An insect lands on my arm and I experience a brief flare of pain as it stings me. I shake it off, and my gaze shifts from the boy’s face. For the first time I notice the dark cloud surrounding us like millions of grains of pepper. A swarm. Bloodthirsty, incensed. It grows louder and louder, a hungry hum. No way to escape.
“This isn’t real,” I say, turning my focus back to the boy. Before I can ask him questions of my own, attempt to understand the strangeness of all this, the boy’s eyes turn red. Not just pink from tears, but a violent, ruby red. His pupils disappear and his lip curls in a snarl. “Lying,” he hisses. His fingers bite into me. Not him, my instincts whisper.
His body quivers and stretches. Those eyes switch back and forth between brown, red, brown, red. Monster, boy. I look up at him. “Who are you?”
The words echo: Are you … are you … Time stops.
And then, just as quickly as it began, the changes retract, swift as claws. The violent swarm dissipates, the sky brightens to the happy blue, and the powerful creature is a simple boy again. Sitting against the tree once more with the book back in his hands, he turns a page as if it’s the most fascinating text he’s ever encountered. As if none of it happened.
I take a step toward him, prepared to demand everything and anything.
I wake up.
Seven
“Elizabeth?”
It’s Thursday morning. English class. Lost in thought, I lift my head to meet Mrs. Farmer’s gaze. “You’ve been called down to the office. Someone wants to talk to you,” the teacher says. She doesn’t offer specifics, but we both know that the school counselor is the one waiting for me. My bruises need to be addressed, no matter what the stories say the cause of them are.
I nod, gathering my things as quickly as I can. I feel Joshua staring at me. When I pass her, Sophia sticks her foot out in an attempt to trip me. I sidestep her neatly. She scowls. There are more dark smudges beneath her eyes. Morgan keeping her up again?
I push the door open with my back. Kids in the class study my face anew, probably coming up with fresh theories. Avoiding Joshua’s gaze—he’s too perceptive for his own good—I exit the room as fast as I can.
My footsteps echo in the empty hall. This won’t be the first time I’ve been to see Sally Morrison, the school counselor. She doesn’t believe the gossip and she never accepts my explanations, which consist of various accounts of clumsiness. This doesn’t happen often, truthfully, but it occurs often enough that she’s gotten more direct.
“Hi, Elizabeth,” she greets me when I appear in her office doorway. The main office behind me is busy, the secretary talking loudly on the phone, the fax machine spitting out papers in the corner. “You can shut it,” Sally tells me, pointing at the door with her pen. As I move to comply, I notice that she’s added yet another plant to her shelves. That makes eight now.
“So what’s the story this time?” Sally asks without preamble. No more small talk during our meetings, then. I sit down, waiting for that creak that always happens when I rest my full weight on the chair; we’ve developed a routine.
I run through my options before answering. Sally has no power unless I give it to her; she can’t make any calls or get involved in my life unless I give her information she can use. Information I have no intention of giving.
“I was milking our cow. She kicked me in the face. She gets touchy like that sometimes.” I shrug, as if to say, What can you do?
Sally sighs, tapping her pen over and over. Her features are too strong to be considered pretty, with her square chin and thin lips, but she seems to try to make up for this in style. As her pen continues to tap, tap, tap I study her silk blouse, silver necklace, black slacks.
“Okay, Elizabeth,” she says, returning my attention to the conversation. “We both know this game. We’ve been playing it for a couple of years now. And by now you should know that all I want is to help you.”
Games. Her words make me think of the Emotions. And with the thought of them come thoughts of my nothingness, of my paintings, of my dreams. Sally waits for me to respond, and I try to empty my mind; I’m not usually so easily distracted. I force myself to the task at hand and give her a fixed smile that will hopefully confuse her. “I know how this looks, but honestly, I really am just that clumsy and stupid.”
“You’re not stupid,” the counselor says automatically, brushing back mousy, chin-length hair. Emotions appear behind her: Frustration and Worry. They don’t linger. “But I do think you’re keeping something from me. Elizabeth, if you’re afraid, I can help. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Are you sure you don’t have anything to tell me?”
