White Space by Ilsa J. Bick

Author:Ilsa J. Bick
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781606844205
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Published: 2014-02-10T22:00:00+00:00

EMMA

The Opposite Ends to a Single Sentence

ONTO A ROAD.

London is gone. Her clothes are … regular clothes. Normal jeans, although she’s now wearing the turquoise turtleneck House let her find. Her head kills; that metal plate is gnawing a hole in her skull. She has brought nothing from the past except the galaxy pendant, which is, weirdly, still there and warm against her chest. Otherwise, she’s fine.

Well, considering all this fog.

Oh shit. Her eyes lock on the wreck of a car, crumpled against a sturdy tree, and then she knows exactly where—and when—she is. No, this is Lizzie’s life, her past, not mine; this has nothing to do with me.

Suddenly, space wrinkles. The pendant fires and Emma rushes toward the wreck, though she hasn’t moved a muscle. It is as if she and Lizzie have occupied the opposite ends to a single sentence and someone has carved away everything in between. The degree of separation is now no more than a sliver of White Space between two adjacent letters in the same word. Or is she still, somehow, caught in the Mirror, between worlds? Between Nows?

Or is this like the bathroom in House—she reaches out and feels her palms flatten on an icy, hard, impenetrable, invisible surface—and I’m on my side of the glass?

Another thought, stranger still: Is this one of those places where the barrier’s thinnest?

Beyond, on the other side, Emma can see Lizzie’s mother. Meredith’s head lolls; the air bag’s painted a slick red. The impact has displaced the engine block, the dashboard has ruptured, and the steering wheel has actually moved, jamming into Meredith’s body, tacking her to the seat like a bug to cardboard.

Lizzie’s mother lets out a long, long moan.

“M-m-mommmm?” Lizzie’s head is muzzy and thick.

Wait a second, Emma thinks, on her side of the barrier. I feel her, like I’m in her head, in two places at once. How can that be?

“Mom,” Lizzie whimpers. The car’s hood is an accordion, the dash only inches from Lizzie’s chest. Lizzie might be able to slither sideways, but there is nowhere to go. “M-Mom?”

“L-Liz …” The word is a hiss, but this is not the whisper-man. This is the voice of her mother, and she is dying; Lizzie knows that, and there is nothing Lizzie can do, no way to fix this.

Trapped on the other side of this nightmare, Emma thinks, It’s like I’m bleeding into her life. She remembers Frank cutting himself, the sound of his blood squelching over the Mirror. I’m bleeding into her.

“Mom?” Lizzie’s voice thins with grief and terror. Bright red blood jets from her mother’s chest and splish-splish-splishes onto vinyl. The steering wheel has done more than pin her mother against the seat. The wheel is broken, and the jagged column has punched through like the point of a lance. With every beat, Mom’s heart empties her veins just a little bit more.

Please, House, get me out. Emma watches as the fog gushes into the car, swirling up in a whirlpool past Lizzie’s feet, her hips.

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