The Whispering Hollows

by Lisa Unger

  What’s wrong with me? Eloise thought. She couldn’t stay in the moment at all. It was always like this now, her thoughts drifting this way and that. Her present tense barely existed. It seemed like all she did was remember or slip into visions. Maybe one day, she’d float away altogether.

  • • •

  Eloise went downstairs. There was black smoke coming from the toaster, and two charred pieces popped out as Eloise entered the kitchen.

  “Dammit,” said Ray, trying to scrape the eggs off the pan.

  But he was good at coffee. The aroma was strong and rich. Oliver the cat wove himself through her legs as she poured them each a cup, then tossed the toast, and put in two more slices.

  “So, Stephanie Schaffer,” he said. “Are you up to talking about it?”

  She nodded, welcoming the distraction. They were seated and eating the eggs he had prepared, which were actually not too bad.

  “You found her?” she asked.

  “Not exactly,” he said, with food in his mouth. Through the open window over the sink, she could hear the wind chimes singing.

  “You told me to find the people who really knew her, right? So I got ahold of the woman Tim said was Stephanie’s best friend. He’d always suspected that she knew more than she let on.”

  He kept chewing.

  “After that, I went to see her mother,” he went on. “And, I paid her doctor another visit.”

  He took a bent and coffee-stained photo out of his pocket. Stephanie Schaffer, a plain girl with mousy hair, busty. She is squinting at the camera, smiling. She’s sad, Eloise thought. She doesn’t want her picture taken, wherever it was. It looked like there might be a lake behind her, some trees.

  “You know what I figured out?” asked Ray.

  “Hmm?” said Eloise.

  “Tim Schaffer? He’s an asshole,” said Ray. “He’s pushy and controlling. He calls me constantly, has been dropping by the office daily. What am I paying you for? What leads are you following?”

  Eloise took a sip of her coffee. This didn’t surprise her.

  “Guess what?” Ray went on. Eloise knew that she was not supposed to answer. “Her best friend was also not that nice to be around. While I was there—and I was only there for like half an hour—she referred to Stephanie as ‘weak,’ ‘a little overweight,’ and at one point she said that Stephanie was ‘not that bright.’ ‘If she left,’ the girl says, ‘she shouldn’t have. She was lucky to do as well as Tim.’”

  Eloise remembered that feeling she had of not being able to breathe.

  “Let me guess,” said Eloise. “Mom wasn’t exactly a charmer either?”

  Ray blew out a breath. “That was my mother, I’d have run away, too. Long ago. It was three in the afternoon, and she was already half in the bag. Nasty old lady, not a pleasant word out of her mouth about her kid or anyone.”

  Eloise ate some more eggs, thinking about Stephanie. After she’d taken the scarf off, she hadn’t gotten anything else.

  “So one last time, I go to see the doctor,” Ray said. “I waited in the parking lot for her to leave the office, surprised her as she was getting into her car.”

  “Sounds like a good way to get maced,” said Eloise.

  Ray ignored her. “‘Let me ask you,’ I said. ‘What was the first thing Stephanie Schaffer said to you when you told her she was pregnant?’ ”

  Oliver hopped into Eloise’s lap, made himself comfortable, and started to purr.

  “She gave me the usual runaround—can’t talk to you, doctor-patient confidentiality, blah, blah. Then I asked her, ‘Did she seem happy with the news?’ I told her the truth. I told the doctor that I wanted to know how hard I should work to find Stephanie. That seemed to get to her. Struck a nerve.”

  The doctor had told Ray, that no, Stephanie hadn’t seemed happy. That she’d cried. But that was all she said, though Ray suspected the doctor knew much more.

