CHAPTER 4.

He went on driving. He didn't even pause. "We're almost home."

They were nearing the turn onto Meadowcroft Road. Gillian tried to grab for one of the brown hands on the steering wheel, and then looked at her own h and, perplexed. Her fingers felt like blocks of wood.

"You have to stop," she said, settling for volume. "There's a kid lost in th ose woods. That's why I went in; I heard this sound like crying. It was comi ng from somewhere right near the creek. We've got to go back there. Come on, stop!"

"Hey, hey, calm down," he said. "You know what I bet you heard? A long-ea red owl. They roost around here, and they make this noise like a moan, oo -oo-oo."

Gillian didn't think so. "I was walking home from school. It wasn't dark eno ugh for an owl to be out."

"Okay, a mourning dove. Goes oh-ah, whoo, whoo. Or a cat; they can sound l ike kids sometimes. Look," he added almost savagely, as she opened her mou th again, "when we get you home, we can call the Houghton police, and they can check things out. But I am not letting a lit-a girl freeze just becau se she's got more guts than smarts."

For a moment, Gillian had an intense longing to let him continue to believe s he had either guts or smarts. But she said, "It's not that. It's just- I've a lready been through so much to try to find that kid. I almost died-I think I did die. I mean- well, I didn't die, but I got pretty cold, and-and things ha ppened, and I realized how important life is. . . ." She floundered to a shiv ering stop. What was she saying? Now he was going to think she was a nut case . And anyway all that stuff must have been a dream. She couldn't make it seem real while sitting in a Mustang with her head wrapped in a towel.

But David flashed her a glance of startled recognition.

"You almost died?" He looked back at the road, turning the car onto Hazel S treet, where they both lived. "That happened to me once. When I was little, I had to have this operation-"

He broke off as the Mustang skidded on some ice. In a moment he was in control again and turning into Gillian's driveway .

It happened to you, too?

David parked and was out of the car before Gillian could gather herself to s peak.

Then he was opening her door, reaching for her.

"Gotta get all this ridiculous stuff out of the way," he said, pushing her hai r back as if it were a curtain of cobwebs. Something about the way he said it made Gillian think he liked her hair.

She peered up at him through a gap in the curtain. His eyes were dark brow n and normally looked almost hawkish, but just now, as their gazes met, th ey changed. They looked startled and wondering. As if he saw something in her eyes that surprised him and struck a chord.

Gillian felt a flutter of wonder herself. I don't think he's really tough at a ll, she thought, as something like a spark seemed to flash between them. He's not so different from me; he's- She was wracked by a sudden bout of shivers.

David blinked and shook his head. "We've got to get you inside," he muttere d.

And then, still shivering, she was in the air. Bobbing, being carried up the p ath to her house.

"You shouldn't be walking to school in the winter," David said. "I'll drive you from now on."

Gillian was struck speechless. On the one hand, she should probably tell h im she didn't walk every day. On the other hand, who was she kidding?

Just the thought of him giving her a ride was enough to make her heart beat wildly.Between that and the novel feeling of being carried, it wasn't until he was opening the front door that Gillian remembered her mother.

Then she panicked.

Oh, G.o.d, I can't let David see her-but maybe it'll be all right.

If there was a smell of food cooking, that meant it was okay. If not, it was one of Mom's bad days.

There was no smell of food as David stepped into the dim hallway. And no si gn of life-all the downstairs lights were off. The house was cold and echoi ng and Gillian knew she had to get David out.

But how? He was carrying her farther in, asking, "Your parents aren't home ?".

"I guess not. Dad doesn't get home until seven most nights." It wasn't exactl y a lie. Gillian just prayed her mom would stay put in the bedroom until Davi d left.

"I'll be okay now," she said hastily, not even caring if she sounded rude or ungrateful. Anything to make him go. "I can take care of myself, and- and I 'm okay."

