Deadly Little Voices

by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  Camelia.

  “You need to rebound with a bloodhound,” she says. “Preferably an immortal one with the power to shape-shift into a really hot guy.”

  “You want me to date a dog?” I ask, half tempted to flick one of my fries at her face.

  “Not a dog.” She rolls her eyes. “Hook up with your preferred type of predator.”

  “Shall it be werewolves, vampires, angels, demons, or zombies?” Wes says, painting his lips with a ketchup-loaded french fry to make his mouth look bloody.

  “Haven’t you heard?” Kimmie asks, lowering her cat’s-eye glasses to glare at me over the rims. “Immortals are the hot new accessory of the season. Everyone’s trying to score one before they go out of style.”

  “So true,” Wes says, pushing his ice cream to the side. “As if us guys don’t have enough pressure trying to look good, be charming, wear nice clothes…Now we have to run around on all fours and gnaw at people’s necks to be considered sexy.”

  “Stop it, you’re turning me on,” Kimmie says, using a napkin to fan herself.

  “Thanks,” I say, “but I prefer my men human.”

  “Yeah, I suppose I do, too. I’m old-fashioned that way.” She lets out a sigh.

  “Adam is human,” Wes says, perking up, curiously excited to point out the obvious.

  “So nice of you to notice.” I pick a strand of curly blond hair (fingers crossed that it’s mine and not the cook’s) out of my pool of ketchup.

  “Yes, but being a mere mortal does not automatically make him rebound material,”

  Kimmie says.

  “Excuse me?” I ask, utterly confused.

  “Adam’s the kind of guy you fall in love and live happily ever after with,” she explains.

  “In other words, not the kind of guy you get caught macking with behind your boyfriend’s back…But obviously, that happened anyway.” Wes covers his mouth at the horror of it all, clearly trying to be funny.

  But I’m far from amused.

  “Honestly, Wesley Whiner, are you trying to get this ice cream dumped over that crusty coif of yours?” Kimmie positions her Blizzard over his new haircut, which is basically a modified version of a Mohawk (buzzed on the sides with an inch-wide landing strip down the center of his scalp).

  “I’m sorry,” he says, meeting my eyes, his face even graver than when Mr. Muse threatened to confiscate his bottle of hair gel in gym class.

  “That’s better,” Kimmie says, putting her ice-cream weapon down.

  “I promise not to joke about Adam,” he continues, “or any of your other hedonistic love trysts again.” He takes an overenthusiastic bite of ice cream, and even I can’t help letting out a laugh.

  In a nutshell, Adam is Ben’s ex–best friend. About three years ago, a lot of drama went down between the two of them—drama that involved Ben’s then-girlfriend Julie. Apparently, Adam had been dating Julie behind Ben’s back, and after she died, Adam blamed Ben. A lot of people did. The rumor going around was that Ben had gotten so angry when Julie had tried to end their relationship that he pushed her over a cliff. In the end, it turned out that Ben wasn’t to blame for her death. And thankfully, a jury of his peers agreed.

  Like me, Ben has the power of psychometry—the ability to sense things through touch.

  When he touched Julie on their hike that day, he sensed the truth right out of her: basically, that she and Adam had a secret relationship going on. And so he touched her harder, eager to know more. Julie got spooked and started to back away. That was when she fell backward off the cliff and died almost instantly.

  “Might you and Adam ever make things official?” Wes asks.

  “We’re officially friends,” I say, hearing the irritation in my own voice.

  “Yes, but are you officially putting your tongue down his throat?” He checks his profile in his pocket mirror, giving a stroke to his Elvis sideburns.

  “I haven’t seen Adam in a couple of weeks.”

  “And did that encounter involve an exchange of saliva?” he persists.

  “I think I’m done with this inquisition,” I say.

  But it’s not that I don’t deserve it.

  Adam and I started getting close a couple of months ago, when I thought his life was in danger. It’s worth pointing out that my power of psychometry works a bit differently than Ben’s.

