The Harrowing

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Robin stood outside Lisa’s room, knocking hard on the door with the moonlit desert scene.

After an eternity, the door swung open. Lisa stood in a camisole and bikini underwear. Her black-rimmed eyes were barely open; she looked half-dead.

Robin held up a yearbook bound with cracked leather, BAIRD LAW SCHOOL 1920 stamped on the cover in gold. “Look.” Her face glowed with excitement.

Lisa blinked and squinted at the book, which was open to a full-page black-and-white photo with a dedication: “In Memoriam: ZACHARY PRINCE 1901-1920.”

The photo showed a pale young man, startlingly like the one from Robin’s dream: broodingly handsome; dark hair and haunting eyes.

Lisa drew an admiring breath. “Oh, Daddy.”

Robin’s eyes were shining. “He was here. In the law school. He died here—in 1920.”

The girls looked at each other, electrified.

Kneeling beside Lisa’s bed, the yearbook between them on the coverlet, they looked through the book page by page, scouring for any hint of who Zachary had been. The epitaph below the photo was maddeningly discreet, and vaguely disturbing: “Arise, arise from death, you numberless infinities of souls.”

There was no detail of the death, no other photos of Zachary, save a smaller version of the same photo among the other third-year law students. Beneath that photo of Zachary it read “Law Review and Sigma Chi.”

“That’s what Mendenhall used to be, the Sigma house,” Lisa murmured. “So I bet you anything he lived here. He probably died right here in the Hall.”

Though it was a long shot, they went to Lisa’s laptop and tried Googling him. There were 212,000 matches for Zachary Prince, but none with any connection to Mendenhall or Baird, no 1920 obituaries.

“Damn, damn, damn.” Lisa closed the computer in frustration. “We have to find out what happened.”

“There’ll be old newspapers in the library,” Robin offered.

Lisa grimaced. “Which is closed until Monday, of course.” She smiled rather wickedly at Robin. “Oh well—we’ll just have to ask him.”

Now dressed in a raveled sweater that showed purple lace through fraying black cashmere, Lisa pounded on a door in the boys’ wing. Robin hovered behind.

Lisa pounded again. Patrick’s voice groaned from inside. “Go to hell.”

Lisa tried the knob; it turned. She pushed the door open and marched in. Robin followed.

Inside, the walls and shelves were covered with rock posters and concert paraphernalia. Otherwise, the room was surprisingly neat…almost rigidly so.

Patrick was sprawled in bed, bare-chested, hair mussed. Robin flushed, seeing him. Lisa was unimpressed. “We need you, cowboy,” she informed him, and jumped into the bed, bouncing slightly.

“That’s what they all say.” Patrick pulled her comfortably against him, as if they’d known each other for years. It was an easy intimacy, with none of the charged antagonism of the night before.

Robin stood awkwardly in the door, mortified.

Patrick glanced over at her and lifted the plaid comforter on the other side of him with a lazy smile. “Room for one more…”

Robin blushed deeper, if that was possible. Lisa flopped the yearbook on Patrick’s chest, open to Zachary’s picture. “Robin found Zachary.”

Patrick stared down at the photo. Robin could see he was unnerved.

“Fuck me…”

Lisa rolled away from him and stood, kicked the bed imperiously. “Get your ass up and let’s play.”

She grabbed the yearbook off Patrick, threw a sweatshirt at his head, and pulled Robin out the door.

As the girls headed down the dark corridor outside, Lisa smiled at Robin knowingly. “He likes you, too.”

Robin colored. “He’s with my roommate.”

Lisa shook her head, rippling her mane of hair. “And how high school is that? He’s out of the South, away from Daddy.…Miss NASCAR is holding on like hell, but he’s better than she is and he knows it. Baby doll, that cowboy’s looking for the real thing.”

She ran ahead down the hall, glanced back with a teasing smile before she ducked around the corner.

Her mood suddenly lifted, Robin ran, too. She caught up to Lisa at another door, where she stood knocking authoritatively.

There was a standard drug-store-issue plastic sign posted on it:

How Cain, Robin thought, amused. And then she glanced at Lisa, wondering, How does she know where everyone lives?

Lisa was already pushing the door open, striding inside. Robin followed, more hesitantly.

Cain lay back on the bed in the dim light from the window, playing an acoustic guitar, an intricate melody. He barely looked up as Lisa strode to the bed.

