how surprisingly much I liked Lindie. I wondered what was really going on in Grandma’s mind.

  At quarter to three it was physically impossible for me to wait any longer. Mom and Dad had to be asleep by now, and the hum of the air conditioner in their bedroom would mask any sound I might make. I pushed the sheet aside and carefully sat up, wincing as the bed squeaked. My eyes had long ago adjusted to the darkness; it took me no time to lace up my sneakers and slip on my backpack.

  I clicked my bedroom door softly behind me. The upstairs hallway was small; I was close enough to reach out to Mom and Dad. I didn’t get much from Dad, except that he was deeply asleep. But Mom’s mind was the first glimpse I’d had of another person’s vivid dream. She was running desperately through the crowded streets of Florence, trying to find me, a helpless five-year-old lost in the milling throngs of tourists. I had always known she loved me and worried about me, but I had never before felt with full force the fearfulness and vulnerability of her maternal instincts. I was moved and guilty and also repelled. She was asleep, that was all I needed to know, and I got out of her dream fast.

  I wished I could escape the house as easily. Slowly, slowly I descended the stairs, my hand on the wa
ll. At the faintest creak of a floorboard I froze, reaching back into Mom’s mind like an air traffic controller checking flight patterns and weather conditions. She was now in Paris. Dad was at the top of the Eiffel Tower, leaning unsteadily over a balcony with me in his arms. Mom was at the bottom, waiting in a frenzy in an endless line for the elevator. I was so disturbed by her anxiety that I scooted from the bottom of the stairs and grabbed the front doorknob without thinking.

  It was only muscle memory that reminded me of the alarm in time. I quickly switched it off, unlocked the door, stepped outside, then forced myself to take the time to pull the door shut silently, sure it was taking more than thirty seconds and the alarm was about to sound. But my time sense was distorted by nerves; I reset the alarm with fifteen seconds to spare.

  I was safely out of the house but still as tense as before. I wouldn’t have been so worried if I’d been able to assure myself I really understood what Grandma was up to. In most ways, what she was forcing us to do did make sense. There were logical reasons why she might want to save some swamp water while she had the chance. She might want to increase her own powers. She also might want a stockpile just as insurance, in case it turned out that the effects faded with time.

  It was also clear that Grandma could not physically negotiate the fence. She needed a young body for that, and here I was, conveniently yoked to a journal that was enough of a prod that she could use its exposure alone to force me to do what she wanted. I didn’t even really blame her for blackmailing me, because I could see the logic of it. Without the journal she would have had to give me more than a cursory explanation in order to coerce me to carry out this errand; she might have had to give away her secret, and her wanting to keep the secret made a lot of sense.

  But the one thing that did not make sense, and that made the whole business so confusing, was why she wanted Annelise to be involved. The question wouldn’t stop gnawing at me. I could have gotten the water myself. Including Annelise was so irrational that it demolished the credibility of the rest of Grandma’s motivation and gave the maneuver a nightmarish quality.

  What was Grandma really up to anyway?

  The plastic half gallon water jug, the ladle, and the rubber gloves and rain gear were hidden behind the shrubbery next to Grandma’s house, as she had said they would be. I was quietly stuffing them into my backpack when I sensed Annelise’s approach.

  What I noticed first, before she even came in sight, was the fizzling sparkle of Annelise’s delight at participating in this clandestine operation. But I could see beneath it now, down to Annelise’s fury at me. All the attention I had paid to Lindie at lunch today still rankled. The fact that Eric had been fawning over her didn’t make up for it. She wanted everyone to adore her.

  I turned toward the sound of her footsteps as she strolled toward me. I could barely see her in the darkness, but I sensed that she was smiling, expertly hiding her hostile feelings. “This whole thing is crazy, but maybe it’s kind of like an adventure,” she said pleasantly.

  “Uh … good way to look at it,” I said, trying to sound equally pleasant.

  Luckily she wasn’t in a talkative mood. It began to drizzle when we were halfway there, not having spoken another word to each other. I pulled off the backpack, silently handed Annelise one of the rainproof ponchos, and put the other one on myself. We plodded along the wet road, over the crest of the hill, and started down the incline. It was so dark with no moonlight that I could see only blackness at the bottom of the hill, though I knew the swamp and the fence around it were directly ahead of us now.

  Better weather would have been nice. The flashlight would help us see—at the risk of attracting attention—but it would not make the grass around the swamp less slippery.

  What I wanted was to collect the swamp water myself, leaving Annelise safely outside the fence, keeping watch. But I was sure she’d reject anything I suggested. I had to be clever and try to manipulate her into coming up with this plan on her own.

  “So, uh, you have any ideas about how we should go about this?” I asked her.

  “Just wait until we get there and see what the situation is,” she said.

  Grandma had absolutely forbidden us to check out the fence during the day. She was afraid that if we exhibited any curiosity, the place might be more heavily secured. We had to play it by ear, in the darkness and rain.

