Some Quiet Place

take it and do your part,” he orders, grasping my wrist to lift it, putting the list on the table, and setting my hand back down on top. But when he’s done, he doesn’t pull away. Instead, his hand slides down. Hesitantly, afraid I’ll protest, Joshua interlaces his fingers in the spaces between mine.

I don’t move.

I look at him, and he looks at me. It’s so unusual, this sense of being the only two people in the world, when really, we’re never alone. It’s him—his innocence, his belief that everything really is just so simple. Joshua’s skin is so eager, alive, clashing with the detachment of my own. He has to notice the difference, but he doesn’t say anything. Joy appears behind Joshua’s chair, beaming at me. Her hair is even redder than Joshua’s, almost orange, and she’s one of the more heavyset Emotions. “You make him so happy!” she chirps, hugging him. The fat in her arms jiggles. “I’m so glad, because I haven’t seen too much of this one since, well, you know. It’s really interesting that you’re the one who brought me here, isn’t it?” She giggles.

Her chatter fades as my examination of this situation intensifies. I should pull away. I should tell Joshua how useless it all is. I should warn him, I should tell him the lies I tell everyone else, tell Fear. Should, should, should. The truth is, I don’t. He represents what I need to be, and my instincts are drawn to this.

“Well, well.”

It’s as if thinking of him has brought him, because it’s Fear’s voice slicing through the stillness. “I’m gone for a few days and what’s this? I come back to a little high school romance. Interesting pair, really. The girl who can feel nothing and the boy who feels too much.”

Joshua senses that something’s changed, even before I take my hand back and put it under the table, safe from his tenderness. “Elizabeth?” He stays where he is, and both he and his Emotion stare up at me when I stand. For once, Joy is jolted into silence. Because of Fear’s presence, of course. I lift my bag from where it’s dangling off the back of my chair, studiously keeping my eyes off of them all.

“See you in class,” I murmur, turning my back to Joshua. He looks like a lost little boy now, his hair tousled and his expression one of warring hurt and confusion as I abandon him and his joy. For once, he doesn’t follow me.

Fear does, though. He doesn’t speak again until we’re out in the hall. It’s empty at the moment; everyone is at lunch. I stop in front of a poster that says, QUIT SMOKING. IT KILLS. The picture is of a person lying on a metal table, covered by a sheet. I stare at it, waiting for the inevitable.

The silence drags on too long; now it’s my voice shattering the air, and it sprinkles over our heads like shards of glass. “I don’t belong to you.” I say it because it must be said. No matter what other components there are in the equation, this is the most prominent.

Fear stands behind me, and there’s a gust of wind where there shouldn’t be one. The lights flicker. He’s so close to my back that his coat flaps against me. I can hear screams, sobs, moans of people all over the world, trapped in Fear’s shadow.

“For the first time in your life, you act without thinking,” Fear finally says, his voice a growl. “Nothing good can come of this.”

I face him, arching my neck back. His beautiful eyes blaze and his mouth is set in a thin line. His long hair whips at his cheeks. He can’t ever know about how often he invades my thoughts; by just doing nothing, I’ve encouraged him, and for both our sakes, this has to end. “Do you care for my benefit, or for yours?” I ask.

My words displease him greatly. He’s tolerated my oddity and insolence up until now, but in his world, mortals obey and tremble when confronted by those from the other plane.

“This boy has disrupted everything,” Fear snaps, grasping me by the arms. His hold is so tight that I wince. “You’ve stopped looking for the truth. What do you think can happen from here? You grow up, marry him, live a normal life? No. Whatever you think, you can’t live a life like this. Eventually he will want to tear away your facade, and when he realizes there’s nothing behind it, everything you think you have will be destroyed. It’s all pretense, Elizabeth. You especially should know this.”