Robin hovered inside the open door, looked around the room. On the floor-to-ceiling shelves, law books competed with a staggering collection of vinyl and CDs. An electric keyboard and guitar were shoved in one corner. Posters of Malcolm X, Che Guevara, and Johnny Rotten glowered from the walls. Old school, she thought. And that’s Cain, too.

On the bed, Cain was pointedly ignoring the yearbook Lisa held open in front of him.

“You found this open on the floor, huh? Right to this picture. Isn’t that convenient.”

Robin bristled, defensive. “It wasn’t open.” But it was set off from the other books. Almost positioned, a voice in her head reminded her. It could be a setup—someone playing a game….

Lisa was speaking impatiently. “Oh, come play with us. You know you want to.” Lisa leaned over Cain seductively, one knee on the mattress.

Cain didn’t budge. He looked up at her with that level gray gaze. “Don’t you ever get tired of yourself, Marlowe?”

Lisa’s eyes blazed, but she didn’t flinch. “Every minute of every day, Jackson.”

The two locked eyes for a long moment, a hot, contentious look. Robin felt herself bristling, something twisting in her chest.

Cain shook his head. “Pass.” Then he looked directly at Robin. “And I think you should, too.”

Robin looked back at him, startled. Before she could respond, or even process, Lisa flared up at him. “Crap out if you want, but don’t spoil everyone else’s fun.”

Cain dropped his eyes to the guitar. “Whatever.” He bent over the strings and didn’t look at Robin again.

Robin felt her face burning, but Lisa grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the room, slamming the door behind them so hard that the NO MINORS sign fell to the carpet.

But as she dragged Robin toward the stairwell, Lisa was smiling, cheerful—that constant, mercurial shift. “He’ll be down,” she informed Robin lightly. “Trust me.”

They found Martin’s room at the very dark end of a third-floor hall. Unlike most of the other student rooms, his door was unadorned by any message boards, posters, or signs.

Then Robin caught sight of a small rectangular metal piece nailed into the door frame just below eye level, almost unnoticeable against the dark wood: a little scroll with Hebrew lettering. The word mezuzahflashed through her mind, though she wasn’t sure that was right.

Lisa was knocking and knocking. “Martin, we need you. Pretty please? I’ll breathe on your glasses….”

There was no answer. Lisa pressed her ear to the door, listening, then stepped back, shaking her head. She pushed back her hair, defiant. “Come on.”

Robin followed Lisa down the main stairs to the lounge. Lisa’s face was grimly determined; she hugged the yearbook to her chest like a shield. But some of the energy had gone out of the mission. Privately, Robin had serious doubts about what they could do without the others. There had been something between them the night before. Maybe the sudden, unexpected intimacy, maybe just the drinking and smoking. But whatever it was, it was all of us. She was quite sure.

She followed Lisa through the archway of the lounge and almost ran into her as Lisa abruptly halted.

Martin was there, standing over the round table with a legal pad and a pen, looking down at the board, a small figure amid the weirdly tumbled furniture.

Lisa said, “Hey!” loudly, and he jolted, clearly startled to see them, almost flustered at being discovered.

Lisa crossed the carpet to join him in front of the fireplace, blithely unaware of his consternation. “We were just looking for you,” she informed him, with that exasperating imperiousness that Robin was beginning to warm to. “We want to do another sitting. You’re game, aren’t you?”

Martin blinked at her. “Quite. I’ve been reading up on Ouija boards. There’s a good bit of legitimate research on the subject on the Internet.” He took off his glasses, gestured at the board like a small professor. “Our experience wasn’t unique, you know. It’s amazing how many cases of supernormal effects have been reported by reputable people.”

Lisa winked at Robin. “Reputable people.”

Martin put his glasses back on and looked to Robin, a diffident glance. “Something happened between us last night…the collective focus on the board, possibly the combination of personalities, some link between all of us…”

Robin was startled to hear what she had just been thinking coming out of Martin’s mouth. Behind them, the wind blew a spattering of rain against the windows, like a handful of tiny rocks.

“We achieved some kind of mental communication at least. Possibly precognition, as evidenced by the game scores in the newspaper.” Martin glanced at Robin again. ‘Taken from a psychological perspective, it would make a good subject for a term paper.”

“Hate to burst your Freudian bubble,” Lisa said loftily. She slapped the yearbook open on the table in front of him.

Martin stared down at the photo of Zachary, clearly taken aback.

