The Whispering Hollows

by Lisa Unger

  “Are you going to Google her?” she asked Eloise.

  Finley popped a pod into the new coffeepot her mother had sent—a sleek, space-age-looking thing. Eloise was mortified by the machine. It was ridiculously loud and what a waste, those spent aluminum pods! Finley dutifully put the used pods into a bag that was then shipped off to a recycling facility. Still, what about the plastic envelope? Was that, too, recycled? Eloise kept her mouth shut about it, though. People didn’t love their habits scrutinized, and Finley was an adult now.

  “No,” said Eloise. “I think I’ll go see Joy at The Hollows Historical Society. She’s good at this sort of thing.”

  Finley nodded her agreement. Technology had made Eloise’s job so much easier. When her abilities had turned on in the mid-eighties, she hadn’t had the internet. She had the television—but of course, there were no twenty-four-hour national and international cable news channels like there were now. She’d had microfiche at the library, access to other area newspapers with that. And Agatha Cross, her mentor and a celebrity psychic, had created a kind of network between people who did what they did. Information was shared—crackly late-night phone calls, hushed meetings in highway diners, parking garage assignations—and it was very effective. There was even a sketch artist who sometimes helped put faces out into The Net (as Agatha called it back then, nothing if not prescient). And there was a selection of law enforcement folks around the country who were believers.

  All of it worked, somehow, if often too slowly. But today it was as simple as typing a few words on a keyboard. Lightning fast. Tremendously effective. But it was far lonelier. The idea of “the psychic” had grown mainstream, had been popularized in television and film. But Eloise had been feeling more isolated than ever until Finley came.

  Finley made breakfast in the mornings, though Eloise had never asked it of her. But on her first morning there, Finley had simply come down to the kitchen and made eggs, and had been doing it every morning since. Eloise thought about telling her to stop. Eloise would have enjoyed taking care of Finley—making her meals, doing her laundry, tidying her room. Eloise missed that about having a family, the caretaking. Even though it seemed very old-fashioned now, a lost art, there was something deeply satisfying about making a home, and seeing that the people you loved were cared for in the simplest but most important ways: a clean and orderly house, good, simply prepared food on the table, laundered clothes folded and ready to be put away.

  But Finley, too, had the urge to take care. Eloise knew that it made her feel grown up to do things in the house, to do things for Eloise. So Eloise let her. Eloise had to admit that as nice as it was to take care of someone, it was also nice to have someone taking care of her.

  Eloise did, however, pack Finley’s lunch while she was in the shower: a chicken salad sandwich (leftovers from the one they’d roasted last night), a shiny Granny Smith apple, some baby carrots, a crinkly bag of kettle chips (her granddaughter’s favorite), and a piece of homemade banana bread. She’d also started doing that on the first day and had done it every day since.

  “Wow,” said Finley that first morning. Her face was bright with gratitude.

  “Thanks, Mimi!”

  Oh, the girl was a bright light, a beacon in this dark world. It wasn’t just her prettiness or her sweetness. Though she was both of those things, petite with jet hair (which was currently highlighted with hot pink), with eyes so dark and glittery that it was like looking into a night sky alive with stars. She laughed like a fairy, was generous to a fault, had a heart that bled for the world’s lost and broken.

  But it was her wattage, the sheer volume of the energy that Finley gave off, that really scared the bejeezus out of Eloise. It was mesmerizing and powerfully attractive. And Finley was totally unaware of it.

  “She’s nowhere near taking the seat of her own power,” Agatha had said after first meeting Finley. “She doesn’t even know what she is.”

  There had been problems in Seattle; Eloise was not clear on what those problems were. She hadn’t pried, though she thought there might be a boy and that it had something to do with him. Whatever the case, they were problems that Amanda and her ex-husband Philip couldn’t handle. Hence, Finley’s decision to come to The Hollows and live with Eloise. Amanda was livid at both of them. But Eloise sensed that she was also relieved. Amanda was way out of her league with Finley, and smart enough to know it.

