unsuccessfully to pry the pair open, then ran my hands up and down the crack, hunting for a fastener. My fingers grasped a knob, and I pulled on it. It wouldn’t budge. I felt around the knob and discovered a metal circle with a jagged edge inside.
Terrific! — they had locks on their shutters, locks that required keys. This place was secure, even with the electricity off.
I sagged against the deep windowsill for a moment, then straightened up and listened, my attention caught by a sound that seemed to come from behind the fireplace. A heavy object was being dragged across the floor in the room behind the one I was in.
I should have realized then that if Marcy was ignoring me, it was because she had something more important to do at the moment. I should have stopped to think things through.
But when someone has made it clear she wants to kill you, the instinct to flee pushes out all other thoughts, and you keep moving.
After the window, I reached the corner quickly, which indicated I was in a small room. Turning the corner, I felt a built-in bookcase, shelves with binders and folders.
Expecting nothing but office materials, I got careless. My hand suddenly struck something tall and smooth to the touch. It crashed into the furniture behind me and shattered.
Through the fireplace wall, I heard a loud, raucous laugh.
Marcy knew where I was now. I backed into a chair and desk, turned myself around, and headed toward what I thought was the room’s exit.
I was back in the hall. I knew because when I took an extra step to the left or right, I could touch the walls. I felt the frame of a doorway and entered the next room, walking straight ahead this time, hoping for windows. I banged my shin on a low table. It was all I could do not to kick it aside. I had passed the point of daunting fear and was getting reckless and desperate. Then I heard the sound of a door opening, the door into the wing. Marcy was coming for me. I moved quickly around the room, hoping for a window with unlocked shutters. I prayed to God and to Uncle Will. I groped and found the mantel of another fireplace.
“Where are you, baby?”
Baby?
I felt for the tools usually kept by a hearth. There were none.
“Are we playing hide-and-seek, baby?” Marcy’s voice sounded high-pitched, peculiar.
I kept searching for something to defend myself with. Next to the fireplace my hand grasped a knob. I pulled on it — Yes! Stairs! Maybe the second-floor windows weren’t locked. I tiptoed up two steps and reached back to close the door behind me.
“All right, I will count, and you hide.” Her voice chilled me to the bone. “O-one, two-oo, three. .”
I scurried up the turning steps, hoping the door hiding the stairway and her loud counting would muffle the noise I made. At the top of the steps I stopped to remove my shoes so she wouldn’t hear me walking above her head.
I stood still for a moment, trying to orient myself, which was impossible since it was as dark upstairs as down. I didn’t understand the lower floor plan, so I couldn’t imagine a duplicate much less a variation of it for the second floor.
But I did know I was in a wing, and if I found a short stairway, it would indicate that I was moving back toward the center of the house. If Marcy came up the turning stair and I could find the main stair, I’d be able to race down it and, with a little luck, find the front door or the exit to the garden.
I started toward what I thought would be the center portion of the house. Marcy had stopped counting. I heard a noise, footsteps in a different place than I had expected hers to be.
“Anna?”
Zack! It was Zack’s voice, calling from below.
“Anna? Anna!” he cried.
I had to bite my tongue to keep from shouting back.
Marcy was silent, listening. If I answered Zack, she’d know where I was. But if I didn’t warn him, she might lie in wait for him. Two against one, we had a chance; somehow, Zack and I had to find each other.
I prayed. Help. Help me know where he is.
Zack had become quiet, as if he had figured out the nature of the game being played. The silence of the house was like a roaring in my ears.
Maybe I could send my mind out, I thought, send it on a journey like I did during an O.B.E. Guessing that Zack had entered the house the same way as I had, I imagined the room off the garden, picturing in my head how I would move along its walls, searching it with mental hands.
There was a door — not the door I had gone through, a door to the left. Are you there, Zack? Yes! I knew it in the place I call my “heart.” And then he wasn’t. I had lost him.
He’s moving, I thought. I have to keep up with him. But at that moment I heard a sound close to where I was standing, the turn of a knob. Marcy was opening the door to the steps I had just climbed.
I rushed ahead, then smashed my toes into a step and sprawled forward, catching another step with spread palms — the top step, I realized — a short stairway into the main portion of the house. Scrambling up it, I heard Marcy climbing the turning stairs.
“Where are you now, baby?” Marcy called. “Are you hidden? Hide-and-seek.”
I shivered at the childish pitch of her voice and tiptoed forward.
“Have you found a good spot, baby? Here I come, ready or not.”
Why was she calling me “baby”? Did she think I was her brother? Was this a game she had played with her hated younger sibling? She was crazy.
I waved my arms around, hoping to touch a surface. I felt as if tricks were being played on me, as if the walls had the power to recede from me when I reached out. Get a grip, Anna. Maybe I was in a large, square hall. Then I must be near the steps, I thought.
Stop, let your mind search, I told myself, but I couldn’t. I didn’t trust myself enough to stand still and let my mind do the work.
“I’m coming, baby. I’m going to find you.”
My left hand finally touched a wall, and I raced ahead, letting my fingers drag lightly along to keep me going straight. A doorway — I hesitated. There was no light inside the room: The shutters were closed on this floor as well. I kept going. Another doorway, another pitch-black room. I slipped inside and flattened my back against the wall by the door. Stop, think, I told myself; you’re going to get yourself cornered.
I took deep breaths, trying to slow my racing thoughts. My mind went out into the hall again — I sent it there. I searched for Zack: He was coming upstairs. Zack. Zack, I’m here.
I heard Marcy opening and closing doors in the wing I had come from. “Olly olly in free,” she sang out, as if calling in the players of her game. I wondered if she knew, as I did, that Zack was climbing toward the upstairs hall.
He’s at the top of the main stairway, I thought. The stairs ran sideways, not back to front, as I had assumed. I must have rushed past its landing without realizing it.
He was in the hall now, coming toward me. I started out of the room, moving as fast as I could while trying to be quiet, wanting to reach Zack quickly and get us both back to the steps he had just climbed. His light was off, but I knew where he was. I extended my arm and touched him. He jumped.
Something clattered to the floor — his flashlight. In response, a wild laugh erupted from Marcy.
“It’s Anna,” I whispered.
Zack gripped my hand. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
But Marcy had come racing from the wing and positioned herself at the top of the main stairs, blocking our escape route. I saw it as she shone her flashlight on us. Zack used the brightness of her light to find the one he had dropped.
He clicked the button, and for a moment they focused their beams on each other.
“I see you,” she said, her eyes sparkling in the light. She shook her head, her perfectly cut hair swinging a bit. She was like a child who had discovered the feel of her hair moving and enjoyed making it do that. “You are supposed to hide! Hide, hide now. I’ll count again.”
