by tendrils of darkness. It stands over the weeping girl, looking at the motionless boy she holds, but she doesn’t seem to notice it. And there the dream is finished. An end of one thing and the beginning of something else, but of what I don’t know.
There are other paintings besides these, though. My dreams have been consumed by more. More images, more mysterious flickers. A vague image of a stone house. The white fingers of the ocean. A pair of crinkled, smiling eyes. The long fingers of a woman, the flutter of a yellow skirt, the vibrant disorientation of parties and celebrations long finished.
Every time I look at these paintings, something inside me clenches. It’s an odd sensation, as if I’m supposed to be feeling something but my wall of nothingness is blocking it.
Again my concentration returns to the boy and girl. Somehow, I believe, they’re the key to all of this. In the painting, there she sits, weeping, torrents of tears streaming down her face. She’s in the woods, wearing jeans and a long T-shirt. Surrounded by tree trunks, kneeling on the moss-covered ground. She’s looking up at the sky— it must be sunset, like now, because the air around her is pink twilight—and she’s screaming. The girl’s teeth shine in the fading light. There is an agony in her face that I cannot even imagine experiencing. The boy she has her arms wrapped around is limp, lying on the ground. Once in a while I get a faint impression that there could have been blood surrounding the two.
Of course, these paintings explain nothing. They only raise more of the questions that I don’t know the answers to. Who are these people? Who lived in the house? Is it real? Why do I dream of it? Common sense urges me to let it all go, but instinct orders me to solve this mystery.
Tonight there are more images crowding around inside my head. The nothingness holds fast, though, a firm lock to the door that I’m trying to open. Over and over again, I see the shadow, the trees, the girl’s open mouth and the silent scream.
It pops into my head, random and fresh. I sit up straighter from my perch in the barn window. This memory is new. The voice is unfamiliar—no way to tell whether it’s male or female—but my intuition tells me I should know it. I reach out and grasp the sentence, tightening my hold, remembering it over and over again, trying, trying to place it. This might prove that there is outside involvement. Someone has done something to me, made me to be the way I am.
I look at all the angles, as I have so many times before. I have the ability to see the unseen. All these dreams, the nothingness—
“Elizabeth.”
At the sound of the familiar voice, I turn. Fear stands in a dark corner, looking at me, one side of his mouth tipped up in a mischievous smile. I study him, blinking. I hadn’t sensed him coming. “You don’t usually come to see me this often,” I say after a pause. “You found something.”
A breeze drifts in through the open window, and Fear’s white-blond hair ripples. Unaware, he raises his brows at me. “Something has happened here, I think. You looked like you were on a different planet when I came in. What is it, hmmm? Did
He’s never seen my paintings before, and though I don’t look at them, Fear glances away from my face and notices. He makes a sound of interest, striding from one to the next, doubtless memorizing them as clues to the mystery that is me. “You’ve never told me about your … hobby before.” He lingers in front of one, arms folded behind his back. He tilts his head, and that silky hair brushes against his jaw. “Your style is sloppy; there’s no way of knowing who the girl is. All I can make out is her teeth and her dark hair.” He reaches out and touches the curve of the girl’s cheek in one painting. Phantom fingers brush my real cheek as he does so.
“Stop it,” I say.
“Or what?” He spins to face me. “You don’t care.” When I don’t reply, he sobers. “Tell me.”
I shake my head. “You don’t need to know.”
He steps closer. I feel the air around us cool, and his essence clashes against me. When yet again I remain stoic, Fear sighs. I look up at him from where I sit.
“It’s not boredom, or just the need to know,” he informs me, eyes glittering. “I pity you, Elizabeth, and I want to help you.”
Now I stand, and it brings me so close to him that our chests are almost touching. My wall of nothingness quivers at the proximity. It’s an odd sensation. I just arch my neck back to meet his earnest gaze. “You don’t pity me,” I tell Fear. “You don’t want to help me. You want to help yourself.”
A scowl twists his beautiful face. He clenches his fists, checks himself, and forces himself to unclench them. A moment later his impish smile has returned. But underneath the charming facade his intent still lurks. “You do puzzle me, Elizabeth the Numb.”
I turn my attention from him to the paintings. Shadows slant over them now as night sneaks in. “Whatever you think you found, Fear, is nothing. If someone did do this to me, they made sure that the trail to them would never be uncovered.”
“Ah.” He lifts a finger. “But that’s not true. I found this.” He reaches into his black overcoat and takes out a newspaper, yellowed with age. He hides its contents.
“What is it?” I ask, just as he wants me to.
Fear unfolds the paper, mocking me as he pretends to read it. I don’t play the game by reaching for it. He sighs, relenting, and holds it out to me. “Oh, very well. Since you want it so badly.”
I take it with both hands, noting my own picture on the front page. I’m about three or four—it’s one of the pictures Mom has framed in our living room. It’s the girl that I don’t recognize as myself; her face glows with that inner life.
“What is it?” Fear frowns when I hand it back to him. He takes in the empty page, brow furrowed in thought. “The plot thickens,” he murmurs. “But now we know that there
“And how do you propose we find out?” I ask, sitting back down and looking out the window again. The hay pokes at the bottoms of my thighs. “I’m starting to think whatever happened to me was meant to make me forget something. I don’t think it’s just emotions that have been removed from me—there are memories missing, too.” If that’s what the dreams are. But are they my memories? Or … someone else’s? And why can’t I remember when this change in me occurred?
I turn to face Fear again and see his gaze sharpen. “Maybe they did this to you to hide something. You could’ve seen something you weren’t supposed to … ”
The sun has finally left, and the moon’s faint outline begins to emerge from the other side of the sky. “Maybe,” I say.
Before I can ask him about what the rest of the article contained, Fear tucks the blank newspaper back into his coat and bends down to me. “You’re so distracting; I’ve lingered here too long. See you soon, Elizabeth,” he whispers. His lips touch my ear and his arctic breath fans my face. It smells distinctly of strawberries.
The Emotion vanishes, and an instant later a man jumps from the shadows of the loft with a long knife, making as if to stab me in the stomach. He’s wearing all black and his face is swathed in a ski mask. When I only stare at him, making no sound of alarm, the attacker disappears right when the blade is about to go into me.
“Fear?” I call.
“Just checking,” he chuckles, his voice coming from the night sky.
Four