“Zachary was as real as you and me. He lived here. He probably died here.”

“A ghost?” Martin looked up, not at Lisa, but at Robin. “Surely you don’t believe that.”

Lisa looked offended. “What’s your supernormal explanation for the furniture?” She waved around at the shambled contents of the room.

Martin blinked at her in the grayish light. “It’s highly likely the furniture was a prank. We can’t discount the human element.”

It was a perfect deadpan delivery. Robin and Lisa burst into spontaneous laughter. Lisa reached out, tousled Martin’s hair with something like affection. “God, no—not the human element.”

As if on cue, Patrick sauntered in, marginally dressed in sweats and a jersey. He yawned, surveyed the room and the others lazily. “What, no food?”

Robin and Lisa looked at each other and collapsed into giggles again. Martin smiled shyly, enjoying the joke. Robin felt a rush of warmth and camaraderie, and found, surprised, that she was on the verge of tears.

Patrick looked around at all of them, then pulled a new bottle of Jack Daniel’s from the waistband of his sweats. “Lucky I came prepared.”

Lisa stooped to pick up the candles from the floor in the back. She arranged them on the table beside the board and fished in a pocket for a lighter.

Almost automatically, Robin turned and knelt beside the fireplace, reached for logs to make a fire. Patrick hefted the yearbook, flipped through it. “So that’s Zach, huh? My man don’t talk much like a 1920s ghost, though, do he?”

Lisa rolled her eyes. “What does a 1920s ghost talk like?”

Patrick layered a British accent over his Southern one. “I say, old sport. Ripping good.”

Lisa scoffed, “He didn’t say he was English.”

But as they bickered, Robin thought fleetingly that Patrick was right. There was something off about Zachary’s speech patterns. Inconsistent.

Martin spoke impatiently, as if reading her mind. “The point is, it’s not a ghost. The messages are coming from us.”

He glanced down at his legal pad, which Robin could see was covered in notes.

“The history of the Ouija board is fascinating, really. The game became quite the rage in the 1920s. The occult movement, with its various forms of mysticism—séances, tarot, ceremonial magic, Kabbalah”—he glanced at Lisa briefly—”had taken off in Europe, and then America, due to the unprecedented number of deaths in World War One. And it was a dark time in general—World War Two already on the horizon, and of course…” He trailed off, took his glasses off and wiped them.

Robin realized instantly what Martin wasn’t saying. Hitler. The Nazis. She remembered Martin’s reference to his rabbi father. We all have our ghosts, don’t we?

Martin replaced his glasses on his nose and continued. “Suddenly, a whole generation was desperate to contact deceased loved ones. In fact, this very board dates from 1920.”

He pointed to a cluster of Roman numerals beside the BALTIMORE TALKING BOARD imprint.

Robin thought, 1920 again. I wonder—

But the thought evaporated as Martin continued.

“The spirit board was a rather sophisticated technological innovation for the time. Before the advent of the board, participants in séances attempted to communicate with the ‘beyond’ through table tipping or tapping.” Robin could almost see the quotation marks in the air as he spoke.

“‘Spirits’ would supposedly rap through the tabletop”—he demonstrated by tapping his knuckles sharply on the table—”which restricted questions to those requiring yes or no answers, or forced querents to count knocks corresponding to numbers of the letters of the alphabet—A was one knock; Z was twenty-six.” He rapped a few times—four, five, six—then lifted his hands. “Well, one can only imagine how tedious it must have been, waiting.”

Lisa murmured, “Insufferable,” but everyone was riveted.

Martin passed his hands over the board like a magician. “But then one Georges Planchette invented the alphabet board and this little piece.” He picked up the wooden indicator. “The planchette eliminated the need to count knocks numerically; the board could simply spell out words, or indicate numbers. At the time, an innovation about as revolutionary as the telephone.”

Robin noticed that his voice held real admiration. But then Martin turned dismissive.

“Of course, what was really happening was automatism: the subconscious minds of the players guiding them to move the piece to spell out desired answers. Still, there are many accounts of unaccountably precognitive and extrasensory messages, just as we experienced last night.” He glanced shyly at Robin, spoke toward her. “Both Freud and Jung attended séances and studied the phenomenon. It’s as if the collective concentration on the board somehow heightens perception.”

Patrick was already busy rolling a joint on one of the coffee tables. “Well, let’s see if ol’ Zach can come up with some lottery numbers tonight.”