  He’s able to picture images from the past or future through his sense of touch. Meanwhile, my love of pottery allows me to sculpt prophetic clues—clues that have some sort of relevance to the future. And sometimes, though this may sound nuts, I hear voices when that happens.

  In the case involving Adam, my senses proved right. He was in danger. Luckily, with Ben’s help—and after Ben saved my life for the fourth time, nearly getting himself killed in the process—things ended up safely for Adam.

  But as Adam and I were working together to keep him out of harm’s way, he admitted to some pretty shady things—things he seemed completely transformed by and at the same time remorseful for.

  Things that were pretty amazing to hear.

  Adam was being so open and honest about his past. Meanwhile, I felt as if the secrets between Ben and me just kept getting bigger. And in the end, those secrets—that lack of trust—were basically what tore us apart, more than any kiss between Adam and me ever could have.

  It’s been exactly six weeks since Ben and I decided to “take a break.” Six weeks of watching Ben’s superhero popularity grow, especially among the female population at our high school. And six weeks of Adam’s coming around on occasion, wanting to spend time with me.

  “Well, at least you haven’t heard any voices or sculpted anything psycho lately,” Kimmie says.

  Part of me feels guilty for not telling them about last night. But I’m not quite ready to hear them draw parallels between my aunt Alexia and me.

  My aunt Alexia, who’s been labeled by doctors as mentally disturbed, with suicidal tendencies.

  Who’s been in and out of mental hospitals for as long as I’ve known her.

  And who claims to hear voices, too.

  Aunt Alexia has been staying with us for a couple of weeks, but last night was the first time she ventured out of the guest room for more than five minutes. My parents assure me that giving her space is the right thing to do, that someone with a past like hers needs time to adapt to her new surroundings.

  But my theory—and one I’ve only ever shared with Ben—is that Aunt Alexia is psychometric, like me. That she’s able to predict the future with her art. And that if I don’t come to terms with my own psychic ability soon, I may one day end up like her.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY IN SCULPTURE class, I try my best to concentrate on Ms.

  Mazur’s lecture about avoiding excess water in our works-in-progress, but I really just want to sculpt.

  “By adding grog, your pieces will have less of a chance of shrinking as they dry out,” Ms.

  Mazur explains.

  “It’s all about the shrinkage prevention,” Kimmie jokes, waving a sad little wand of clay at me.

  I ignore her comment and make an effort to refocus on what Ms. Mazur is saying. She’s in the middle of explaining something about plasticity now. I gaze down at my ball of clay, imagining what I might sculpt.

  After a few moments spent spacing out, I notice that Ms. Mazur is no longer talking. The students in class, Kimmie included, have already added their groggy bits to their hunks of clay, and begun to wedge them out.

  I do the same, noticing right away how much easier it is to work with the grittier texture.

  “Big difference, wouldn’t you say?” Ms. Mazur asks, returning to her desk at the front of the room.

  I close my eyes and a series of images pops into my head, including the skating sculpture I’ve been working on—the one from my dream last night.

  I start to replicate the skater’s silhouette when all of a sudden I feel hot, like my skin is burning up. I touch my forehead. It’s soaked with sweat.
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br />   “Camelia?” Kimmie says. “Um, no offense, but why does it look like you just got jiggy with Mr. Floppy here?” She hands me the paisley scarf from around her neck and then confiscates her clay wand.

  I let out a breath, feeling more overheated by the moment. My shirt sticks against the sweat on my chest.

  “Camelia?” Ms. Mazur asks. She stands up from her desk and places her hands on her hips. A pencil falls from behind her ear.

  I want to answer her—to tell her that my insides are absolutely on fire—but instead I make a beeline for the door. I hurry down the hallway, en route to the bathroom. When I reach it, I find that the door is locked.

  I move across the hall to the girls’ locker room, noticing a pair of ice skates in front of the door. I step right over them as I fling the door open, expecting to find girls changing for class.

  Instead it’s empty and dark.

