by Andy Marino
Something slammed into her back and she cried out in horror. Searing hot pokers, sharpened hooks, the rack!
“Sorry,” Kyle said, backing off, embarrassed. “You slowed down all of a sudden and I — well, I didn’t.”
“It’s fine,” she heard herself say through clenched teeth. Now her eyes were open. She and Kyle were a little more than halfway up, and the rest of the staircase bristled with steel spikes and spinning pizza cutters with shark’s teeth.
“Hey — are you okay?” Kyle asked.
She looked at him over her shoulder. Belinda and Nancy continued their onslaught inside her head.
“Shhhh!” she hissed.
Kyle nodded, as if this were a perfectly reasonable thing for her to say to him. There was nothing unkind about it, and the longer she studied the calm face of the older boy the more relaxed she became. It was hard to tell how long they stood on the staircase, looking at each other.
“It’ll be easier if you let me take your hand,” he said so quietly she had to strain to hear him. He blinked in what seemed like slow motion, his eyelashes like the tendrils of a carnivorous plant moving so slowly that she could pick out each individual lash. Suddenly, his hand was outstretched, fingertips brushing her own. Outside, the waves battering the rocks slowed to a dull, constant roar.
“Okay,” Hannah said, giving in to how good it felt to have someone else lead her through the traps. Kyle seemed to know all about them, the precise location of each swinging blade and trip-wire chain, which was impossible, but somehow didn’t strike Hannah as all that strange.
One minute she was paralyzed with fear and anxiety; the next minute they were standing together in the round room just below the glass chamber at the very top. Had she even said the password? It was as if someone had extracted sixty seconds of memory with the precision slice of a scalpel.
In the center of the room was the ladder. Behind it, clearly visible through the rungs, was a curious design flaw: a nondescript door in the wall. Hannah once spent a whole hour looking up from the ground outside, searching for clues in the shape of the exterior — a bulge, an outcropping — but there was nothing. As far as she could tell, the door went nowhere. There wasn’t even enough space for a tiny storage closet.
If Kyle asked about it, she’d just tell him what her mother had told her: I have no idea. Some ancient mistake.
But Kyle climbed the ladder without giving it a glance.
The glass enclosure at the top was dominated by the hulking black shell of the fog lamp. Outside, the base of the bell-shaped room was ringed by a narrow, off-limits balcony.
“This is unreal,” Kyle said reverently, gazing out at the endless, darkened sea. A half-moon, partially obscured by wispy clouds, sent pale light rippling along the crests of the waves as they rolled in toward the cliffs. The sheer size of the emptiness that surrounded her, along with all that was hidden beneath the ocean, made her feel light-headed.
“Albert,” she said, a sudden memory tugging at her.
“Um … it’s Kyle, remember?”
Hannah could feel her face reddening. One week until school. Time to stop thinking out loud. Now she would have to explain herself.
“When I was little my mom would plop me in front of this window to look out. Albert is all that….” She made a sweeping gesture across the glass. “The water and the air. The darkness. It’s just so gigantic, all that empty space, going on forever. I was, like, six.”
“Did you name other stuff, too?”
“Rooms,” Hannah said. “But they don’t have people names.”
Kyle tapped a fingernail on the glass. In the vague reflection from the light that leaked up from the room below, Hannah caught his eye and wondered if he might be an actor, someone a person with a TV would recognize right away. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense: He could be a famous kid who made more money than his parents and was free to explore the world with his eccentric uncle Patrick whenever he felt like it.
“Yeah, right,” he said. “I wish.”
She froze, realizing what she’d done, again.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said.
Strangely enough, she didn’t.
Hannah squirmed in the passenger seat of her mother’s pickup, which was idling in the horseshoe drop-off zone where the parking lot met the front steps of the rambling, old school building. It was a week later, her first day at the public school. Since no bus could make the winding drive out to Cliff House, Hannah was forced to endure a barrage of her mother’s instructions, like Look people in the eyes when you talk to them and Don’t think out loud and Please use words to convey their proper meaning.
While her mother wrapped up the lecture, students drifted into cliques before the first bell of the year had rung.
“Yep, okay,” Hannah said, watching a circle of boys holding flipped-up skateboards.
“I know it’s not easy for you to make friends when you can’t have anybody over,” her mother said, and Hannah looked — really looked — at her for the first time since they’d left the house. Her mother’s hands were gripping the steering wheel as if she were about to change her mind and decide that another year of homeschooling was for the best. Her fingernails chipped at the ends where she picked and bit them — a habit that seemed to have flared up sometime in the last week. “I don’t want you to think I made that rule to mess up your life.”
“I don’t think that.” Hannah returned her mother’s odd, lingering smile, then opened the door and lifted her new backpack from the floor between her feet. She shifted her right leg outside. “I gotta go.”
“Hannah,” her mother said, a little too loudly. Her forehead was creased with concern. Hannah transferred her backpack to the pavement outside the car. There was a sudden urgency to the way other kids were streaming in from the parking lot. Even the skaters, so unhurried a moment ago, had vanished inside the front doors. The last bus was pulling away.
Hannah made her eyes flash an angry, impatient What?
