“Didn’t think so,” the guard said. “Be thankful for the room service.”

The guard strode away.

“Fat cow,” Sullivan muttered.

She scooped a spoonful of oatmeal, then stopped, spoon partway to her mouth. Carefully, she lowered the spoon, head moving from side to side with the wariness of one who’s learned she has reason to be wary.

“Who’s there?” she whispered.

When no one answered, she rose, noiselessly laying the tray aside, and glided to the cell door. A long, careful look each way, head tilted to listen. The cell block was empty.

“I can hear you,” she said. “I hear you singing. Who is it?”

I looked at Trsiel. The same thought passed between us. If Sullivan was hearing voices in an empty cell block, they could only come from one place. Trsiel reached for my hand and transported me back into her mind.

I came to a stop in a pit of darkness. Sure enough, after only a moment, I picked up the whisper of a voice. Someone humming off-tune. Then words. I’m usually damned good with songs, but it took me a moment to place this one, probably because the singer kept mangling the lyrics.

“Invisible” by…someone. Didn’t matter. The voice only sung a few lines from the refrain, and when she hit the end of those lines, she started over again. Something about being treated like you were invisible.

I vaguely remember the song, probably because it had always triggered a childhood memory of the neighborhood grocer. I’d stood head and shoulders above all my friends, but the grocer always served all of them first, then served every other customer in the store, only taking my money when I tossed it onto the counter and walked away with my candy bar. I figure now it was anti-Semitism—East Falls being the kind of small town where even Catholics are eyed with suspicion. My mother never talked to me about stuff like that; she preferred to pretend it didn’t exist. When I told her about the grocer, she’d said I was imagining things. I knew I wasn’t, and being unable to put a label to his dislike, I had assumed it was my fault. Like my teacher, Mrs. Appleton, he saw something bad in me, something no one else noticed.

“Invisible,” the woman crooned. “Oh, yeah, I’m invisible.” A sudden shriek of laughter sent me jumping like a scorched cat.

“That’s me,” the woman chortled, voice shrill with manic glee. “Miss Invisible. They treat me like I’m not even there. And they sure as hell don’t care. Dah-dahdah-dah. Miss Invisible.”

Another voice, the soft, insidious tones of the Nix. “And what are you going to do about it?”