Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

Emma paced her room.

If I can’t figure something out and get away with it, I’ve got four months . . . four fucking months . . .

Looking around, she realized she didn’t even have a calendar to mark the days. Instead, the paranoid titles of her father’s books whispered to her about the hours yet to pass. She kicked the bug-out bag to the corner. Frustration staunched the welling tears before they could drip to the floor.

No phone, no computer, no movies. Not even a poster, for Christ’s sake!

The window rattled behind the metal barrier. Echoes of a high-pitched gust tingled in Emma’s ears, raising the fine hairs on her arms. She rubbed the limbs, trying to subdue the sudden outbreak of gooseflesh until the noise passed.

Damn, Dad. I really wish you would’ve at least let me grab my iPod.

Shivering, Emma snatched the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around herself like a cloak. She scowled, drawing deeper into it.

And it’s fucking freezing on top of it. Location, location, location, Dad. Just like Mom used to say when she was selling a house.

She dropped onto the bed and let her weight carry her side to the mattress.

God, I wonder what she would’ve said about all this . . .

Emma shook her head, trying to banish the image of her mother’s face before it could materialize in her mind. The smiles, the warmth of her hands. The blood dripping from her mouth.

She slapped her cheek.

“Enough of that crap.”

Reaching over, Emma slid one of the books off the case. Flipping to page one, she dog-eared the corner.

One down, about a hundred and nineteen to go.

Returning the book to its place, she pulled the blanket over her head and wadded the fabric against her ears. The wind roared on, barely muffled. The sound felt like it was creeping in through the cracks along with the winter air, infecting the room with its cadence. Its coldness. Both trickled inside Emma, making her bite her lip until she clawed back to the light. Panting, she bathed in the glow of the lamp, remembering the weight of the book in her hands. The waiting pages. The waiting days. She rubbed the spots from her eyes before she set her head back on the pillow, the hours sedated in the car’s backseat making the lids difficult to close.

I wonder if I can steal the car ahead of schedule . . .

***

Emma rolled out of her bed and into the snow. Sputtering, she spat the flakes from her mouth and swatted the glittering white off her night clothes. The flecks glinted in the sparse moonlight streaming through the clouds overhead. She groped for the bed behind her only to find empty air. Whirling around, there was no sign of the cabin—only trees transformed into puppets by the force of the wind bending their branches.

“D-Dad!” Emma held herself, willing her teeth to stop chattering, before taking a tentative step toward where she thought the cabin was supposed to be. “Dad! Are you there?”

The darkness around her deepened as if in answer, the clouds above thickening until the full moon held no more power than a child’s dying nightlight. The cold intensified, too, spreading numbness from Emma’s toes up through her shins. She trudged on with both legs all but dead, her knees sinking in the drifts.

“Dad! Please! Where are you?”

The night pressed tighter with each step, poised to snap her up, when a light flickered through the blizzard.

God . . . oh, thank God . . .

Emma rushed toward the glow as best she could, the outline of the cabin gradually penetrating the haze. A flame danced behind a window on the ground floor, and as she got closer, she saw her father’s silhouette watching her through the glass.

“Daddy!”

Emma’s hand was poised to bang on the windowpane when her palm froze in midair. The candle in her father’s hand flickered, dimly illuminating the room around him, but the hand holding it was as black as the night outside. Featureless, her father’s silhouette stooped and cocked its head. The breath was still escaping her throat when the shadow slammed its face through the glass and melted into hers.

***

Emma woke with a gasp, kicking her way backward until her spine hit the headboard. She pulled the blanket around her more tightly when she caught the shadow shifting on the wall, only gradually recognizing its movements as reflections of her own. Trembling, she took a deep breath and tottered toward her double, her lungs aching until her hand crushed the five black fingers. Despite the cold sweat clinging to her body, Emma’s cheeks began to burn.

God, girl. Night terrors. Scared of your own shadow. Just how old are you, anyway?

She tapped a finger on the wall, giggling at the absurdity of the situation until the unfamiliar texture stifled her amusement. The wind groaned outside, probing just far enough through the window to coax a shiver. Emma closed her eyes.

I guess this mess being a dream would be way too much to hope for.

Too awake to lie back down, Emma lifted the shutter and watched the snow whip past the pane. The trees were indistinct, their spindly boughs intertwining as if they were holding onto one another for mutual support against the onslaught. The longer Emma looked, the more the wood blurred into a wall, giving new texture to the darkness. It rippled like black velvet with each gust, a swelling tidal wave. Emma slammed the shutter back down with a fresh layer of ice water on her face.