The Shimmers in the Night (4 page)

She murmured in Hayley's ear about Jax, about how she needed a distraction so she could get away.

“Oh
no
,” Hayley groaned. “The Sykes family drama strikes back! I don't want anything to
do
with my mom at the meet, and now you're telling me you want me to, like, try to get her
attention?
Just because your little brother is
homesick?”

“It's not just homesick, it's—”

“But Car, come
on!
And plus I have a
race
today!”

Cara bit her lip. It was true: not only was Hayley racing in a couple of hours, but this was her worst social nightmare. She didn't know what she'd been thinking; she could almost kick herself.

Maybe…maybe she could ask Jaye? Normally she wouldn't, because Jaye was too shy to do anything that would draw attention to herself—Cara always thought of Hayley when she thought of drama. But maybe…after all, Jaye had had the guts to try out for the play when her mother encouraged her to; she was trying to conquer her shy streak. Cara went back up front, to where her friend was still typing away studiously on her laptop.

“Jaye? I was wondering if maybe you could help me,” she whispered.

It was during a lull between races, the fifty-meter fly and the backstroke, that Jaye made her move.

Cara never saw it begin, but all of a sudden, a little ways down the bleachers, Mrs. M was comforting Jaye as she pretended to cry, whimpering something about not being smart enough. It was a bit of a stretch since Jaye was a solid A student, but Mrs. M had a soft spot for kids with anxiety, so Cara had figured it might work on Hayley's mom.

She felt a little guilty thinking like that, having to trick Mrs. M, but there was just no other way. Jax didn't have a mother like Mrs. M around to obsessively nurture him right now. All he had was Cara.

Then the harsh beep of the starting gun blared; the swimmers splashed off the blocks. There was an instant noisewall of cheers and yells, so deafening it was hard to think. She seized her opportunity, slipping behind Mrs. M and an eyerolling Jaye and heading for the locker room. (Hayley had agreed to keep an eye on things, and if she had to she was going to tell her mother Cara was in a bathroom stall throwing up.) She'd stashed her backpack in an empty locker a few minutes before; now she went through the shower room and swung by to bang open the locker door and grab it. She was nervous, she realized, her stomach flip-flopping: maybe the sickness would turn out not to be a lie after all.

She left the changing room and walked down a wide hall of lockers and closed classroom doors, pack over one shoulder, shoes squeaking annoyingly on the linoleum and making her feel like someone was going to hear and come after her. (Even though, in this foreign-feeling school, no one knew her at all outside the cavernous, fluorescent echo chamber of the pool.) Classes were all in session, she guessed, because there was no one in the long hall and teachers' voices droned from behind closed doors.

She set the timer on her phone as she walked, so she could tell at a glance how long she'd been AWOL. Then she pocketed the phone and was outside, the double doors swinging to behind her.

She
never
did things like this. She never played hooky, and she hardly ever lied, except for what her mother called white lies, which were usually just politeness. Or not premeditated, anyway. Plus the subway…she was old enough—
well
old enough, clearly. Thousands of thirteen-year-olds took the T.

Actually it was pathetic to even be worried, she said to herself. It was just that she only came to the city for concerts and museums, mostly—to see
The Nutcracker
at Christmastime or go into her dad's old office when he was teaching at Harvard or the Museum of Fine Arts when her mother wanted to see paintings. At home she was comfortable getting around by herself because she knew her piece of the Cape like the back of her hand; she'd been practically everywhere on her bike. But that was the laid-back Cape. This was a major city, its long, crowded streets sprawling for miles around her, and here she was a stranger in a strange land.

Don't be lame
, she told herself out loud.

Then there it was, the sign for the station. She was down the stairs, feeding her dollars into the machine to buy a card; she was checking the map and she was through the turnstile; she was on the platform.

And in fact it was completely mundane. This was the middle of the day, so there weren't any of the bustling, pushy crowds that filled the tunnels at rush hour and used to intimidate her when she was a little kid clinging to her mother's hand. A few people milled around, even a group of kids her own age, mostly guys plus one chunky girl wearing black and pink tights that had a picture of a zipper down the outside of each of her legs. Cara couldn't help staring at the zippers.

The kids were kicking some trash and laughing; some old men sat on benches.

She heard the faint rush of the train, and then it got louder and louder and she was gazing into the yellow glare of its oncoming lights. First she thought she might be hypnotized, and then she stood back—a panic briefly surged up as she remembered stories of people pushed off platforms and into the path of the trains—and was safe. She felt the air rushing past and saw the flickering blur of the side of the cars, one after the other.

She touched the nazar thoughtlessly, turning it on her finger as the silver and red flickering of the cars slowed and the train screeched to a stop. Into the flickering came a line of gray—a solid, straight column of gray, hovering there in front of the blur of the train windows with their rows of seated passengers' heads.

Then it was gone.

As visions went, this one was impressively boring, she thought, and smiled faintly. But it made her think the visions came when she had fingers from
both
hands touching the nazar. When the ring had been beneath her pillow, she'd had nightmares she couldn't really remember. They might or might not have had anything to do with the talisman, since the ring hadn't been touching her skin directly.…

She wondered what a vertical gray line could mean. It was the same line she'd seen in her undersea vision, she thought, her vision of the source—had to be.