“I love you,” her mother said.
* * *
The morning passed like a very mild nightmare: scary but still kind of fun, thanks to the parade of unexpected things. There was a musty, old library-book smell that seemed to invade every classroom and hallway; a boy in social studies with facial scars that might have come from a knife fight; and a math teacher who wore tan bell-bottoms and a mustache that was surely fake. Hannah found that moving from class to class among an ever-changing throng of kids made her feel at once overwhelmed and happy to be part of the everyday blur. The chatter of Nancy and Belinda was easy to ignore.
There was only one problem: The cafeteria was in the basement.
When it was time for lunch, Hannah found herself gripping the railing at the top of the stairs. Her backpack felt stuffed with bricks. She tried to keep calm and take deep breaths … even though, in her eyes, the staircase was being consumed by roaring flames and sulfurous fumes. All around her, Hannah’s new classmates descended into the pit, excited for lunch, only to disappear into the black smoke. There was no game to avoid the trap here; the blaze flowed like lava, creeping up the walls, licking the ceiling.
This is not the behavior of a sixth grader, Belinda said. Now go eat your lunch.
Save them! Nancy pleaded. Get them out of there. Warn them!
Hannah shut her eyes tight. She could feel the heat on her skin. Nancy was right — some had already been lost, but she could save those who hadn’t yet gone to lunch. Distantly, she knew this was a bad idea and felt shame begin its burn, hot as the flames. But then two of the skaters from the parking lot began to descend, somehow oblivious to the pain, their jeans turning to ash….
“Get out of there!” Hannah screamed. People stopped, confused. She was suddenly aware of just how invisible she’d been this morning, until this very moment, when she had made herself impossible to ignore. But she couldn’t stop. The skaters were lost, but others approached the steps. Hannah turned to face them,
extending her arms to block the way.
“Get back!” she ordered.
Yes, said Nancy. Belinda’s disapproval was silent.
From the stunned and bewildered gathering before her emerged two older boys. Hannah was breathing hard. One of the boys leaned forward and began imitating her panting, his entire body heaving, beefy breath hitting Hannah in a potent wave, as the boy next to him giggled.
A girl stepped up to join them.
“What’s your problem?” she asked Hannah.
Another girl ducked under Hannah’s outstretched arms before she could stop her, muttering, “Psycho.”
Behind her, Hannah felt the flames roar in satisfaction as they claimed their newest victim. She cried out. The boy stopped imitating her and cocked his head curiously, then moved his neck like a snake, trying to meet her faraway gaze.
“Dude, this girl is damaged,” he said.
“Leave her alone,” a familiar voice warned. There was a sudden presence at Hannah’s side, gently pushing down on her arm. “Everybody go ahead; it’s fine.”
Hannah blinked, turned, and saw Kyle standing beside her, facing down the boys.
“Psycho chick’s got a boyfriend,” said the giggler, his eyes darting to his friends, drinking in their approval.
“Freak,” said someone else as she passed. Hannah turned, wanting to reach out and pull her back from the pit, and was surprised to see the flames receding, shrinking down into embers.
“It’s okay,” Kyle whispered, his hand still resting on her arm, warm and reassuring.
“It’s not,” Hannah said, leaning against the wall. With the show over, most everyone headed for the cafeteria, chattering excitedly. All except the two boys, who were watching Kyle, sizing him up.
“One second,” Kyle said to Hannah. He stepped toward the boys and said something calm and quiet that she couldn’t hear. The boys nodded in unison, their faces blank. Then they slunk down the stairs past Hannah without giving her another look. She watched their feet stamp the last remaining embers into ash.
“What did you say to them?” she asked when Kyle returned to her.
“Doesn’t matter. Come on.”
Without another word, he led her back into the day.
And without another thought, she followed.
That night, her mother made her favorite dinner, crispy fried chicken and long grain rice. They ate in the dining room instead of at the kitchen table. From here, they had a view of the ocean as it changed from blue to steely gray, reflecting the setting sun in colors that spread like ink along the waves.
“So,” her mother said, pouring what she called a big-girl glass of red wine, “how was school?” She looked as if she were about to laugh at some private joke that had just popped into her head.
“What’s so funny?” Hannah asked.
“I guess it’s just that I’ve never had to say that to you before, because I always knew exactly how school went.”
Hannah summed up her day, leaving out the episode on the stairs, but mentioning that she’d seen Kyle.
“I don’t understand how he goes to the same school as me, if his uncle was only here on business.”
“Patrick called me today — he rented an apartment in town. It turns out that he’s got steady work in Carbine Pass for a while, so Kyle enrolled in the eighth grade here.”
“That doesn’t make sense. His parents just let him do that?”
Hannah noticed that her mother’s fingernails were a mess, even worse than this morning; cuticles raw and torn, as if she’d spent the entire day nibbling at them.
She’s lying, Nancy proclaimed, before her mother had even answered the question.
“They thought it would be good for him to try a new school. Get a fresh start.”
“So he’s in trouble.”
That made more sense than her actor theory. The way he deflated those two boys today — that was the talent of a boy accustomed to threatening and fighting.
