The Spaces In Between (Exit 13, Book 2), page 1
This book is dedicated to Debra Dorfman and Elizabeth Bennett. Thank you for believing in me.
—J.P.
Title Page
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
About the Author
About the Illustrator
Teaser
Copyright
IN THE BRIGHT, early morning, Willow, Ash, and Mrs. McGinn gathered outside their rooms at Exit 13 Motel. Mr. McGinn methodically packed the car for today’s trip. Daisy, the family dog, was especially excited—she was always up for a ride in the car, windows down, preferably.
“Sorry, Daisy,” Mr. McGinn said. “It’s just me this time.”
Willow, thirteen, watched with her arms crossed. She would normally crack a joke at a moment like this. A snarky aside or something. But nothing the least bit funny came to mind. She glanced sideways at her brother, Ash. He looked like a coiled spring, jittery and nervous, lips knit together in a frown. Was it possible that Ash was the most intense eleven-year-old on the planet? Willow gave it a maybe.
For the past four days, Mr. McGinn had taken off on similar trips. And though each journey ended in bitter disappointment, Mrs. McGinn stood beside her husband. She glowed with positive vibes.
Mr. McGinn checked his list twice, just like Santa before harnessing the reindeer: “Okay, hmmm. Flashlight, extra batteries, emergency mylar thermal blanket, backpack, first aid kit, maps, compass, utility knife, lighter, waterproof matches, axe, tire repair kit, food supplies, jumper cables, hiking boots, whistle, two dozen bottles of water, spare clothes, cash, cell phone, duct tape …”
He looked to his wife. “Duct tape, honey?”
“It’s in the trunk,” Mrs. McGinn answered.
Willow finally spoke up. “Dad, do you have to go through with this? You know how it’s going to end.”
“Yes, I do know,” Mr. McGinn told his daughter. “I am going to succeed. I am going to find a way out of here, once and for all. Because I am your father—and that’s what fathers do.”
Willow shut her mouth. Her heart clenched like a fist. She didn’t tell her father that this trip was surely going to be like all the others. He would return again, in less than a minute, a failure. And with each return, her father looked a little more broken, a little more defeated.
There was no escape from Exit 13.
“Come on, bring it in,” Mr. McGinn said, holding his arms out. The family huddled in a group hug. Even Daisy pressed against their legs. “You don’t have to do this,” Mrs. McGinn reminded her husband. “Maybe it’s best to rest a few days.”
“Isn’t this the definition of insanity?” Ash added. “To do the same thing over and over again, and expect a different result?”
“But I’m not doing the same thing, son,” Mr. McGinn replied. “I’ve learned from each failure. I’m more prepared this time.”
You had to give him credit. Deckland Seaver McGinn had an almost inexhaustible supply of hope. So Mr. McGinn got in the car, gently tapped the horn, and pulled out of the parking lot.
A crow cawed and landed on the roof of the motel.
A cloud passed in front of the sun.
Daisy scratched behind her ear.
Full of dread and expectation, Willow counted silently to herself: seven, eight, nine …
Mr. McGinn pulled back into the same parking space.
He was back in no time at all.
And he looked terrible. Exhausted with dark circles under his eyes. His face thick with stubble. There was a bruise over his right eye. He climbed out of the car, shoulders stooped, pants muddied and torn. “Dad, are you okay?”
Mr. McGinn could not bring himself to look anyone in the eye. He wearily checked his watch. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
His wife went to his side. She brushed a hand through his hair. “You are back with us, that’s the important thing. Our family is together. That’s all that matters.”
“I’ve been gone one hundred and fifty-three hours,” he said in a hoarse voice. He coughed. “Six and a half days. When the fog rolled in, I pulled over and tried bushwhacking through the forest. It rained and rained. And every time I came back to the same place. Over and over again. No matter how hard I tried …”
“Oh, sweetie. Come inside. You need to lie down.”
He wheezed, eyes downcast.
“Maybe Kristoff is right,” Willow volunteered, trying to be helpful. “We’re trapped in some weird rift in time and space. Like the fabric of the universe is torn. Kristoff says—”
“I’m tired of hearing about Kristoff,” Mr. McGinn snapped. “As far as I’m concerned, he’s part of this. I don’t trust him, Willow, and I don’t want you spending time with that boy.”
“Honey,” Mrs. McGinn said in a soothing voice. “This is hard on everyone. Come inside for a hot shower. It sounds like you’ve caught a cold.”
The door to room 16 opened and closed.
Willow and Ash and Daisy stood outside.
“He couldn’t even look at us,” Ash said.
The crow flew away, black wings beating ceaselessly against the sky.
ROOM FIFTEEN, two twin beds separated by six feet. A shared nightstand between them, a television on a large dresser across the room, exactly one chair, and a bathroom. It wasn’t Caesars Palace. It wasn’t even the Red Roof Inn. But for Willow and Ash, it was home for the foreseeable future. They sat on their beds facing each other, knees not quite touching.
Willow scratched Daisy behind the ears. She asked her brother, “Seriously, do you think we’ll ever get out of here?”
“I don’t know.”