  Finley came back downstairs and loaded up her backpack, including her packed lunch (which earned Eloise a big kiss and hug). Eloise walked her out and kept her mouth firmly pressed shut as the girl donned her helmet and climbed onto her motorcycle.

  Amanda did not want Finley to have the Harley-Davidson Sportster that Phil had purchased for their daughter. The battle was multilayered and epic, spanning the distance between Seattle and The Hollows. But in the end, Finley had her way. Or was it Phil that had his? She’s her father’s daughter, Amanda had said bitterly. Eloise tried to stay out of it.

  Eloise touched the glinting handlebars. The machine was shiny and tough. Eloise herself had never been on a motorcycle, and she had to admit that she was curious. But she was far too old for something like that now, wasn’t she?

  “Have you spoken to your mother?” Eloise asked.

  “I talked to her last night,” said Finley, with a roll of her eyes.

  “She’s worried about you,” said Eloise. “Riding this thing.”

  “She’s worried about not having control over me.” The features on Finley’s face turned to granite when she talked about Amanda. It made Eloise sad. “She can’t stand it when she’s not in control.”

  There was some truth to that. Amanda was anxious and controlling. She had been that way since the accident. The morning that Alfie and Emily died had changed Amanda and Eloise both—and not for the better. Finley was too young to understand how desperately you wanted to control the whole world when you were a parent.

  She was also too young to understand how her father was manipulating her with presents. He’d always done that, cast himself as the fun one, the easy one, the one to give money and gifts even when it destabilized. Amanda who was the stickler, the rule maker, the limit setter, came off looking like the bad guy. So now Finley and Phil were pals; Amanda was persona non grata. Somehow Alfie, Finley’s younger brother, had managed to avoid drama with everyone.

  “If they weren’t fighting about this, they’d be fighting about something else,” Finley said, intuiting the direction of Eloise thoughts. “It’s the only way they can connect. Fighting or fucking. They still sleep together, you know, Mimi.”

  Eloise had felt a prim shock at that piece of news—and at her granddaughter’s foul language.

  “Finley, Mimi did not need to know that. And please watch your language around your poor old grandmother.”

  “Sorry.” Just the shade of a smile; someone else probably wouldn’t have seen it.

  The girl wasn’t sorry. She enjoyed shocking people; it gave her a little thrill of amusement. Finley knew too much, saw too much. And she shared her father’s irreverence for the things most people took seriously—like physical safety and marital vows. Philip thought that the world was a big cosmic joke. Eloise hoped that he wouldn’t find himself the brunt of that joke at some point. And she prayed that it wouldn’t be at Finley’s or Amanda’s expense.

  “Drive carefully,” said Eloise.

  Eloise had a lump of unease in her throat. If ever there was a dare to the physical world, it was a motorcycle. It was like asking to get torn limb from limb. Finley was too far removed from the car accident that took the lives of her aunt and her grandfather. She didn’t get it. But Eloise would never, ever forget the sound, the impact of metal on metal, on concrete, on delicate flesh. She smiled at her granddaughter, tried not to look anxious and worried.

  “I’m always careful,” said Finley solemnly. “I promise.”

 
Eloise knew that her granddaughter was. But she also knew that it wasn’t nearly enough. Eloise took comfort in the understanding that Finley had a lot of work to do. She was needed. Maybe that would keep her safe for a time. And maybe on some level, Finley knew that, too. That she could push the edges, peer over into the darkness, and get yanked back by some divine bungee cord.

  Finley gunned the engine on the Harley and gave her grandmother a winning smile, then snapped the visor down. Eloise watched helplessly as her slender granddaughter raced away down the same road where Alfie and Emily had died nearly thirty years ago. There was no point in dwelling on it. She went back inside.

  The woman in the black dress was gone.

  • • •

  Eloise drove her Prius to see Joy Martin. The Hollows Historical Society made its home in a red house off the main square in an area residents referred to as SoHo, or South Hollows. Any initial resistance to the ongoing gentrification in the town had been weak and short lived. The downtown area had gone from rundown and depressed, populated by just-holding-on mom-and-pop businesses to thriving boutiques and coffee shops, a yoga studio, a bookstore, even a gelateria.

