Some Quiet Place (4 page)

Five

The moment I slide out of the cab of my truck, gravel crunching beneath my tennis shoes, I know something is wrong. There’s a heavy silence hanging in the air, a bad omen. The cows haven’t been brought in for the milking. Dad’s pickup is gone.

I walk toward the house, shouldering my bag. The quiet rings in my ears. I let the screen door slam shut behind me, to announce my presence as usual, but Mom isn’t in the kitchen. Dropping my bag on the floor next to the table, I poke my head into every room, still sensing something … off. I climb the stairs, and just as I pass the bathroom a sob shatters the hovering gloom—Mom.

I recognize the situation immediately. My first instinct is to turn right around and hide, for the sake of self-preservation.
My second instinct is stronger:
play the part
. A normal person—a normal daughter—wouldn’t just walk away. On swift feet I go back down to the kitchen, grab a washcloth from the sink, wet it, and ascend the stairs again. Mom has locked the door. I run my fingers along the doorframe, looking for the small pick, and when I find it I stick it in the lock. Soon the knob twists in my hand.

“Go away,” Mom cries when she sees that it’s me coming in. Her mascara runs down her cheeks in black rivers, and there’s blood flowing from a cut in her lip.

“Are you all right?” I ask, knowing she won’t answer. And she doesn’t. She clutches her knees and rocks back and forth. The back of her head keeps knocking against the wall, and I reach out to grasp her arm, stopping her. She cringes at my touch.

“Here.” I hold out the washcloth; she won’t let me near enough to clean the cut myself. And of course she doesn’t take it. I’d guess that she’s thinking about Tim, about whatever it was that caused this. “It isn’t your fault,” I murmur.

That gets a reaction. “Shut up!” my mother hisses, glaring at me through her tears. “You’re not my child! You’re unnatural, and I want you to
get out of my life!
”

I watch her for a moment. My presence is only upsetting her more, so I finally say, “I’ll go.” On my way to the door I pause by the window, noticing movement outside. I glance back at Mom. “Tim is coming back up the driveway. You probably should barricade yourself in the bedroom.”

It’s as if I haven’t spoken. She just stares at me. “What are you?” Her voice is a broken whisper.

Tim’s brakes squeal as he parks his pickup next to mine. I look back at Mom again. “Do you still want me to go?”

We both hear the screen door downstairs slam open, accompanied by a belch and a colorful string of profanities immediately after. Tim is still drunk, then. And angry. Mom’s breathing quickens. Fear materializes, kneeling down beside her to clasp her in his freezing embrace. Mom shivers, eyes glazing over.

“Help,” she whimpers to me. One word, seemingly so simple, but it’s so much more.

For just an instant, I catch a glimmer of true, undeniable compassion in Fear’s fathomless pale eyes. He smiles at me bitterly. “Ah, mortality,” he says. “Your kind is consumed by habits, traditions. The fact that she’s married to him keeps her trapped here.”

Mom is whispering something under her breath, over and over. I can’t make out the words. Tim is stumbling his way through the kitchen. He knocks a chair to the floor. I think quickly, flatly. If I save my mother now, she’ll feel as if she owes me, or that there’s a possibility I might be normal, and she’ll try to forget what’s happened here. The pretense of our lives can continue until I find a way to feel. Then, maybe, I can be the normal girl everyone expects me to be, and I will survive.

Mom’s whispers grow more intense as her agitation increases. “Stay up here,” I tell her, and shut the bathroom door. I go back down the stairs. Stop in the kitchen doorway. Watch my father as he falls apart. He doesn’t notice me there for a few minutes. He’s mumbling to himself, opening every cupboard, hunting for something else to drink, probably. When I shift my feet, deliberately making my heel scrape the floor, he slams the fridge shut, twisting in my direction. His movements are sluggish.

“You,” he slurs, red eyes latching onto me. “You’re the reason all of this started.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, unmoving, even when he walks toward me. But there are faint memories; I know exactly what he means. My strangeness drove my parents apart. First there were arguments, in low furious tones, over quickly. Then those evolved into loud matches that lasted hours. Tim began to drink and Mom sank into herself. Until our lives became what they are. So it’s true; I did do this.

Tim keeps muttering, but his words are so jumbled I can’t make any sense of them. He grabs my shoulder, slamming me against the wall. Pain slices up my spine. His breath is sour, his breathing labored.

“You’re different,” he mumbles in my face. Over his shoulder I see the shimmer of an Emotion that must be here for him. Guilt? Sorrow? I can’t tell with Tim’s red face in the way. “You used to be like Charles. You used to be a kid. Now you’re not. You … ” Tim loses his train of thought. “I need a drink,” he mutters.