"The he ... eck you are," David said. It was the longest drawn out 'heck' Gill ian had ever heard.

He doesn't want to swear around me. That's cute.

"You need to get thawed out, fast. Where's a bathtub?"

Gillian automatically lifted a stiff arm to point down the side hall, then dro pped it. "Now, wait a minute-"

He was already there. He put her on her feet, then disappeared into the bath room to turn on the water.

Gillian cast an anguished glance upstairs. Just stay put, Mom. Stay asleep.

"You've got to get in there and stay for at least twenty minutes," David sai d, reappearing. "Then we can see if you need to go to the hospital at Hought on."

That made Gillian remember something. "The police-"

"Yeah, right, I'll call them. As soon as you're in the tub." He reached out and plucked at her dripping, ice-crusted sweater. "Can you get this off okay ? Do your fingers work?"

"Urn . . ." Her fingers didn't work; they were still blocks of wood. Frost-ni pped at least, she thought, peering at them. But there was no way he was goin g to undress her, and there was also no way she was going to call her mother.

"Urn . . ."

"Uh, turn around," David said. He pulled at her sweater again. "Okay, I've got my eyes shut. Now-"

"No," Gillian said, holding her elbows firmly against her sides.

They stood, confused and indecisive, until they were saved by an interrupti on, a voice from the main hallway."What are you doing to her?" the voice said.

Gillian turned and looked around David. It was Tanya Jun, David's girlfrien d.

Tanya was wearing a velveteen cap perched on her glossy dark hair and a Ch ristmas sweater with metallic threads woven in. She had almond-shaped gray eyes and a mouth with firm lips molded over white teeth. Gillian always t hought of her as a future corporate executive.

"I saw your car out there," the future executive said to David, "and the fro nt door of the house was open." She looked level-headed, suspicious, and a l ittle bit as if she doubted David's sanity. David looked back and forth betw een her and Gillian and fumbled for an explanation.

"There's nothing going on. I picked her up on Hillcrest Road. She was-well, l ook at her. She fell in the creek and she's frozen."

"I see," Tanya said, still calmly. She gave Gillian a quick a.s.sessing glance, then turned back to David. "She doesn't look too bad. You go to the kitchen and make some hot chocolate. Or hot water with Jell-O in it, something with s ugar. I'll take care of her."

"And the police," Gillian called after David's disappearing back. She didn't exactly want to look Tanya in the face.

Tanya was a senior like David, in the cla.s.s ahead of Gillian at Rachel Carso n High School. Gillian feared her, admired her, and hated her, in about that order.

"Into the bathroom," Tanya said. Once Gillian was in, she helped her undress , stripping off the clinging, icy-wet clothes and dropping them in the sink.

Everything she did was brisk and efficient, and Gillian could almost see sp arks fly from her fingers.

Gillian was too miserable to protest at being stripped naked by somebody wi th the bedside manner of a female prison guard or an extremely strict nanny . She huddled, feeling small and shivering in her bare skin, and then lunge d for the tub as soon as Tanya was done.

The water felt scalding. Gillian could feel her eyes get huge and she clenche d her teeth on a yell. It probably felt so hot because she was so cold. Breat hing through her nose, she forced herself to submerge to the shoulders.

"All right," Tanya said on the other side of the coral-colored shower curtain.

"I'll go up and get you some dry clothes to put on."

"No!" Gillian said, shooting half out of the water. Not upstairs, not where her mom was, not where her room was.

But the bathroom door was already shutting with a decisive d.i.c.k. Tanya wasn 't the kind of person you said no to.

Gillian sat, immobilized by panic and horror, until a fountain of burning pa in drove everything else out of her mind.

It started in her fingers and toes and shot upward, a white-hot searing that meant her frozen flesh was coming back to life. All she could do was sit rigid, breathe raggedly through her nose, and try to endure it.

