Shattered Silence

by Ron C. Nieto

  “You were scary there, Anna,” Alice said when we reached the parking lot. “Thanks for standing up for me like that.”

  “I learned from the best,” Anna said, throwing a wink at me.

  When I arrived home, much later, I was tired enough to drop dead on the spot. However, I only stared up at the ceiling for the best part of the following hour. My head hurt with want for sleep and my whole body felt heavy and drowsy, yet I couldn't close my eyes. Even the scenes from the action flick we had watched were blurred in my mind. All I could see were the school grounds that afternoon. Time and again, I saw Alice sitting on the floor, Anna going ballistic, and the cheerleader looking like the whole thing was happening to someone else. And Lena's smug look.

  I turned on my side and caught sight of a darker shadow lurking within the shadows below my desk. “What the hell is going on?” I asked aloud.

  The form directed luminescent green eyes my way and held his silence. The ungrateful fur ball didn't even think about coming over to comfort me.

  With a sigh, I sat up in bed, threw back the covers, and hit the bedside lamp, checking to make sure the door to my room was closed and the light wouldn't flood the house. Reaching under my bed, I pulled out a sheaf of papers that had grown thicker in the last couple of days. Now, added to the original pencil markings were a thousand red and blue notes and comments tacked to the margins. It'd take a new round of transcribing before anyone but me could really read those papers, but as of that day, the job was done. It had been my morning indulgence. Fifty-five pages contained all the bad stuff that had happened before Christmas—my pain, Alice's fear, my dad's panicked glances... Now that I was through with it, there was something more hidden in those notes. There was the soul, sanity and life of at least five people before me, possibly many times that number.

  I might've held the end page of a whole chapter in my hands, but deep in my gut, I felt the story continued. There were too many common points with what had happened to me and what had begun to happen to some of my classmates—to the most talented ones. And while the story of Beatrice's death had been uncovered, there were too many holes, too many questions that needed answering. How did she become a ghost in the first place? Had she been destroyed or did she still linger the world of the living? Without her lethal song, was she harmless, regardless of her fate? And why had she picked me, of all people?

  Meow. And my train of thought broke.

  “So now you want to talk,” I whispered with a smile, petting Sparrow's ears.

  The huge cat gave me a long, calculating stare and I could swear I saw his whiskers twitch. He lifted his front paw and batted away at the song, most pages already crumpled from his previous treatments, his eyes never leaving my face.

  I shrugged. “Guilty as charged. I knew you wouldn't be able to resist coming for this sooner or later... and you fell for it.”

  Sparrow's paw left the pages and slapped at my hand, not happy to have been tricked. However, it would've been undignified to leave, so he stayed sitting by my side. There was something comforting about his presence, no matter how Alice felt about him.

  “I could use a hint now, buddy,” I told him, keeping my voice quiet so as not to wake my father. “I know that something is going on, but I don't know what. It can't be this hell again, right? The song is harmless now.”

  Silence and an intense stare answered me. I started tapping a rhythm against my thigh, humming the cursed minuet that had begun as a love song for the dearly departed and turned into an instrument of death itself. Sparrow gave me an irate glare and puffed out his chest, making sure I understood his contempt and his profound dislike of the melody, but that was it. He didn't huff, didn't hiss, didn't bolt and didn't attack.

  Beatrice was gone. Yet... something in that picture-perfect ending seemed wrong. If only I could put my finger on what it was.

  “She hated Alice, you know?” I said. He gave me a blank look and I chuckled a little. “Well, more than she hated everyone else, I guess. I think it's because she saved me. I've been in love with her for so long that she was this... tether. I'd not be alive without her.” I stopped, waiting for any derisive noises coming from the cat—and that might say something about just how tired I was, or how used I had grown to his intelligence being more than feline—but he kept sitting there, listening.

  “That's what scares me the most,” I went on after a moment. “She's been in danger twice this week, boy. Part of me wonders if it hasn't been at least three times because I can't stop thinking that she was standing behind the wall where Perkins smashed his glass, and while that's a rotten attempt at hurting someone, it was also the first instance and perfection takes practice, you know? Call me paranoid, but the dots are there to connect, even if I can't see the final shape yet. Nothing should be related, not the incidents themselves, and not the incidents and Beatrice, but that damned ghost hated her and I'm... I'm fucking terrified.”

  Sparrow's ears perked at the swearword and, with deliberated movements, he moved to climb into my lap—messing the music sheets even further in the process and doing so with vindictive glee—and started to purr.

  “What can I do?”

  He didn't answer but didn't leave, either, and at some point later, his purring lulled me to an uneasy sleep.

  Chapter 9

  I checked the time on my cell for the third time since leaving my home that morning. At first, rushing out to Alice's with a solution had seemed like the perfect idea, but now I tried to will the minutes to go faster so the hours moved into parent-approved visit schedule.

  It was still early. I had been sitting on her front lawn for about ten minutes and was bound to start drawing attention, though. Plus, I had seen the kitchen window open and the smell of breakfast coming from her house was starting to dissipate.