On the other hand, one gray line looked a lot like the next. Maybe it was more of a glitch than a meaningful part of what she saw, she reflected as the subway train's doors slid open and she stepped in. Like a hair on the film of an old movie, trembling in the light from the projector—something she often noticed when they went to see the vintage B movies her dad liked so much, back when special effects were idiotic looking, when slimy creatures rose groaning from swamps and muscular-looking mummies tottered around in filthy bandages.

That was probably it, she thought: a technical glitch. If technology could have glitches, then surely a vision could. Right?

As the doors closed and the train jerked to a start, she looked around for a subway map, wanting to make sure she knew where she was going. There it was, a couple of benches down: a red, branching line with the stops marked. She walked toward it. Briefly she thought she saw something bright reflected in the dark window of the subway car—something that flickered. But when she turned to look at the spot it might be reflecting from, there was nothing but a nondescript man sitting there beneath the subway map. She couldn't quite make out the words on the map, so she stepped toward it.

“Excuse me,” she said, and leaned in a bit to read the names of the stations. Yep: two more stops, and they were already pulling into the first.

She straightened up, noticing for the first time that the car was almost empty. There was only that one man, sitting in front of her. How had that happened? She could have sworn there'd been other people around when she got on; they must have gotten out. The double doors were already closing.

She moved down the car as the train stuttered forward so that she wouldn't be sitting right across from the only other person there; that could be awkward. She sat down at one end of a three-person bench along the train's wall and glanced down at her phone to see if Jax had texted her yet.

No S
ERVICE
, it read.

No reception down here. Made sense.

Then she looked up again.

The man was opposite her. On the bench.

She hadn't heard any footsteps, she was sure, or seen him change seats.

She felt a jolt of fear.

Then again, he wasn't looking at her or anything. He was a youngish guy, maybe in his twenties, with light brown hair and bland, office-type clothing you didn't really notice. He was looking down, consulting a paper in his hand.

It was probably nothing to worry about, she thought.

She looked at the time on her cell. 2:33. She brought up a simple game and played it for a while. The next station was hers, anyway.

But then it turned out not to be a station. Rather, the train was slowing down in the tunnel. Had to be. It slowed down and lurched to a stop.

Her hands, she saw, were trembling slightly.

Nothing to worry about, she repeated to herself. Nothing.

She looked up. Around the train windows was blackness.

The man was still there.

And now he
was
looking at her. Something about his eyes weirded her out, so she looked away quickly.

“Guess we're stuck in—in some kind of delay,” she said uncomfortably, to break the tension.

He said nothing.

Maybe he didn't speak English, she thought, or maybe he couldn't hear…but those were just excuses, she thought, and felt more and more anxious. Her pulse was racing. Could you change cars while the train was going? She was almost sure you couldn't. Your leg would get chopped off, or something.

It felt too tense. Plus it was
hot
, she realized, hot and stuffy; there was sweat beading at her temples and along the edge of her hairline. She forced herself to stand up and moved off again toward the front of the car. There was a rectangular window in the door that looked into the next car up; at least if she stood in the window, she guessed, someone might see her, and then the man couldn't do anything.

Right?

Through the window, the next car on the train looked empty. She didn't want to check the back window, because then she'd have to walk past the man again. Acting casual, she sat down on another bench.

Just then—what a relief!—the train made a screeching noise and moved, albeit at a pace that seemed painfully slow. It gained speed. It was way too hot for comfort now, though the heat didn't feel as oppressive when she knew they were getting somewhere again. Her phone said only two minutes had passed—two minutes that had felt like forever.

When she looked up from it, he was there again. Opposite.

No.

She looked away quickly, touching her ring in a nervous reflex.

Then his mouth was wide open and flames were roaring within.
Flames.
She jerked back in her seat and banged her head on the wall, her ears ringing. He looked at her without moving, smiling horrifically, and inside his open mouth there were no teeth. No
anything.
Except fire. It was like roaring flames—bright orange and hard to look at….

She jumped up and ran back along the car to the very end, not stopping even to breathe, and banged on the door—there
were
some passengers in the car behind, their eyes cast down as they read books or typed on handhelds, but none of them looked up at her as she banged on the window. Not a single one noticed her there, battering her fists against the Plexiglas panel…and somehow she couldn't say
help.
The word caught in her throat. There wasn't enough breath.

Now the train was slowing down—not another delay? Not another dead stop in the blackness of the tunnel? What would she
do?

She didn't turn around—wouldn't,
couldn't—but
then she was looking at the window, the heels of her hands still hitting on it weakly, and instead of the passengers in the next car ignoring her, all she saw was him. Standing behind her with his fiery hole of a mouth.

Flames licked and burned in the empty face.

The doors sprang open. She turned to dash past him—fight her way past him if she had to, she was telling herself—but he was gone.

Everyday people were streaming in.

She ran up the many steps, half afraid the man with fire in his mouth was pursuing her, though she didn't exactly feel his presence anymore. Then she was out of the T station, trembling, a sensation of pinpricks on her cheeks and upper arms. She was relieved to be in the fresh, cold air.

Anyway, he was gone, right? He was gone now.

She leaned against a planter on the sidewalk beneath some big trees with dead leaves and tried to slow down her fast breathing. There was a subway map in a big plastic frame nearby, sticking out of the sidewalk; there were trash cans in casings of what looked like nubbly pebbles. It was gray and bleak around here. A few people walked past, but none of them was him.