“It kills me to see Dad this way,” Willow said.
“Dad will be fine. You know what he’s like,” Ash said. “He won’t give up.”
“And Mom? She acts like we should accept it.”
Ash shrugged. “Maybe she’s right. Mom is more practical. Maybe this is our life now.”
Willow looked around at the room. “Great, I share a bedroom with my little brother—and my father doesn’t want to me to talk to the only cute guy around.”
“Kristoff is a little old for you, don’t you think?”
“He’s fifteen.”
Ash shook his head. “My guess is he’s trapped here just like us—but maybe for a lot longer.”
Willow groaned.
“Dad was gone for what? One minute?” Ash continued. “But to him it was almost a week. Time here stretches like a rubber band. If Kristoff has been here for years, how long is that in real time?”
“Terrific, my vampire hottie is two hundred and eighty-seven years old,” Willow joked. “He still has great hair.”
They both laughed. What else could they do?
“You know,” Willow said. “Kristoff once said something to me. I was asking about the Whispering Pines. How it must be hard for him, living here with only his mother, to watch so many people come and go.”
“Yeah, and what did he say?”
“Nothing, really,” Willow admitted. “He never reveals much. It was more just a vibe I got. Like he’s been lonely for a long, long time.”
Ash leaned forward and lowered his voice to a whisper. “You know that you can’t listen to Dad. We need to learn more about Kristoff. If we are ever going to get out of this place, we’re going to have to learn their secrets. What’s up with his mother? Why do we never see her?”
Willow nodded.
Ash invited Daisy up on the bed. The dog rolled over, offering up her warm belly. “Willow, can you promise to keep a secret?”
“Of course, LB.” She sometimes called him that—short for Little Brother. The nickname wouldn’t last much longer. Ash was growing up fast.
“The other night while you were sleeping, I followed the dire wolf to the door without a number, between rooms seven and eight. I’m telling you, the wolf led me there. It kept looking over its shoulder. The door to the room was unlocked. So I went inside—”
“Wait, you followed the wolf? When was this?”
Ash shrugged. “I don’t know. Time is so weird in this place. It was before we tried to check out the first time.”
“So, like, five days ago?” Willow said. “And you never told me?”
“Anyway,” Ash said, ignoring the question, “it wasn’t anything like an ordinary motel room. It was set up like a reading area. With a stuffed chair and old-fashioned lamp and a big bookshelf against the wall. I found a weird book, Will. It was called The Book of Liminal Spaces. I know it was important. Like it was left there for me.”
“Left there for you?” Willow repeated doubtfully.
Ash nodded. He was dead
Willow leaned back and crossed her arms. “So you are telling me that you followed a giant wolf into a room and found a book that someone left for you?”
Ash could see that Willow didn’t believe him. He should have known better. He decided that he’d refrain from telling her about turning invisible … camouflaging himself like a chameleon. Or the secret hatch he’d discovered in the wardrobe. She wasn’t ready to hear it. “Forget it,” he grumbled.
“No, no, I’m sorry,” Willow said. “I mean, sure, it’s totally bananas. All of it. Everything about this place. We’re trapped in a dumpy motel, Ash. We can’t escape. So, I mean, sure, I’ll believe anything at this point. Where’s the book now?”
“Something happened—I got scared—and I left it in the room,” Ash said. “I have a feeling that book can teach us how this place works. We’ve got to get it back.”
“You mean, like … sneak in and steal it?”
“I prefer borrow it,” Ash said, “but yeah, something like that.”
Willow smiled. “It’s not only a motel, it’s a library, too. We just want to borrow a book!”
FIRST THINGS FIRST: Daisy needed a walk. Ash clipped the leash to her collar and began what had become their regular loop around the motel. The door to room 15 opened to a view of a paved parking lot, rectangular in shape, with designated spaces for forty-eight vehicles. Currently, it held a total of five parked cars. Loose gravel and small potholes reinforced the impression that it had been some time since any upkeep had been made. Beyond the pavement, there was a grassy area that sloped down to tangled underbrush and scrawny trees. Daisy enjoyed nosing around there. Sometimes there were rabbits. A driveway to the left wound down to the main road below (the motel itself was perched on an overlook). There was a surprisingly vibrant garden bursting with color; this was the domain of Mr. Do, the all-purpose “fixer upper” employed by the motel. He labored in the garden now. The old Korean man stood straight and watched—hands on hips, straw hat atop his head—as Ash progressed across the dry, sunbaked lawn. Mr. Do did not smile or wave. He gave a slight head bow of recognition. Ash lifted his chin in reply. He noted the ring of old-fashioned keys attached to Mr. Do’s belt loop. Surely one of those would open the secrets of the Unnumbered Room. But how to acquire them? It was a riddle to solve.
Ash continued clockwise to the right—past the empty pool—beyond the “social area” of picnic tables and a faded shuffleboard court. Beside that, a modest pavilion and picnic area, complete with an outdoor barbecue. The McGinns grilled there on most nights.
