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The flight attendant started toward thean to prickle Her little fingers tingled
Be casual, she told herself Be calht attendant reached their row She was dressed in navy blue with cream accents and looked rather military Her face was pleasant but authoritative, like an alert teacher
Don’t look at her Look out the
Jenny wedged her fingernails into the bottom of the plastic trim around the ovaland stared at the darkness outside She could feel Michael beside her, his teddy-bear-shaped body rigid with tension Out of the corner of her eye she could see Audrey in the aisle seat, her burnished copper head bent over the in-flightthe view of Dee across the aisle
Please let her go away, Jenny thought Please, anything, why is she standing there so long?
Any les-or, worse, a hysterical confession Withouta ht attendant had to go away She couldn’t just keep standing there
She did It beca casually, a little rest on the route fro at each of the look
We’re debate club students, flying to the finals Our chaperon got sick, but we’re h We’re debate club students, flying to the finals Our chaperon got sick, but
The flight attendant leaned toward Jenny
Oh,to be sick
Audrey stayed frozen over her azine, spiky lashes motionless on her ca
Calht attendant said, "who ordered the fruit plate?"
Jenny’s mind swooped into a nosedive and stalled For a terrible second she thought she was going to go ahead and babble out the excuse she’d been practicing Then she licked the dry roof of her mouth and whispered, "No It’s her-across the aisle there"
The flight attendant backed up and turned Dee, with one long leg folded so she could tuck her toe into the little pouch on the back of the seat in front of her, lifted her eyes from her Gameboy and sue jacket she earing, she looked exactly like Nefertiti Even her sht attendant said "Seat eighteen-D Lovely, got it" The next one
"You and your damned, damned fruit plates," Jenny hissed across the aisle And to Michael: "For God’s sake, Michael, breathe!"
Michael let out his breath with a whoosh
"What could they do to us, anyway?" Audrey said She was still looking at herher lips, her voice barely audible above the deep roar of the 757’s engines "Throw us off? We’re six miles up"
"Don’t rean to describe to Audrey, in hushed detail, exactly what he ih
Runaways I’ly It was such an unlikely thing for her, Jenny Thornton, to be
In the darkenedshe could see her own face-or part of it A girl with forest-green eyes, dark as pine needles, and eyebrows that were straight, like two decisive brush strokes Hair the color of honey in sunlight
Jenny looked past the ghostly reflection to the black clouds outside the plane Now that the stewardess danger had passed, all she had to worry about was dying
She really hated heights
What was strange was that even though she was scared, she was also excited The way people get excited when an eency, a natural disaster, happens When all nors that used to be iless
Like school Like her parents’ approval Like being a good girl
All blohen she ran away And her parents wouldn’t even understand why, because the note Jenny had left the somewhere and I hope I’ll co I have to do
I’m sorry IOU 60000
Not very informative But as she supposed to say? Dear Mo happened at Tom’s birthday party last month You see, we built this paper house and it becauy called Julian ahtmares and win, or he would have kept us with him in the Shadow World forever And we all made it out except Suhtest-and that’s why Suht is, Mom and Dad, that Julian followed us out of the Shadow World He ca-a Tom and Zach back to the Shadow World That’s where they are now-they didn’t run away like everybody thinks And the last thing Julian said tothem was: If you want them, come on a treasure hunt
So that’s what I’ into the Shadow World-I don’t have any idea how to do it So I’ to Pennsylvania, to Grandpa Evenson’s house He opened a door to the Shadow World a long tio, and maybe he left soht The first part her parents had already heard, and didn’t believe The second part would just let theive thehter has flipped She thinks some deot to lock her up and keep her safe Oh, yes, get that biiiiig hypodermic over there
No, Jenny couldn’t tell anyone She and Audrey and Dee and Michael had spent three days planning this trip It had taken thehtwo hundred dollars a day using their parents’ ATM cards Now they were on the red-eye froround Their parents thought they were asleep in their beds
