Sound

by Juliet Madison

  “I have to go. I can’t be here.” She opened the front door and ran outside.

  “Are you just going for a run? Lara, you don’t have your jogging shoes,” Damon called out.

  “I don’t need them where I’m going!” She sped off.

  “Should we go after her?” I asked. As though it were angry too, the wind picked up and it wove wildly through my hair, lifting and separating the strands of my ponytail, tickling my cheek.

  Damon shifted on the spot. “We’ll never catch her, she’s too fast.” He swiveled from side to side as though trying to decide the best course of action. “I think she’ll feel better after she runs. She always does. She’ll probably be back in half an hour, an hour at most. I hope.” His body sunk inward, and a gray pallor washed over his face. He was exhausted. Emotionally worn out.

  I linked my arm in his and led him back inside the house. We sat on the bottom step of the stairs, and he buried his face in his hands. His breathing was funny, strained, and I wasn’t sure if he was crying. I draped my arm around his back and squeezed his shoulder. “You’re doing the best you can,” I said.

  “Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it’s good enough,” he replied with a weariness in his voice.

  “It is. It’s good enough. You’re good enough.”

  He lifted his head and looked at me, his face sad and despondent. Then he lifted his hand and traced my hair with his fingers, down across the arc over my cheek, behind my ear, and down the ponytail draped across my shoulder.

  “I think I love you,” he said.

  A jolt shot through my heart.

  Love?

  I’d thought he was simply going to say thank you.

  “I know it’s crazy. I know we’re young, but we’re dealing with things that are shoving us right into adulthood. And you, you just…get me.” His hand dropped to mine and he gathered up my fingers as softly as if he were wrapping them in silk.

  I didn’t know if what I was feeling was love. I didn’t have any other experience to compare it to. All I knew was that I had never felt this way before. I had never felt so overtaken by a connection and affection for another person. Was this what love felt like?

  I brought his hand to my lips and kissed it, and we leaned forward and pressed our lips together once more. Softly, carefully, tenderly. Then our arms slid completely around each other and we held each other for what felt like hours.

  A door creaked.

  Was Lara home? Had she let off steam and returned, all rejuvenated and alert and ready to make the mocktails?

  I looked at the front door. It was still closed.

  A door slammed. Open, not shut. It banged against the wall.

  Damon heard it too. Our gaze darted up the stairs on which we sat, and I could just see the top of the entrance to the sitting room. The door was wide open.

  Damon’s eyes went wide.

  “Um, I forgot to tell you something,” I said. “We had another vision, my sisters and I. Audrey—she spoke again.”

  “No way.”

  I nodded. “I think we should go up there.”

  Damon stood. “This time, I’m coming in with you.” He gripped my hand and we took a step up, then another, then another, tiny creaks counting our way to the room that had been the source of much fear and confusion. With each step I trod on any remaining fear. I was going to enter that room calm, confident, and capable. And I would not leave until something could be resolved for this poor exhausted family who didn’t deserve all the extra stress of sharing their house with ghosts.

  The door sat wide open in waiting, and we stepped into the room with its creaky floors and musty, old smell. The room now also held a hint of the scent of white sage and mugwort, still. Damon had told his father that we had lit some incense at our movie afternoon and that the scent had lingered.

  “All right, Audrey, what is it now?” I planted my hands on my hips.

  “Go!” she yelled.

  “Yeah, that one’s getting a bit old now. Like you. You need to be more specific and, I don’t know, maybe come up with something else, just for a bit of variety.” I was over playing games. Damon eyed me as if to ask, “What’s she saying?” but I held out my hand to say, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this.”

  “You need to go. Now!” Her voice rose higher. It was urgent. Demanding. Not simply frustrated and annoyed like the other times.

  Bingo.

  Vision—correct. The only thing that hadn’t manifested yet was…

  An uncomfortable sensation rose within. A twinging, a twisting, a scratching below the surface. A sound, a distant sound, trying to worm its way into my ears.

  “You need to save her!” Audrey cried. “Hurry!”