They made the turn past the vending machines and around to the back side of the motel. That’s where the Whispering Pines began. The expanse of forest stretched out for miles. It was state land, left undeveloped. No roads, no houses, nothing at all. Just gaping wilderness. From the day the McGinns arrived, Ash and Willow were warned to stay out of the woods—by Kristoff and Mr. Do. It was dangerous, a person could get lost, turned around in the forest, and wander off never to be found. Or so they said.
Every time Ash made that turn, he felt the tension in his neck. Like he was standing on a train track. He couldn’t see the locomotive in the distance, but he felt its vibration in the steel rails. That big train was on its way.
A feeling that said: I’m not here yet, but I’m coming.
His breath grew shallow; Ash couldn’t seem to get quite enough oxygen in his lungs. Even Daisy sensed it, or smelled it in that mystical way dogs possess. Able to follow invisible trails. Daisy stayed close to his side, the leash gone limp.
At Exit 13 Motel, there were things Ash saw, things he remembered, and things, perhaps, he only imagined. He wasn’t sure which was which anymore. It had been that way for all his life. But here, in this place, it had gotten much worse. For example, those rustling branches in the understory. It could have been the wind. Or two squirrels at play, climbing and leaping off branches, a couple of bushy-tailed acrobats on a summer morning. But today, the movement was caused by the great wolf. Usually Ash only felt its eyes—its red eyes—peering at him from the forest dark.
The wolf stepped out into the open, revealing its muzzle with its ragged scar, black-tipped ears, and huge head. The wolf’s stare drilled down to Ash’s core. It was only fifty feet away.
Daisy whimpered and pulled as far as the leash allowed.
“Shhhh, shhhh,” Ash shushed. “It’s all right. That wolf won’t hurt us.”
Which was a lie that Ash told himself. It’s fine, we’re fine, everything’s fine … even when a ghost wolf gives us the hard, lean, hungry stare. Had to be a ghost, right? It couldn’t be a real wolf, Ash reasoned. He’d read up on it. Wolves weren’t active in these parts, and even if they were—because anything was possible—no living wolf could ever be that big.
Its front legs were powerful and its broad chest was thrust forward. A forbidding animal.
“What do you want, wolf?” Ash asked. “Why do you follow me every day?”
Hearing this, the wolf lowered its head, flicked its bushy tail, and retreated into the woods.
Gone—if it was ever there in the first place.
What was real and what was only imagined? Ash couldn’t tell anymore. He wondered if it even mattered. The wind rustled through the pines. Or was it a whispering voice? Only the murmur of needles meeting air, that was all, nothing else. Calling to him, “Asssshhh, Asssshhh.”
The sticker bushes weren’t tugging at his sleeve, the tangle of thorns weren’t tearing at his skin. The forest wasn’t luring him into the deep, dark places.
It only felt that way.
Ash once wandered deep into these same woods and returned carrying a cat. A rescue cat; a very strange, otherworldly creature. Willow told him to give it to Justice, a girl who had been staying at the motel. And so he did. What did Justice name it? Ash tried to remember. Train, that was it. He wondered if maybe there were more lost animals that needed saving. Or was he the one in need of salvation?
As if waking from a dream, Ash blinked, shook his head, and looked around. He found himself standing at the exact spot where the wolf once stood. His feet had taken him here. An icy gust of wind passed through him. Like a ghost train entering a tunnel. He heard a cry—it was Daisy, whining, pulling on the leash—and so Ash backed slowly away.
Daisy was right.
He felt it, too.
There was something dangerous in that forest.
THE OFFICE WAS CROWDED—WILLOW had never seen that many guests at the motel. One woman with a high forehead and smooth brown skin stood impatiently, tapping fingernails on the counter. Fuudddup, fuudddup, fuuddup. Her nails sounded like heavy-booted soldiers marching through muddy streets. Three other people milled around, waiting their turn. They all had a definite look to them, as if they had just arrived from a camping trip on Mars. One guy, maybe thirty, wore a baseball cap backward. He had a backpack slung over his shoulder. A green alien figure dangled from a key chain. He was wearing pajama bottoms and Crocs. A hairy dude with an extreme beard was dressed in baggy shorts and a denim jacket. He looked strong and powerful. A flying saucer was hand-painted on the back of the jacket, floating above the word BELIEVE.
The telephone rang, and rang, and rang.
Kristoff sat typing at the keyboard, frowning at the computer monitor. He vibrated stress.
“When will my room be available?” the woman at the counter asked. “We’d like to drop off our things and get back to the convention hall. Opening ceremonies begin at 3:00.”
A man shook his head. He groaned to another. “We’re going to miss Dr. Zappa’s talk on cosmic debris.”
“Can we please hurry it up?” bleated the alien-dangling-from-a-key-chain-pajama-bottom-wearing guy.
The phone continued to ring.
Kristoff ran a hand through his hair. It looked to Willow like he might want to rip it out. His hair and the phone.
“Are you the only one who works here?” another voice wondered aloud. “This is taking forever.”
“My apologies,” Kristoff answered. “I didn’t expect this on a Thursday—”
Briiiinnnngggg, briiiinnnngggg, the phone insisted.
Willow stepped forward to pick up the receiver. “Exit 13 Motel, how may I help you?”
