Seeing Is Believing : The Whispering 1

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, companies and incidents either are the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author
or the publisher.

~ ~ ~
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"WE'RE ALMOST THERE," Meg announced.

The sullen boy next to her said nothing. Instead
he looked down at the floor of the beat-up station wagon, clearly
lost in his thoughts. From time to time, his hands would clench
within the sleeves of his grey, long-sleeved sweatshirt, a habit
Meg had noticed since the first time she saw the boy.

At first glance she knew that she was looking at
a boy who had seen too much of the dark side of life far too soon.
His brown eyes would always have a hint of a deeper sadness. Sad to
say, it was a look that Meg had seen in a few other children she
had fostered. And every time she saw it she could feel her rage
rise to her chest as if it were a form of heartburn.

How anyone could hurt their own child physically
and emotionally on a weekly basis was a mystery Meg would never
ever figure out. A part of her didn't want to solve it. To solve
would be to understand, and to understand could lead to a form of
sympathy. Monsters don't deserve sympathy.

The boy's name was Tony. He was a sweet boy and
like every victim of abuse he would be an emotional wreck for a
long time. So the silence that was only broken by the occasional
question Meg would ask Tony was a part of the drive that one
couldn't ignore.

"Tony, you must be really warm wearing that
sweatshirt in this heat," she said.

"I'm fine," Tony said, his brown eyes still cast
down.

Meg knew that wasn't so. The inside of the
vehicle was oppressively hot due to the summer heat. Even with the
windows down. She wished she had made that appointment to fix the
air conditioner in the vehicle before heading down to pick Tony up.
The poor boy didn't need heat stroke added to his list of
problems.

She wouldn't push him to remove the sweatshirt
though. Clearly it was a form of personal protection to the
thirteen-year-old.

Turning all thoughts away from the short
conversation, Meg searched her mind for a safe topic of
conversation that would interest Tony enough that he would want to
engage in it.

"I heard you like to draw."

From what she knew of Tony, that comment was
true. His teachers had commented on his love for the art form. They
also noted the quality of his work when they would catch him
drawing in the middle of class. Something the teachers noted with
more amusement than contempt.

"Yeah. But I don't think I'm very good," Tony
said.

"Bullshit."

Meg did not hear that remark. However, Tony
heard it and frowned at the spot next to him.

"It's true."

Of course Meg noted that Tony was focused on the
empty area of the backseat with a look that suggested he thought
someone was there. She had been informed of Tony's coping mechanism
in the form of an imaginary friend named Bruce. Of course, it was
being addressed by a psychiatrist. But as long as the imaginary
friend wasn't causing any problematic behavior, Meg wasn't going to
say too much on the subject.

If Meg could see the imaginary friend, she would
have seen a man in his thirties with scruffy, black hair and
wearing a pair of reading glasses that were so large they looked
comical. His green eyes had a spark of humor to them. It matched
the look about him that suggested a smile could break out onto his
face at any moment.

The imaginary friend's limbs were falling
asleep, by then. He complained about this condition frequently.

"Are we there yet?" Bruce asked.

Tony attempted to hold back a laugh but failed.
Even though Meg didn't hear the joke, she did allow a small smile
to come to her lips. At least the young man could still laugh every
now and then. For a while, Meg let Tony talk on as she enjoyed the
breeze blowing through her almond brown hair.

The moment of serenity ended too soon. Meg
almost didn't want to say anything even as the pale yellow house
came into view.

"Oh, look! We're here."

She drove up the gravel driveway before parking
at the foot of the crab apple tree that was in bloom. A former
foster child had dubbed the tree "Oscar" and, since then, that was
what Meg called it.

The home itself wasn't something too special.
Meg could afford a fancier one, but the three-bedroom house was all
she felt she needed. She had gotten it for a fair price due to an
uncle's connections in the real estate business. While a bit of a
fixer-upper at the time of sale, it was still very much a good
deal. Unless she needed it badly, almost all her funds were devoted
to the care of her foster children. Deals were something she kept
an eye out for because of that.

With the engine cut off, there was another
degree to the silence that had dominated the trip here. Bruce took
that moment to say something.

"Finally! I thought for a moment
maybe she got lost and we were going to someplace like
India,"
Bruce
commented.

"You would have to cross the ocean for that to
happen," Tony replied.

"I stand by what I said."

"What do you think?" Meg asked Tony.

Tony looked up at the house with his shoulders
slumped. His face was tense with worry. Surely his mind was racing
with so many conflicting thoughts. Meg knew that look well. After
ten years of fostering children that had come from many horrible
situations, Meg expected it.

Facing Tony, her face softened with the look a
loving parent would give her child. A look Tony hadn't seen in
years, if at all.

"You're safe here. I promise you that," Meg
said. "No one's going to hurt you here."

Tony nodded, even though the worry did not leave
his features. Meg felt no insult at this. It would be a long time
before Tony would trust someone again, much less an adult that
claimed they were looking out for him.

His father had said he was looking out for him
before the fists went flying. Meg would have to earn his trust.

But Tony's trust wasn't the only one she would
have to earn.