  Hang on. Save who? Lara?

  The distant sound came closer. It was a memory, but of something that hadn’t occurred yet. Something that I had tried to forget about, hoping it would never be heard.

  “Wait, who are you talking about? What do I need to do? How can I save her?” My voice became urgent.

  “What’s going on? Serena?” Damon asked, concern and fear darkening his eyes.

  “Go now, to the cliff!”

  “The cliff? Which one?” My eyes were wide and strained, my ears hot as her voice ricocheted around the room.

  “A cliff? What’s happening?” Damon stood in front of me.

  I didn’t know whether to reply to Damon or keep questioning Audrey; my brain was going overtime.

  “D. D.,” Audrey said. “Go there, now!”

  D. D. David Delcarta. Dad’s bench seat near the cliff.

  The sound of the front door flinging open and banging against the wall made me gasp. Audrey didn’t want us out of the house for her own satisfaction, she wanted us to help someone. Save someone.

  Chapter 26

  The wind whipped at my face as I ran toward the cliff, air whooshing in and out of my lungs in time with my rapid strides. Up the hill—faster, faster—until I was sprinting at full speed. And then I saw her, a thin figure in the distance, getting larger, clearer as I neared, her light brown hair flapping up and down behind her shoulders.

  “No!”

  She spun around, held her hand out as if to stop me.

  It wasn’t Lara.

  “Go away!” Mandy turned back, her feet a few short, dangerous steps away from the cliff’s edge. The chaotic wind alone could knock her off.

  Panting, I arrived at the top of the hill along with Damon, but before I could approach her and pull her back, she shoved her hand toward me again. “Come any closer and I’ll take you with me!”

  I put one hand on my chest as it ached and pounded. “Please—you don’t have to do this.” Desperation gripped my voice.

  I thought she would argue with me, but she didn’t. She simply stepped forward, once, then twice.

  I lunged forward.

  Grabbed her arm.

  Felt the sharp pinch of rocks grazing my skin.

  Felt the ominous, bumpy slide as momentum moved me along with Mandy over the edge of the cliff.

  I jolted to a stop as Damon grabbed my leg. My upper body hung over the edge, my breath escaping from my lungs, my hand gripping Mandy’s arm so tightly that my fingernails dug into her skin.

  She wailed, she fumbled. I didn’t know if she was trying to get back up or make me let her go so she could fall all the way down.

  I was not going to let her go. I was not going to hear that scream.

  She was not going to die. And neither was I.

  “Mandy, focus! Let me pull you up. Hold onto me with your other hand!” I didn’t know how it was possible that I was speaking. My chest hurt and I could hardly breathe.

  She flailed about, throwing her hand haphazardly toward me, until her eyes caught mine.

  “Hold on,” I demanded, in a surprisingly calm, steady tone.

  Her hand grabbed my arm as she turned to face the cliff wall.

  My leg was being pulled backwards, practically yanked from its socket, and I heard
Damon’s grunts. I tried to maneuver myself back, but Mandy’s weight and gravity were too strong. I cried out as flesh on my leg ripped open and I felt myself sliding back, bit by bit. But I didn’t care. I wanted to be back on flat ground, with Mandy on flat ground, and the view of the frothy ocean waves slapping against the rocks below to be a distant memory.

  Hands gripped my waist, pulling me back, and more pain tore through me as my chest slid up and over the rocky edge and I bumped my nose on something sharp, Mandy crying out as she too grazed against the jagged edges.

  Soon my body was flat on the ground, but still I slid backwards until Mandy was safely off the cliff’s edge.

  I scrambled up, and Damon scrambled up and grabbed Mandy, pulling her further back near the pathway. “Are you okay? You’re bleeding!” he asked me, and I looked down at my ripped top and bloodstains. My legs felt sticky and prickly, and a wave of dizziness took my balance. I half collapsed in shock next to a wailing Mandy, holding onto her, not wanting her to escape our grip and launch herself off the edge. Damon took hold of my wrist. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.” His eyes held a steely strength as they connected with mine.