  Great tracts of land had been sold off by the children of old Hollows families, and sprawling homes and McMansion developments now characterized the outer regions of the town. The developers had promised a gold rush of money and an influx of wealthy folks, and they had not lied. Even the downturn didn’t really hurt The Hollows. The money came early in the new millennium and it had stayed.

  The Hollows Historical Society, once housed in a single back room of the old library, now had its own home—a beautifully restored three-story Victorian.

  “Suddenly it’s very hip to be historic,” Joy Martin, president of the HHS, had recently quipped. “These city people love to think they’ve bought a little bit of Americana.”

  Today, they sat at the long wooden study table in the big library, poring over records and old photos, looking for the woman in the black dress or something that would give Eloise that little jolt, some piece of knowledge she didn’t have before.

  “Just like the old days,” said Joy. “Before you could Google every question in your head and get an answer—right or not.”

  Eloise didn’t share Joy’s disdain for the internet. The way Eloise saw it, it was a mirror of the spiritual universe, every person connected by glittering threads to every other person. The wisdom of the ages was stored in a collective consciousness, a kind of psychic databank. If you talked to enough people, you might find the answers you were seeking. The internet was just a physical manifestation of what had always been there. Access was merely more readily available now.

  Meanwhile, it would be hard to imagine a more modern-looking woman than Joy Martin—slim and polished, tapping at her BlackBerry with manicured thumbs. She had close-cropped blonde hair, a slim figure forever clung to by a pencil skirt. Her delicate feet were pushed into impossibly high heels, her slightly sheer blouse revealed a lacy camisole. Though Joy couldn’t be much younger than Eloise, she made Eloise feel like a frump. Eloise heard Amanda’s chiding voice, You could at least wear makeup, Mom.

  “Do you have any more information about her?” asked Joy. “Any defining features? Maybe a piece of jewelry?”

  Eloise closed her eyes and tried to bring the woman into her mind. She saw the grim, plain face clearly. No moles or birthmarks, no adornments. Was there anything?

  “No,” said Eloise. “Not yet.”

  Joy wasn’t a Listener. But she was a Sensitive, as Agatha called it, someone with a strong intuitive understanding of people and events. She was a valuable resource as a research librarian with an in-depth knowledge of Hollows history. She seemed to have an uncanny way of guiding researchers in the right direction without much to go on. And Eloise had called upon her many times. But this visit looked like it was going to be a bust.

  Then Eloise came across a drawing she recognized and stopped to look at it. It featured three women in long black dresses, their hair drawn wild as flames, their eyes as dark and menacing as a tiger’s. One wore a wicked smile, the other a grim expression of menace. The third had her mouth open in a scream, her hands clawing at the neck of her dress.

  “The Three Sisters,” said Joy.

  Eloise was well acquainted with the women and their sad stories. Sarah, Abigail, and Patience Good were Eloise’s distant relatives on her mother’s side.

  “The dresses, black, high-necked,” said Eloise. “Not dissimilar to the one the woman in my house is wearing.”

  Joy sat up and looked more closely, then offered a shrug. “It’s hard to say from a drawing. But that would be fairly typical garb for a woman of a certain class. She might have been a seamstress or even a teacher or governess in the late sixteen hundreds.”

  There was a connection between the woman in the black dress and the Good sisters. Eloise could feel that much, but nothing else.

  “Can I check this out of the library?” Eloise said.

  “The drawing?” asked Joy. “It’s just a copy of the original that’s locked in the safe where I keep some of the primary sources. Keep it.”

  Joy stood and rolled her neck, as if working out a kink. “In fact, you can have the original drawing if you want. It belongs to you anyway.”

  Eloise thought about that for a moment. “I’ll take it,” she said. “I’ll make sure it gets back to the safe when I’m done with it.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Joy. “I should have given it to you back when we did our research into your family history.”

  Eloise shook her head, lifted a palm. “I wouldn’t have wanted it then.”