“I don’t really know the details, Hannah.”
Ha! Nancy said. Told you. Total lies. Hannah chewed her lip to keep from shushing her twin out loud.
“Okay, but it’s definitely weird to randomly be allowed to move in with your uncle and start school in a new place.”
“First of all,” her mother swirled the remaining wine in her glass and eyed the uncorked bottle, “there was nothing random about it. You say things are random all the time, when in fact they fit into patterns of behavior, or correspond with actual decisions and plans. What is it with you and that word?”
Hannah hoisted a fat chicken thigh and began gnawing. Her mother drained her glass and poured another.
“Anyway,” she said after the first sip, “the point is, I’m happy to have them here.”
Hannah paused. “Will they be allowed over again?”
“Of course.”
“So they are, but nobody else is.”
“Rules are rules.”
“Except when you break them.”
“My house, my rules.”
Hannah remembered something else she’d been meaning to ask. “Well, if you’re already changing the rules, I think we need to get Internet for the house. For homework and research projects and stuff.”
“What’s wrong with the computers at the library?”
“They aren’t here.”
“You never minded going there before.”
“I can’t go to the library every day just to do my homework, Mom. It’s homework. I’m supposed to do it here.”
Leanna Silver stared down at the untouched food on her plate, then at Hannah. “I’ll have to talk to the principal. I’m sure your teachers can make an exception for you if they understand the situation. Give you alternate assignments, or something like that.”
This was too much. It was completely unfair and ridiculous. Outside, a gull squawked angrily. Hannah wished she could communicate with such alarming directness. She pictured herself jumping onto the antique oak table, flapping her arms, and letting loose with a few high-pitched birdcalls in her mother’s direction. Instead she said, as calmly as possible, “What exactly is the situation? It’s the Internet. It’s everywhere in the whole entire world except here.”
“I just don’t like the idea of letting all those people in.”
Liar, Nancy said again.
“What people?”
“Strangers,” her mother said decisively. “Pretending to be people they’re not, or adults pretending to be people your age. You never know who’s who unless you’re talking to them face-to-face.”
“Mom. That is so weird. What are you talking about? We can be careful.”
“I caved on the public school thing, Hannah. I’m not sure you realize what a big deal this is for me, having you leave every day. So don’t push me right now, okay?”
Her mother picked up her fork, and Hannah cringed. “You’re bleeding.”
Leanna Silver studied the long hangnail on the side of her thumb. Blood was welling up beneath the ragged skin, forming a bead as she gripped the fork.
“Huh.” She frowned at the wound and wiped it clean with a napkin, leaving a long smear on the white linen. “So I am.”
Hannah concentrated on her chicken and rice, finishing her meal in silence. Even the waves seemed calm tonight, gently sloshing like the wine in her mother’s glass.
* * *
Hannah’s bedroom was on the third floor, a big, old-fashioned hideaway with bookshelves built into the wall and a cozy alcove where the cushioned window seat offered a perfect view of the lighthouse. Rag dolls in overalls and brown shoes trooped across the wallpaper, performing a variety of strange chores like pushing wheelbarrows full of turnips and lighting the wicks of streetlamps. One wall was plastered with drawings of the lighthouse and the sea from her sketchbook, scribbly crayon pictures from when she was little all the way up to delicate pastels from this year. The four-post bed was positioned directly across the room from the alcove and its bay window, which mea
nt that Hannah could lie in bed, propped up on pillows, and stare at the ocean until she fell asleep.
Good night, Hannah.
“Good night, Belinda.”
Nitey-night, sis!
“Shut up, Nancy.”
Just hearing Nancy’s voice brought images of the fiery staircase flooding back — a memory Hannah hoped to banish for good so she could sleep. But there was no chance of that, at least not for a while. Her whole body grew hot as she thought about everyone at school watching her lose control. And when Kyle appeared, the scene moved fluidly from the top of the steps to the cafeteria. It was the same way they’d climbed the stairs in the lighthouse; as if they’d floated gently through a time warp, emerging into a better, calmer version of the world. How did he do that?
She stared out into the darkness for a long time. Words came and went inside her head, disconnected from their meanings. Nancy translated them busily into Muffin Language for future use. Internet. Cafeteria. Damaged. Freak.
Over the years, Hannah had become skilled at picking out the silhouette of the lighthouse, a slightly different shade of black than the sky. She focused on it until the edges blurred, the blackness seeped into her bedroom, and her mind blanked.
Sometime later, kaleidoscopic bursts of light began swirling behind her eyelids. It was one of those nights where she’d slept so soundly that it was over in what felt like a second. Hannah opened her eyes, then sat up in bed, instantly alert.
It was still dark. The top of the lighthouse was illuminated by a spectral glow. She blinked, then rubbed her eyes. This couldn’t possibly be happening: The great lamp hadn’t been lit for decades. There was no way it actually worked.
And yet …
Hannah threw aside her covers and crept into the alcove, kneeling on the window seat. It took her a moment to realize what was wrong: The light wasn’t a piercing beam, it was contained entirely within the glass. The light flickered once, twice, and was snuffed out, quick as a candle flame.
