The Whispering Hollows

by Lisa Unger

  The sun was setting, then it was dark. And Eloise just sat there, remembering, dozing a little. Then she was aware of the sound of a baby crying, a great mournful wail of pain or anger.

  Babies have all the same emotions that adults do, but they have no language to express their big feelings. So they let out a great noise onto the world, releasing all their power. People come running when a baby cries; not so much when we get older. We keep it in.

  Eloise got up quickly and ran upstairs to the bathroom where it seemed to originate. Ella, Miriam’s baby, was lying on the floor, naked and soaking wet, wailing. The Burning Girl stood in the corner, silent and stoic. And Eloise knew. She could see the whole hideous scene before her.

  “Oh, God,” said Eloise, dropping to her knees. “Oh, no.”

  She bowed down, her forehead on the ground. Why? Why was this happening? The wash of shame and regret she felt when she knew she’d failed someone was overwhelming.

  There was nothing you could have done to stop it, the voice told her. It’s been happening over and over for a hundred years. More.

  “That’s bullshit!” Eloise yelled.

  The voice was never angry, never distraught, never afraid. She hated it. Agatha didn’t believe in the voice in Eloise’s head. Agatha herself didn’t have one. She thought it was a trick of Eloise’s subconscious. Her brain struggling to tell a story that Eloise could understand.

  “The brain is a very great mystery,” Agatha had said. “And it does so seek to help us get by.”

  We all live and die in our time. We all have our design and our reason. Don’t judge.

  Eloise pulled herself to her feet, overcome by grief and anger. She must have gotten up too fast because she found herself wobbling and then taking a fall. She knocked her forehead hard against the corner of the sink. She felt the warm gush of blood as she lay on the floor. She remembered what Agatha had to say

  Don’t let them take it all from you, Eloise. Don’t let them have everything.

  • • •

  It was ten that night when she came back to herself, which meant that she had lain unconscious on the bathroom floor for several hours. That was probably not a good thing. She did have some instinct for self-preservation. So she called Ray, and then, still reeling with sadness and anger, she drove herself (probably not advisably) to the emergency room.

  There were questions. Because there was another gash on her forehead from the last fall in the bathtub. She had neglected to get that one stitched up, and it didn’t look very good though it had healed. Was someone hurting her? Was she afraid of anyone? Would she submit to further testing to address the falling issue, which might indicate an underlying condition?

  The ER nurse was young and very competent and didn’t seem to know who Eloise was, which was always a good thing. Eloise answered the questions, declined further testing. Agatha told Eloise that her own mentor had taken to wearing a helmet around the house, he’d hit his head so many times. Eloise would consider it—if it didn’t seem so silly.

  She could still hear the baby crying as the nurse stitched up the gash on her head. She started crying herself, which she didn’t do much anymore. Why hadn’t she done more to help?

  “Am I hurting you?” the nurse asked. She looked at Eloise with such sincere concern that Eloise had to look away. “I can get more topical anesthetic.”

  “No,” said Eloise. “I’m okay.”

  “Let me get some more,” said the nurse. “No reason to suffer if you don’t have to.”

  Good point.

  • • •

  Ray was waiting for her when she got out.

  “I went to the house,” he said. “I thought you were going to wait for me.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “No, Eloise,” he said, a little annoyed. “But common sense dictates that you wouldn’t drive yourself to the hospital after being unconscious for a couple of hours.”

  She offered a shrug, conceding that he was probably right. She did have a concussion, a minor one. And four stitches in the cut over her eyebrow.

  “That doesn’t look too bad,” he said. He gingerly touched the fresh bandage and then gave her a hug.

  But it did look bad. She looked like someone was granny bashing her. She was hideous—older than her years, too thin, battered. She needed to make some changes in her life. Maybe Agatha would let her take a swim.

  Ray ushered her out to the lot with one possessive hand on her back, the other on her arm as if she were a crippled old lady. She had the urge to squirm away from him. But she leaned on him instead; she needed him in that moment.

  It was almost like a dream when she saw the ambulance pull up. No lights. No sirens. She heard, just faintly through the thick walls, a desperate shrieking from inside the vehicle. Then, in his big pickup truck, Nick pulled up from behind, looking pale and shattered. Mercifully, he didn’t see Eloise as Ray shuttled her away.

  “Aw, hell,” Ray said. “I heard it on the scanner. A baby—SIDS.”

  She nearly buckled in his arms, but he held on tight.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “You’re okay.”

  Ray forced her to leave her car in the lot and drove her home. On the way, she told him about The Burning Girl, about tonight. He listened in the silent, careful way he had. When she was done, he didn’t say anything for a minute. She could feel him processing, trying to understand, to make connections.

  “I want to take care of you, Eloise,” said Ray finally.

  Ray and Eloise had an on-again, off-again thing for a while. Mainly, it was about sex. Well, not sex really, but closeness, physical contact. Now that he and his wife were living apart, Eloise had figured that he would want more. She wasn’t sure that she had anything to give.

  She put a hand on his arm. “You do take care of me,” she said.

