The Shimmers in the Night

Ten

They told Max everything—ending with Cara thinking she saw Zee. The three of them crowded into Jax's room, scarfing pretzels and talking fast.

"I can't believe this," said Max, crumpling the bag and lobbing it into the already-full trashcan beside Jax's desk. (It bounced off and hit the floor.) "It can't be her. I can't believe someone actually messed her up in this. I didn't even tell her about the summer. I didn't want to freak her out. Are you sure? You could have imagined it. Right? Easily."

"I know," said Cara. "I could have. But shouldn't we find out for sure?"

"You're saying you can take this book—this book that lets you go wherever you want to—and use it to find Zee? Just by thinking of her?"

"Well," said Cara. "I hope so. I don't know for sure. When we used it before, I had to have Jaye and Hayley to make it work. Because they're both...so close to me, I guess. You can't use the windowleaf alone; you need your friends for it to work right. A circle of them. Now Hayley's mad at me. But if you and Jax take her place—maybe."

"And if we do find her, Jax plans to do some ESP thing to get her head on straight again? If she is messed up by these...Cold Ones?"

"There's only one Cold One," corrected Jax.

"I guess so. Basically," nodded Cara.

"But that would be just a big experiment, with Zee as the guinea pig! Jax, you admitted you don't have a clue what you're doing. It'd be a total shot in the dark!"

"But Max," said Jax, "if she is a hollow, and the other option is leaving her that way...you don't want that for her. I promise."

"Listen. If we do find her, and there's something messed up about her eyes—which, by the way, I'm not saying I believe there's gonna be—then no offense, kid, but I'd want to call Mom in on that. I'd want to leave it up to the professionals."

Jax looked downcast. The confidence he'd shown just instants before Max got home seemed to shrink, which made him seem younger.

"Easier said than done," said Cara. "Calling in Mom, I mean."

"I tell you what," said Max. "Cara, if you get that book back from Jaye, then I'll go along with you. We'll leave Jax here, since he's a target. Inside the so-called wards. He'll be safe, right? And you and I can take our chances and see if that window thing can bring us to Zee. Because other than these stories you guys are telling me, I got nothing. And, yeah, she cuts class sometimes, but when she does it's

usually with me. So this is weird. But if we find her, and if there is something seriously wrong, like, physically, all I'm saying, I'm not going to rely on a little dude to fix it."

"Jax's instincts are better than you give him credit for," said Cara, defensive. "Better than mine, anyway. Or yours."

"Except only yesterday he was taken over by aliens and had to be locked up in some kind of futuristic pod deal, am I right? So he doesn't exactly keep himself safe 24-7. Does he."

"That was my fault," said Cara. "I handed him the poison pen. Or whatever you want to call it."

Jax shook his head.

"Max is right," he mumbled, and picked pieces off a Lego crane, not meeting her eyes. "It was my fault. I was distracted, and I messed up."

"Listen," said Max, and elbowed Jax softly. "I didn't mean to run you down. But you're ten years old, Jax. Even if my whole brain would fit in your frontal lobe. And if Zee's—if something's happened to her...I mean this summer, I screwed up. I got the car totaled because I wasn't taking stuff seriously, and I left you guys on your own. I still feel guilty. I don't want to make a mistake like that again."