  “Stephanie was one of those seeker types, you know what I mean?” Ray kept on. “She had all these self-help books around, little sayings on plaques about change, and positivity, and following your heart. In the drawer by her bed, there were like a hundred pictures of beaches, palm trees, people surfing, boating. They were wrapped up in a rubber band along with a little postcard that said: ‘We must be willing to let go of the life we planned, so as to have the life that’s waiting for us.’ ”

  Eloise closed her eyes. Yes, that was it. Florida or maybe Hawaii, someplace where it was warm all the time, someplace where the sun shined more than it didn’t. Stephanie Schaffer loved the feel of water on her skin, the smell of the ocean. Stephanie wanted a better life for her daughter—it was a girl—than the one she’d wound up with. And she was going to find it before it was too late for both of them. Eloise smiled.

  Tell him to let her go.

  “It sounds like you’re thinking about dropping the case,” said Eloise. “I’m sure Mr. Schaffer will be disappointed, but you’ve hit a dead end. And there’s nothing to do now but let it go.”

  He watched her as he chewed. He’d finished his meal and now he was polishing off hers.

  “We won’t get paid,” he said. “He’s that kind of guy.”

  “Whatever,” she said. “We never cared about that, did we?”

  “No,” he said. He pushed her plate away, trying not to eat any more. “I guess not.”

  She found herself staring at him, his shirt dusted with flour, his brow creased with concern. Maybe it was the golden morning light, or perhaps it just the feeling that some weight had been lifted. But she felt like she was seeing him for the first time—his warm, dark stare, his broad chest. She reached for him, and he took his hand in hers, their eyes locking. She felt her cheeks flush. Then he was pulling her up from her seat, he turned in his seat and guided her into his lap. She let herself be led.

  “I want to take care of you,” he said, wrapping a strong arm around her waist. “Let me.”

  Her body resisted him. She had always held herself back from him just a little, even when they made love. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, give over all of herself. How could she betray Alfie by surrendering everything to another?

  She put her hand on his chest, the gentlest push away, even as her other arm folded around his neck.

  “Let me,” he whispered.

  Something in her heart loosened and released, a balloon drifting up into the sky. Ray pressed his mouth against hers, warm and sweet, and she breathed him in. Unexpectedly, with the kitchen a terrible mess around them and Oliver mewing at her feet, Eloise felt herself finally, after so many years, let go.

  • • •

  Letting go. Why was it the hardest thing? It sounded so easy, as if all you had to do was open your palms and step away. And yet we cling, don’t we? To ideas of ourselves, hope, how things should be, how we wish they were. What we should be able to do, what we want, what we were supposed to want.

  The Burning Girl kept holding on to Eloise. That afternoon, she came back, and this time she told Eloise her name, which was so odd. They almost never did that. But this one? She wanted to be known. Eloise told the girl that she must go away. Eloise was sorry, but she couldn’t help. A few days of raging fires ensued, the carpets and the drapes again. On the final day, the girl herself, engulfed in flames, wailing.

  It was quite a display, with heat and smoke and all of it. But Eloise had no choice but to ignore it. She went about her business—cleaning, grocery shopping. She even got herself some new clothes.

  The girl was trying to suck her in, wanted more than Eloise could give. It wasn’t help she wanted; rage and sorrow never want help. They want an audience. There was nothing for Eloise to do, not yet. But then the fires stopped, as if the tantrum, ignored, had fizzled out. And The Burning Girl was gone again. There was more to come, Eloise was quite certain.

  Meanwhile, Eloise c
ouldn’t let go of Miriam and her family, kept thinking about them. She attended Ella’s service, which was absolutely heartbreaking. The official cause of death was SIDS. But The Whispers told Eloise a different story. And, now, Miriam was in a mental hospital. What more should Eloise have done for them?

  You can only help the people who want to be helped.

  Another lesson that was so hard to learn.

  Let it go, the voice told her as she drove home from the church. The image of Nick sitting stoically beside his young son stayed with her.

  • • •

  Back at home, she dressed to go work in her garden. She needed the solace of her hands in the dirt, the smell of greenery in her nose, even the light sweat of mild exertion. But she was interrupted by a knock on her front door.

  She moved through the house carefully. She didn’t answer the door unless she knew who was there. She didn’t answer the phone either. Ray was her agent, more or less. All requests went through him.

