Down the Rabbit Hole Read Free Page A

tremendous crack of lightning that zigzagged across half the sky at that very moment, seeming to tear it wide open like a gutted water balloon, raining down an icy flood. Ingrid flew up the steps of the crooked gingerbread house and ducked inside, thunder booming around her.
    Kate was already disappearing through a doorway at the end of a long dark corridor. The light was all fuzzy and grainy, the way it got sometimes in high-end movies. Ingrid waited in the entrance hall, the floor littered with unopened mail. She left the front door partly open, but the outside light hardly penetrated. To the right of the corridor, a staircase with warped wooden stairs led up into gloom. Ingrid smelled kitty litter. First she was the one actively detecting the smell; then it was coming to her, growing and growing, an inescapable stink. She looked around for cats and spotted none. From somewhere upstairs came a creaking sound, maybe a footstep.
    Kate came back along the corridor, materializing out of the darkness. “All set,” she said. “Be here any minute.” She dropped her cigarette butt on the floorand ground it under her stiletto heel.
    â€œThanks,” Ingrid said.
    â€œNo problemo,” said Kate. “Want to wait in the parlor?”
    â€œOutside’ll be fine,” Ingrid said, as thunder boomed again.
    â€œParlor’s right here,” said Kate, kicking open a door with the side of her foot.
    The parlor: a small square room painted purple with gold trim, the paint peeling everywhere. A dusty chandelier dangled lopsidedly from the ceiling. The only furniture was a saggy and stained pink velvet sofa. Kate sat on it, patted the pillow beside her.
    â€œI’m okay standing,” said Ingrid.
    â€œSuit yourself,” said Kate. She felt around under one of the cushions, fished out two cigarettes, one bent. She offered the straight one to Ingrid. “Smoke?” she said.
    â€œMe?” said Ingrid.
    Kate shrugged, stuck the straight cigarette back under the cushions, lit the bent one with another eruption of flame. “So what do you do, Griddie?” she asked from behind a cloud of smoke.
    â€œWhat do I do?”
    â€œWith your life.”
    â€œI go to school,” Ingrid said.
    â€œThat’s it?”
    â€œI play soccer.” Which reminded her: She opened her backpack and took out her cleats, bright-red Pumas with glittering red laces ordered special. Why not save time by putting them on now?
    â€œBut what’s your passion?” said Kate.
    Ingrid paused, the cleat still in her hand. “My passion?”
    â€œWhat you like to do the most.”
    That was easy. “Drama.”
    â€œYou like acting?”
    Ingrid nodded.
    â€œEver been in a play?”
    â€œLots,” said Ingrid. “We did Our Town last spring. I was Emily in the birthday scene.”
    â€œWho is we?”
    â€œThe Prescott Players,” said Ingrid.
    Because of that fuzzy and grainy light, Ingrid couldn’t be sure, but all of a sudden Kate seemed to go very white, and her mouth opened up, an empty black hole. Had smoke gone down the wrong way?
    â€œDo you know the theater in Prescott Hall?” Ingrid asked. “That’s where we perform.”
    Kate rose, her lips moving though no sound cameout. She left the room—a little unsteady, maybe because of those stilettos.
    â€œIs something wrong?” Ingrid said.
    No reply. She heard Kate’s footsteps on the stairs. Ingrid went into the hall, looked up the staircase, didn’t see her. At that moment, a car honked outside. Through the partly opened door she saw a taxi waiting at the curb.
    â€œUh, thanks,” Ingrid said, speaking back into the interior gloom. Then she moved toward the door, and as she did a huge cat, the biggest she’d ever seen, almost bobcat size, came gliding in from outside, tail hooked up high and a tiny blue bird in its mouth. Its hooked tail brushed her as it went by.