It Started with a Whisper

by A W Hartoin

  “Nobody home, boy?” A wicked smile danced at the edge of Greenbow’s mouth and his eyes crinkled at the corners.

  I couldn’t speak. Even if I had the phone, I couldn’t have done a thing with it. All I could think was that Greenbow was on Ernest’s property with a gun. How the hell could Ernest let that happen?

  “Looks like you’re as dumb as you look,” said Greenbow.

  I found my voice. “You weren’t invited.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” said Greenbow. “But you invited this bitch, didn’t you? Messing with shit that ain’t your business.”

  “You can’t be here.”

  “Well, I’m here. What you gonna do about it?” Greenbow walked into the living room to stand in front of Miss Pritchett. He bent over her, his spit spraying over her head and neck when he yelled. “And what you gonna do about it, bitch? I tell you what. Nothing. Not a damn thing. But there’s some things I’m gonna do and you ain’t gonna like it.”

  I ran to stand in between Greenbow and Miss Pritchett. Greenbow towered over me, radiating hatred and body odor that could’ve dropped a horse. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Must’ve been temporary insanity because the look on Greenbow’s face nearly made me shit my pants.

  “Boy, you must be the biggest dumbass in the world,” he said.

  There was a crunch of gravel outside and I took a ragged breath. Somebody was there. It had to be Dad or Uncle Manny. Please, please. Dad or Uncle Manny.

  Greenbow went to the kitchen, keeping the gun pointed at us, and looked outside. “Well, well, if it ain’t the one person I’d want to join our little party.”

  “Shasta,” I whispered.

  “Like her, do you? Me too. I like her a lot, if you know what I mean.” Greenbow came over and leaned in close. “You want that ass as much as I do?”

  I jerked back from his leer and ran into the arm of the sofa, falling beside it. Miss Pritchett didn’t look over. She sat shaking on the sofa, tears and blood dripping onto her legs.

  “Now we’re gonna have some fun,” said Greenbow.

  I jumped up, grabbed the lamp off the side table, and threw it. Greenbow batted it away and in two steps had his hand around my throat. My toes scraped the floorboards as Greenbow dragged me in front of the sofa and tossed me down next to Miss Pritchett.

  A car door slammed and Shasta’s voice rang out. “Puppy! Where are you? Your mom said I could get you.”

  “If you hurt her, you’ll regret it, and I don’t mean maybe,” I said.

  “You threatening me, boy?” Greenbow lowered his rifle to the floor, muzzle up. “Who do you think you are?”

  The old metal spring on the screen door screeched, and a breeze blew in through the windows. The curtains fluttered, flags at a battle. Not on just one side of the house, but every side.

  “Leave,” I said. “Now.”

  “You must be crazy. I ain’t going nowhere.”

  The wind surged through the living room. Gusts picked up papers and whole books and swirled them into a tornado around Greenbow. But it was like he couldn’t see it. His eyes stayed fixed on me, bloodshot with rage.

  “Leave!” I screamed.

  He wrapped both his hands around the barrel of his rifle. His eyes narrowed as he bent over, his neck craning out. He tapped the gun stock on the floor with each word he said. “Who do you think you are? Boy, who the—”

  With one last tap the rifle fired straight through Greenbow’s chest. He stumbled backward, dragging the rifle through the red mist that had burst from his back. He tripped on the pile of our shoes and fell against the wall. He slid down it, leaving a red stripe on the old flowered wallpaper. He sat among the shoes, staring at his hands. The rifle muzzle was still in his left. He looked astonished to find it there and let it drop from his fingers. Greenbow glanced up and for a moment I thought he was looking at me, but his gaze was high and to the left.

  “Who the fuck are you?” A tidal wave of blood flowed over his bottom teeth. Then he sank back into the wall and became still.