  I rang her door and hoped I'd get either Alice herself of her mother.

  “Good Lord!” Her father gasped when he opened the door. His glasses were askew on his nose, but if he had not been completely awake a few moments before, he was then. “Good morning, Keith,” he said, trying to recover. “Isn't it a bit early? Alice hadn't told us you were coming out today.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Thorne. It's a bit of an impromptu visit,” I said, shifting the weight of my backpack across my shoulders. “I apologize for the timing, I know it's early, but there was some stuff I needed to talk to Alice about.”

  “School stuff?” he asked, stepping back and gesturing for me to get inside.

  “No, sir.”

  He gave me a once over, his eyes taking in the boots, worn jeans, black nails. By the time he got to the hair, he looked like he was in physical pain, but just when I began to wonder whether I was about to be kicked out, he motioned toward the stairs.

  “Alice is in her room. Go on up, say hello, decide if you want to come back down for coffee or something.”

  I debated whether to tell him I had no idea which one was Alice's room, but decided not to push my luck. The invitation already had cost him. It was better not to rub it in his face. With a smile and whispered thanks, I climbed the stairs to the second floor.

  It wasn't very bright. There were four doors I could see opening to a small corridor, two of them open. I decided to try with those before knocking anywhere else.

  The first door to the right was a bathroom. The light was off, but I could feel the steam and heat of a recent shower hitting my face when I peered in. The next door, a little farther and to the left, spilled light into the corridor and I saw a shadow move about.

  “Alice?” I called.

  There was a squeak and the door was yanked open. There she was, wearing sweat pants low on her hips and a red cotton tank. Her hair, still damp, framed her huge eyes and made her look younger, more fragile. She had to blink twice before recognition set in and a huge grin broke across her face.

  “What are you doing here?” she said, covering the distance between us in an instant and wrapping her arms around
my neck.

  I felt tempted to say I was coming home, because that was what it felt like, with the fresh smell of her skin before she applied any perfume or lotion enveloping me, and her lips brushing the shell of my ear with every word.

  “I wanted to talk to you about this week,” I said instead.

  “About the thing with my mom? It didn't bother you, did it?”

  “No, that part was great. I mean, it's an amazing opportunity and I'd not have expected anyone to bet on me like that...” I trailed off, realizing I'd forgotten about that appointment. “It's about what happened at school.”

  Her hand automatically flew to her cheek and her mouth made a small “oh.”

  “Can we not talk in the hallway?” I asked.

  “Sure, come in. We should leave the door open, though.”

  I nodded. It was almost better that way—it allowed me to keep an eye out in case her parents came to the room and we had to change topics quickly.

  “You think something is wrong again, right?” she said, plopping down on her bed, still unmade.

  “Yes.” I lowered the backpack carefully while looking around for a place to sit.

  “Me too,” she whispered, and it surprised me enough that I stood there, half crouching, the heavy backpack hanging from my limp fingers. I had been expecting to be called a lunatic and had been prepared to fight with her if it came down to it; I definitely hadn't counted on her sharing my conspiracy theories.

  “I decided it after yesterday,” she said with a smile when she saw my unbelieving look. “I'm not friends with Sara—that's the girl who hit me—but I've known her for a while and she wouldn't do something like that. She takes school really seriously and would never risk getting expelled or anything for starting a fight.”

  “And Wyatt wasn't the type to try to drive you into a wall either,” I said, finally finding a seat in her desk chair.

  “Us. He almost killed the both of us.” She bit her lip, the way she did when she was nervous, and I waited for her to continue. “There's ... there's something else, but you're going to think I'm crazy.”

  I barked out a dry laugh. “Try me,” I said. “You'd be amazed at what I can pass as normal.”

  “Sara was dancing. I think it was supposed to be a new routine, but the moves were kind of odd for a cheering team.”

  Cold fingers gripped the back of my neck and slithered down my back, freezing the blood in my veins. “The music?” I asked, already knowing and dreading the answer.

  “The rhythm. I thought I recognized the rhythm. But it's not possible, right?”

  She looked at me as if she hoped I would deny it, but I couldn't.

  “Okay,” I said, trying to keep calm. “It could be. And I have a safety plan to make sure nothing happens to you until we figure out exactly what is going on.”

  “To me? I hate to break this to you, but last time, she was trying to suck you dry.”

  “And who stopped her?”

  “You did. You finished the song.”

  “We both know I wouldn't have been able to do it alone. If you hadn't come when you did, the night would have gone over differently. And I think she's holding a grudge.”

  “I thought we got rid of her.”

  “So did I. There might be something more to this whole thing, but I think we were right assuming that she couldn't haunt us anymore. The damned song is safe now, that much I know. It can't kill anyone else.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Alice asked, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

  I swallowed. I hadn't told her because I knew it'd only upset her—just like it should upset me if I had a little bit more sense. “I've been transcribing it.”

  “Like... playing it again and again and putting it on paper?” she shrieked.