  Joy offered a solemn nod, pressed her lips together, and gave Eloise a hearty pat on the shoulder. Eloise had shed a lot of tears in The Hollows Historical Society library. She had a feeling she would shed a few more before they were done. Joy disappeared into the back and returned with a manila envelope.

  Eloise hesitated a moment. The Three Sisters emitted a powerful, dark energy. Did she want to bring them home? But she finally took the envelope from Joy’s outstretched hand.

  “You okay?” asked Joy.

  “Oh, yes,” said Eloise. She forced a smile. “I’m fine.”

  • • •

  When Eloise got home, there was a dead girl on her porch. She was wet, hair spread about her in a halo of filthy ringlets. She wore a lacy pink bra and panties; her skin was moonstone blue.

  Eloise stood over her. Even in hideous death, the girl was a beauty. In Eloise’s experience, physical beauty was quite rare. Many people were attractive enough—maybe pretty or stylish or with a nice figure. Maybe even some combination of all of those things. But there was a particular brand of beauty: the union of a perfectly symmetrical face, a lithe, thin, and toned body, a certain kind of flowing hair.

  It was the ideal toward which every woman strove, and almost none ever attained. God given, never earned by any means, beauty could be a powerful asset. But to possess it was a dangerous thing. Women despised you; men wanted to own you. A certain type of man raged when you asserted ownership of yourself. True beauty was a prize. And everyone wanted it.

  Eloise sat on the porch and watched the girl for a while.

  “I’m sorry for what happened to you,” Eloise said.

  Sometimes that was all they wanted, just someone to acknowledge their pain. But Eloise suspected that there was more to this visit. The girl looked very young, maybe in her early twenties. She was petite, wore a silver chain from which hung the broken half of a heart. The girl’s toes were painted a sparkly hot pink, pedicured.

  Eloise closed her eyes. The wind chimes sang their delicate, discordant little song. The Whispers were loud today. There was a mood.

  She was thinking that when she saw local private detective Jones Cooper pull up in front of her house in his maroon SUV. She felt the usual mingling of pleasure a
nd fatigue she always experienced prior to a visit with Jones. They had a long history together. Longer than he even knew.

  He climbed out of the vehicle and walked, in that way he had, up her drive. It was a confident amble, manly but somehow humble. He had his hands in the pockets of his barn jacket. He was looking well, thinner. Though he hadn’t mentioned it, Eloise knew that he’d been struggling to lose weight since his doctor told him that he was too big, that with his high blood pressure it was a health concern. He had to lose thirty pounds. He’d lost ten, and Eloise figured he’d probably lose about five more. But that was it. The man liked to eat. Junk food was the only drug he had, and he wasn’t going to be able to give it up completely.

  “How are you?” she called.

  She looked down, but the girl was gone.

  “I’m okay,” he said, sounding mildly surprised about it. For Jones Cooper, that was a rave.

  He came to stand before the three steps that led up to her porch. He toed the loose piece of wood there. He was like that. Always inspecting, figuring out what needed to be fixed. Then he fixed it. That was his way.

  “Got a minute?” he asked.

  She stood and opened the door for them; it creaked on its hinges. Jones inspected it. She half expected him to pull an oiling can out of his pocket. She walked inside and he followed.

  “Are you here about the girl?” she asked, casting him a glance in the hallway mirror as they passed.

  He squinted at her, turned up the corners of his mouth. They had a strange relationship. She made him very uncomfortable. He didn’t want to believe in her. But he did.

  “I’m here about a girl,” he said.

  They had worked together on and off since Ray had gone traveling to spend time with his kids, to make amends, build the relationships he hadn’t when they were small. Ray hadn’t closed down the business that he and Eloise shared, but they were taking a hiatus. He was checking messages and emails, keeping in touch with Eloise. They were making referrals to other people who did the kind of work they did. It was a good thing; he was happy. But she missed him. He wanted her to come meet him in San Francisco, see how she liked it out there. She was thinking about it. Finley had taught them how to Skype, which they did a couple of times a week. She dreamed about him a lot.