As they usually do around this point, my instincts come to life again, rational and cold.
Survive. Fight. Run
, they hiss. I can’t release the mental image of my mother, though, so pathetic and alone up in that mint-green bathroom. So I ignore all the impulses and look up at Tim. My words are bullets, swift and calculated. “I think a drink is the last thing you need.”

And as I expected, this infuriates him. “Don’t tell me what I need.” He shakes me until my teeth ache. “You’re just … just a freak!”

He isn’t mad enough. If he calms down at all, he’ll go looking for Mom. “Yes, I’m a freak,” I concede, pasting an expression of false defiance on my face. “But at least I’m not a disgusting, abusive drunk.”

His fist lashes out more quickly than I anticipated.

There’s a swift intake of breath behind me. Someone watching. Fear. “Elizabeth!” I hear him snap. “Fight back!”

Slumped against the wall, I continue to shove aside those instincts and Fear’s desperate insistence. I get to my feet and face Tim. I provoke him with taunts and names until stars dance before my eyes. Somehow I know it’s guilt that makes my father sob. He doesn’t even seem to be aware of his actions as he knocks me to the floor again. I never once try to defend myself. Those words Mom was chanting become a string of sound in my head, meaningless yet somehow relevant in this moment.
Save me, save me, save me
…

Just before the darkness takes over completely, I see Fear standing over me, that strange sympathy still haunting his expression.

“See you soon, little Elizabeth,” he whispers.

Word gets around fast in a small town. Since there’s not much to talk about in the first place, everyone immediately grasps at the chance to gossip behind my back, their voices dramatic whispers that fill every corner of every room.

“I heard she let a guy beat her up as some kind of initiation for a gang.”

“Sophia Richardson kicked her ass after school yesterday. Didn’t you hear about their big fight in English?”

“She works on a farm—maybe a cow kicked her in the face or something.”

The stories and theories go on throughout the day. It’s strange how no one gets near the real story. Are people so eager to deny the obvious? Or do they really believe what they say? It’s times like these that I realize I don’t understand human nature as well as I’d thought.

It’s Tuesday. As the last bell rings, releasing everyone, I walk to my locker slowly, contemplating the excuses I can give Maggie for not being able to visit her. She can’t see the bruises on my face; she’ll only worry, and that can’t be any kind of advantage in her fight against the disease eating away at her body.

Someone slams into my shoulder, making me stumble. “Have fun doing nothing tonight, freak,” Sophia singsongs, a friend giggling at her side. In a whirl of perfume and labels the pair hurries away, swerving around a man. He catches my attention just as I’m about to face my locker again, and I pause to study him. He stands farther down the hall, right in the center of the tiled floor, legs apart. He’s staring at me. It’s hard to make out the features of his face because the double doors are right behind him and sunlight streams through the glass.
Wrong
, my instincts whisper. He’s not moving, and he’s clearly out of place in this high school. A bizarre blend of tastes fills my mouth.

Before I can dissect this further, the man turns his back. Hands shoved in his pockets so casually, he walks away.
Thud. Thud. Thud
. His long shadow stalks him. There’s a fresh flood of light as he pushes the doors open, and then he’s gone.

Curious. I dismiss the voice of warning in my head—I haven’t been getting too much sleep lately, what with all the dreams and faceless condemning whispers—and slam my locker shut, planning on using the phone to call Maggie. It’s become more of a habit than anything. But just as I shoulder my bag and aim for the office, I crash into Joshua Hayes. He grunts in surprise as he sprawls onto the floor. I look down at him.

“Sorry.”

He recovers quickly and grins up at me. His red hair is too long for a boy. It hangs in his face and splays over his jacket collar. “If you want to talk to me, you could have just said ‘hey,’” he says. Belying the boy’s cocky façade, Apprehension kneels down beside him, a soundless presence. Again, he doesn’t bother to acknowledge me.

Opening my mouth, I prepare to say a quick goodbye, but Courage’s words echo through my mind:
someone believes you will need that boy in the end.
I think swiftly and decide to follow the Emotion’s advice—there was something about Courage that assured me he’d spoken the truth when he said he doesn’t play games.

Silently, I extend my hand to Joshua, who hesitates for just an instant before taking it and allowing me to help him to his feet. His palm is damp, and when I let go, Joshua tries to discreetly wipe it dry on his pants.

“So … ” He grins at me some more, shyness overtaking him now. “In a hurry to get somewhere?”

“No,” I answer. “Just going home.” The office is only a few yards down the hall. I start toward it.

