Some Quiet Place

“I want you to admit that you care, Elizabeth,” he growls. It’s hard to hear him over the blaring music. “Say it. For once, tell the truth.”

No one sees me standing in the shadows. We’ve made our way past the hot tub and toward the front door. I lift my chin, staring up at Fear. “I may have humored you in the past, but I’m done pretending. From now on, please accept that this is what I am.”

He suddenly smiles, a bitter, sad quirk of the lips. “You know, sometimes you remind me of my kind in the way you act. The same deception, same games.”

This conversation isn’t sensible. Especially here. I look around me, pursing my lips. Do not, under any circumstances, go to Sophia Richardson’s birthday party. The stranger—Rebecca— desperately wanted to hide something about tonight, so all I can do is wait and try to be in the right place at the right time. I head for the backyard.

What about the house? something reminds me.

I jerk around quickly, stopping Fear in his tracks. He scowls. I move to the right and he sidesteps, blocking me.

“Move,” I order before thinking.

He doesn’t react well to being told what to do. He grins at me, lazy and insolent. “Not until you tell me what you know,” he retorts. “We did make a deal, after all. I come with you to this stupid little party and you tell me everything. Well, here I am.”

I dart around him and continue walking toward the house. “You know, if you’re so detached from it all,” Fear says, following me again, “why are you looking for the truth? Why bother at all?”

“Well, well, well. Look who decided to crash the party.”

Sophia, arms crossed, glares at me. I’ve wandered onto the lawn without realizing it, in full view of everyone. Sophia has a tiny army behind her—three girls all decked out in miniskirts and high heels.

“Happy birthday,” I say to her, expressionless. Fear is cold at my back.

Sophia’s eyes bulge out of her head now and Anger is suddenly standing beside her, looking bored. “You seem to bring me to this town quite often, human,” he says to me. “You have a negative effect on this place.”

As do you, I almost counter. I don’t seem to have good control of my impulses tonight.

Sophia steps closer, her silly high heels sinking into the soil. The torchlight makes her face an ominous orange. “I didn’t invite you here, freak,” she hisses at me. “If you don’t leave, I’m going to kick your ass.”

“You can try.” I don’t back down.

Fear laughs. “Hit her. I dare you,” he says to me.

Sophia actually shoves me. Caught off guard, I stumble back, and she laughs. She has a reputation to maintain in front of our peers. “I didn’t invite you for a reason.” She takes a step closer, menace in the movement. “Because you’re not normal.”

Everyone’s paying attention to us now, and some kids start cheering. Encouraged, Sophia lifts her hands to shove me again, but I need to keep searching. Rebecca wouldn’t mention this party for no reason, and I want to walk the entire property. I grab Sophia’s wrists as she reaches for me, and before she can wrench herself free, I throw her to the ground with unexpected ease. Sophia screams as she rolls through the wet grass. There are scattered laughs though the crowd.

“If you’re normal, then maybe it’s a good thing I’m different,” I tell Sophia in a mild tone. I step over her and sidestep her swiping nails.

“I’m going to kill you!” she swears, eyes blazing. She’s cradling one of her arms. I turn my back.

The entire party has encircled this little tete-a-tete, and though most move aside for me to pass, one person stays where he is. He stares like he’s never seen me before. I offer Joshua a wry smile, showing him that this is really who I am, not the perfect girl he’s made me out to be. Why did he come?

To see you, that voice in my head whispers.

It doesn’t matter.

“Elizabeth?” Joshua watches me walk by but doesn’t reach out. Fear pats his shoulder, mockingly sympathetic. “Let her go, boy. She’s a mess.” Joshua doesn’t hear or see him, of course, but he does frown, sensing something off about me and the air around us.

“I’m a mess?” I repeat blandly, going around to the back of the house. Fear just snickers.

The house is dark but clean. The place hasn’t changed much from when I visited here as a child. Same wooden floors, same beige furniture. Sophia probably didn’t want anyone to come inside because her sister is here. I travel through the kitchen, then the living room until I find some stairs leading up. My ears pick up the faint sound of Wheel of Fortune somewhere. I trip in the dark, and at the last second I throw my palm before me as a buffer to save my face from smashing the edge of a stair.

Wordlessly, Fear holds out his hand above me. A small orb of light appears over his palm, illuminating the dark hall. Recovering, I keep going. I notice that while my weight makes the stairs creak, Fear is soundless. Using the light, I pause to study some pictures hanging up on the wall. Sophia hardly smiles in any of them, and in every single one she’s by her sister, either supporting her or looking at her with indiscernible expressions.

I keep going. The stairs open up to a large hallway, and my eyes alight on a doorway at the far end, where sounds of the TV and a blue glow pours out. Without hesitation, I go toward it.

The room is small and pink. There’s a rocking horse in the corner and a big, fluffy bed against one wall. These aren’t the first things I see, however. What I spot first is Sophia’s sister, sitting on a rug in the center of the floor, staring at the box that has been put in front of her. If my memory serves me correctly, she’s four years younger than her capricious sister.

“What are you doing?” Fear stays in the hall when I enter the bedroom, so I leave him there and move toward Morgan Richardson.

She isn’t startled by the sight of a stranger in the privacy in her house, this much I know. Does she remember me? As I approach, Morgan tilts her head back to look at me, and I in turn study her thick lashes, her round face and bleary eyes. She’s in pajamas, and the material has frogs all over it. She’s so tiny. The pants are too big for her. She must be in one of her withdrawn moods, since she doesn’t say a word. In the past she wasn’t able to communicate well, and it seems time hasn’t changed that.

“Hello,” I say, glancing around. Besides the furniture and toys, Morgan is alone. It looks like Morgan’s babysitter has left and, judging from the fact I haven’t seen her anywhere, doesn’t intend to return tonight.

“Elizabeth, this is pointless,” Fear says from the doorway.

Ignoring him, I squat down so I’m at Morgan’s level. I smile at her and she stares back. But then, so quickly that

I wonder if I imagined it, her eyes flit to Fear. A second later she fastens her gaze back on the TV. There’s some cartoon on, something involving a talking sponge.

“Oh, fabulous,” Fear mutters, stalking to the window. “Another human that can see me. That’s just wonderful. You know, my ego can’t take much more of this.” He glares down at the lawn, the moon casting square patterns on his high cheekbones.

Processing Morgan’s stiffness, I reach to brush a strand of hair back from her face. “You see things, don’t you?” I murmur. She leans into my touch. “You know more than you should.” The girl shudders. I acknowledge this with an incline of my head, understanding. “Sometimes the things you see aren’t very nice, are they?”

Fear whips around, his glare burning through me. “I’m nice!” he protests.

When I still don’t respond he steps closer, growling. “Elizabeth, we’re wasting time. Hold up your end of the bargain.”

“I will. Now hush.” I keep my focus on the girl, but I can sense Fear fuming. Morgan meets my gaze directly, and for the briefest of moments, her eyes become clear and focused, as if she knows me and knows all my secrets. I straighten, alert.

“Do you want to tell me something?” I ask her.

“How long are we going to do this?” Fear seethes.

Morgan’s strange brown-blue eyes go cloudy and clear over and over in an aching cycle. Her mouth moves, puckering. I lean in, putting my ear next to her lips. “Morgan?” I prompt.