Page 17

"Sing a song of breath mints," she continued, now singsong, through the door. "Banana cream pie. Four and twenty blackbirds take to the sky. "

"I know that one. That's not how it goes," I mumbled. I was watching her stall over my reflection's shoulder. I didn't see anything, I didn't think. The whole thing was so blurred as to be hopeless, anyway. The longer I looked, the less worried I became.

"I told you, it doesn't matter. I like banana cream pie. So that's how I say it goes. "

"Fine. " But even as I said it, there was motion in the clouded glass. At first I figured she'd kicked the door from within, but I didn't hear any kick and she was still steadily peeing, so I had a good idea of where her body was. I wondered how long her legs were.

"Sing a song of breath mints, banana cream pie. Four and twenty blackbirds take to the sky. When the sky is filled up . . . "

More motion. Definitely, this time. It was white, and fast, at the mirror's upper left corner. It could have been anything. An owl, even, drawn by the light. Anything.

"With all the feathered wings . . . "

"Cora?"

"The birds will come protect me . . . "

"Cora," I said again, but I could hear everything I needed to know in the tremor of her voice. She knew she wasn't alone, and she knew it more surely than I did.

"From all those other things. "

"That's a good rhyme," I whispered. "Maybe you should say it again. " As soon as she'd quit talking the white thing had come in closer.

"I'm almost done," she whispered back. I heard her stand and shuffle her pajama bottoms up around her waist. "Okay. "

"Okay. "

"I'm going to come out now, and I'm going to run for the door. Will you be behind me?"

"Oh yeah. Maybe in front of you. "

"Don't leave me—"

"Okay, okay, okay. I won't. You first. " The white thing was taking form, growing solid in the battered, filmy surface I couldn't take my eyes away from. I didn't dare turn around; I didn't want to know what it looked like any better than my foggy view already allowed. It wasn't one of the sisters three, I knew that much, and that meant it could be friend or foe; I didn't feel like sticking around to find out which.

This was not like anything I'd felt before. This was not dry and quiet and distant. This was something damp and invasive. I tried to pick out a shape more specific than "personlike" but I wasn't having much luck.

"Hey, Cora, do you see anything?"

"No, my eyes are closed. "

"If you opened them, would you see anything?"

"I'm not going to open them. "

"Okay, but if you did open them—what would you see?"

"Forget it," she said. She knocked the door open with her knee and came out blind, one hand over her face. In the moment I turned to see her, flailing toward the door and past me, I saw the white thing better. I saw it well enough to know that it was there, and it was different. It was not like the women who had hovered so gently near my side. This thing reached, and it moved like it could grab. When it followed Cora past the stall's door, it pushed against the metal slab and the rusty hinges creaked.

It saw me, then, and for a moment it forgot about its pursuit of my friend.

The empty place where eyes ought to be gazed me up and down. It lifted one arm like a tentacle of smoke and it nudged the door again, deliberately opening it farther. Back and forth it rocked the door, and the sound the metal made was a beat like the one Cora spoke to comfort herself.

It had made its point without a word: it knew I could see it too, and I knew it could touch me if it wanted.

Cora was long gone, outside now, calling to me in her too-loud quiet voice. We were pretty close to Miss Candy's cabin; it was only a matter of time before someone woke up and knew we were out of bed. "Shut up," I called out of the side of my mouth, but I don't think she heard me. I took a step back and my tailbone met the hard porcelain of the sink. I reached back, gripped the edge, and squeezed.

The very white thing stopped playing with the door and began to come towards me. It might have been only following the sound of Cora's voice, but it was going to have to go past me or through me to get to her. Either way, it was getting closer.