Joshua walks beside me without an invitation. He wants to know me, and he’s not about to let this opportunity slip through his fingers. At my words he chews his lip. “Oh.” He hides behind his hair as he thinks. “I’m going home too. Lots of chores,” he adds lamely.

“Yes.” I halt outside the door marked
OFFICE
. A memory nudges at me, and for some reason I voice it. “I remember my mom taking me to your house once when we were little. She was bringing your father casserole.”

He’s nodding, features tight and shadowed. His current emotions swiftly dissipate and evolve into something darker. Sorrow and Anger. They hound him like merciless spirits and I’m careful to keep my gaze away. “Yeah,” he says with a tightness in his voice. “I remember that, too. A lot of people brought casseroles after Mom died.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” I meet his gaze and picture Courage as I make the words sincere. “Even though you know it’s not her fault, you must struggle not to be angry with her sometimes, for leaving.”

At this Joshua studies my bruises, and he isn’t trying to be subtle. He’s frowning fiercely, like maybe he’s thinking about saying something. But in the end all he says is, “You talk like you’ve lost someone before.”

“I haven’t,” I reply, deliberately curt. I sense the questions hovering on his tongue; I can’t encourage this. Joshua is the kind of person to take action if he thinks he hears a cry for help. But the statement—
you talk like you’ve lost someone
—brings back images of the girl in the woods, screaming up at the sky
.
The boy in her arms.
That house by the ocean, the woman’s smile.

You killed me
.

Knowing now is not the time to think about any of it, I put my hand on the doorknob as a hint that I’m finished with the conversation.

“Wait,” Joshua says quickly. I wait. He hesitates once more, looking down at his shoes. Then he takes a deep breath and lifts his head. “Can I … call you sometime?”

It’s taken him years to ask me, and here it is. Again, the words whisper through my mind:
someone believes you will need that boy in the end.
What end, I wonder once more.

Joshua is still holding that single breath, preparing himself for my rejection. I force a smile at him, pretending interest. “That sounds great.” I rattle off my number. Before he has a chance to stumble over a response, I duck into the office, already thinking about my phone call to Maggie.

Six

Charles finally tells Dad about college—I was right in thinking he was having problems. He dropped out, in fact. I’m up in my room, listening to Tim shout at my brother about responsibility, money, growing up. It doesn’t escape me that Tim is much more restrained with Charles than he is with me or Mom.

Afterwards, when Tim has stormed out of the house, leaving a menacing stillness in his place, Charles climbs the stairs. He comes into my room without knocking and flops face-down on my bed beside me. The bedsprings squeal from the added weight. Charles groans, but even after all of this, the only Emotion near him is Relief. Charles has had an easy life. Relief is stiff, younger-looking. He takes his purpose seriously; he doesn’t acknowledge me.

“What are you going to do now?” I ask my brother, staring up at the ceiling. The smooth expanse of white makes me think of the dream-girl’s skin in the moonlight.

Charles doesn’t seem to notice my distraction. He also doesn’t answer my question. Not because he doesn’t want to, but because he has no idea. I know him. All he has is his job at Fowler’s Grocery, and yet he isn’t afraid of the empty prospects his future holds. Such is my brother’s nature.

“You should decorate this room,” he murmurs after a time. “It’s depressing in here.”

“I didn’t know white was depressing,” I say.

He rolls over to face me, serious for once. He can’t ignore the bruises on my face anymore. “Has it been hard for you, while I was gone?” Relief vanishes at the question.

Mulling over the best response, I ponder the white walls, imagining them covered in posters or paint. It’s strange—they’ve been white for so long, empty, like me, that it’s difficult to picture it. “Nothing is ever hard for me,” I tell Charles, making my tone sincere. “And Mom is tougher than you think.”

Charles sighs, his fingers gentle as they skim the yellow bruise beneath my eye. “I-I’m sorry I haven’t … I’m sorry I never … ” A new Emotion appears—Guilt. She places her hand on my brother’s cheek, in the same place his fingers rest on my own face. Unable to confront these truths and feelings, Charles abruptly switches course. Now he rolls to his back, arm under his head, and gazes up at the ceiling. “College wasn’t for me, Liz,” he murmurs. “You know I’ve never liked school.”

I nudge him with my shoulder, playing the part of the little sister well. “You’ve never liked school as much as you like parties and alcohol, that is.”

“Hey!” he protests, grinning ruefully. “I’m weak, okay? I tried to stay away. Really.”

He’s lying, but I don’t call him on it. With one last grin, Charles leaves me. The floor creaks, and then the door is clicking shut. Silence. Soon I’m closing my eyes, my muscles relaxing. Just as I’m hovering between reality and dreaming, I sense that odd familiar-unfamiliar presence from the road, lurking nearby. Watching, waiting, for what?

