Dark Rooms Read Free

important match in a couple hours. Telling myself that must have been it—prematch jitters—I slipped a sweater on over my pajamas, headed downstairs.
    The house was quiet, and my footfalls seemed to echo on the stairs. I could hear an appliance in the kitchen—the microwave, bleating plaintively because someone stuck something in it, forgot to takethe something out. And then another sound—a tapping, faint. Not Dad. He’d be at Chandler, supervising morning detention. Not Mom, either. She’d be in her darkroom, working. Had already been there for hours, no doubt. Besides, this wasn’t her kind of noise. Too furtive, too cautious. There it was again. I stood, rigid, ears aching with the effort of listening. And then, suddenly, I realized: Nica, trying to attract my attention without attracting Mom’s. She wanted me to let her in. I flew down the last step and into the kitchen.
    It was empty, no one behind the back door. On the other side of the window above the sink, though, was a slender rhododendron branch, knocking against the pane with the breeze. I stared at it, trying to remember if I’d seen Nica take her keys with her yesterday, until the microwave sounded again, and I reached for its handle. Sitting on the rotating glass tray was the bowl of Grape-Nuts and soy milk Mom ate most mornings. I started for the darkroom, about to duck my head in, tell her breakfast was ready. Then, anticipating the way her face would go hard and flat, the snap of her voice, if I interrupted her, broke her concentration, I stopped. I turned instead to the back door, thinking Nica might be outside, waiting until Mom went upstairs to shower.
    But the backyard was as empty as the kitchen, not a soul. It was a beautiful morning, though, the sky a deep blue streaked with wispy white, the sun a rich, buttery yellow. I stood there, the rays gently pressing down on my skin, seeping into it, warming it, and breathed in the daffodil-scented air. Through an open window, the sounds of the Wheelers, our next-door neighbors, eating breakfast floated lazily toward me: the murmur of their voices, Mrs. Wheeler, pregnant, asking Mr. Wheeler to bring her her calcium supplements and a glass of orange juice; the soft scrape of a chair leg against tile; the suctiony pop of a refrigerator door; and then the jounce and slosh of a juice carton being shaken. I could hear the delicate wing beats of the sparrows,fighting for space on the perch of the bird feeder dangling from the yard’s lone tree. Somewhere far away, a car engine revved to life, and, beyond that, the dim drone of a lawn mower.
    I started walking through the grass, its sweet-smelling wetness sticking to my ankles and feet, over to the fence at the far edge of the property. Our house was owned by the school, and though not quite on campus, very close to it, separated only by a graveyard and a line of trees. When the trees weren’t full, you could see clear across the graveyard to Endicott House, Jamie’s dorm. They were full now, though, so the view was obscured.
    I slid between two posts and entered the tiny woods. As soon as I did, the sunlight and warmth and snatches of family dialogue fell behind me. Inside, everything was green and black and cool and dank, dark with the stench of dampness and shadow, of ferns and fungus. The scrub pines surrounding me had branches growing every which way, tangling together in a sooty snarl that blocked out the sky. Their bark looked mean, rotten, and when I touched it, it crumbled under my fingertips, dry as a scab. Something caught in my throat and I shivered. Wiping my hands on my pajama bottoms, I quickly began walking the thousand or so feet to the other side.
    When I reached it, was standing at the edge of the graveyard, I made a scan of the horizon for Nica’s fast-moving form. Many a dawn would she slip out of Endicott in one of Jamie’s sweatshirts, the drawn hood concealing her hair and most of her