From the expression in her eyes, I know she really does mean what she says. In a way, Sally reminds me of Maggie, of Joshua; they all look at me and see more than there is. They all care, no matter what their instincts probably whisper. I smile at her, as if I’m amused by all of this. “Really, I’m doing fine. Thanks for asking.”
She’s frowning, but she lets me go reluctantly. She has to. No one can be helped if they don’t want it.
This time Fear doesn’t catch me by surprise. He approaches from the west, quick as a shooting star—I feel the wall of nothingness stir, hear the cows’ sounds of unease begin. I sit in the loft of the barn, my hands lying limply in my lap, staring at one of the paintings. My attention keeps going to the boy, and the last dream replays over and over again in my head: those words, the red eyes, the hungry insects.
There are just a few minutes of sunset left. The weakening light leaks into the loft, warming my skin. I close my eyes.
“You never did explain the newspaper to me,” I say.
Fear sits down beside me, his dark coat billowing around us, sending cool air flowing in all directions. I shiver, keeping my eyes on the brush strokes. Fear reaches out and brushes my hair over my shoulder. His finger touches my neck in doing so, and where any other person would scream, I only look at him. He pushes images into my mind that might drive someone else insane. Blood. Rape. Glinting knives and torture devices lying on a table, then a moment later being delved deep into flesh. Even more, which I only observe, a detached spectator.
“You’ve lived a long life,” I say. “Some might say too long.”
“And others may say too short,” he counters, pulling away. “I am what I am.”
“Do you ever get tired of it?” I ask, because I wonder if anyone is really capable of change. Or are we only lying to ourselves, believing in something different, something more? Perhaps change is equivalent to believing in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy.
Fear scoffs at the question, stretching out his long legs before him. “What a strange idea—getting tired of instilling terror in humanity when it’s what I exist to do.”
“Your brother said something along the same lines, I think.” I’m not paying attention to the words coming out of my mouth; my mind wanders, contemplating the dreams again. Never once has the girl or the boy said a name. And those red eyes … my instincts still want to point at someone. Or something. For some reason, the image of that menacing shadow chooses to push itself at me at that moment. The one in the painting I’m looking at now, standing over the girl. Just watching.
“You met Courage?” Fear’s voice is sharp and it brings me back to reality. His white-blond hair is wild, unpredictable. The beautiful layers are alive with light. He can be a pleasure to look at, and I understand how some other humans love to experience his essence. We can sense beauty, even if we can’t see it.
It’s colder now that the sun is slipping away. Pulling my knees close to me and clasping my arms around them, I look down at the floor as I answer. “Yes. He was visiting someone in my class.”
“And what did you think of my counterpart?” Bitterness twists Fear’s voice, his agitation making the hay around our feet stir. Some cows below sense his unrest and begin to bay uneasily.
“Calm, Fear,” I say, resting my hand on his arm. He stills at the touch, looking at my hand with a combina
tion of bewilderment and wonderment.
“No mortal has ever touched me so willingly,” he murmurs. The silken quality to the words causes my wall of nothingness to quiver again. Instinct takes hold, but just as I start to pull away, Fear moves in a blur, snatching hold of me. His fingers interlace with mine, and his power wars with my emptiness for the umpteenth time. But on some deeper level, I do sense a connection to Fear. Not to his essence, of course … to something else. Something far more substantial. But I can’t name it.
As the quiet wraps around us, I bend my head toward Fear’s and examine the touch. Our hands are odd together—my skin is dark from hours working beneath the sun, and his is pale, smooth, perfect. Not human.
At the thought, I pull away. “I’m just not like most mortals.” I smile blandly at Fear.
Surprisingly enough, he doesn’t react. “I’ve been watching you your entire life,” he says instead, directing his attention to the beams in the ceiling. “The first time we met you were … four? Maybe five. That scum swung his fist at your mom, and my touch didn’t affect you. You were just standing in a corner watching it all. You looked right at me. You were wise enough even at that time not to speak out loud. You’re wrong when you say I’m here because I’m bored. I’ve been looking for answers since that day.”
