Jenny felt as if a black riptide was trying to suck her underwater. It was him. The boy from the game store. Every detail of his face was reproduced perfectly, but it wasn't a photograph. It was a drawing, like the snake and the wolf. The boy's hair was colored silvery-white with blue shadows. The artist had even captured his dark eyelashes. The portrait was so lifelike it looked as if those eyes might blink at any minute, as if the lips might speak.
And it radiated menace. Danger.
"What's the matter?" Audrey was saying. Her face swam in and out of focus as Jenny looked up. Jenny's eyes fixed on the beauty mark just above Audrey's upper lip. Audrey's lips were moving, but it was a minute before Jenny could make sense of the words. "What's wrong, Jenny?"
What could Jenny say?
I know this guy. I saw him at the store. He's a real
person, not some made-up character in a game. So...
So what? That's what they would ask her. What difference did it make? So the game must have been invented by somebody who knew the guy, and the guy had modeled for the picture. That would explain why the box was blank: Maybe it wasn't even a real, mass-produced game at all.
Or maybe the guy was crazy, had a fixation with this particular game, and had bleached his hair and dressed up to look like the game character. Dungeons and Dragons, Jenny thought suddenly-people were supposed to get heavily into that, sometimes even go overboard. That's the answer.
At least, it was the answer somebody here tonight would give. Tom, maybe, because Jenny could tell he wanted to play, and once Tom made up his mind on anything, he was immovable. Dee, because danger always kicked her. Zach, because the game involved art; or Summer, because she thought it was "cute." They all wanted to play.
A good hostess didn't get hysterical and ruin a party because she had shadows on the brain.
Jenny forced a smile.
"Nothing," she said, letting go of Audrey's wrist. "Sorry. I thought I recognized that picture. Silly, huh?"
"You been drinking the cough syrup again?" Michael inquired from the other side of the table.
"Are you all right, Thorny? Really?" Tom asked seriously. His green-flecked eyes searched hers, and Jenny felt her smile become more stable. She nodded. "Fine," she said firmly.
Tom got up and dimmed the track lighting.
"Hey," said Michael.
"We need it dark," Dee told them, "for this next part. The reading of the oath." She cut a glance at them, the whites of her eyes shining like smoky pearls.
'What oath?" Michael said warily.
"The Oath of the Game," Tom said. His voice was sinister. "It says here that we each have to swear that we're playing this game of our own free will, and that the game is real." Tom turned the lid of the box around for them to see. On the inside cover, above the printed instructions, was a large symbol. It was like a squared-off and inverted U, the two uneven horns of the letter pointing downward. It was deeply impressed in the cover and colored-as well as Jenny could tell in the dim light-rusty red.
I will not ruin this party, I will not ruin this party, Jenny thought. I will not.
Tom was reading from the instructions: " 'There is a Shadow World, like our own but different, existing alongside ours but never touching. Some people call it the world of dreams, but it is as real as anything else'... and then it says that entering the Shadow World can be dangerous, so you play at your own risk." He grinned around the group. "Actually, it says that the game can be hazardous to your life. You have to swear you understand that."
"I don't know if I like this anymore," Summer said.
"Come on," said Dee. "Live dangerously. Make it happen."
"Well..." Summer was taking this seriously. She pushed soft light curls off her forehead and frowned. "Is it getting warm in here?"
"Oh, swear, already," said Michael. "Let's get this thing over with. I swear I understand that this game may kill me before I'm old enough to get a McJob like my brother Dave."
"Now you." Dee stretched out a black-spandex-covered leg to nudge Zachary. "Swear."
"I swear," Zach said in bored tones, his thin face unreadable, his gray eyes cool as ever.
Summer sighed, capitulating. "Me, too, then."
Audrey adjusted her houndstooth jacket. "Me, three," she said. "And what about you, Deirdre?"
"I was just about to, Aud. I swear to have a great time and kick the Shadow Dude's ass."
Tom had gotten up and was lurking over Jenny. "How about it, devil woman? I swear-do you?"
Normally Jenny would have jabbed an elbow upward into his ribs. At the moment all she could manage was a colorless smile. They all wanted to do it. She was the hostess. They were her guests.
Tom wanted it.
"I swear," she said and was embarrassed when her voice cracked.
Tom cheered and tossed the box lid in the air. Dee's foot flashed out, kicking it back toward him. It fell on the floor by Jenny.
You jerk, if you really cared about me, you'd care about how I felt, Jenny thought in a rare moment of anger toward Tom. Then she squelched the thought. It was his birthday. He deserved to be indulged.
Something about the box lid caught her eye. For just an instant the upside-down it looked as if it were printed in red foil. It had-flashed-Jenny thought. But of course it couldn't have.
Everyone was kneeling around the table.
"Okay," said Dee. "All the little dollies in the parlor? Then somebody's got to turn a card. Who wants to be first?"
Jenny, feeling that if she was going to do this she might as well do it thoroughly, reached out and took the top card. It was glossy white like the game box and felt slick between her fingers. She turned it over and read: " 'You have gathered with your friends in this room to begin the Game.'"