Lisa ignored Patrick, huffed at Martin. “This is all fascinating, Professor, but you’re completely ignoring the salient point, which is that we were talking to Zachary Prince.” She picked up the yearbook, open to Zachary’s picture, and shook it at Martin. “He was real. He died here mysteriously”—she mimicked Martin— “in 1920, in fact. And last night we got him on the telephone.” She tapped the Ouija board with a crimson nail, then leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms. “Now, tell me that was coming from my mind, or Robin’s.”

Martin pushed at his glasses. “I don’t recall any mention of a Prince—”

“Right, Zachary is just such a common name. Must be a coincidence,” Lisa shot back.

Martin frowned. “It wouldn’t be at all surprising if one of you had heard talk of a student dying—even read the yearbook. It’s been here under our noses. It’s hardly inconceivable.”

Robin suddenly realized Martin was right, and automatism might not have anything to do with it. She hadn’t read the yearbook, but Lisa certainly could have. She felt a wave of cold and heat at once, paranoia and humiliation. What if the whole evening really had been an elaborate prank? Plant a Ouija board in the game cabinet, pretend to summon a long-dead student, leave the yearbook to back up the story. For all Robin knew, they were all in on it but her….

Not Cain, though, her mind countered instantly.

And what about the game scores, the newspaper confirming them this morning? Surely that was proof—

Unless the newspaper had somehow been faked.

The thought sent another wave of paranoia through her, a feeling as shaky as nausea.

But why? Why would they do it?

Robin glanced to Patrick, studied him furtively. Though he was sprawled quite nonchalantly on the couch, he was watching Martin and Lisa intently.

He shifted his eyes toward Robin, caught her watching. The look he gave her was veiled, unreadable.

Martin was speaking loftily to Lisa. “At any rate, we have all night to test the theory and—”

He stopped mid-sentence, frowned around the room as if he’d misplaced something. “Where’s Jackson? We need to replicate the conditions.”

Lisa fished in a pocket for a cigarette, smiled secretly. “He’ll be down.”

Patrick lounged back on the couch and fired up the joint. Everyone looked toward him; he lifted his hands. “I’m replicating the conditions.”

Martin nodded. “By all means. The altered perception probably contributed to the overall experience.”

Patrick grinned, exhaled. “It sure as hell contributed to mine.” He extended the joint to Lisa, who took it, put it to her lips for an appreciative drag.

Martin continued. Almost manic, Robin thought. “Atmosphere is a huge factor in the efficacy of a séance. We had all the conditions aligned for us last night—the storm, the power outage, the fire…”

Caught up in her inner tumult, Robin had forgotten the fire she’d started to build. Now Martin noticed the unlighted logs in the fireplace. He reached for Lisa’s fighter and knelt rather awkwardly on the hearth beside Robin, sparked the lighter and ignited the newsprint between the logs. Flames licked up the paper, casting orange light on his face.

There was actually something attractive about him, Robin decided: the way he came alive when he was interested in a subject, the take-charge confidence he’d been showing all evening.

Martin turned beside her, meeting her eyes. Robin looked away quickly, flustered.

A voice came suddenly from the doorway, raised in irritation. “Okay, just stop it. It’s not funny.”

They all turned. Cain stood under the archway, looking frazzled. The others looked around at one another, mystified. Cain’s voice grated in annoyance. “The pounding? On the pipes?”

Patrick sat up from the couch. “We all’ve been here in plain sight of each other. Nobody’s been doin’ any pounding.”

Cain looked to Robin for confirmation. Robin nodded, unable to speak.

Martin rose from the hearth, brushed soot off his hands. “What exactly were you hearing?”

Cain glanced back at Robin, then to Martin. “In the ceiling. Loud. Rapping. Knocking—”

Patrick raised his eyebrows at Martin. “Funny, didn’t you just say spirits communicated through knocking?”

Lisa’s voice came suddenly from the table, breathless. “You guys—”

They all looked over. The planchette was moving under her hands.

Her eyes were wide. “He’s here.”

Robin felt a jolt of excitement, mixed with unease, doubt, a flood of paranoia again. A prank? A ghost? What were they doing?

Lisa looked up at her from the slowly circling pointer—and under the excitement, there was something helpless, even a little frightened in her eyes.

Robin bit her lips. Go, she told herself. Just go back upstairs now.