  I looked up to my left. Ernest stood there. I recognized him instantly in his well-tailored white linen suit and straw hat. He held his ivory pipe in one hand and stared at Greenbow with a wolf-like predatory look. That look said it all. Greenbow never stood a chance. Ernest would’ve gotten him no matter what. I almost felt sorry for Greenbow. Then Ernest looked down at me and his expression changed to one of pride and boundless love, a love that would never leave me. He placed a finger on the side of my jaw, turned my head towards the kitchen, and I saw Shasta standing in the doorway.

  She was pressed against the right side of the door frame with one hand on her chest and the other pressed on the wall beside the door. Her mouth was open in horror. Eyes fixed on Jason Greenbow’s limp body.

  We stayed like that for several seconds. Shasta looked at Greenbow and I looked at her. The wind died down and the curtains became still, hanging limp and lifeless. I looked back at where Ernest had been, but he’d disappeared. Only the smell of his pipe lingered.

  Miss Pritchett’s crying punctuated the silence until something fell from the ceiling and landed on the wood floor with a wet splat. We jumped at the sound and looked up at the ceiling. A sprayed oval of blood and tissue decorated it.

  “Oh, God,” said Shasta. She let go of the wall and walked with shaking steps into the living room. She stretched her arms to me. “Come here.”

  I ran into her arms. My face squashed into her chest. I’d be a breast man for the rest of my life.

  “Puppy, where’s the phone?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t find it.” I kept my face pressed into her faux suede bikini top.

  “My cell’s in the truck.” She peeled me off her, and started to lead me out of the living room. Her eyes never left Greenbow.

  I stopped her. “I can’t leave Miss Pritchett.”

  Miss Pritchett was crying harder than ever. Her body rocked to and fro like I’d seen some homeless people do on the street. The ones that were past begging for money.

  “Okay.” Shasta dropped my hand and went out the kitchen door.

  I sat down next to Miss Pritchett and watched Greenbow. It was terrifying to look at him, but I couldn’t turn away. I kept imagining he moved or was breathing. What if he wasn’t dead? Could he get up and do something? I told myself over and over again that Greenbow wasn’t doing anything with that big hole in him, but still the thoughts came. And worse, bits of tissue continued to fall off the ceiling. They were tiny, but the house was so quiet, each one hitting the hardwood floor shook me.

  Shasta came back to the kitchen door. “The police are coming.”

  I nodded. There didn’t seem to be anything to say. I couldn’t explain what happened. I wasn’t even sure what happened.

  Shasta came in, balancing each footstep carefully. I could tell she didn’t want to come in, but I couldn’t make myself say that she didn’t have to. I wasn’t okay by myself. Miss Pritchett didn’t really count for company and I’d go nuts if I had to keep hearing that stuff fall off the ceiling without someone beside me. Shasta sat down on the other side of Miss Pritchett and put an arm around her bowed shoulders. Miss Pritchett fell over into Shasta’s lap, sobbing and clutching at Shasta’s thin brown leg.

  “He wasn’t invited.” Shasta looked at me with clear eyes, strong and unafraid, but with a touch of anger lighting her features. “He deserved it.”

  Miss Pritchett cried harder at Shasta’s words.

  “I did stuff to him, to them. I made him mad,” I said.

  “Maybe, but I’m still glad,” she said.

  “What did he do to you?”

  Shasta hesitated, but then she forced the words out. “He asked me out and when I said no, he started following me around. Kept showing up at the farm, saying he was into cheese-making. Adrian told him to keep away from me, but he didn’t care. He kept leaving nasty notes on the truck and calling me all the time, threatening me. Then he caught me alone ou
tside the vet.” She swallowed. “I don’t know what would’ve happened if the doc hadn’t come out.”

  “That’s how you got the bruises?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was that the only time?”

  “No.”

  I wanted to ask why she didn’t call the police, but it was probably the same reason Miss Pritchett didn’t, whatever that was.

  Shasta must’ve known what I was thinking because she said, “There’s only one way to stop a guy like that.” Shasta glanced over at Greenbow’s body.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “My stepdad was like that, so I know,” she said, softly.

  “Is he dead, too?”

  “Very.”

  “Was it an accident?”