  She liked the look of him. His big shoulders, his full head of hair, those dark eyes that glittered with intelligence and mischief. He had powerful hands, a good face with strong, defined features. There was just one problem with Ray. He wasn’t Alfie. Eloise still belonged to her husband. He’d have wanted her to move on, to find happiness. She knew that. She just couldn’t.

  “As much as you let me,” he said.

  “It’s enough,” she said. It sounded like she was shutting him down. And maybe she was. Still, he brought her home and got her tucked into bed. Then he headed out again to get her soup from the twenty-four-hour diner just outside of town—because that’s what she wanted to eat and there wasn’t anything in the house. He was a good man. She could tell that he was dying to talk to her about Stephanie Schaffer, but he was keeping whatever he’d found to himself for now.

  • • •

  Ray had been gone only a few minutes when the phone rang. She picked up quickly because how odd for the phone to ring after midnight. Usually, she’d let the voice mail get it and screen the call. But she had a feeling she shouldn’t do that. When she picked up, she heard her daughter’s voice.

  “Mom,” said Amanda. A mother knows when her child is on the verge of tears. Amanda had always been a stoic, holding it all in. Emily was the emotionally flamboyant one, always screaming and slamming doors. Only once had Amanda gone through a “rage phase”—and she’d been entitled to it after losing her sister and father. After that passed, she’d grown more reserved than ever. But Eloise could hear it, that slight wobble.

  “Amanda,” said Eloise. “What’s wrong?”

  Her daughter released a shuddering breath. Eloise reached for it. What was it? Had something happened to one of her grandchildren? She sat up, gripped the phone. There was nothing. Surely, she’d have felt it before now.

  “Finley asked me to call you,” said Amanda. “She woke up from a nightmare, crying. She never does that. She said you hit your head, Mom. Is that true?”

  Finley’s give
n name was Emily. (Amanda had named her after her lost sister, much to Eloise’s dismay.) But when Finley was very little she started insisting that she be called by her middle name. No one understood why, but she was so intractable on the point that everyone complied. Amanda had named her younger son Alfred, after her father. And Amanda called him Alfie. Eloise could never understand why people insisted on naming the living after the dead.

  “It’s true,” Eloise said reluctantly. “I just got back from the hospital.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, dear,” she said. “Really.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?” Amanda asked. She heard all the notes of fear and guilt in her daughter’s voice. Because you live all the way across the country, Eloise thought. Because you’ve made it clear that you want limited contact. She didn’t say those things.

  “Because I’m fine.”

  Eloise could hear Finley’s mellifluous, sweet voice in the background. “I want to talk to Mimi.”

  There was some muffled shuffling.

  Then, “Mimi, are you okay? I saw you fall. You hit your head on the table.”

  Finley was a very wise eight-year-old, a superstar reader, stellar student. Eloise badly wanted this not to be happening, and a very base part of her thought about trying to talk the girl out of it.

  She could say something like: “We all have dreams, they don’t always mean anything. This was just a coincidence.” But that would be a lie. The truth was that, at Agatha’s behest, Eloise had done some research into her genealogy. Whatever it was, it came through her mother’s side. It wasn’t an accident. It was in her DNA. The history was an ugly one, and Eloise had not shared it with Amanda.

  “Well, Finley,” Eloise said, “it’s so sweet of you to worry about your Mimi, but I’m okay.”

  “Mom’s upset,” said Finley. There was a note of prepubescent disdain, however slight. The girl was blonde like her mother, with big dark eyes. She was tiny and pale, but as powerful as a stick of dynamite, and funny, and wild. “She doesn’t like it. But it’s not our fault.”

  Eloise smiled. Children were so much more accepting of their circumstances than adults. Adults railed and raged, tried to change, control, and deny. Children had no idea how things were supposed to be. They only knew how things were. They worked with that.

  “Is this the first time something like this dream has happened?” Eloise asked.

  “Maybe,” Finley said. She sighed. “I don’t know. Sometimes I see things.”

  Eloise put her head in her hands. She was glad Finley wasn’t there to see her face, which must have registered her fear, her sadness. She wouldn’t have wished this on anyone.

  “What kind of things?”

  “People,” she said. “Dreams that come in the daytime. Dreams that aren’t about me. But I don’t fall down like you do.”

  Oh, Lord, thought Eloise.

  “Finley, listen to Mimi,” she said. “Try not to pay too much attention to the dreams just yet, okay? They’re not bad or wrong. Just try to ignore them for now.”

  “I do,” she said. She was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing. She was used to it, apparently. “I can’t remember them when they’re over. Except for the one about you.”

  “You saw me fall?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I was in the bathroom with you.”

  She seemed like she was going to say more, but then she didn’t. Eloise heard her yawn. It was late.

  “We’ll have to talk about this more,” said Eloise, trying to sound light, unconcerned. “Maybe I’ll come visit you.”

  “Okay,” Finley said. She sounded tired now.

  “Go to bed,” said Eloise. “It’s a school night.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But Mimi?”

  “Yes, kitten?”

  “Stay away from The Burning Girl.”

  Eloise’s whole body tingled. “I will.”