There was a pause. Then Summer giggled.
"Sort of an anticlimax," Audrey murmured. "Who's next?"
"Me," said Tom. He leaned over Jenny and took a card. He read, " 'Each of you has a secret you would rather die than reveal.'"
Jenny stirred uneasily. It was just coincidence, because these were pre-printed cards. But it did sound almost as if someone were answering the question she'd thought of earlier.
"My turn," Summer said eagerly. She read, " 'You hear the sound of footsteps from one of the rooms above.'" She frowned. "But there aren't any rooms above. This is a one-story house."
Tom chuckled. "You're forgetting yourself. We're not in this house. We're in that house."
Summer blinked, her large blue eyes traveling over the pastel, basket-adorned walls of the Thornton living room. Then she looked at the Victorian paper house, with the seven paper dolls neatly arranged in the parlor like a group of guests too polite to go home. "Oh!"
She was just putting the card back when they all heard the noise from above.
Footsteps.
A quick light patter, like a child running on a wooden floor.
Summer shrieked and looked in terror at the ceiling.
Dee jumped up, her dark eyes blazing. Audrey stiffened. Michael grabbed at her, and she smacked his hand away. Zach's face was turned up; even his ponytail seemed to be tense. But Tom burst into laughter.
"It's squirrels," he got out finally. "They run on the roof all the time, don't they, Jenny?"
Jenny's stomach was knotted. Her voice wavered slightly as she said, "Yes, but-"
"But nothing. Somebody else take a card," Tom said. Nobody did. "All right, I'll do it myself. This is for you, Mike." He flipped a card.
"'You go to the door to get some air, but it seems to be stuck,'" he read. He looked around at the group. "Oh, come on. It's a game. Here, look." He stood up in a fluid motion and went to the sliding glass door that looked out on Jenny's backyard. Jenny saw his fingers moving, flipping the locks on the handle. A sense of dread overwhelmed her.
"Tom, don't!" she said. Before she knew what she was doing, she jumped up and took his arm. If he didn't try the door-if he didn't try it-the card couldn't come true.
Tom was jerking at the handle, ignoring her. "There's something wrong with it-there must be another lock."
"It's stuck," Michael said. He ran a hand through his rumpled dark hair, an oddly helpless gesture.
"Don't be stupid," Audrey snapped.
Dee's sloe eyes were glittering. Her hand darted
out and she took a card. " 'None of the doors or windows in this house will open,'" she read.
Tom went on yanking furiously at the door. It wouldn't budge. Jenny caught his arm again. She was trembling all over with a sense of danger.
"Take another card," Zach said softly. There was something strange about his thin face-it was almost trancelike. Zombied out.
"No!" Jenny said.
Zachary was taking the card himself.
'Wo," said Jenny again. She had to stop this, but she couldn't let go of Tom. "Zach, don't read it."
"'You hear a clock strike nine,'" Zachary read softly.
"Jenny doesn't have any clocks that strike," Audrey said. She looked at Jenny sharply. "Do you? Do you?"
Jenny shook her head, her throat clogged. Every inch of her skin seemed to be raw, waiting. Listening.
Clear and sweet, the chimes rang out. The chimes of the clock at the game store, the clock she couldn't see. It seemed to be coming from far above. It began to strike the hour.
One. Two. Three. Four.
"Oh, God," Audrey said.
Five. Six. Seven.
At nine, Jenny thought. See you later-at nine.
Eight...
"Tom," Jenny whispered. The muscles in his arm were hard under her hand. Now, too late, he turned toward her.
Nine.
Then the wind came.
At first Jenny thought the riptide had gotten her. Then she thought it must be an earthquake. But all the time she had the sensation of air rushing by her, as if a hurricane had come in through the closed sliding glass door. A black, roaring hurricane that burned even as it froze. It hurt her like a physical thing, shaking her body and blinding her. She lost track of the room. The only thing real was the fistful of Tom's shirt she held.
Finally she lost track of that, too. The pain stopped for a while, and she just drifted.
She woke up on the floor.
It was like the only other time she'd ever fainted, when she and Joey had both been home sick with the flu. She'd jumped out of bed suddenly to tell him to turn down that stupid cartoon-and the next thing she knew she was waking up with her head in a wastebasket. Lying on the carpeted floor of her room, then, she had known that time had passed, without being sure how she knew it. This was the same.
Painfully Jenny lifted her head and blinked to bring the far wall into focus.
It didn't work. Something was wrong. The wall itself, which should have been pastel-colored and hung with weavings and baskets, was wrong. It was paneled with some dark wood, and an Oriental screen stood in front of it. Heavy velvet curtains obscured a window. A brass candlestick was attached to the wall. Jenny had never seen any of the things before.
Where am I?
The oldest question in the book, the biggest cliche.
But she really didn't know. She didn't know where she was or how she had gotten there, but she knew that whatever was going on was all wrong. Was-beyond her experience.
Things like this didn't happen.