  “No. My mother killed him.”

  Shasta’s eyes told me everything. So many things, I couldn’t comprehend them, a vast knowledge, a way of life that before Miss Pritchett I couldn’t have begun to understand. The knowledge tainted me, changed me into someone I wasn’t quite ready to be. I’d never see the world, men or women the same. Everybody wasn’t like my family. I wished I didn’t know that. The sound of sirens echoed in the distance and Shasta broke our connection.

  “The cops are here,” she said. “Do you want to go out and meet them?”

  “No. Let’s just stay here.”

  So we did. We stayed on the sofa when they put Miss Pritchett on a stretcher, during our interviews, and while the police took measurements of the blood spatter and talked about how they’d always thought it’d be Miss Pritchett’s body they’d be documenting. Turns out all those sick days she took, all the car accidents she had were all Greenbow.

  We sat on the sofa when we told our families what happened and while Dr. Jobs stitched up my cheek. We watched when the coroner carted Jason Greenbow’s body away and while Mom, Aunt Calla, and Shasta’s Aunt Marion cleaned up the blood and tissue. Someone suggested a service for doing the dirty work, but Mom said she wouldn’t pay someone when she could do it for free.

  I finally fell asleep, and when I woke up I found Mom in Shasta’s place next to me. She smiled when she saw me wake and ran her fingers lightly over my cheek like the wind used to do. Then she stood up and went to the fireplace. She picked up the old tortoiseshell lighter and a fresh stick of incense. Then she stuck it in Ernest’s elephant’s trunk and lit it. A thin line of smoke rose from the trunk. “Just a reminder that we’re here.”

  “I think he knows,” I said.

  “A thank-you then. You can never say it too many times.”

  She never asked if I saw Ernest and we rarely spoke about the event, except after one of my nightmares, the ones where I dreamt about what didn’t happen. Mom was right. That was the real nightmare, the horror that could’ve happened but didn’t.

  I lay back, watching the smoke coil itself into a letter E and, for the first time, I wondered if the E was for Ernest or for me. I still don’t know.

  Mom sat next to me. She took my chin and forced me to look at the spot where Greenbow died. I could hardly stand it and fought against her.

  “No,” she said. “This place belongs to us, not to him. He brought his strength here, his choice, and now it belongs to you. Take it.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “You asked Ernest to take care of Miss Pritchett and he did. This is part of the deal. You don’t have to be like Greenbow anymore than I had to be like Axelrod. Banish Greenbow forever and take what Ernest has offered you.”

  Then she started singing. It started with a whisper and grew stronger, flooding me with the power of her words. “Blue on black. Tears on a river.”

  I stopped fighting. Greenbow was disappearing. I could feel him going and I sang, “Whisper on a scream. It doesn’t change a thing. Doesn’t bring you back.”

  We finished the song and I lay back on the sofa, light-headed and tingly. Mom put her arm around me and we watched the smoke dance around, making all kinds of images. I think I caught the words from our song mixed up in there, along with violets and calla lilies.

  Mom whispered, “If you wish to send a gift, now’s the time.”

  The smoke swirled and formed an ornate letter S.

  “Good choice,” said Mom.

  I sang the only song that came to mind. I started softly like Mom, allowing the words to build inside of me until their power was almost beyond my control. I sang for Shasta, for her pain, and for her future. “I’ll never let you down. Even if I could.”

  Mom joined in after the first time through and the room went crystal clear like some kind of crazy high def. I could see every molecule in the air, every particle, every bit of everything. I wanted Shasta to feel what I was feeling. I wanted to fill her up, but I didn’t know if it was working. How can you tell about the gifts you give to others? It’s a wait-and-see kind of thing.

  We sang it over and over again until I fell asleep with the smell of Ernest’s thank-you swirling around me.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  I SAT IN the back of Luke and Caleb’s car, waiting for the rest of The Pack to get it together. I thought they might try to be on time for the first day of school, but no such luck. I would’ve elected to get there early, if someone had given me the option, but, of course, they didn’t. Nobody seemed to care that it was a huge day. Unfortunately, my stitches were out and my bruises healed, but I still had a wicked scar across my cheek to show off.