  Eloise talked to Amanda, who was apoplectic with worry and sadness. How can this be happening? This is a nightmare? Oh, God, Mom, what should I do? But there was none of the blame Eloise expected. Of course, Eloise was doing enough blaming for both of them. What was she carrying in her DNA? How much harm would it bring to her family? What would it mean for Finley, starting so young? She really needed to talk to Agatha. Eloise would call her in the morning. And she had to make plans to go out to see her daughter.

  • • •

  Ray spent the night. And in the morning, Eloise smelled burning toast and heard him crashing around the kitchen. He always tried to make breakfast, which was sweet. But the food he prepared was terrible; he had absolutely no experience in the kitchen. Eloise even had to teach him how to run the dishwasher.

  She was groggy, her head pounding. Thoughts of Finley and Ella and The Burning Girl were on an endless loop in her worried mind.

  What had she been supposed to do? How had she failed? She had failed before, been wrong before, been unable to determine the reason for her visions. She had often tried to help people who didn’t want to be helped. She was getting better at letting go, but it wasn’t easy. It’s just like being a doctor, Agatha had offered once. Try as you might, you can’t save all your patients. You’re going to lose some of them. We’re none of us gods.

  Eloise forced herself out of bed. As soon as she was moving, she felt lighter—if not better. Something heavy had been lifted. She didn’t know what. She went to the bathroom and regarded her battered face.

  Sometimes there’s nothing to do but observe. We can’t always control the outcome.

  “Shut up,” she told the voice. Maybe it was just her own deep subconscious. Whatever it was, she was sick to death of hearing it. “Just shut up.”

  Eloise took a shower in her bathroom that badly needed updating. Then she chose a white blouse and a pair of jeans from a closet of clothes that consisted only of items in white, gray, or denim. Why were there no colors in her closet? she found herself wondering. She used to wear colors, didn’t she?

  Eloise had money, and a lot of it. There had been a life insurance payout when Alfie died fourteen years ago, and she’d banked it. They’d had a decent amount saved before that. They were never spenders. Since Alfie’s death, the onset of the visions, and the work that had resulted from them, there had been consulting fees and rewards, big ones. When she partnered with Ray in his private detective business, she agreed to do so only when he agreed to handle all client interface, billing, accounting, et cetera.

  “You can just pay me what you think you owe me at the end of each case,” she’d told him.

  He’d stared at her a minute with the look he got, that cop’s look, like what’s your angle?

  “You’re not a very good businesswoman, are you?” he said finally.

  “I’m not,” she admitted. “And it’s good that you know that going in.”

  “Aren’t you worried that I’m going to take advantage of you, not pay you what you’re owed? How about you get a lawyer and we draw up a contract?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m not worried about that at all. You’re the last person I’m worried about, Ray Muldune. And I don’t want a lawyer.”

  He shrugged. “If you’re sure,” he said. They shook on it.

  “Can your accountant do my taxes, too?” she asked him. “As part of our arrangement.”

  He laughed and gave his head a little shake. “Sure, Eloise,” he said. “Why not?”

  The last time Eloise visited Ray’s accountant, who was also her accountant now, she thought he was joking when he told her how much money she had. It was split up in various stocks, bonds, mutual funds, CDs (all things they had discussed and she promptly forgot). Ray had established a 401(k) and pension plan for their business. They got salaries and profit sharing. He did everything right, totally aboveboard, just as she knew he would. And the money that had
amassed in her various accounts was significant.

  “Your expenses are very low,” her accountant told her. He was young, younger than Amanda. He had a sweet, round face, and round spectacles to match, a flop of blonde hair. He had a tattoo on his arm—a mermaid on a jetty—and wore a tee-shirt to their meeting. Was that how people dressed for business these days? Ray seemed to like him, though. “You’re living far below your means.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” she’d asked.

  “No,” he said. “But your house is paid off. Your daughter’s education is paid for. And you have more than enough for whichever school your grandchildren choose, which I know is your wish.”

  He looked at her a little shyly, the way that respectful young people look when they are trying to give older people advice. “I’m just saying that you can afford to live a little.”

  Live a little. His words came back to her now as she looked at the drab, old clothes in her closet. It was a sad collection of frumpy, worn items. The only new things in there were clothes Amanda sent her.

  “Oh my God, Mom! What are you wearing?” she’d asked when Eloise had picked her up from the airport last visit.

  “What?” She was just wearing a denim empire waist dress and a pair of flats.

  “You’re swimming in that thing,” Amanda said, offering her a hug. “You look like you’re wearing a Muumuu. We’re going shopping.”

  “Okay,” Eloise said.

  Amanda, on the other hand, looked like a movie star. She had highlighted her wheat hair. She was meticulously groomed—makeup, nails. She was a successful accountant. But her husband, Phillip, was a hedge fund manager, whatever that meant. They were wealthy—unhappy together now, but wealthy. Eloise didn’t mind Phil, but he was nothing special. One of those charming enough but vacant, entitled young men who thought the world owed them something. Maybe he’d grow up one day. Eloise wasn’t sure how long he and Amanda would be together. He wasn’t her “one.” Eloise knew that. Amanda hadn’t met the love of her life yet; but she would.