The Unseen by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Read Free Book Online

posts.”
    Belinda was nodding. “The baby owl?” she asked.
    “Yes,” Xandra whispered excitedly. “Like the noise Ratchet made when he wanted to be fed.” She was turning in a circle, trying to tell where the sounds were coming from, when she noticed something else. A familiar musty warning odor that most people hated but that could be quite interesting when it wasn't too strong. “Look. Look over there,” she said.
    “Where?” Belinda asked.
    “Something over there on the floor, by that big box. I see it.” As Xandra moved toward the box, Belinda was beside her talking excitedly. “Does it look like an animal?” she said. “When I told my grandfather about your Key he said that things like animals were what you might see. Animals like the ones you took care of. Only with the Key they would be animals from the Unseen.”
    “From the Unseen? What does that mean? Is it a place?”
    “It's… well, it's …” Belinda was stumbling. “It's not really a place, because it's everywhere, all the time, only most people can't see it.” Shrugging and throwing out her hands helplessly, she went on, “I don't know how to tell you.”
    “Animals from the Unseen?” Xandra murmured questioningly as she moved forward and knelt down on the dusty floor next to a big carton. The musty smell was stronger now and very familiar. She reached out towardsomething that kept emerging from behind the box and then fading back behind it. A something that might have looked very familiar if parts of it hadn't kept blurring in and out of sight. Parts like a pointed black nose, a white-striped back and tail and black, beady eyes. Its cool little nose was snuffling gently over Xandra's hand when it suddenly stilled, dimmed and faded away behind the box.
    As Xandra got to her feet, Belinda was standing beside her. “Did you see him?” Xandra asked excitedly. “I think it was Stinky. You know, the baby skunk I raised. He ran away a long time ago but I think he's come back. Only he's …” She paused. “Only he's different.”
    “Yes, yes, it's all different. Changing.” Belinda had moved back to where she could peer out around the furnace. There was a sharp intensity to her voice, and her face had stiffened into a nervous mask. “Different,” she repeated. “Something is changing.” She grabbed Xandra's arm. “Maybe we've seen enough for now. I think we ought to get out of here.”
    “Go? Why?” Xandra was disappointed. “I'd like to see some other things, like maybe there will be some of my birds, and the garter snake. I had a pet garter snake once.”
    “I know. You told me.” Belinda still seemed distracted and anxious. “I don't know,” she said. “It's just that something out there in the other room is changing. I didn't feel it at first but now it seems to be getting worse. I can feel it, like in the air. A feeling in the air that just isn't … the way it should be.”
    “The air?” Xandra said. “What's wrong with the air?” She sniffed and then grinned. “Smells all right to me, or not any worse than usual anyway. I smelled Stinky a littlewhile ago. But only a little bit. I always liked his smell as long as it wasn't too strong.”
    She stopped and sniffed again. And then suddenly she, too, was aware of a difference. And the smells were a part of it. A strange smoky odor that made her nostrils burn and her throat stiffen seemed to be drifting in, blotting out the soft musky smell of baby animals.
    “Come on. We have to go.” Belinda was grabbing her arm and pulling her from behind the furnace to where she could see out through the storage area and on to the basement door. “Look, what do you see now? Look over there.”
    Xandra looked but there was nothing to see. Nothing at all. Not even the boxes and trunks that had always been there. It was as if everything had suddenly been swallowed up into thick dark clumps of shadow. Strange blobs of darkness that seemed to come not so much from a lack of light,