The Unseen by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Read Free Book Online Page A

but as if the dark was flowing out from its own center, ballooning outward to engulf everything around it. There were sounds and smells too. Grinding, growling, rasping noises and strange, disgusting smells, Smells like dead things, and the burnt-out scent of wet ashes.
    As Xandra began to move toward the basement door, pulled along by Belinda, the black haze grew and spread around them. And now, as the clumps grew larger, they became more transparent so that it was possible to see what they had been hiding. To see that what had seemed a dense, empty fog was actually alive with a crowded confusion of moving shapes that formed and reformed in the surrounding pools of darkness. Faded and then reappeared, becoming more and more distinct.
    And then the vague bulges were forming into recognizable shapes. Some of them now seemed to resemble vaguely human forms, hunchbacked and heavy-headed, while others were only surging bulges that oozed along the floor like enormous ugly worms. But all of them, the almost-human figures as well as the worm-shaped ones, now seemed to have faces. Faces that were only empty ovals except for fiery red eyes above dark gaping mouths. Enormous, wide-open mouths that grew larger moment by moment as they shut and opened again. Then the faces were everywhere, faces with fiery eyes and enormous mouths edged with sharp slashes of glittering light.
    As Xandra stared in wonder, she became aware of Belinda's hands on her arms, pulling her away from the swirling, heaving darkness. “Can you see them? What are they?” Xandra gasped.
    “I can't see them,” Belinda whispered, “but I think I know why they're here. I think they're dangerous.” Her voice was louder and more urgent as she went on. “We have to get out of here, right now.”
    “Yes, let's get out.” Xandra turned toward the basement door. “Here. This way. Come this way.”
    But now the clumps were there too. The swarming black cloud was all around them, surging pools of darkness, full of fiery eyes and cavernous mouths. Xandra was turning in a circle, looking frantically for an escape route, for a gap in the surrounding circle of mouths and eyes, when she became aware that Belinda was whispering, “The Key, Xandra. Where is it?”
    “The Key?” Xandra gasped, and then, “Oh, the feather.”Pulling it over her head, she pressed it into Belinda's hands. “Can you do it? Can you get us out of here?”
    “I don't know. I don't think I can,” Belinda whispered as she took the feather. She held it in both hands, raised it over her head and then pressed it against her forehead. Nothing changed except that the threatening mouths moved in closer, and the angry grinding, grunting sounds grew louder. And then Xandra began to smell their hot breath and feel it on her bare legs and arms.
    “Hurry, hurry, they're breathing on me,” Xandra screamed. Her scream turned into shrieks of pain as needle-sharp fangs began to sink into her bare skin, on her legs first and then moving up to her arms as she threw them up to protect her face. The pain was sharp and deep and she could feel the hot blood oozing out and running down her legs and arms. She was still screaming when Belinda pressed the feather into her hands and guided them up over her head and then against her forehead. As Belinda pushed her forward, the dark clouds began to fade and pull away, and suddenly she was stumbling out through the open door. Out into daylight and fresh air. “Where did they go?” Xandra gasped. “What happened? What did you do? Was it the feather?”
    “It was.” Belinda's voice was faint and uncertain. “It was the Key. Your Key. You were the one who did it.” She slammed the basement door behind them. “Are you all right?”
    “All right? No, I'm not all right.” Xandra's voice was still pitched at the edge of a scream. “They bit me. See, they bit me all …” Her high-pitched shriek faded away to nothingas she began to realize that the pain was gone. All