Sleep has too firm a hold on me to break. This mysterious visitor isn’t even close to being finished with me, though. Somehow, I’m certain of this. I will find out what it wants one way or another.

For now, I dream.

I’m standing at the edge of a clearing. The grass is knee-high; it ripples in the breeze. The skies above roll with fluffy clouds that make me think of the inside of a cupcake. Not sunrise or sunset, just a space in time that feels frozen, content.

Across the wide space, sitting with his back to a tree, sits the boy from my dreams.

His head is bent. He studies the pages of a book with intensity, his brow furrowed. In the daylight, even from this distance, I can see his features better than ever before. He’s … delicate. His hair falls over his brow in a dark, silk curtain. His face is oval-shaped, his lips a thin line of contemplation. He’s wearing a button-down shirt and jeans. No shoes.

Without my realizing it, I’ve started walking toward him. The boy doesn’t so much as twitch at the sound of my approach. The tips of the grass tickle the palms of my hands and a light material brushes against my knees. Glancing down, I notice that I’m wearing a dress I’ve never seen before. It’s a summery creation, all yellow and beaming. Something I would never own.

Once I’m just a few feet away from the boy I halt. Wait. He’s more slender than I realized, his fingers long and tapered as they grip the corner of the book. “Where is she?” he asks without looking up. His voice is calm this time, so feather-light it could be a lullaby. When I don’t answer, his gaze meets mine, wide, innocent, chocolate-brown. Such a contrast to the black hatred that burned in his eyes that night in my room. A fly buzzes past my ear. Now he’s the one waiting.

“Where is who?” I ask, just an instant before it occurs to me. Who else could he possibly be talking about? The one connection I can make to him, the other person in my dreams. She screams and weeps and rocks, forever imprinted in my mind as a broken thing.

Tears pool in the boy’s eyes suddenly. “What did you do to her?” he demands, clutching the book so tight that his knuckles go white. Now his tone and expression are as harsh as Tim’s backhand. I open my mouth but no sound comes out. What answer can I give?

The book falls to the ground and the pages flutter. Mindless, the boy presses his forehead to his knees and his shoulders shake. His shirt catches in one of the grooves of the tree bark behind him but he doesn’t bother to pull free. He’s drowning in grief just as his companion is in my other dreams. But who is really dead? What is this place? Where do I belong?

Somehow, none of it matters. A bizarre instinct consumes me to reach out, to touch him. Maybe just to prove to myself that none of this is real, or that he’s real. I don’t know. “She’s alive,” I tell him. It just pops out. I have no proof, I have no knowledge, but something inside of me clenches and releases when the boy comes alive. He stands, his red-rimmed eyes suddenly fierce, and seizes my shoulders. The movement is so quick; one moment he’s on the ground and the next he’s too close, with all his heat and passion.

“Where? Where?” he demands.

I shake my head. This infuriates him. I can see it in the way a muscle twitches in his jaw … but there are no Emotions. What does it mean?

There’s no time to analyze. “You owe me,” the boy says through his teeth. Suddenly the beauty of this place roils and changes. The sky darkens to an orange hue, and a sound fills the air, something akin to television static. “You did this. You ruined everything. We were happy. We were safe. You need to tell me the truth. Tell me the truth.”

An ironic statement, though he doesn’t know how ironic. It’s impossible to get the truth from someone who doesn’t know it. Pretending not to notice the rumbling world around us, I tell him point-blank without any façade of regret or empathy, “I don’t know where she is.”

An insect lands on my arm and I experience a brief flare of pain as it stings me. I shake it off, and my gaze shifts from the boy’s face. For the first time I notice the dark cloud surrounding us like millions of grains of pepper. A swarm. Bloodthirsty, incensed. It grows louder and louder, a hungry hum. No way to escape.

“This isn’t real,” I say, turning my focus back to the boy. Before I can ask him questions of my own, attempt to understand the strangeness of all this, the boy’s eyes turn red. Not just pink from tears, but a violent, ruby red. His pupils disappear and his lip curls in a snarl. “Lying,” he hisses. His fingers bite into me. Not him, my instincts whisper.

His body quivers and stretches. Those eyes switch back and forth between brown, red, brown, red. Monster, boy. I look up at him. “Who are you?”

The words echo: Are you … are you … Time stops.

And then, just as quickly as it began, the changes retract, swift as claws. The violent swarm dissipates, the sky brightens to the happy blue, and the powerful creature is a simple boy again. Sitting against the tree once more with the book back in his hands, he turns a page as if it’s the most fascinating text he’s ever encountered. As if none of it happened.

I take a step toward him, prepared to demand everything and anything.

I wake up.