  Mandy pounded her fists against Damon’s chest as she lay in his lap. “No, no, no! I wanted to die!” Her legs appeared to have lost the ability to move, the only strength she had left showing up in her voice. I leaned onto Damon’s shoulder, keeping hold of Mandy’s waist. Damon let go for a moment to retrieve his phone, and dialed for an ambulance.

  “It won’t be long, help will be here soon,” he said after making the call. “Get some pressure on those wounds.” He cocked his head toward Mandy’s back, which had borne the brunt of the fall, grazed by jagged rocks as she’d slid down until I had caught her. I bunched up her shirt and pressed it against the multiple cuts, soaking up blood. Damon managed to take off his hoodie and handed it to me, and I held it against her back. I was bleeding too. It hurt, but it would heal. Mandy’s healing, physical and emotional, would take longer.

  Her pounding weakened and she sobbed. “I don’t deserve to live,” she cried. “My life is a waste!” She glanced up at Damon. “I didn’t know she was sick until recently, I honestly didn’t know! If I’d known, I…” she sobbed more.

  Listening to her cries, it was as though I could hear more than her sadness. I could hear truth. I could hear her explanations. I could hear reasons.

  There is always a reason…

  Lara. Mandy wasn’t just depressed about her own life; she felt guilty about bullying Lara. But by the time she’d found out the truth about Lara’s illness, the attacks on her self-esteem had already become a habit. A necessity, to stop herself from feeling down, by making someone else feel worse. But it was a fire burning out of control; it would eventually have consequences, and eventually burn itself out. The reality of her actions had finally sunk in, and without the safety net of being a bully, she was left with her own emptiness.

  The three of us sat in a wounded huddle, panting, hurting, waiting. We would not move until help came.

  As the cool wind whipped around our injured bodies, stinging the open wounds, I caught sight of a figure in the distance, coming up the hill.

  She was barefoot, her shoes were hooked on her fingers, and the bottom half of her pants were wet like she’d been dipped in water halfway. Lara. She stopped as though processing what she was seeing, then ran up the hill toward us. Damon noticed too, and his face softened a little. His sister was safe. She had just gone running on the beach to release her stress, and that’s why she hadn’t needed the jogging shoes. She was stronger than we had given her credit for.

  We wouldn’t hear Lara scream. And we wouldn’t hear Mandy scream. The death scream from my vision had suffered its own demise. The only sound I could hear now was the wail of the ambulance siren in the distance.

  Epilogue

  One Week Later

  “It’s time!” Lara barged into the upstairs living room where Damon and I were watching The Big Bang Theory, his thumb rubbing my sore shoulder as his arm hung affectionately around me.

  “Time for what?” he asked, pausing the DVD.

  His sister looked at him like he was an idiot. “The agreement? I told you I was going to print it out.” She thrust three sheets of paper in front of us.

  I sat up straight and took one of the papers, as they were all identical.

  Damon and Serena’s Relationship—Rules of Conduct.

  I held back a laugh.

  Of course she would go through with it. I should have known by now that when Lara said she would do something, she meant business. Her first session with the therapist had been fruitful, as the therapist had indulged her propensity for making lists and structuring things into written form by encouraging her to create a series of printouts, a kind of Lara Operations Manual to help her find stability in the different areas of her life when it veered into unchartered and unexpected territory. I doubted the psychiatric professional had advised her to write a Rules of Conduct agreement for her brother and his girlfriend, but Lara had been thrilled with the idea when she’d told us about it.

  Whatever made this easier for her.

  I read through the agreement, which had room at the bottom for each of us to sign our names and the date:

  1. I hereby acknowledge that the relationship between Damon (herein known as the brother) and Serena (herein known as the girlfriend) has developed from a platonic friendship to a romantic partnership.

  2. The brother henceforth agrees to treat the girlfriend with respect and loyalty, whilst preventing any impingement to his familial relationship with Lara (herein known as the sister).

