By the time the door clicked open, Sally felt as if she’d been waiting in there for hours.  She probably hadn’t.  It was just that worry tended to stretch time out as far as it could go, especially when there wasn’t anything else to do.

Sally had hoped that she’d open the door and immediately find a staircase leading to the attic, but instead she found… well, the inside of a wall.  A thin, uneven-looking corridor that seemed to stretch most of the way around the outside of the house.  Not that Sally had seen all of it,.  She’d decided to duck round the first corner and wait there, so that if the Iridescences followed her in, they wouldn’t catch her straight away.

Not long after that, Sally realised something unpleasant: she didn’t know whether or not her sisters knew where she’d gone.

They probably did.  Even if Jeanette had been too absorbed in her story to notice Sally leaving, Rube definitely would have.  Mum had told Rube that she was in charge, and when you said that to someone like Rube, they took it seriously.  It became a massive, crushing weight of a responsibility.  Rube definitely wouldn’t have let Sally disappear without checking where she was going.  She’d have known.

But Sally didn’t know for sure.  She hadn’t checked.

When Sally heard the door open, she instantly stuck her head around the corner (completely blowing her cover if it turned out to be one of the Iridescences, but at least she’d still have a head start).  It was OK.  It was Rube.

Sally mouthed her name (she didn’t know how much the Iridescences would be abe to hear from outside, and she didn’t want to risk it) and beckoned her over.  Rube gave her a brilliant smile and ran up to meet her.

“I am so sorry!” she whispered as soon as she got there, “I had to wait for Jeanette to get them to go past the door…”

Sally waved this aside (though it did make her feel better to know that she might have actually been waiting a long time).  “Did Jeanette see which way you went?”

“Yes.  We didn’t talk, but…”  Rube stopped, held up a finger, and bent over with her hands on her knees, breathing heavily.

As she waited for Rube to talk again, Sally looked down the long corridor, trying to see if she could spot anything down at the far end, where she hadn’t been yet.  If they followed it long enough, they’d find the steps to the attic.  Because they had to.  Sally wouldn’t accept anything less.

(To be continued)