And then the longing to be part of something, something extraordinary, won out.

She sat abruptly across from Lisa, reached out to the moving planchette. Touching it was like an electric shock—there was something so clearly alive there, her breath stopped in her throat. She looked at Lisa in disbelief. Lisa met her eyes, nodded. She felt it, too.

In the doorway, Cain made an exasperated sound. “Oh Christ.” He turned to leave.

The planchette suddenly jumped, spelling quickly, urgently. Robin stared down at the unfamiliar letters. Lisa sounded them out one by one under her breath, groping at the words. Latin, Robin realized. Lisa spoke the whole sentence out.

Cain froze in the doorway.

Robin wondered about the phrase. A legal term? Something about evidence? She remembered that Zachary had been studying law, too.

Patrick snapped his fingers at Cain impatiently. “Well? What’s it mean?”

Cain glanced at him. “Exonerating evidence. I was writing a paper about it—just now.” He looked at Lisa again with blistering suspicion.

She stared back at Cain defiantly. “He said it. I didn’t.”

Martin spoke up, more to himself than the others. “Telepathy again.” He reached for his legal pad, made a note.

Lisa pressed her fingertips into the pointer, raised her voice. “Zachary, was that you knocking?”

There was a puff and whoosh and a rush of orange light…as a log caught fire in the hearth. Everyone turned toward it startled.

Then the indicator leapt to life. Robin could feel the urgent tug under her hands. Much faster than the night before, and more confident. Almost—cocky.

Robin’s eyes widened; she felt a prickling on her neck. Lisa looked at her from across the board. Robin leaned forward, intense. “Are you Zachary Prince, who died here in 1920?”

The pointer was still for a moment, then spelled more slowly.

“That’s the inscription from the yearbook,” Lisa said softly to the others.

Robin felt a deep chill. There was something wrong here, a creepiness under her fingers, almost heat, like anger. How different it felt from the playful teasing of the night before.

“Zachary, how did you die?” Lisa asked. Robin felt another shock of heat under her fingers as the pointer moved quickly.

Robin flinched, and saw Patrick grimace. “That’s harsh.”

Martin stepped abruptly forward, stared down at the table. He directed his voice toward the board. “If you’re a ghost, what is a ghost?”

The pointer stopped, still now. Robin couldn’t feel a thing under her fingers. She looked across at Lisa.

Martin spoke again, more demanding. “Explain what you are.”

The pointer was completely still. Martin leaned over the board, agitated. “Why won’t you talk to me?”

Shadows danced on the walls from the firelight; then the pointer started to move. Random, teasing circles. Finally, it slid quickly from letter to letter.

Martin colored. Cain looked sharply at Lisa, then at Robin. Robin started to shake her head.

Martin cleared his throat, forced himself to speak politely. “I…would like to talk to you, please.”

Robin flinched as the pointer jerked to life, spelling almost violently.

Martin paled, stunned.

Robin gasped, pulled her hands off the pointer. Cain advanced on the table. “That’s enough, Marlowe.”

Lisa stiffened. “I’m not—”

“I know you’re doing it.”

“I fucking am not.” Lisa shoved the board away from her.

“She’s not,” Robin protested.

Silence fell in the room. The logs snapped in the fireplace as flames ate at the logs. Patrick and Cain circled the shadows around the table, the board.

Robin bit her nails, stared down at the black letters, focused in on the burn marks along the edge of the board. Charred. There was something ominous about the black now, something that didn’t make sense.

Stop now, she told herself. I don’t like this game.

Cain stopped across from her, met her eyes. He seemed about to say something.

Robin suddenly put her hands back on the indicator. Lisa looked at her, slowly reached out to the wooden piece. A garnet in one of her rings caught the light, glowed briefly like a drop of blood.

Robin drew a breath and asked tightly, “Zachary, why are you angry at Martin?”

The pointer circled, slid almost sullenly from letter to letter. Lisa sounded the words out, frowning.

Robin and Lisa looked across at each other, then at Martin. He stared down at the board as if mesmerized.

“What does that—” Robin began.

The planchette jerked under their hands, scraping violently across the board. Robin and Lisa could barely hold on.

Lisa gasped and stood, pushing herself away from the table. Robin sat frozen, staring down at the board. Martin’s face was very still.

“Master of the Universe? Is this a video game now? What the fuck…” Patrick looked around, bewildered.

