The Unseen by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Page B

created. She says so all the time.”
    “Clara?” the deep voice asked.
    Xandra meant to simply shrug and say, “Oh, Clara isn't part of the family. She's just a kind of full-time baby-sitter.” But somehow she found herself saying, “She's a nurse who's been living at our house most of the time since …well, since I was born, at least.” She swallowed against a tightness in her throat. “Yeah, since right after I was born and my mother went back to work and opened her own office.” She grinned, and repeating an old family joke, she said, “There's a family joke that I thought Clara was my mother until I was six years old.”
    “I see,” the grandfather said. “Yes, I see.” And then for what seemed like a long time he didn't say anything more. Instead he just sat there staring at Xandra, making her feel more and more uncomfortable and impatient.
    She looked down at her feet, protecting her eyes from the old man's magnetic stare, and took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “Isn't that enough? Is it my turn now?” No answer. She looked up and said it again more loudly and insistently. “When is it going to be my turn to ask some questions?”
    At last he nodded. “Yes,” he said. “You wanted to ask what it was that attacked you in the basement of your home?”
    “Yeah, that's it,” Xandra said. “That's what I thought I was coming here to find out about. What those things were and where they came from. They weren't just a dream, were they? Like some special kind of nightmare that goes on seeming absolutely real even after it's all over?”
    He shook his head. “No, not a dream.”
    “Then what were they? Are you going to tell me or not?”
    The grandfather's eyes caught and held hers again and he spoke slowly and distinctly.
    “The creatures that appeared to you have been called many things by those of us who …” He paused and began again. “People who have been aware of them have given them many names. Some have known them only as shadows, or shades or even chimeras, but at other times they have been called
reflejos
or
spiegels
. I myself have called them unseen entities, or simply the Unseen.”
    “The Unseen,” Xandra repeated. “What does that mean?” There was no answer. The grandfather had gone back to staring at Xandra as if she were some kind of scientific exhibit. She turned to Belinda and demanded, “Do you know what he's talking about?”
    Belinda nodded. “Yes, I think so. He'll tell you if you listen. Just listen and don't …”
    “Don't what?”
    Belinda's voice had sunk to a whisper. “Don't get angry.”
    “Why not? Why shouldn't I get angry?”
    “Because that's what makes it so dangerous for …” Glancing at her grandfather, Belinda stopped in midsentence.And then went on, “He'll tell you why it happened the way it did.”
    “All right. Tell me. Where did those horrible things come from? I mean, they must have come from somewhere, because they were never there in the basement before. I know that. I mean, the basement, at least the part that's back behind the furnace, is my own special place. I've been there a million times. So I want to know where those things came from, and why.” A disturbing thought intruded. “Was it the Key? Was it the Key that brought them?”
    “No, it didn't bring them. And they didn't come from anywhere. They were just there. They're just there—everywhere—all the time.”
    Xandra stared at Belinda. “No,” she said. “You're lying. If they're all around us all the time, why don't we know about them? Why can't we see them or hear them, or feel them like I felt those things in the basement?”
    Belinda glanced at the grandfather, who nodded as if telling her to go on. “People can't see them or hear them because they don't have the right kind of senses. You know, senses, like seeing and hearing and feeling and smelling. But that doesn't mean they aren't there.”
    Beginning to get it, to understand what Belinda meant, Xandra