  Luke and Caleb finally came out of their house, pushing and tripping each other. They fought over the keys as they walked across the overgrown lawn, but smiled all the while. They stopped to pat Slick and Sydney as the cats lolled in the sun and yawned. Slick sat up and tried to bite at the black stitches adorning his side from Greenbow kicking him. The vet had put a white plastic cone around his neck. Slick should’ve had his stitches out at the same time I did, but he wouldn’t stop biting them.

  “All right,” said Luke when they reached the car. “But I get it after school to drive Sophie to the mall.”

  “Deal.” Caleb slid into the driver’s seat and turned to me. “Not a little anxious, are you?”

  I shrugged.

  Luke reached across Caleb and honked the horn. “Christ. Girls are always late. What are they doing?”

  “We’re all late. What were you doing?” I crossed my arms and sat back. “The assembly probably already started.”

  “Whatever, dude. You just wanted to get there early and show off your scar,” said Caleb.

  Luke grinned at us. “You guys suck. You both had stitches this summer and you thought I’d be Scar Head. Ha! Shows what you know.”

  “It doesn’t count. You broke a chair over my head,” said Caleb.

  “You chained me to the bed.” Luke stuck his finger in Caleb’s face.

  “You almost got yourself killed.”

  “You got stitches.”

  “You already said that, dumbass,” said Caleb.

  “Shut up!”

  “You shut up!”

  “Give me the keys!” Luke lunged for the keys and soon the twins were rolling around in the front seat, screaming at each other.

  “Stop. No biting!” one of them yelled. I couldn’t tell which.

  “Stop trying to get the keys then.”

  “Screw you!”

  I grabbed my backpack and got out of the car. “Idiots.” I went back into my house. “Mom. Can you drive us to school?”

  “What happened to Luke and Caleb?” she asked, looking up from her computer.

  “They’re fighting over the keys again.”

  “Christ. Give me a minute.” Then she looked down at herself. “Oh, the hell with it. I’ll go in this. Get your sisters.”

  “Mom, you can’t. You’re in your nightie.”

  “Nobody cares, Puppy. Come on. You’re going to be late.”

  “Yeah. That’ll be a shock.”

  “You want me to take you or not?”

  “Just don’t get out of the car,” I said. “Okay?”r />
  Mom rolled her eyes at me like trying to keep your half-naked Mother under wraps was the most ridiculous thing in the world. She pushed back from her desk and I saw what was on her screen. City Ordinances livestock. The word llama was highlighted.

  “What’s that about?” I asked.

  Mom sighed. “Well, I was going to surprise you, but I might as well tell you now. I’m going to get the ordinance on llamas changed for you.”

  “Why would I care about some llama ordinance?”

  “Because of Beatrice, of course.”

  “Beatrice?” I swear to God I got a chill. “What about her?”

  “We have to change it or she can’t be with you in town.” Mom smiled, positively beaming.

  “Be with me? I don’t want her to be with me. Are you crazy?”

  “Surely you realize how special she is.”

  “Especially horrible.”

  “You talk to her, don’t you?”

  “I tell her I hate her and I hope she dies.”

  “You can’t do that. She could’ve died protecting you.” Mom stood up and put her hands on my shoulders. “You have a special bond like me and Slick. You’re lucky. I didn’t find Slick until I was nineteen.”

  “Slick cannot be twenty-three.”

  “Years don’t matter. He’s not going to age. He’ll be with me for the rest of my life. Just like Beatrice will be with you.”

  “No freaking way. I’m not getting stuck with Beatrice.”

  “You don’t get to choose.”

  “What would Dad say? What does he think about the never-dying cat? And all the weird stuff that goes on?”

  “He knows what we are.”

  Mom didn’t say the W word and neither did I. How do you say that out loud? Plus, I was a dude. That didn’t fit.