Bruce watched Meg for a moment. He knew that he
would not be able to tell what was in the depths of Meg's thoughts
and soul just by looking at her. Such a power would be nice but not
one he was gifted with. From what he had observed she seemed to be
genuine.

"So far it looks like you've found
one of the good ones,"
he commented, more for Tony's sake than his own.

Bruce knew that Tony wasn't going to reply to
him. Not now, anyway. Tony was in a withdrawn mood right now, and
talking wasn't something he would like to do in this state.

"It's going to be fine. I'll be here. So you
won't be alone."

Still not saying anything but finally showing a
sign of acknowledgement, Tony looked at Bruce and offered a weak
smile. Bruce smiled back with a grin more positive for the future
to come. Never mind the hurdles, both big and small, that Tony
would have to tackle in the years to come. For as long as Tony
needed him, he would be here.

That was an imaginary friend's job after
all.

IT WAS ALMOST sunset and the sky was turning a
pale pink hue. After Meg had helped Tony bring in his bags, she
showed him around the house. The inside was as simple but
comfortable-looking as the outside. Meg had chosen a light blue and
white color theme for the walls and flooring.

The pieces of furniture were less uniform,
however. At one time, there had been a matching living room set.
But after a few rounds with some of the rowdier children she had
taken care of, the white couch from before had been replaced with a
heartier brown couch.

Even with the unintended patchwork look to the
house, the place had a warm, lived-in feeling to it. Like a true
home.

Bruce gave Meg points for the home environment.
Not that he was keeping score. Okay, maybe he was. But it was his
job to want to make sure everything was reasonably good for
Tony.

"Let me show you to your room so you can put
your stuff away."

Tony nodded again in a distracted way. Bruce
wasn't the only one making a mental score. She led them to the
bedroom nearest to the living room. It was as patchwork as the rest
of the house, but this time it was done on purpose. Each of the
children had the option to decorate the room as he or she wished.
It was a perk Meg felt helped gave them a small sense of control in
a time where they had none.

The last child who had occupied the room was
really into dinosaurs-something that showed from the crudely
painted mural of a normal day in the Cretaceous period. Meg
remembered helping with that particular project. It was fun, even
though she was criticized for adding a mastodon to the scene.

So she was now aware of the fact that the
mastodon was not a dinosaur but a prehistoric mammal. And that it
didn't even exist in the Triassic period. She was informed of all
this by a seven-year-old girl.

Bruce pretended to cower from the Tyrannosaurus
Rex painted on the wall, even if the carnivore was in pastel pink,
as that had been the girl's favorite color. The coloring only added
humor to Bruce's acting. Tony chuckled softly at this.

Meg did a quick look around to make sure that
she had not missed anything when setting up the room. In
preparation, the room had been vacuumed and dusted thoroughly, as
well as new sheets fitted on the bed. A fluffy quilt completed the
comfortable setting. All seemed well enough to Meg.

"Where's Bruce going to sleep?" Tony asked.

Meg paused to think about how to answer that
question. She hadn't considered sleeping quarters for an imaginary
friend.

"How does Bruce like camping?" she asked
afterwards. "Because I have a sleeping bag he can use if he doesn't
mind."

"Sounds good to me,"
Bruce said.

"Bruce says its fine," Tony relayed to Meg.

"I think the sleeping bag is in the closet in
the hall."

Meg had meant to get the sleeping bag herself
but Tony dashed off to look for it himself. She decided to start on
the unpacking while he looked through the closet. There wasn't much
to look through. Tony did not own much-mainly a collection of old
and slightly threadbare clothes, some sketch pads, and some
pencils.

At the bottom of the bag, she found something
slightly out of place.

It was a book. The title read
Friends Indeed
in bright red lettering and the
cover was colorful and obviously kid-friendly-children with big
smiles on their faces and odd-looking creatures on it. Picking it
out of the bag, she discovered it was a fairly thin book. It was
very much a young children's book.

Why a thirteen-year old would have a book that
was geared for an age group far younger than himself was a mystery
to Meg. She would have to ask Tony about it. She moved to place the
book on the bedside desk. A loose page in the book slid out of
place and onto the floor.

She quickly bent down to pick it up. The text on
the page itself was eye-catching. It was printed in royal purple in
a style that suggested it was scrawled on parchment paper long
ago.

Meg couldn't help but read a bit of it. What she
read struck her as odd, and she found herself reading it aloud in a
way to that would reassure her she was indeed reading these exact
words.

"Cross your heart and now you take from your
mind a thought to make. Hold, think it over twice. Then what you
wish for will come to light."

It was an odd bit of writing for a children's
book, Meg felt. If she didn't know better, she would think the
passage was a spell of some kind. The rest of the book seemed
normal enough for a children's book, and gave no sign of any deeper
meaning she should be worried about.

"Strange," she mumbled to herself.

"HEY. DON'T KNOCK it. It works," Bruce commented
aloud, though he knew Meg would not hear a word he said.

Though if that was true, why did Meg suddenly
look to his direction with wide eyes and let out a surprised
gasp?