“God. It means God.” Martin pulled back Lisa’s chair and sat heavily down, put his hands on the indicator and stared across at Robin. “Let’s go.”

Robin jolted, startled by his vehemence.

Cain stepped closer to the table, behind Robin. “I don’t think—”

Martin glared at Robin, eyes burning. “Let’s go.”

Transfixed, she slowly extended her hands to the planchette. Her fingers touched Martin’s cold ones. Martin spoke through clenched teeth, unfamiliar, grating syllables: “Haim ata ru-ach o Qlippah?”

The pointer jumped violently under Robin’s hands and flew off the table, clattered to the stone hearth.

“Shit,” Patrick yelped, jolting back.

Robin found she was standing—she’d jumped up so quickly, she hadn’t realized she was on her feet. Everyone was standing except for Martin, all of them frozen in disbelief.

Cain whipped around toward Martin. His voice was strangled. “What the fuck did you say?”

Martin sat back against his chair. He spoke evenly, his face like alabaster in the flickering light. “I said, What are you, you fuck?”

He stood up with eerie calm, crossed to pick up the pointer from the hearth. He put it back on the board and sat, looked up at Robin intensely. “Come on.”

Cain moved forward. “No. That’s enough. You’re too into it.”

Martin nearly shouted over him. “Come on.”

Robin flinched, blinked back tears, but she felt for the back of the chair and sat, reached to the pointer.

Cain spoke low behind her. “You don’t have to.”

Martin’s voice cut through his. “What are you?” he demanded of the air. All scientific detachment was gone; he’d spoken as if to a real person. He pushed his fingers into the pointer, stared down at the board as if he were alone in the room.

Robin touched the pointer with her fingertips. Immediately, the piece began to move. Robin recoiled. There was something different there, not a new energy, but a change in the energy. So much…loathing. Malice. Fury. The malevolence fairly crackled through her fingers.

But the words the pointer spelled were slow, almost teasing.

Martin jerked forward, his voice raised. “What are you?“ The planchette scraped, swift and violent, across the board.

Robin gasped and pulled her hands away from the planchette. She felt rather than saw Cain move forward behind her; then his hands were gripping her shoulders. Lisa was hugging herself from the edge of the shadows.

Martin pressed his fingers into the wood, white-faced and shouting. “I’m asking you. Tell me what you are!”

Everyone was still. The indicator slowly circled under Martin’s hands.

Robin watched, paralyzed, squeezing her hands together on her thighs, subliminally aware of Cain’s hands on her shoulders. She suddenly thought, with clarity for the first time, Lisa wasn’t moving it. It wasn’t ever any of us. Then, oh God…what is it?

The letters appeared inexorably under the cut circle of the pointer.

Robin could feel the others craning forward, waiting, mesmerized, as the pointer’s circles diminished to barely a hover. Then a sudden burst of letters.

Robin stared at the board in disbelief, the letters, the word echoing in her mind. No one was speaking the words aloud now; they were all just staring down in numb silence. She had just enough time to wonder, Show us what? How—

Martin commanded, “Show us.”

Cain spoke instantly: “No—”

The planchette scraped violently across the letters.

In the hearth, the fireplace logs cracked open, showering sparks upward. All five of them spun toward the fire, freaked.

Robin caught movement out of the corner of her eye and glanced up at the mirror above the fireplace.

In the dark glass she saw a pale shape rushing forward, as if coming from a long distance, a tunnel. There was no time to scream, no time to react. All she had was a glimpse and then—

The mirror shattered.

Lisa and Robin screamed. All five of them jumped back as ugly glass spears shot from the mantel, exploding outward, shining briefly in the air, and then crashing on the floor.

No one moved. All five stood frozen, stunned, suspended in shock.

Patrick gasped out weakly, “Motherfucking shit.”

Robin’s heart was pounding in her chest. She could hear Martin breathing shallowly beside her, blinking behind his glasses. The room was utterly silent, the shadows long on the wall. Glass shards like knives littered the carpet, glittering in the firelight.

Cain was the first to move. He forced himself forward to the fireplace, stepping carefully around the razor-sharp glass. He reached out (Robin almost called out “Don’t!“ but could not make herself speak) and put his hand flat against the pale circle of wall where the mirror had been.

“It’s hot,” he said. His voice was far away, as if he were in a trance. “Fire must have…heated the mirror and it broke.”