  “But once we get there, we’ll have to move fast,” I said. “If we have plan A and plan B, we won’t have to waste time down there deciding. Like, for instance, what we do if there’s a gate we can get through or what we do if the gate’s locked.”

  “If it’s open, we go through; if it’s locked, we climb over.”

  “Well, if we have to climb over, you think we should both go?” I dared say. “Or maybe one of us should stay outside to keep watch?”

  She glanced at me now; I could just see the glint of her teeth as she smiled. She spoke softly above the hiss of the rain, though what she really wanted was to scream at me. “Thanks for wanting to protect me, Jared; I appreciate it. But I don’t know what you’re so afraid is going to happen to me. It’s only fair if we both do our part. OK? One person holds the flashlight; the other one fills the jug. We both climb the fence.” She looked hard at me and turned away again.

  I stifled my sigh. But I couldn’t stifle the tension that danced painfully through my muscles, so much worse than the feeling just before a race because now there was so much more that could go wrong. The curiosity Annelise felt was stronger than it had been this afternoon, and the suggestion I had just made only increased it. Annelise was more determined than ever to get as close as I did to the swamp. The stench, more pungent with every step, did not seem to bother her.

  Now the tracery of a cyclone fence swam ghostlike in the darkness only a few yards ahead. It grew more solid, damp and vaguely glistening, as we approached. We stepped off the road onto wet grass sloping toward it.

  I slipped and skidded, slamming into a post, grabbing wildly at the fence to keep from losing my balance. The metal web quivered against my cold fingers, my pulse as unsteady as my feet. It would be worse on the other side, where the slope was steeper. I disengaged one hand to wipe the water out of my eyes, warm water as well as cool, sweat and rain combined.

  “You OK, Jared?” Annelise murmured from the left, scornful and superior, already feeling her way along to find the gate. She was thinking that Bruce would have been a lot more adept at this than I was. And she was itching to get over the fence.

  I moved along the fence to the right, in case the gate might be that way. In a moment my hand slipped through a gap about an inch wide; an instant later my fingers closed around the padlock. “It’s over here,” I whispered, feeling only slightly less like a fool. I shook the gate gently, though I already knew it was locked.

  “Locked, huh? So we climb,” Annelise said, already beside me. And then she was energetically hoisting herself up, the fence vibrating again as she found footholds in the webbing. She saw no danger here. She was not afraid. She was only curious—and angry at me.

  I quickly clambered up, my hands reaching for the top, desperate to get to the other side before she did. Whoever got there first would be more likely to fall in, and if anybody was going to fall in, it had to be me. Once Annelise actually saw it happen and realized how disgusting it was, she’d probably be a lot more careful.

  At least there was no barbed wire, but the metal was slick, my grip insecure. I hung on, panting. I stretched my right foot up over the top, shifted my body, then jammed one toe through the mesh on the other side. Getting my behind over was the most awkward part. I had to keep moving my hands along the bar to find a position that would work, and several times my greasy palms slipped alarmingly and I almost fell.

  Annelise was having an easier time. She was lighter, more agile, her smaller feet more secure in the mesh. She was over the top; she was on the way down. And then I sensed that she was about to let go and simply drop down onto the gro
und.

  “Don’t jump!” I gasped. “It’s steeper on this side. You’ll fall in.”

  Her head snapped toward me. “What makes you think I was going to jump? How do you know it’s steeper over here?”

  “I—I just thought that’s what you would do. And I ride past here on my bike all the time.”

  “Thanks for the helpful advice,” she said, very suspicious of me now for knowing more than I should have. But she didn’t jump; we both eased ourselves carefully down to the ground.

  The reek of the water was so thick now I could feel it like slime on my skin. And the slope on this side was even steeper than I had realized. Clinging to the fence with one hand, then the other, I slipped off my pack. Then I squatted carefully down, my back propped against the fence, and reached into the pack, feeling around, pushing things aside, not finding what I wanted.

  “Just give me the jug. Hurry,” Annelise said.

  I ignored her. There was no way I was going to give her the jug. Filling it would be my job. Annelise would hold the light. I had reached Grandma’s house first; I was carrying the stuff. At least I had that much control. Finally my hand closed around the corrugated plastic flashlight. I thrust it at her, and one pair of gloves.

  It was so dark that she didn’t even know what I had given her until her fingers closed around it. She instantly pushed it back at me. “Give me the jug, Jared,” she said.

  But I was already inching away from her. I put on one glove, then the other. I pulled out the jug and the ladle. I set the pack down and moved toward the water on my hands and knees, not daring to stand up. “If you want to help, just turn on the light. I can’t see a thing,” I hissed at her.

  She didn’t turn on the flashlight; she jammed it roughly into my shoulder. “Oh, sorry,” she said, as though it had been an accident. “Let me do my part, too, Jared.” And then her other hand was on the jug, grappling for it.