window in the third-floor linen closet he could see a juniper tree, and once a flute of pale bone sent its eerie song pulsing through the library.
“You hear that, Gram?” he had gasped. But of course she heard nothing; she was practically deaf.
Lately it seemed that they came more easily, more often. He would feel an itching at the corner of his eyes, Tinkerbell’s pixie dust, the Sandman’s seed. Then he would turn, and the placid expanse of new-mown lawn would suddenly be transformed into gnarled spooky trees beneath a grinning moon, rabbits holding hands, the grass frosted with dew that held the impressions of many dancing feet. He knew there were others he didn’t see, wolves and witches and bones that danced. And the most terrible one of all—the Erl-King, the one he’d met at the party; the one who somehow had set all this in motion and then disappeared. It was Lie’s worst fear that someday he would come back.
Now suddenly the view in front of him changed. Lie started forward. The kinkajou slid from his lap like a bolt of silk to lie at his feet, still drowsing. From the trees waltzed a girl, pale in the misty light. She wore a skirt that fetched just above her bare feet, a white blouse that set off a tangle of long dark hair. Stepping onto the lawn she paused, turned back and called into the woods. He could hear her voice but not her words. A child’s voice, although the skirt billowed about long legs and he could see where her breasts swelled within the white blouse.
Ah, he thought, and tried to name her. Jorinda, Gretel, Ashputtel?
But then someone else crashed through the brake of saplings. Another girl, taller and wearing jeans and a halter top, swatting at her bare arms. He could hear what she was saying; she was swearing loudly while the first girl tried to hush her. He laughed, nudged the kinkajou on the floor. When it didn’t respond he bent to pick it up and went downstairs.
“I don’t think anyone’s home,” Haley said. She stood a few feet from the haven of the birch grove, feeling very conspicuous surrounded by all this open lawn. She killed another mosquito and scratched her arm. “Maybe we should just call, or ask your mother. If she knows this guy.”
“She doesn’t like him,” Linette replied dreamily. A faint mist rose in little eddies about them. She lifted her skirts and did a pirouette, her bare feet leaving darker impressions on the gray lawn. “And it would be even cooler if no one was there, we could go in and find Valentine and look around. Like a haunted house.”
“Like breaking and entering,” Haley said darkly, but she followed her friend tiptoeing up the slope. The dewy grass was cool, the air warm and smelling of something sweet, oranges or maybe some kind of incense wafting down from the immense stone house.
They walked up the lawn, Linette leading the way. Dew soaked the hem of her skirt and the cuffs of Haley’s jeans. At the top of the slope stood the great main house, a mock-Tudor fantasy of stone and stucco and oak beams. Waves of ivy and cream-colored roses spilled from the upper eaves; toppling ramparts of hollyhocks grew against the lower story. From here Haley could see only a single light downstairs, a dim green glow from behind curtains of ivy. Upstairs, diamond-paned windows had been pushed open, forcing the vegetation to give way and hang in limp streamers, some of them almost to the ground. The scent of turned earth mingled with that of smoke and oranges.
“Should we go to the front door?” Haley asked. Seeing the back of the house close up like this unnerved her, the smell of things decaying and the darkened mansion’s dishabille. Like seeing her grandmother once without her false teeth: she wanted to turn away and give the house a chance to pull itself together.
Linette stopped to scratch her foot. “Nah. It’ll be easier to just walk in if we go this way. If nobody’s home.” She straightened and peered back in the direction they’d come. Haley turned with her. The breeze felt good in her face. She could smell the distant dampness of Lake Muscanth, hear the croak of frogs and the rustling of leaves where deer stepped to water’s edge to drink. When the girls turned back to the big house each took a step forward. Then they gasped,