The feeling goes out of my arms, and instinct shrieks to succumb to Fear, but I don’t. I know what I need to do to pierce him, drive him away. Even Fear wouldn’t want to remain if it seems I’m drawn to another. “What if it’s not?” I whisper. The statement is quiet, helpless, a fragile thing, but Fear’s eyes widen as if I’ve sprouted seven heads and stuck out a forked tongue at him.

“Have you changed?” His voice is hoarse, and he’s even paler than normal. “Do you feel?” He leans closer, inhaling my scent. When that’s not enough, he presses his cold, cold lips to mine. I close my eyes, seeing terror in the darkness of my eyelids. Fear pulls back, breathing heavily. “No, you’re the same. But … ” He shakes his head. “This boy,” he repeats, fingers tightening even more like I’m about to float away and he’s all that anchors me to the earth. “Stay away from him. He’s a danger to you.” Fear is earnest in this; I see the desperation in the depths of his gaze. But again, it’s for his own purposes that he says it.

The bell is seconds away from ringing; I hear doors slamming open, a loud laugh breaking out. Sophia calls out to a girl about her birthday party this weekend. “There are people heading this way,” I tell him. “I need to go.”

He only jerks me closer. “You can’t love him,” he whispers. “I’ve waited so long. Why the boy? Why is it he that pounded a hole through the wall?”

Finally he lets me pull away, watching me go with wild eyes. And even though it causes an alien sensation in my wall to say it, I do, because this is not the way things should be. “Maybe it’s because he wasn’t trying to.”

Fourteen

This time, when I walk into Maggie’s dark hospital room, she’s really asleep. I falter. It would be smart to turn around and head straight back home before Tim notices I’m gone. But after a moment I find myself walking to the chair by her bed and sitting down, looking at her. Light slants across the floor from the hall.

She’s steadily getting worse. The evidence is there in the lines of her face—lines that shouldn’t be there— and it’s there in the way she frowns even as she dreams. Her eyelashes brush gently against her sallow cheeks. There’s no black eyeliner, no skull necklace, no black wig. Just a sad, dying little girl. She breathes evenly, and my gaze slides down to the IV in her wrist, the pulse-oximeter clamped down on her finger, up to the glowing machines with the green lines that prove her heart is still beating.

Maggie doesn’t have much time left.

I lean my head against my hand and lift my gaze to the dim outline of the window. Outside, day is dying. The curtains are drawn and there’s no way to see the sunset. Quietly, I stand and stride over to the glass. I pull the curtains open just a little. Sit down again. The chair creaks beneath me. Maggie sleeps on. Hues of pink and orange fall over her face. In that instant, it’s almost easy to pretend she’s like any other teenage girl, sleeping. Something inside of me twitches, like an electric shock.

Maggie’s fingers curl suddenly, as if she senses me, or maybe she’s finally traveled to a better place. I was dreaming about the ocean. I start to reach forward, reacting to an odd instinct to smooth those straggles of hair out of her face. But then I lean back, clenching my hand into a fist to stop myself. It would be cruel to wake her up.

Silence trembles around us. The darkness isn’t a menace now, but an understanding friend. There’s a clock somewhere in the hall, ticking a warning to me. I should go. I will go. Just as soon as the sun sets. For this moment—just this moment—I lay my head down on Maggie’s bed and close my eyes.

This time I have no place in the dream. I’m only an observer.

“Damn it, answer me!” The woman with the strong chin and crinkled eyes stands on the front step of the stone house, hands on her hips. She glares out at the trees as if they’ll shrink from her and reveal something. “I’m not joking!”

Suddenly there they are, two teenagers emerging from the green shadows. Their clothing— simple shorts and T-shirts—is dirty. The woman watches them approach, unmoving even when the boy wraps his arm around her shoulders. They’re both smiling as they greet her. She’s angry. “Where have you been?” she demands. For the first time, I notice that there are streaks of gray through her hair.

The question kills the boy’s mirth and he shrugs, averting his gaze. When it’s obvious he refuses to answer the woman turns to the girl. Unlike her sibling, her eyes sparkle. “We were just in the woods,”