Duncan DeWitt sat on his bed, in a foul mood.
Everything he touched today turned to crap. Even toast. How had he managed to screw up toast?
At least classes were cancelled. His friends had teased him relentlessly about holding hands with Mira. And he'd blown her off. He was supposed to like girls like Kallee. But he didn't.
Stupid. Weak. Pathetic.
He muttered a curse and sat down on the floor, back against his bed. The silence throbbed with unspoken secrets.
He heard a low, raspy laugh..It didn't come from the hallway. It came from everywhere. Inside his ears. Behind his eyes. A creepy sarcastic chuckle.
"Let me in. I can help you." The voice was rough like sandpaper and it grated on his mind.
He froze. "Hello?"
Nothing.
He shook his head, stood up, walked to the window. Was he dreaming? He must be. That voice was familiar somehow, though.
Outside, snow covered the lawn. The sky was dull and heavy. The kind of day where everything felt like it was wrapped in cold, wet cotton.
He opened the window to get some air, but instead of cold, a warm gust curled past his face, warm like breath. His skin began to crawl with invisible scorpions.
He turned quickly, heart pounding. The shadows in the corner of the room didn't move, but they felt deeper. Denser.
Then the shadows closed in. He had no time to scream. To do anything. He felt nothing, a blank nothing. His troubled mind was quieted, but it brought him no peace.
When Duncan's mother knocked on his door an hour later, he didn't answer. When she opened it, he was standing at the window, still as glass.
His eyes were open, but held an emptiness so deep it pulled at everything around him.
The air around him was wrong. Unnaturally cold. His breath fogged the windowpane with slow, measured rhythm, the only sign of life coming from what looked like a statue.
"Duncan?" she whispered.
He turned to face her, and for just a moment, his shadow on the floor didn't match his body.
It moved first. A trick of the light, perhaps. "Hello, mother," he said, and she sensed something was off. The voice sounded like him, but the words weren't his own. They came from someplace…. Other.
The window slammed shut on its own, and suddenly Duncan looked confused. "What happened?" He asked his mother, who was standing there looking at him like he was a stranger.
"Probably nothing," she said. "You looked like you were in a trance for a minute there."
"It kind of felt like it too," he replied, looking at the window. He didn't opening it or closing it, but it was loose. "Did you open the window?"
"No, it was open and you were standing there like a zombie. Then it suddenly slammed shut and you came out of whatever was bothering you. What were you thinking about?"
"I don't know," he latched the window shut. "Stuff, I guess."
"Are you still upset about that incident at the Fireball tryouts?" His mother smiled. "It was truly funny to watch, nobody was laughing at you. That poor girl."
"That poor girl comes from the wealthiest family in Meridian City, and she's a weirdo." Duncan sat at his desk. "I've got some homework to do." For some reason the thought of Mira irritated him. He felt like a jerk for blowing her off, but he hated admitting he was scared. He looked at his phone and his eyes widened.
Mira had sent him a message. "I got the book," it said, "and took it home. Whatever was in it is not good and it escaped from my house last night. It's gotten stronger. Just warning you."
I can help you. He remembered now. The window. The presence he'd felt. What it had told him. It knew his secret. The one that nobody knew. His face burned. How could anything help him with that?
"Okay, well, I'll leave you be." His mother shut the door behind her, leaving him alone.
He called Mira's number, but she didn't answer. He hoped she was okay. She wasn't so bad, really. Just not his type. He hoped he hadn't given her the wrong idea when he'd held her hand in the hallway. He just didn't like watching her get bullied by Kallee and her friends.
I can help you. Whatever that was, the shadows, the way they had rushed at him- and then he had felt nothing at all. Was the thing that entered his room the entity from the library? He strongly suspected it was.
He typed a message to Mira. "I think it just visited me. I'm going to come over to your house. This can't wait." He hit send, then looked outside again. Mira lived three blocks from him. His car wouldn't make it through the snow drifts. He began pulling his winter gear out of his closet, preparing for the trek.
If that thing had fed on his insecurities, his fear, it just got a lot stronger, he knew that for sure.
He arrived at Mira's half an hour later, snow covered and cursing the freak storm that had him trudging through waist deep, sparkling white drifts. The sky looked ominous once again, like it was going to snow even more. As he reached the gate, a snowball splatted against his cheek.
"What the fuck?" He exclaimed. Another snowball whizzed past him. "Mira?" He called out. He heard giggling as he opened the gate. Two younger teenagers stood behind a massive wall of snow, waving to him. "Don't shoot!" He raised his hands in mock surrender. "I'm looking for Mira?"
"She's inside with her boyfriend," the girl said, smiling at him.
"Yeah, they went in to get a cup of hot chocolate a while ago," said the boy, who looked like Mira's twin.
"Her boyfriend?" Duncan asked, confused.
"Yeah. His name is Malcolm. He's staying here for now." The boy stepped forward and extended his hand. "The legend, Duncan DeWitt. I'm Micah. Nice to meet you in person."
"I'm Melinda," the girl said, still smiling.
Wait a minute. Malcolm? And Mira? His heart beat a little faster, and the blood rushed to his head. His face felt hot despite the cold.
"I need to talk to Mira," he said. "Can I come inside?"
"Of course," Micah said. They walked towards the door, Micah chattering about Duncan's various achievements in sports. It seemed he had a superfan.
Duncan felt it as they passed through the wards surrounding the house, a tingle in his mind. The ward was probably put there by Mira's parents. He sat on the living room sofa, while Micah yelled at the top of his lungs, "MIRA!!!!!"
A moment later, a voice yelled back. "What do you want?"
"You have a visitor," her brother grinned. He seemed to be amused by the situation.
"Just a minute." Mira hollered. A minute later she appeared in the doorway. "Duncan, what are you doing here? Are you okay?"
"We need to talk," Duncan said.