  3. The girlfriend henceforth agrees to treat the boyfriend with respect and loyalty, whilst preventing any impingement to her friendship with the sister.

  4. The boyfriend and girlfriend agree to restrict displays of affection whilst in the company of the sister to the following: hand-holding; hugging and its variants such as draping one’s arm around the other’s shoulder or waist; longing glances in each other’s direction; PG-rated (or below) exchanges of conversation; kisses on one’s cheek, forehead, or hand, and only in exceptional circumstances the lips, but only a brief exchange of lip pressure. Longer duration kissing must be delayed until such time as the boyfriend and girlfriend are relieved of the company of the sister.

  5. The boyfriend and the girlfriend must not divulge nor describe to the sister the nature of the displays of affection that have occured or will occur whilst both parties are relieved of the company of the sister.

  6. The girlfriend must adhere to a regular schedule of movie afternoons with the sister, and without the brother, the details of which are to be decided upon by the sister, for the duration of the friendship.

  7. The brother must adhere to a regular schedule of Sibling Time (see definition in glossary overleaf), to ensure continuation and strengthening of the sibling bond, the details of which are to be decided upon via the following weighting schedule: the sister, 60%; the brother, 40%.

  8. Should any component of this agreement negatively affect any of the parties after three months of activity, the affected party must notify (in writing) the other parties and arrange a meeting at a mutually agreeable day and time within two weeks to discuss the issue at hand and suitable solutions.

  9. Should any of the parties be found to be in breach of this agreement, each of the parties must attend a meeting at a mutually agreeable day and time within one week of the offense taking place, whereby the issue can be discussed and a suitable resolution (or punishment) can be actioned.

  10. The sister is hereby granted the right to be given a special, mutually agreed upon name in the same manner and style as the brother (Damon Dedicated Jovial Jameson) and the girlfriend (Serena Superhero Diva Delcarta), and for such name to be included in the contacts list of the phones of the brother and the girlfriend. Please write the chosen name here: _________________________.

  By the time we’d read through to the e
nd, Damon and I had doubled over in fits of laughter. Tears streamed down our faces, and Lara said, “I don’t know what’s so funny; it’s a perfectly straightforward agreement.”

  “Sorry, sorry,” I cleared my throat. “Okay, let me sign this.” I put pen to paper and signed my name.

  Damon did the same, then said, “Hang on, we need to decide upon your nickname, Lara.”

  “Yes. I took it upon myself to also print out a list of potential adjectives starting with L and J.” She held it out in front of us. “I’ve crossed out the ones that are thoroughly unsuitable.”

  We scanned the list. “I’d go for Logical,” I said.

  “And I think Judicious,” said Damon.

  Lara grinned. “I agree.” She wrote her new name, Lara Logical Judicious Jameson, on her agreement, then on ours, and we signed each other’s agreements.

  “It’s official,” she said. “I now pronounce you boyfriend and girlfriend.”

  “Can I now please exchange brief lip pressure with the girlfriend?” Damon asked.

  Lara nodded. “You may.”

  “I love it when you talk legal,” I said, leaning close to him and planting my lips on his. We pulled away after our brief kiss.

  Damon looked at Lara. “Would the sister like to relieve the brother and the girlfriend of her company until the prearranged Sibling Time begins so they may partake in longer-duration kissing?”

  “She would.” Lara gave a single nod of approval and left the room.

  • • •

  An hour later, after Riley and Savannah had arrived at the Jamesons’ house to pick me up, we arrived at the hospital.

  When we found Mandy’s room, her dad was in there, his face worn and wrinkled, his shoulders hunched. He greeted us at the door and thanked me for my role in saving his daughter, and I promised I’d pass on his gratitude to Damon as well. He left the room, and Riley said he’d wait outside.

  Savannah and I walked cautiously toward Mandy, who sat on a chair looking out the barred window. A padded layer of cushioning was wedged behind Mandy, and I wondered if her wounds still hurt. My bruises were darker now, as time had allowed the color to develop, but my cuts and grazes were healing up nicely.