"You're shaking. Let me do it alone," Meredith said, putting a hand on Bonnie's shoulder as they stood together in front of Caroline Forbes's house.
Bonnie started to lean into the pressure, but made herself stop. It was humiliating to be shaking so obviously on a Virginia morning in late July. It was humiliating to be treated like a child, too. But Meredith, who was only six months older, looked more adult than usual today. Her dark hair was pulled back, so that her eyes looked very large and her olive-skinned face with its high cheekbones was shown to its best advantage.
She could practically be my babysitter, Bonnie thought dejectedly. Meredith had high heels on, too, instead of her usual flats. Bonnie felt smaller and younger than ever in comparison. She ran a hand through her strawberry-blond curls, trying to fluff them up a precious half inch higher.
"I'm not scared. I'm c-cold," Bonnie said with all the dignity she could muster.
"I know. You feel something coming from there, don't you?" Meredith nodded at the house before them.
Bonnie looked sideways at it and then back at Meredith. Suddenly Meredith's adultness was more comforting than annoying. But before she looked at Caroline's house again she blurted, "What's with the spike heels?"
"Oh," Meredith said, glancing down. "Just practical thinking. If anything tries to grab my ankle this time, it gets this." She stamped and there was a satisfying clack from the sidewalk.
Bonnie almost smiled. "Did you bring your brass knuckles, too?"
"I don't need them; I'll knock Caroline out again barehanded if she tries anything. But quit changing the subject. I can do this alone."
Bonnie finally let herself put her own small hand on Meredith's slim, long-fingered one. She squeezed. "I know you can. But I'm the one who should. It was me she invited over."
"Yes," Meredith said, with a slight, elegant curl of her lip. "She's always known where to stick in the knife. Well, whatever happens, Caroline's brought it on herself. First we try to help her, for her sake and ours. Then we try to make her get help. After that - "
"After that," Bonnie said sadly, "there's no telling." She looked at Caroline's house again. It looked...skewed...in some way, as if she were seeing it through a distorting mirror. Besides that, it had a bad aura: black slashed across an ugly shade of gray-green. Bonnie had never seen a house with so much energy before.
And it was cold, this energy, like the breath out of a meat locker. Bonnie felt as if it would suck out her own life-force and turn it into ice, if it got the chance.
She let Meredith ring the doorbell. It had a slight echo to it, and when Mrs. Forbes answered, her voice seemed to echo slightly, as well. The inside of the house still had that funhouse mirror look to it, Bonnie thought, but even stranger was the feel. If she shut her eyes she would imagine herself in a much larger place, where the floor slanted sharply down.
"You came to see Caroline," Mrs. Forbes said. Her appearance shocked Bonnie. Caroline's mother looked like an old woman, with gray hair and a pinched white face.