Warped (Maurissa Guibord)

something?"
    "There was a book in your chamber that intrigued me. The language seemed not as foreign as some of the other writings. If you would bring me A Midsummer Night's Dream , I should be grateful."
    "Shakespeare? I guess that makes sense," Tessa said. Had Shakespeare even been born yet when Will was ... alive? Close enough, probably. Will would be perfectly at home with all the thees and thous . Though she couldn't help but wonder if he would like To Kill a Mockingbird or Around the World in Eighty Days , and there was Sherlock Holmes. And Winnie-the-Pooh! "I'll bring a bunch," she said, warming up to the idea of exposing him to all the great books he had never even heard of.
    "Tomorrow. Go and rest now," he said with a smile. "You will be safe."
    "Yeah? How do you know?" she asked. She meant it to be teasing, but his smile drifted away.
    "Because I will make sure of it," he answered.
    So much for sharing, being a team. Cryptic Boy was back with a vengeance.
    "Tessa," he said in a low voice as she walked to the door. She turned. Will's features were set into a thoughtful frown as he stared at a place directly in front of him. "Do not run from me again. I do not like it."

Chapter 24

Tessa took a long, scaldingly hot shower, letting the water and the heat pummel her, as if it could drive all the tension and worry away. And maybe even magically make her understand what was going on. It didn't work.
    Thinking about him was so confusing. Will de Chaucy had stepped out of a tapestry and taken over her life. Nothing was ever going to be the same. Well, to be honest, he hadn't exactly stepped out. He had been yanked. By her. And somehow, it seemed right that he was here. Even if he was annoyingly secretive at times. And bossy. And a little stuck-up.
    But she had to admit, he had good qualities. When he'd spoken about the other lives inside the tapestry, lives that he wouldn't sacrifice to save his own, she'd seen something else. He was selfless. He was brave, maybe stupidly so.
    Braver than she was, that was for sure. She didn't think she could have gotten to sleep with the tapestry in her bedroom. Who knew what could come out of the thing next? Maybe it wasn't the smartest move to have left it with Will either, but her choices seemed pretty limited.
    Tessa dried off and slipped into her soft pink bathrobe. As she toweled her hair, she turned to the bathroom door, where she'd hung her clothes. She frowned. Strange. The frayed hole in the knee of her jeans was gone. Tessa stepped closer. No patch, no seam. Almost as if the fabric had been ...
    She froze when she saw the words in the denim. They stood out in tufts of white cotton thread:
    Go to a dark glass .
    Oh God. Not again. "Cut it out," said Tessa in a shaking voice. She whirled around and cried out, "Gray Lily! Lila Gerome? Whoever you are! Can you hear me? Stop it. Leave me alone!" But nothing happened. And the tiny message woven into her jeans stayed put. With a swat she knocked the clothes from the hook.
    She stepped back, sat down on the edge of the bathtub and hugged her robe closer, feeling vulnerable and exposed.
    "Go to a dark glass," Tessa said softly. What did that mean? A piece of glass? Sunglasses? She looked over at the steamy reflection of herself in the full-length mirror on the door and shivered, despite the warm, humid air.
    She remembered her sleepover in fifth grade when Heather Landrigan convinced everybody to play Bloody Mary. Each girl was supposed to go into the bathroom by herself, turn out the lights and stare into the mirror. You were supposed to see the face of your future husband, or Bloody Mary, whoever she was. Tessa had been too scared to do it. She had gone in and sat on the closed toilet seat for a little while, and then gone out again.
    But the memory did remind her of something else. Go to a dark glass .
    "The glass," she said slowly, "is a mirror."
    Tentatively she got up, stepped over to the wall and flipped off the light switch.
    The sudden plunge into darkness was complete. There was a small, high window next to the shower, but that didn't matter; the sky outside was dark. The bathroom was as black as a cave. Slowly Tessa's eyes began to adjust until she was able to make out the pale gleam of the white sink and stainless fixtures.
    Tessa walked to where she knew the mirror hung on the door. She couldn't see it but stood in the darkness, watching the place where she knew it was. She waited.
    Gradually she was able to see