  “Not so loud!” I hushed her with a glance to the door and the hallway beyond.

  “How could you do that? Why would you want to listen to that thing even just once more?”

  “It's not that I want to hear it,” I tried to explain. “It's that... it was broken. I haven't just put it on paper. I've also fixed it: the tempo, the notes, the shredding parts. Putting it back the way it was meant to be before Beatrice corrupted and destroyed it.”

  Alice rubbed her eyes. “You could've told me.”

  “I didn't want to upset you.”

  “Because it's much better to get the scare of your life right when things start to go wrong instead of being in the know from the beginning, right?”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “It's okay.” She sighed. “You just did what you thought was best. It's not like I've been very open to talking about Beatrice since... since then, anyway. But I'd prefer to be there for this kind of stuff in the future.”

  I nodded. “I'd prefer to face it with you, too.”

  “Settled then. Our first argument ever,” she said with a small smirk that teased a laugh out of me. “So, moving on. What's your safety plan?” She pointed to the backpack cradled in my lap. “Something to do with that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it a grimoire of black magic or something? A purifying ritual?” she said, and by the nervous look in her eye, I understood that she was only half joking.

  “It's a... a way for you to know when Beatrice is around you, or when she's haunting someone close to you.”

  “Like a ghost detector?”

  “Exactly,” I said, opening the zipper to the backpack and reaching inside. “Say hello to your new ghost detector.”

  Alice jumped so high that suddenly she stood on her bed, her back cornered against the wall, and her trembling finger pointed at me. “No. Way!”

  Brr... Meow, said Sparrow, apparently no happier than her with the new arrangements.

  “Take him back! I can't keep him!”

  “I thought you two were getting along these days,” I said, eyeing the girl I loved and the twelve-pound cat hanging lazily from my grasp.

  She scurried off the bed. “We do. You just took me by surprise.”

  “So it's not a problem for him to stay.”

  “Of course it is!” she hissed. “How am I going to tell my parents that I just got a cat?”

  “Tell them that it's temporary.”

  “That won't work.”

  “Tell them it's mine, that we're doing some renovations or something at my house and that I need a place for the cat for just a couple of days. He won't make trouble.”

  Sparrow began to move his tail, tick-tocking the seconds we spent in silence staring at one another.

  “And this is supposed to help how?” Alice sighed, close to breaking.

  “Remember how the song gave him the creeps from the beginning?”

  “Because it was an awful song,” she said without any heat in her voice. She was staring at the cat, thinking about something. “Okay,” she said at last. “He can be... helpful, I'll give you that. But he doesn't like me.”

  I twisted Sparrow around to watch his iridescent green eyes, currently sporting an innocent expression as if saying “Who, me?”

  “It doesn't look like he's complaining to me,” I said, letting him down on the floor. The cat stretched and pondered whether he wanted to jump up into Alice's unmade bed or not. In the end, he settled regally on the throw rug at her feet, deeming the tangled sheets unfit.

  Tentatively, she reached down and scratched his ears. The purring only got louder.

  “I need to ask my parents,” she said quietly.

  “I understand. Tell them he'll be with you at all times and that he won't ruin their house.”

  She stood and headed to the door. Immediately, Sparrow stood up too and followed on her heels. I saw the way her step became a bit more rigid, but decided not to comment. “Come on,” she threw over her shoulder. “You've to vouch for your kitten.”

  We made our way down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Mr. and Mrs. Thorne were sharing their morning in companionable sile
nce. Lara was reading the newspaper and quietly informing her husband of the latest news, and he stopped surfing on his tablet long enough to discuss each piece with her. They looked like a happy couple.

  “Mom, Dad,” Alice said. “Keith came this morning to ask for a favor.”

  Mr. Thorne paled a bit. Lara smiled and said, “What can we help you with, Keith?”

  Alice stood to the side, having dumped the convincing job on me without a second thought. There was a small vindictive smile in her lips.

  “Could you please allow Alice to keep my cat for a couple of days?” I said, trying to sound natural.

  Her parents´ eyes dropped to the floor, where they met Sparrow's unflinching gaze.

  “That is your... cat?” asked her dad.

  “Yeah, his name's Sparrow. He's a bit big but very well behaved, and he'd be with Alice all the time so I'm sure he'd cause no trouble at home.”

  “Why do you need him to stay over?” Lara asked with a frown.

  “We're doing some paint jobs at home,” I lied as smoothly as I could. Alice snickered at my efforts. “I don't want him to get sick from the fumes.”

  “That's understandable... But Alice doesn't like pets much so...”

  “No, Sparrow and I are great friends, Mom,” she said, stepping forward. Leaning down, she picked him up and held him from under his arms. “See? Isn't he cute?” she added with a smile that almost became a grunt due to the effort of holding the cat's weight at arm's length.

  It was my turn to snicker.

  “Well, then I guess he can stay,” Lara said, smiling without much conviction.

  “But you're responsible for him, Alice,” her dad added. “I don't want him running around the house and wreaking havoc, and you'll have to feed him and clean him yourself.”