Lisa toned on him, nearly shrieking. “What planet are you on? It just happened to shatter? At that precise moment? Gosh and gollee yes—happens every day.”

Martin spoke, his voice dry, also sounding very far away. Or is that me? Robin wondered. Am I the one who’s far away?

“Hysteria,” he said, almost to himself.

Lisa went wild. “Don’t you fucking tell me I’m hysterical!”

Martin pointed at the broken mirror, cold and surreally calm. “That. Hysteria. We made it happen. I was reading accounts of similar occurrences under conditions of extreme psychological stress….”

His voice was flat, monotonous. But Robin noted with distant but crystalline clarity that there was an undertone there: excitement.

Patrick laughed uneasily, big and hulking in the half-light. “We all were pretty jacked up.” Beside him, Lisa looked dazed, disconnected, shivering. Patrick reached out, kneaded the back of her neck with a big hand. Robin felt a stab of jealousy, then a fragment of a rational thought. He’s used to hysteria. Because of Waverly.

Shadows crawled up the walls around them.

Robin heard herself speaking from a long distance. “I saw something in the mirror. Just before…”

Everyone looked at her in the dark, silent room.

“A shape…it was so fast…like something coming this way.”

The others stood, looking at her almost thoughtfully. They did not speak, perhaps processing. She almost thought they hadn’t heard. The candles flickered, and the logs hissed as they rolled with flames. We’re in shock, aren’t we? Robin thought. That’s why everything feels so frozen and far away.

Cain finally spoke. “Probably just the mirror bending before it cracked.” He nodded to himself slightly—Robin was sure he wasn’t aware of doing it—convincing himself.

Patrick put an arm around Robin. His arm was heavy, and warm, and real. She leaned into him hungrily, feeling her whole body against his. To the side of her she saw Cain turn away from them, but the body warmth, the heat of Patrick’s blood, the sound of his heart beating, the life of him, that was all she could care about.

Martin was speaking, his voice sounding detached from his body. “What were we all thinking about just before it happened?”

The others looked at him. Robin felt Patrick shift and was childishly irritated at the intrusion. Whatever Martin was getting at, she wanted no part of it. She only wanted to crawl inside Patrick and curl up and never come out.

Martin looked around at all of them, insistent. “I think we should talk about it, while it’s still fresh in our minds.”

Robin felt Patrick turn completely from her. He towered over Martin, who seemed half his size. “Are you crazy? After the way it went off on you?”

Cain turned on Patrick, the anger leaping from one to the other, electrifying the room. “And who was that coming from?”

Patrick whirled on Cain. “Say what?”

Cain faced him, hands clenched at his sides. “Whose subconscious was it tapping? Sounded like right-wing frat-boy bullshit to me.”

Their shadows loomed on the wall as the two advanced on each other, voices rising.

“You calling me out, freak?”

“I’m calling what I see, asshole.”

Robin suddenly found herself back in her own body, as if jerking awake from a too-real dream. She stepped quickly between Patrick and Cain.

“Stop it. It’s bad enough, isn’t it?”

Cain and Patrick faced off tensely, glaring at each other over Robin’s head. The air crackled between them.

But then Cain stepped back.

Robin breathed an inaudible sigh of relief, and felt a stab of disappointment that it had not been Patrick to step down.

“Let’s all just…leave it. Get some sleep,” Cain muttered, glancing away from Robin.

Nobody moved.

The wind gusted outside, pushing at the windows, like an animal wanting in.

Lisa’s voice was flat, dead certain. “No way am I going anywhere alone.”

And Robin knew it was not enough this time for the two of them to stay together for moral support. Two girls were no match for whatever she’d seen in the mirror.

The five of them looked around at one another in the firelight.

“We could stay down here.”

Everyone turned to Martin, startled. He glanced at Robin. “Bring some bedding down…” His eyes indicated the floor, where the glass shards still glittered like daggers.

There was wonder in Patrick’s face as he looked at the smaller boy. “You’re way into it, aren’t you? You’re just itching for something to happen.”

Martin stared back at Patrick. “Aren’t you?”

Robin tensed at the challenge. Patrick bristled. The two boys stared at each other, Patrick big and hulking, Martin small but grimly determined.

Cain shook his head, disgusted, and started for the doorway to the hall.

Patrick suddenly called out after him. “Good luck with those pipes, dude.”

Cain stopped in the arch of the door, turned slowly.

The five looked at one another again, not moving.