The Used World Read Online Free PDF Page A

white iron bed frame was interwoven with real ivy—Nanny tended to that as well. Hazel did not love the bed, did not love the down comforter with feminine eyelet trim. What was hers, what was of her, were the small school desk and chair, and the white bookcase where she kept the E. Nesbit books her mother had given her over the years.
    She slipped out of her shoes and party dress and hung them in the closet, then claimed the flannel nightgown from where it warmed over the back of the rocking chair near the radiator. Her bed was under a mullioned casement window, and each night Hazel moved her pillows from the headboard to the feet so she could lie awake and look at the sky. Such behavior was baffling to Nanny, who would exclaim each morning, finding the pillows at the wrong end of the bed, that Hazel was a silly girl.
    Standing on the bed, she opened the window and leaned over the sill. The air was cold enough to cast the ground below her into sharp distinction; each tree branch looked knifelike and black. There were fifteen acres between the house and the road. From what Hazel could see, nothing and everything moved in the mid-December wind. A swirl of leaves tumbled down the lane, a barn cat leapt out of the shadows and back again. Hazel got out of bed and turned off the light, then settled against her pillows with the window still open. The moon was high, so she could see its light but not its face. Her best friend, Finney, had a favorite game called What If? What if a robber broke into your house? What if you were stranded on a mountaintop and had to eat human flesh? What if you were charged by a lion? Lying in the moonlight, Hazel thought the real question should have been What if …without anything following. Because that was what scared Hazel most.

    What if the Rhine were freezing? What if her mother did not live? What if there were no difference between the surface of a German fighter jet and Hazel’s mind? It was that question that startled her awake, and even after she opened her eyes she didn’t understand what she was seeing, because outside her window, in the light of the dipping moon, a plane was gliding silent between two trees. Hazel held her breath, waited for a flash of light more awful for its lack of sound, the vacuum they prepared for during drills at school. Nothing came. The plane disappeared, passed once again, finally lowered its landing gear, and, wings tilted up, it alighted in her window.
    The owl was backlit, enormous. Hazel knew she should not be able to see his eyes, but saw them. The stare of the bird felt colder than the air outside. He did not speak or move, and the way he didn’t move was so deliberate Hazel couldn’t move either, as if she had become one of the toys at the tea table. Her hands lay useless at her sides, and her shallow breaths didn’t lift her coverlet. The owl held her gaze so long Hazel feared she might yet return to dreaming, until, without warning, he was off the window ledge, sailing in one revolution around her room, counter to the circus train and the impotent, fading animals, and back out the window. There had never been the slightest sound.
    Hazel broke free of the trance, scrambling out of bed and grabbing her brown leather play shoes, which she slipped on her bare feet. Her thick white robe was hanging on the back of her door; she tied it with an unsteady haste. She had to stop and catch her breath before she stepped out into the hallway. You weigh nothing, she told herself, closing her eyes and picturing herself levitating past the door to her parents’ bedroom. You weigh nothing. The brass doorknob felt resistant in her hand, but turned with the polished ease that came with a full-time handyman.
    She stepped out into the hallway and closed the door behind her with a slight tick. Two wall lamps were always kept lit, one on each end, and Hazel stood still a moment, as her vision adjusted to the pale yellow light. The pattern of the Oriental was, she saw