And eventually, it did get better. Her white, wrinkled skin turned dark blue, and then mottled, and then red. The searing subsided to a tingling. Gillian could move and think again.

She could hear, too. There were voices outside the bathroom in the hallway.

The door didn't even m.u.f.fle them.

Tanya's voice: "Here, I'll hold it. I'll take it to her in a minute." In a mutter : "I'm not sure she can drink and float at the same time."

David's voice: "Come on, give her a break. She's just a kid."

"Oh, really? Just how old do you think she is?"

"Huh? I don't know. Maybe thirteen?"

An explosive snort from Tanya.

"Fourteen? Twelve?"

"David, she goes to our school. She's a junior."

"Really?" David sounded startled and bewildered. "Nah, I think she goes to P.B.".

Pearl S. Buck was the junior high. Gillian sat staring at the bathtub faucet wi thout seeing it.

"She's in our biology cla.s.s," Tanya's voice said, edging toward open impati ence. "She sits at the back and never opens her mouth." The voice added, "I can see why you thought she was younger, though. Her bedroom's knee-deep i n stuffed animals. And the wallpaper's little flowers. And look at these pa jamas. Little bears."

Gillian's insides felt hotter than her fingers had been at their most painful. Tanya had seen her room, which was the same as it had been since Gillian was ten years old, because there wasn't money f or new curtains and wallpaper and there wasn't any more storage s.p.a.ce in t he garage to put her beloved animals away. Tanya was making fun of her paj amas. In front of David.

And David . . . thought she was a little kid. That was why he'd offered to dr ive her to school. He'd meant the junior high. He'd been nice because he felt sorry for her.

Two tears squeezed out of Gillian's eyes. She was trembling inside, boiling w ith anger and hurt and humiliation. . . .

Crinch.

It was a sound as loud as a rifle report, but high and crystalline-and drawn out. Something between a crash and a crunch and the sound of gla.s.s splinter ing under boots.

Gillian jumped as if she'd been shot, sat frozen a moment, then pulled the moisture-beaded shower curtain aside and poked her head out.

At the same instant the bathroom door flew open."What was that?" Tanya said sharply.

Gillian shook her head. She wanted to say, "You tell me," but she was too f rightened of Tanya.

Tanya looked around the bathroom, spied the steamed-up mirror, and frowned . She reached across the sink to wipe it with her hand-and yelped.

"Ow!" She cursed, staring at her hand. Gillian could see the brightness of bl ood.

"What the-?" Tanya picked up a washcloth and swiped the mirror. She did it again. She stepped back and stared.

From the tub, Gillian was staring, too.

The mirror was broken. Or, not broken, cracked. But it wasn't cracked as if something had hit it. There was no point of impact, with lines of shattering running out.

Instead, it was cracked evenly from top to bottom, side to side. Every inch wa s covered with a lattice of fine lines. It almost looked purposeful, as if it were a frosted-gla.s.s design.

"David! Get in here!" Tanya said, ignoring Gillian. After a moment the door stirred and Gillian had a steamy distorted glimpse of David's face in the mi rror.

"Do you see this? How can something like this happen?" Tanya was saying.

David grimaced and shrugged. "Heat? Cold? I don't know." He glanced hesitan tly in Gillian's direction, just long enough to locate her face surrounded by the coral shower curtain.

"You okay?" he said, addressing himself to a white towel rack on the far wal l.

Gillian couldn't say anything. Her throat was too tight and tears were well ing up again. But when Tanya looked at her, she nodded.

"All right, forget it. Let's get you changed."

Tanya turned away from the mirror. David melted back out of the bathroom.

"Make sure her fingers and everything are working all right," he said distant ly.

"I'm fine," Gillian said when she was alone with Tanya. "Everything's fine.

" She wiggled her fingers, which were tender but functioning. All she cared about right now was getting Tanya to go away. "I can dress myself."

Please don't let me cry in front of her.

She retreated behind the shower curtain again and made a splashing noise.