The screen door to the house slams in the distance. Probably Tim coming in from the fields. I turn my head to look at Fear. He doesn’t notice; he’s staring at the painting straight across from us. His brow is furrowed. He’ll never quit trying to figure me out, not even for a second.
“How did you entertain yourself before you found me?” I ask him absently, just filling an empty space with words.
Fear goes against my expectations by actually answering. And it’s strange, because his tone is similar to mine: detached, blank, inconsequential. Like he doesn’t want to care. “Before you, there was another girl,” he murmurs. He shifts, restless, and I see a pain in his eyes that he can’t hide. He’s never spoken of this before, and I speculate the reasons behind this. “Not like you, of course.” He doesn’t smirk or grin. “She was … she felt everything. She danced with so much abandon that everyone would stop just to watch. She was impassioned by just about anything. Her family, her home.” He falters, very unlike his normal behavior.
“And you loved her,” I say simply. Why does the insight cause my wall to twinge? Even more bizarre is that I ignore the usual impulses and refrain from exploring this.
There’s a pause. Then Fear swallows. “Yes, I did. I loved her.”
Nothing more. I don’t bother asking where she is now, since it’s obvious the girl is dead. I find myself trying to calculate what marked her and made her stand out to Fear. We have nothing in common; he said so himself. Do I look like her? Was she surrounded by mystery as well?
I don’t voice any of the questions, because Fear’s posture is stiff and I know he’s reached his limit for truths tonight. But maybe I don’t know him as well as I thought.
We fall silent again, each buried in our own pasts and unsatisfactory circumstances. It’s not like the silence yesterday with Charles, a stillness where we didn’t speak because there was no need to say anything. No, this silence with Fear is laden with a thousand words, meanings, hints, inclinations.
The sun is gone entirely, sunken down into the other side of the world. Somehow it always happens without my noticing. The only source of light now—the moon is smothered by clouds—is an old, flickering light bulb dangling from the ceiling. As one, Fear and I look at it.
What a peculiar pair we must make, I think. I see it from the outside: surrounded by strange paintings, a seemingly ordinary human girl sits, face devoid of all expression, looking as if she belongs among the wood and the hay. Beside her, lounging against the wall with so many expressions on his face that you could never hope to catch and define just one, is a lovely, changeless being, whose very name evokes shivers down the spine. He looks so out of place in the barn that anyone else would keep blinking, thinking he would vanish in another instant.
“You never answered my question,” I say when the hush is broken by a cow moaning in its stall below.
Fear shifts his position a bit, enough so that his shoulder is pressed to mine. He can’t resist. For once I stay where I am. Maybe it’ll make him cooperate. “What question?” he inquires. I raise my brows at him. Fear smiles, knowing that he hasn’t fooled me. “I answered you as best I could.” He runs his finger down my cheek before I can evade the touch.
“No, you didn’t. I asked you if you ever get tired of it all, and you sidestepped it pretty skillfully.”
“But it is my only purpose,” he points out logically.
A breeze has picked up strength, slipping through the cracks in the walls. It stirs my hair, cooling my skin. The air and Fear’s closeness make me shiver again. He notices. In a blur he’s crossed the room, picked up a horse blanket I brought up for cold nights like this, and draped it around my shoulders. I don’t thank him; showing gratitude would be unwise.
“You’re tired,” Fear says suddenly, sounding surprised.
I tighten the blanket, huddling into its warmth. A screaming flash hits me, an image of the boy’s shrinking pupils. I pull the blanket tighter. “I haven’t slept well, is all.”
Fear hesitates. “I … ” The hay begins to tremble again as he, again, becomes edgy. He plunges. “I could help you sleep.”
He means he could use his power. But his offer isn’t what’s out of the ordinary—it’s the motive behind it. In the strength of his uncertainty, his carefully constructed expression of arrogance has weakened, melting away to vulnerability, and I see that he isn’t thinking of himself or personal gain. His only thought is of me.
