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The ghostly child in the thongs had vanished; the internal et it back She could feel the irresistible tug of real memory at last, and she knehat she had to do

She stepped back to look at the third bookcase

It was a ainst the same wall as the desk Today it had been le The dust pattern on the wall behind it showed clearly where it normally rested

It had been moved to expose a door behind it

Jenny hadn’t noticed the door before because the case stuck out enough to block it You had to actually walk beyond the bookcase to get a good look

That’s what Jenny felt compelled to do now

It was a perfectly ordinary-looking door Probably leading to a closet The only strange thing about it was the huge backward-leaning X deeply carved into the wood

Carved and colored a rusty brown like the stains on the poeain, even

though Jenny didn’t need or want it The ghostly little girl was standing in surprise in front of the door, swaying fro with obedience-and winning The wind-ruffled hair was shaken back, the tanned legs flashed, two shost disappeared

And then I opened it, Jenny thought But no i it, or of what had happened after, would co to have to find that out for herself

All the way to the door her heart was thudding wild disapproval Her body seemed to have more sense than she did No-don’t-no-don’t, no-don’t-no-don’t, her racing pulse said

Jenny took hold of the knob The thudding beca

No, don’t Don’t-don’t-don’t____

She flung open the door Ice and shadows

That was all she could see The closet ide and very deep, and the inside of it was a whirling, seething mixture of white and black Frost coated the walls, icicles hung like teeth froh Jenny, chilling her as if she’d been plunged into Arctic waters The tips of her fingers went nu

It was so cold it stopped her breath It stopped her froot just one gliht and dark Eyes

Dark eyes, watching eyes, sardonic, cruel, anized them They were the eyes she so up The eyes she saw at night in her roo eyes

One pair was an indescribably beautiful blue

She didn’t have the air to screa wind she was trying to draw into the-because they were co out

It was as if they were co the storlittery black eyes of the alien Visitors, the slanted eyes of the dark elves-Jenny had thought those were frightening, but they were nothing compared to this They were feeble, petty is had invented to scare thehouls, they were all nothing Stories made up to hide the real fear

The terror that came in the darkness, the one that everyone knew about, and everyone forgot Only so up between dreams, did the full realization hit And even then it was seldom remembered, and if it was ree couldn’t survive in daylight But at night solimpsed the truth That humans weren’t alone They shared the world with them The Others

The Watchers

The Hunters

The Shadow Men

The ones alked freely through the human world, and who had another world of their own They’d been called different things in different ages, but their true nature always caranted favors-so in return, usually ames, riddles, any kind of play But they were unreliable-whiood they did with capricious evil

They preyed on humans When people lost time, they were responsible When people disappeared, they were laughing People who got into their world usually didn’t get back

They had power Trying to get a good look at the too curious about the They were heartbreakingly beautiful

All this passed through Jenny’s mind in a matter of seconds She didn’t need to reason it out She knew It was as if a crust had fallen away from her mind, and she saw the truth as a complete, coherent whole All she could think was, So that’s it I re toward her Her loose hair whipped around her face in the wind, her own breath coating it with ice She couldn’t move

"Jenny!"

Her name called in a terrible voice Before she could turn, she was caught around the waist and lifted-lifted as if she were five years old and weighed thirty-seven pounds

"Grandpa," she gasped and threw her arms around his neck

He was smaller than she remembered, too-and just now his tired, kind face was etched in absolute horror Jenny tried to cling to hi her behind the bookcase

"Nauthiz! Nauthiz!" he shouted

He was trying to shut the door, tracing over the rune on the front with stabs of his finger His slashing motions as he traced the X became more andJenny had ever heard "Nauthiz!"

The door wouldn’t shut The oldscrea fros of mist Dark strands were interwoven with the white The tendrils rithing around Jenny’s grandfather

Jenny tried to scream She couldn’t

The wind blasted out, blowing her grandfather’s sparse hair All his clothes were rippling Frost flowed out on the ceiling, down to the desk, to the ground-level s It spread like crystals growing along the walls

Tears froze in Jenny’s eyes She seemed to be locked in the foro to him

The voices that spoke from the mist were as cold as the wind Like bells made of ice

"We won’t be put back____"

"You know the laws "

"We have a clairandfather’s voice, full of desperate fear "Anything else You can have anything else-"

"She broke the rune____"

" set us free"

" and ant her"

"Give her to us" This was all the voices together

"I can’t!" her grandfather said It was alroan

"Then we’ll take her____"

"We’ll embrace her____"

"No, let’s keep her," said a voice full of subtle, ele over rock "I want her"

"We all want her____"

" We’re all hungry"

"No," said Jenny’s grandfather

A voice like an ice floe cracking said, "There’s only one way to change the consequences Make a new bargain"

Jenny’s grandfather’s jaorked, and he backed away from the closet a few steps "You mean "

"A life for a life"

"Someone must take her place"

"Come now, that’s only fair"

The voices were delicate, reasonable Evil Only the water-voice seemed to have an objection

"I want her " it argued

"Ah, youth," said a voice as slow as a glacier, and all of thehed like Christrandfather

"No!" Jenny screamed

She couldnow She had been cowering behind the bookcase, her five-year-old mind probably better able to deal with the reality of the Shadow Men than an adult’s They were the eyrandfather

She’d ju noard the closet Toward the white tendrils of randfather, toward the ice stor that day as the stored hi his flailing hand She’d been screa wind had been howling around her, full of angry, evil, ravenous voices

For one instant, then as now, it had been a horrible tug-of-war She, Jenny, clinging on to her grandfather’s hand with all her strength They, in the ice stor him away Into the depths of a closet that had beco to some other world

She could never hope to stop the the floor, her clothes torn, her shoes lost, her bare feet raking up ice

They were both going in

Then her grandfather slapped her hands away

Hitting and scratching, he tore out of her grip Jenny fell on the floor, the ice cold under her bare legs She was directly in front of the closet, and she had a perfect view of the screa into a white cloud which got s away and finally disappeared itself, beco wind stopped and the roo alone in the silence