A Walk Through a Window by KC Dyer Read Free Book Online Page B

weird tunnel she’d been in. And when she did look up, she wished she hadn’t.
    Around her was a world of white.
    The sky was white. The ground was white. Darby had never seen so many shades of white; from blindingly bright, almost blue-white to a dull, flat white that pounded at her temples like visual static. Everything was white. Nothing was white. Everything was nothing; she couldn’t identify a single object.
    She staggered to her feet, one hand over the sore spot above her left eyebrow. First total darkness and then this? The whole dream scenario just wasn’t making sense. This all-white world had to be a result of the knocks she’d given her skull over the past few minutes. Darby remembered the time she’d smacked her head on the curb when she’d first tried out the skateboard. That had been kind of like this. She rubbed the sore spot again. Okay, the truth was that nothing has ever really been like this, but the sense that her brain no longer quite belonged in her body was the closest feeling she’d ever had to this sensation.
    That time, after the stars had cleared, her mother had plopped a helmet on her head and everythinghad been all right again, apart from a headache that lasted a day or two. But now there was no lecturing, helmet-bearing mother. There was no warm summer evening. Instead, there was cold. Deep, solid cold.
    Darby had a sudden longing for one of Nan’s geeky hand-knit sweaters. She touched her head again. It throbbed a bit but didn’t feel so bad, really. She took a quick look at her fingers, too. No blood.
    And yet everything was still white. She hugged herself tightly, tucked a hand under each arm and thought about the light. It had been a white light at the end of a tunnel. A chill penetrated her heart with the speed of a slicing icicle. Didn’t people claim to see a white light just before they died?
    She wiggled her eyebrows. Sure, there was no blood—on the outside. But what if all this was a hallucination brought on by bleeding in her brain?
    “Am I dead?” she whispered, and then jumped a little at the sound of her own voice. She hadn’t meant to speak aloud, but the fact she could had to mean she wasn’t dead.
    Didn’t it?
    “You’re not dead, Darby.”
    The voice, so close to her ear, made her jump again. It was Gabe. Darby felt faint with relief. She spun around.
    “Where are you?” she hissed, and then because she really wanted to know, “Where am I?”
    “You’ll see me soon enough. Just be patient, and watch for the helping hand.”
    What kind of answer was that? Darby made a mental note to find someone new to hang out with. Even Gramps was less weird than this guy.
    “Gabe?”
    No response.
    She could have kicked herself for not listening more closely to the location of his voice. Maybe reasoning with him would work. Or bribery.
    “Hey Gabe? Look, just take the skateboard if you want it.”
    Maybe that was a bad idea. She’d die for that skateboard.
    On the other hand, she remembered the light and the tunnel.
    “The board is yours, Gabe. Just get me out of here, wherever here is, okay?”
    No response, but as though borne on the wind or from a long way off, she heard the unmistakable sound of his laugh. And at last a figure materialized out of the wall of white around her. A small figure in what looked like a brown hoodie walked toward Darby with an awkward, wide-legged stance.

A drenaline surged through Darby and she raced toward the figure. Almost right away she could see it wasn’t Gabe. It was just some little kid, all wrapped up against the cold. All the same, she was so happy to see another human being, Darby thought the kid looked like an angel. As she moved closer, she could see so many layers of leather and fur on the small figure, she couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. Darby got within yelling distance, took a giant breath and then stopped dead. The dreamlike feeling came back in a big way. What if she couldn’t talk—couldn’t call