  The knocking again—insistent, pushy. She knew who it was before she recognized the man she saw through the peephole. Tim Schaffer. He had been stalking Ray, inundating him with angry phone calls, insisting that he was hiding something. Ray wasn’t, not really. He’d simply dropped the case. He no longer wanted to find Stephanie Schaffer for her creepy husband.

  Eloise went back to the kitchen and dialed Ray, who said he was on his way. Then she went back and opened the door for Mr. Schaffer.

  The sadness came off of him in waves. Eloise had to step back, but she kept her hand on the door. She did not invite him in.

  “Where is she, Ms. Montgomery?” She could see that he was driving himself mad, had a kind of wired, haunted look about him. “Where did she go? Is she alive?”

  “I don’t know where she is, Tim,” said Eloise gently. “I believe she’s alive. But I have no way of being certain.”

  “But you’re a psychic, right?” he said. It was a little whiny. She felt bad for him; he didn’t have any friends. “You know things. Or are you just a fraud like everyone else?”

  She smiled. People were ignorant, some more than others. “I don’t know everything.”

  His hands were raw and red: psoriasis. It was the disease of the perfectionist, the person who feared that unless he was perfect, he would be rejected. He had a patch of it on his face, on his arm. How much should she tell him?

  She was surprised to see him tearing up.

  “It’s time to let her go now, Tim,” said Eloise. She put on her gentle Agatha voice. Agatha called it her Obi-Wan Kenobi voice. “You’ve done enough.”

  “Enough?” he said. His voice went shrill. He sank into the chair on her porch and put his head in his hands. “I’ve been looking for five years. Something’s happened to my wife. And I can’t help her.”

  Now he was just sobbing. Eloise considered herself an evolved person, but there was something very uncomfortable about watching a grown man weep. Though she’d certainly seen it enough times, she never got used to it. She sighed and sat down in the chair beside his.

  “The hardest thing to accept is that we can’t always help the people we love,” she said. She put her hand on his arm, but he drew it away quickly. He was the kind of person who didn’t want to be comforted. When he looked up from his hands, she saw that same petulant rage that she saw in The Burning Girl.

  “Who are you to tell me that?” he asked. He stood, and Eloise was relieved to see Ray pulling into the driveway. “Handing out that kind of pop advice. You should be ashamed.”

  “It’s time to let Stephanie go,” she said. “Past time. The trail is cold.”

  “I’ll never give up on her,” he said. Really, he was more yelling. “If she’s out there, I’ll find her.”

  Eloise hoped that he was wrong. Ray walked up the path.

  “Tim,” he said, “I refunded your money, gave you all the information I have found. There’s nothing else to discuss. If you don’t leave, I’m going to have to call the police.”

  “Call the police?” he said. “On me? You two are the criminals. You promise to help people who no one else has been able to help. But you don’t help anyone.”

  He raged all the way back to his car, through her flower bed, across the yard. Goddamn con artists, charlatans, posers. Then he slammed the door and sped off up the dirt road.

  “How’d he find you?” Ray wondered aloud.

  “He’s resourceful,” she said. “Unfortunately.”

  “Hmm,” said Ray. She could feel his tension. People like Tim Schaffer—you never could tell what they’d do next. But Eloise suspected they’d seen the last of him. She hoped Stephanie had, too.

  “I’m getting sick of this job,” said Ray. He heaved a heavy sigh and dropped his arm around her shoulders.

  “Me, too,” said Eloise.

  Then she looked up at Ray, and for some reason they both started to laugh.

  • • •

  Letting go. If you let go, did you then fall to your death? Did you simply drift away? Or was it the other things that floated away, leaving you alone onshore? Weren’t you supposed to hold on to some things—to your loved ones, your sanity, the life you had built for yourself? Maybe that was true wisdom, knowing when to hold on and when to let go.

  Ray insisted on making lunch, so Eloise went to work in the garden. The Whispers were loud today, a million voices telling their million stories. Eloise tried not to listen as she pulled weeds, popped off dead heads, watered, and pruned.

