The light of a second candle appeared, over her shoulder. Aruendiel looked around curiously. “What is this place?” he asked.
“It’s my parents’ garage,” Nora said. They were standing where Kathy’s car, the minivan, was usually parked. She must be out somewhere.
He repeated the English word inquiringly.
“Garage? It’s an outer room, like a barn,” she said. “Where vehicles are kept.” She gestured at the Camry, not sure whether he would know what it was.
“So the house of your parents is nearby?”
“In here,” she said, moving automatically toward the kitchen door. “Actually, it’s my father and stepmother’s house. He bought my mother out, when they got divorced.”
Nora reached for the door handle. It felt dull and distant, but the knob turned. She opened the door and went up the three steps to the kitchen.
She fumbled for the light switch and then realized that the lights were already on. A sluggish pale streak spilled down from the light fixture over the sink.
“Why is it so dark?” she asked Aruendiel, just behind her.
“Use your candle,” he instructed.
She began to understand how the spell worked. Inside the two circles of flickering candlelight, hers and Aruendiel’s, objects had color, definition, solidity. She could see clearly her booted feet on the creamy vinyl tiles. The white plastic coffee maker, shockingly clean and bright after the smoke-blackened wood and stone of Mrs. Toristel’s kitchen. The squat green numbers on the microwave clock: 11:13 PM.
Beyond the reach of her candle, the world was grayish, elastic, unformed. The edges of the room heaved slowly. Nora strained to see them more clearly, then looked back at her candle when she started to feel seasick.
“It’s nighttime,” she said to Aruendiel. “Late. I think everyone might have gone to bed by now.” There were still dirty supper dishes in the sink. She went cautiously forward. The slippery dimness resolved itself into the far end of the kitchen, then the den.
She was wrong; her father was still up. Barely. He slumped on the couch, soaking in the glow of the television screen.
“Dad!” Nora said softly, not wanting to startle him. “It’s me, Nora.”
He did not respond, so she called again, louder. His eyes did not move, even when she went over to stand directly in front of him, blocking the television.
“What’s wrong with him?” she demanded.
“He can’t see you,” Aruendiel said, coming into the den.
“What do you mean, he can’t see me?” She held her candle closer to her father’s face.
“It’s an observation spell, Nora. We are not really here. We can see him, but he cannot see us.”
Her father moved suddenly. He reached for something on the floor—a can of Bud—and took a long swallow. A small collection of empties nested beside the couch.
“This is your father?” Aruendiel inquired.
“Yes,” Nora said. Even if Aruendiel had never seen a beer can before, he probably could figure out what it was from the avidity with which her father was tilting out the last of its contents. “He doesn’t usually drink this much.”
Aruendiel seemed more interested in the television, holding his candle up to see it more clearly. “I remember this from Chigago,” he said, with an air of satisfaction. “Moving pictures, it is called.”
“Television,” Nora corrected him absently. “It’s similar.” She looked worriedly at her father, the shadows under his eyes, the puffiness along his jaw. He had gained weight. Then, because he and Aruendiel were both gazing fixedly at the TV screen, she did so, too. The Weather Channel. It was snowing in Minneapolis.
From the other side of the house came the faint sound of the front door opening. “Who’s there?” her father called out, raising his head, suddenly alert.
“Leigh.” Her sister’s voice sounded tinny.
Her father did not relax. “What were you doing out? I thought you were upstairs. Come in here.”
After a minute, Leigh appeared, a shadow that gained substance as she advanced into the light from Nora’s candle. Since Nora had seen her last, her sister had grown an inch or two. She was wearing her jeans tighter now, her sweaters clingier. “I was at Marissa’s,” she said. “Doing homework.”
“I don’t want you staying out so late. What time is it?”
“I dunno, not that late.”
“It’s too late to be walking home alone.”
“Her brother drove me.”
“Her brother? How old is he?”
“He’s nineteen. He can drive at night.”
“You need a ride, you call me.”
Leigh chortled, rolled her eyes. “Like you could even drive right now, Dad.”
Her father’s slurred voice rose. “I don’t like that tone, Leigh, and I don’t like you driving around with nineteen-year-old boys I haven’t met. You’re grounded. Two weeks.”
An exasperated sigh. “That is so unfair. I wasn’t doing
“Then whatever you weren’t doing, you can not do it at home.”
“Who cares, you won’t even remember this tomorrow.”
“Enough of your crap, Leigh. Go to bed.”
“I was about to, before you hauled me in here.”
“I said, that’s enough. Shut up and go to bed.”
Of Nora’s two sisters, Leigh seemed more determined to grow up fast, and the last few times Nora had seen her, she’d been toying with an exciting new air of adolescent disgruntlement. But this kind of mutual contempt between Leigh and their father was new. “Was I that bad when I was her age?” Nora asked herself. Worse, maybe, but her father had never told her to shut up. And she’d never seen him so drunk then, except after EJ—she did not finish the thought.
“My father is scolding my sister for being out too late,” she said to Aruendiel.
“That is your sister?” Aruendiel was surprised. He was about to say something else when his attention was captured by the TV again.
Leigh stomped away, losing shape as she moved into the queasy darkness outside the candleglow. Nora heard her footsteps echoing up the stairs. Then Leigh shouted something, a parting shot. Nora caught her own name: “—like Nora.”
“Leigh?” Nora moved after her sister. “What did you say?” This was maddening, to see and hear and not to be seen or heard.
Leigh’s door was closed when Nora reached the top of the stairs. The knob resisted her. “Leigh! Leigh! Can you hear me at all? It’s Nora.” The only response was the beat of a pop song vibrating through the door; her sister had barricaded herself with sound.
“Nora?” A fluting question, slightly hoarse, from behind. Nora turned. The door to Ramona’s room was open. Nora entered cautiously, holding up the candle. Dimly she made out her youngest sister sitting up in bed. “Nora, is that you?”
“Ramona! You can see me?”
Ramona’s dark eyes looked at her with the stillness of wet stones. “I can see you. Not very well.”
“Is this better?” Nora moved to Ramona’s bedside, her candle spilling its light on the child.
“Yes, that’s better,” Ramona said, with a small exhalation. She sat hunched against her pillows, her arms drawn protectively around her knees. “Why were you calling Leigh?”
“I wanted to ask her something,” Nora said. She hesitated. “I don’t think she can hear me, though, and I couldn’t open the door.”
“She locks it. Mom and Dad don’t like it, but it makes her feel safer, and the counselor said to let her.”
“Oh,” Nora said, digesting this information. “Leigh’s seeing a counselor? Is she having a tough time at school or something?”
“I guess.” Ramona looked away, then back at Nora. “Nora, what are you doing here? Do you want
