Some Quiet Place

“Your terror tastes just as I imagined, Elizabeth,” Fear whispers into my ear. The sweet scent of strawberries wafts past my senses. He’s pressed to my back, and for the first time his touch affects me! My heart hammers, and past the dread I’m seized by a fierce desire to turn, press my palm to his chest, and experience his lips against mine again—

And just like that, a brick slams into place and the wall is whole again. The power is stronger than ever. The fragile memory of feeling is gone. Black ink drips through my soul, the nothingness darting every which way to swallow me whole. Fear sighs with both satisfaction and disappointment, stepping back to observe. “It must be the boy,” he mutters to himself.

I pull away from Joshua, regarding him thoroughly. Was he really the one to bring on the tide of Emotions? No—the strange girl said it was almost time. So this connection with Joshua Hayes is no longer logical. He takes up time and effort, and the very idea of him enrages Fear. Not to mention Tim. Courage may have believed I would need this boy, but unlike the hooded girl, Courage is not particularly powerful. It’s unbeneficial for me to listen to him.

“I’m fine, thank you,” I say to Joshua, and Fear makes another satisfied sound in his throat. “If I don’t leave now, I’ll be late for class.” I look at Sally. “I’m fine,” I repeat, smiling for good measure.

“What about the project? The poem? Did you finish?” Joshua calls after me. “They’re due tomorrow, you know!”

Fear walks beside me. I ignore Joshua and pick up my pace to make it to Chemistry class. Fear is quiet; unusual for him. At the doorway, I pause. No one else is around, save for a tall boy hurrying to his own class farther down the hall.

“You won’t ever taste me again,” I tell Fear in my flat way. “I hope you savored it.” Mildly, I wonder why there had been that sudden impulse to kiss him.

Surprisingly, given his nature, he is not smug or quick to react. He touches my cheek, leans in, and inhales me. “I should be glad you’ve decided to break all ties with the boy,” he murmurs. He runs his hand down my arm. “But in a way, he was good for you. I think, little by little, he was breaking through.”

“No one can break through,” I lie. Yet again I think, the girl did say it was only a matter of time …

Fear picks up on the false note in the words, and it isn’t until he raises his pale brows at me that I comprehend I’ve said that last part out loud. “You’ve discovered something,” he states with interest. “And you’re not going to tell me.” It wouldn’t be sensible to have Fear hunting the girl down; she won’t tell him anything. I open my mouth to give him more excuses, but the Chemistry teacher notices me standing outside the door and glares.

The bell is going to ring any second. Turning aside so my teacher won’t see me talking to myself, I say out of the corner of my mouth, “I’ll tell you what I know if you do something for me.”

Fear is intrigued. He tilts his head in question.

I wave at the teacher in reassurance, then face Fear again. “I want you to come with me to a birthday party Saturday night. I don’t know what I’ll find there, and I might need protection.”

The lovely Emotion smirks. “What can be so dangerous about a human’s birthday party?”

I open the classroom door, thinking, We’ll see, won’t we?

When I get home, Mom is locked in the upstairs bathroom again. Standing in the hall, I can hear her quiet, dry sobs. But I don’t try to comfort her; it didn’t go over so well last time. Instead, I shut myself in my room and work a little more on the mural covering the walls. I study the V formation once again, the two figures on the ground that represent everything and nothing to me.

And just like that, I’m sucked into another memory that’s sprouted from a corner of my mind I thought was empty.

“I’m bored. Let’s gather the others and dance again.”

The girl waits for her companion to respond, standing eagerly in her dirty clothes and tangled hair. He glances up at her from where he’s sitting with a book, his back against a tree. His dark hair curls over his neck. “You promised Mom we wouldn’t,” is all the boy will say. He turns a page, tracing the words with the tip of his finger.

The girl pouts. She stoops. There’s a wilting flower at her bare feet, turning brown. She touches it, and suddenly the flower straightens on a stem that’s newly green and strong. The petals streak with fresh shades of pink. “It’s been so long,” she wheedles. “Please? Just one last time?”

Wavering, the boy looks at her with uncertainty in his eyes. There’s another dead flower by his leg, and as she waits for an answer he touches it. Just like with the girl’s touch, the flower grows at the contact, stretched full of life. Green and pink, no more brown. The boy frowns in contemplation. He wants to please her. He wants to dance again, too. He opens his mouth to answer, maybe give in, but before he can utter a word there’s a crackle nearby. The pair jump and whirl.

“Who’s there?” the boy calls out, failing to sound brave. The book falls to the ground, unheeded. The girl frowns and tugs at her brother’s arm.

“Landon, it’s nothing. You know we don’t have anything to be scared of out here … ” As she speaks, though, a figure emerges from the green shadows. The boy shifts so he’s in front of the girl, and he glares at the man.

“You don’t belong here,” he snaps. There’s recognition in his eyes.

The intruder stares at them with an odd little smile curving his lips. He’s older, though there’s no way to guess his age. He’s out of place in the woods; his clothing is impeccable, pressed and dark. He wears slacks and a white dress shirt. “I’m sorry if I scared you,” he says, folding his hands behind his back. “I was answering a summons, just north of here.” His tone is friendly. “I heard you and thought I would drop by to say hello. What are you two doing all the way out here? It’s not safe.” His smile is too bright. The girl glares at him. When neither of them answers the man takes a step closer, tilting his head. “Where are your parents?” he asks. “Your mom … and your dad?”

Landon opens his mouth to speak again, but the girl beats him to it. “Leave,” she snarls, and in her agitation, the leaves in the tree actually tremble. “You have no summons here, and you’re not welcome.”

“Rebecca,” her brother hisses. “Stop it!”

Their visitor, surprisingly enough, is already backing away. He’s still smiling. “Better get home,” he advises as he reaches the tree line. “Don’t want to be out here after dark. You never know what could be roaming these parts.”

And then he’s gone.

I slowly withdraw my hand away from the dead boy in the mural, my lips pursed in contemplation. The man … How do I know him? He looked familiar, somehow. I struggle, searching all my memories for a placement. But there’s nothing. No, not nothing. Whatever else I don’t know, I now know this.

The siblings in my dreams were something more than human.

And their names were Rebecca and Landon.

The phone rings through the empty house. It’s the only sound besides the clock in the hall. My eyelids slide open, listening to the harmony. Ring. Tick. Ring. Tick. Tim snores on, oblivious. Since Mom and Charles don’t creak out into the hall, they must not hear it, either.

No one ever calls this late.

The phone stops ringing for less than a minute before beginning again. It’s almost like an abrasive slap in the sacred silence of the night. I set my covers aside and get out of bed, padding downstairs on silent feet. I pick the phone up on its third ring.

“Hello?”

“Elizabeth? Is that you?” a tearful voice asks.

Still affected by remaining dregs of sleep, I don’t identify it right away. The person on the line asks if I’m there, and it slowly clicks. Maggie’s mom. I lick my dry lips, unable to make my voice properly concerned as I ask, “Yes, what is it? Is Maggie all right?”

My friend’s mother sobs once, tries to smother it. “I’m sorry to call so late,” she chokes. “But Maggie’s been asking for you. I thought you might want to see her one last time … the doctor says she won’t be with us much longer. Until tomorrow night, at the latest.”