  Since their midnight conversation, Amanda and Finley were very much on Eloise’s mind. Even though they’d talked a number of times since then, Eloise still hadn’t told Amanda what she’d learned in her research about their family history. There was no reason to frighten her. Amanda had shown none of the early signs that Eloise now understood from her own childhood—the strange nightmares, the knowledge of other people, seeing things that other people didn’t see. But Finley was a prodigy, according to Agatha. When they came to visit, Eloise would have to make them aware of everything. She had tried to protect Amanda. And Amanda had tried to protect Finley. The sad fact was, you didn’t get to protect your children. Not forever. Not from everything. Eloise had an especially hard time letting go of wishing that she could.

  When Ray called to say that lunch was ready, Eloise rose and took off her gloves. She surveyed her work and was pleased. She wanted the garden to be perfect for Finley and Alfie when they came. Amanda hadn’t called to tell her they were coming next month, but Eloise woke up knowing that it was so. Amanda would have other big news, too. Eloise wasn’t quite sure what it was. But Eloise tingled with happy anticipation at the thought of seeing her family. She took a deep breath. The air smelled like new beginnings.

  That afternoon, Agatha invited Eloise and Ray over for a swim.

  “I sense,” said her friend, “that you two need to do something just for the fun of it. And guess what? I do, too.”

  Eloise gratefully accepted. And the cool blue water was every bit as wonderful as she’d imagined it.

  THE THREE SISTERS

  The woman in the black dress had, apparently, moved in. As she drifted from room to room, her long skirt swishing about her ankles, her black lace-up shoes shuffling, all she did was stare at Eloise Montgomery. Eloise’s visitors usually didn’t stare. They were generally in their own worlds, wrapped up in whatever circumstance they were enduring. Or maybe she wasn’t staring at Eloise, precisely. Maybe she was staring at something that Eloise couldn’t yet see. It was hard to know these things.

  There was something familiar about her, something around the eyes. Her salt-and-pepper hair was pulled back tightly into a braided bun. And she wore a deep frown. There was a heaviness to her energy, as if she were carrying an enormous burden. Eloise felt tired when the woman was around, bone tired.

  “What’s she doing here?” Finley asked, enter
ing the kitchen with an arm full of textbooks. Most of her classmates were using e-readers. But Finley was old-school; she wanted books to hold and write in, and flag with Post-its. She let them fall on the table with a thump. “She’s been around awhile.”

  Eloise still couldn’t get over her surprise that Finley could occasionally see what Eloise could see.

  Eloise’s twenty-year-old granddaughter had also, apparently, moved in—much to Eloise’s daughter Amanda’s very great displeasure. Finley was attending Sacred Heart College, a small private university just on the outskirts of The Hollows. Amanda had worked tirelessly to keep Finley away from The Hollows. (At best, it’s a social and cultural void. At worst, it’s a hell mouth.) Amanda had also tried to keep her distance from Eloise’s “situation.” (It’s not your fault, Mom. But it’s toxic for everyone around you. You must see that.)

  “I’m not sure,” said Eloise.

  “She looks familiar,” said Finley. “Energetically speaking. She feels known to me. Do you know what I mean?”

  Eloise smiled. She knew exactly what her granddaughter meant.

  “Do you have class today?” Eloise asked.

  Finley nodded, walked over to the refrigerator. She’d been with Eloise only a few months. But it felt as if Finley had always been around. The house was happy; there was the energy of a family again. Eloise didn’t realize how much she hated living alone until Finley had arrived. Not that she had been living alone, exactly. She heard the woman in the black dress march down the hall.

  “She’s angry,” said Finley. She’d cocked her ear toward the sound. “She’s got an axe to grind.”

  Finley was a pre-med student, planning to go on for her doctorate in psychiatry. An interesting choice of profession for a psychic medium, if ever there was one. How Finley could concentrate on her studies was beyond Eloise. But the girl was more native to their “situation” than Eloise was; that was clear. What was still painful and hard for Eloise seemed to come easily to her young granddaughter. Finley took it in stride, didn’t seem put out in the least by the woman in the black dress. The girl clanged about the kitchen, making breakfast for the two of them.