And Jenny was excited Do or die It was do or die, now, literally There wasn’t such a thing as safety anyhtet Sue
When she got there, all she’d have to rely on were her oits-and her friends
She glanced at them Michael Cohen, with his ru clothes that were clean, wrinkled, and bore no resemblance to any fashion trend that had ever existed Audrey Myers, cool and elegant in a black-and-white Italian pantsuit, keeping any tur hidden under a perfectly polished exterior And Dee Eliade, a night princess with a skewed sense of hu fu They were all sixteen, juniors in high school, and they were on their way to fight the devil
The flight attendants served dinner Dee ate her fruit plate brazenly Once the trays were cleared, lights began to go out all over the plane One by one they winked off
Funeral parlor lighting, Jenny thought, looking at the dilow that was left It reminded her of the visitation rooreat-aunt Sheila She felt too keyed-up to sleep, but she had to try
Think of anything but hiainst the cool, vibrating wall of the plane Oh, who cares, think of him if you want to He’s lost his power over you The part of you that rushed up to one This ti for hih herat her, his face beautiful in the inable-more beautiful than any human’s could ever be Julian’s hair, as white as frost, as tendrils of mist No, whiter than that, an impossible icy color His eyes just as impossible A blue that she couldn’t describe because there was nothing to co a point, she could res, too His body, slim but powerfully built, hard-muscled when he held her close His touch all the , slow kisses-so slow, so confident, because he was absolutely certain of what he was doing He est of his kind, but he was older than Jenny could iine He was expert far beyond her experience He’d had girls through the centuries, any he wanted, all helpless to resist his touch in the darkness
Jenny’s lips parted, her tongue against her teeth Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all Julian had no power over her, but it was stupid to te about him
She would think of To her behind the ficus bushes in second grade, of Tom Locke, star of the athletic field Of his hazel eyes with their flecks of green, his neat dark hair, his devil-may-care smile Of the way he looked at her when he whispered, "Oh, Thorny, I love you"-as if the words themselves hurt him
He was only human-not some eerily beautiful prince of shadows He was real, and human, and her equal and he needed her Especially now
Jenny wasn’t going to betray his trust She was going to find hi him back froot hiain
She relaxed Just the thought of Tohts unwound, and then
She was in an elevator A silver mask covered the little man’s entire face He was so so with us? Can we take you?" Jenny realized he’d been asking the same question for quite some tihtened
"No," she said "Who are you?"
He kept asking it "Can we take you?" On the elevator wall behind hie poster of Joyland Park, an amusement park that Jenny had loved as a kid "Can we take you?"
Finally she said, "Yes " and he leaned forward eagerly, his eyes flashing in the mask’s eyeholes
"We can?"
"Yesif you tell me who you really are," she said
The little man fell back, disappointed
"Tella bottle over his head, ready to brain him She knew soe But she thought he ht materialize briefly to show her what he really was
He didn’t Jenny kept hitting the ie disappeared
Jenny was pleased She’d proved he wasn’t real and that she was in control
The elevator stopped Jenny walked through the open doors-into another elevator
"Can we take you? We can carry you"
The little
Jenny’s head jerked up and she sat staring A plane She was in a plane, not an elevator A plane which, at the moment, seemed crammed to its dim corners with menace She was alone, because everyone else was asleep The other passengers could all have been wax ures Beside her Michael was completely motionless, his head on Audrey’s shoulder
As she watched, his eyes flew open and he ht, hands at his throat He looked like soet air
"What is it?" Audrey had jerked awake There were times when Audrey acted as if she didn’t care about Michael at all, but this wasn’t one of the absolutely terrified Jenny’s skin was rippling with fear
"Michael, can you breathe? Are you all right?" Audrey said
He did breathe, then, a long shaky intake of air He let it out and sluainst the seat His dark brown eyes, normally heavy-lidded, were still wide