I don’t comment on my discovery. “No. I’ll manage on my own.”
Fear’s expression closes, and he nods. The distance he’s put between us is slight but palpable. “Perhaps I should leave you to your rest, then.” Deliberately formal.
I watch him stand, feeling the pierce of shovels inside me, digging the hole of inhumanity deeper, deeper. “Okay.”
The air around him practically crackles. I’ve hurt Fear’s ego by rejecting his offer of help.
“You really do feel nothing,” he says to me, voice colder than a Wisconsin blizzard. “I thought you had to feel something, even just a little. Sometimes when I touched you, or watched you, I thought I saw a glimmer of humanity.”
“I’ve never lied to you, Fear,” I murmur. “I’m good at pretending, is all.”
“Apparently.” His eyes burn. I remain seated on the bale of hay, considering my next words. Suddenly Mom’s voice slices through the tense air, distracting Fear.
“Elizabeth, there’s a phone call for you!”
She sounds as if she doesn’t expect a response—really, she doesn’t want one—but I raise my voice. “Coming.”
“Who’s calling you?” Fear demands as I brush past him to the loft’s stairs. He vanishes and reappears in front of me, blocking my way. “You have no friends.”
I walk around him, the stairs squeaking beneath my feet. “That’s not true. Maggie is my friend.”
“Not for much longer,” he retorts, following me. His presence disturbs the cows once more; they start to bawl frantically. Fear’s coat flares around his feet as he stalks me to the house.
Choosing not to acknowledge this, I lower my voice as I tell him, “You should go. My mom isn’t feeling well right now.” And I don’t want her feeling any more uncomfortable around me than she already does—if I can’t live here, I’ll have nowhere else. Fear doesn’t reply, and when I turn, I see he’s gone. A lingering sense of hurt fills the air.
As I enter the kitchen Mom does her best to appear preoccupied, avoiding me. The phone lies on a table and the cord dangles across the floor from its base on the wall. I step over it and pick the phone up. “Hello?”
“Hi, Elizabeth. It’s … it’s Joshua.”
“Hello.” I notice Mo
m listening; besides Maggie, no one has ever called me before, much less a boy. When Joshua says nothing in response, I add, “How are you?”
He clears his throat. “Fine. Good. You?”
“Good.”
Joshua pauses a second time, then says with a nervous waver in his voice, “So, listen—” Something in the background clatters, and I imagine him tripping over a chair. He coughs, probably in an attempt to cover the sound. “I just wanted to let you know that today in Mrs. Farmer’s class, uh, after you left, everyone chose their partners for the project. And you and me are the only ones left.”
It wouldn’t be sensible to encourage this, to begin another friendship—not when that person is as observant as Joshua, and I’ve been so distracted lately. But then there’s Courage’s advice; he’d been so frank, and for once I find myself inclined to trust an Emotion.
“That’s great,” I say, trying to sound young and just as shy as Joshua.
If he’s surprised, he does well hiding it. “Okay, neat. I mean, cool. You’ve probably already looked at the handout, but the poems and story have to have a theme to them, I guess, and I was thinking we could—”
“I’ve looked at the handout,” I interrupt, hearing Tim’s heavy tread outside. “We can talk about it more at school. Okay?”
Joshua doesn’t ask questions or try to stay on the line. “Okay. See you.”
“Bye.” I hang up. Mom is still looking at me curiously, but I don’t offer any explanations. Tim’s opening the door, the hinges groaning. I’m gone before he sets one foot into the house.
Eight
It didn’t escape me, during his last visit, that Fear never gave me an answer when it came to the newspaper. Clearly the article disappearing changed things for him, and he intends to pursue this on his own. Although Fear is an excellent liar—he’s had centuries, millennia, to perfect the art—he can’t seem to hide the truth from me. As if some part of him wants me to know. And I will know; I’m good at research.
Some Quiet Place Page 5