  I feel around the wall, knowing there’s a light switch somewhere. Finally I find it and switch it on, but only the lights in the back—by the sinks and stalls—come on.

  A good ten yards away.

  I start off in that direction, noticing a trickling noise, like running water. It sounds as if it might be coming from one of the sinks. The fluorescent light strip makes a harsh buzzing sound and flickers with each step I take—as if it might be on the verge of going out.

  Still sweating, I pick up my pace. The smell of mildew and something sweet, like rotted fruit, is thick in the air, causing my stomach to churn.

  A moment later, I hear something else—a whispering sound. I peer over my shoulder to look.

  It seems even darker now. I can barely make out my hand in front of my face, never mind the door through which I entered.

  I’m just about to turn away when the whispering sound comes again. “Who’s there?” I ask, trying to be brave.

  My pulse racing, I resume in the direction of the lighted area, but then a voice whispers,

  “Do you know what you are?”

  I back away against a locker, hoping the darkness will hide me.

  “You’re such a joke,” the voice says. It’s a female voice, with an angry tone, reminding me of the voice from last night. It’s only inches from my face.

  I thrust my hands forward, prepared to knock aside anyone in my path. To my surprise, no one’s there.

  I hurry toward the lit area, still able to hear the trickling water, but now those lights have gone out, too.

  “You’re trapped,” the voice says, followed by an evil giggle.

  I move into the area near the stalls and feel around for the windows on the far wall. Both windows are closed, so I can’t call out. I struggle to find one of the levers that open them, wondering why no light’s coming in. Meanwhile, footsteps continue at a slow pace behind me. I can hear heels scuffing against the cement floor, just a short distance away.

  Finally, I find a lever and try to crank it open. But the window is locked. I move to the side, somehow managing to find another lever. That one’s locked, too, and remains locked, even when I pull, twist, and pound it with all my might.

  “No,” I hear myself cry out. I smack my fists against the glass, eager to break right through it.

  “There’s no way out now,” the voice says. “You should’ve quit when you were told.”

  “No!” I repeat. My heart hammers. Bright lights flash across my eyes, until I feel physically sick. I stumble back, holding my hands over my ears, just as a flashlight beam shines against one of the mirrors above the sinks.

  It takes me a moment to focus, to notice that the mirror is broken, that giant pieces of glass have collected in the sink, and that the water from the faucet is running over the broken pieces, somehow producing a dark red color.

  There’s a message scribbled across the unbroken portion of the mirror.

  “Die already, will you?” a female voice says, reading it aloud and then letting out another giggle.

  At the same moment, I find a shard of broken glass clenched in my hand. “No!” I hear myself scream, so loud that my throat burns.

  A moment later, I feel a hand settle on my shoulder, snapping me back to reality.

  It’s Kimmie’s. We’re still in sculpture class.

  Her face is a giant question mark: her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open. But she grips my shoulder harder, as if preparing me for what will come next.

  “Camelia?” Ms. Mazur asks. She stands from her desk and places her hands on her hips.

  A pencil falls from behind her ear, and suddenly I’m overwhelmed with an enormous sense of déjà vu.

  The other kids in the class stare at me, awaiting some sort of explanation. But I have no idea myself what has just happened.

  I reach up to touch my forehead. My hairline is dry. My shirt isn’t sticking to my back or chest. And I no longer seem to be sweating. I doubt I ever was. It was probably part of a hallucination of some sort.

  I must’ve zoned out shortly after I began to sculpt.

  My fingers thoroughly saturated with clay, I look down at my work, half expecting to find the skater silhouette I started earlier. But instead, I see that my hand is gripping something.

  “What is it?” Kimmie asks, following my gaze.

  I open my hand, fully aware that I’ve yet to answer Ms. Mazur or address even one inquisitive stare.

  A wad of clay sits in my palm. At first, it seems like a meaningless glob. But then it suddenly occurs to me: the shape of the clay, the way it fits in my palm, and the jagged hook at the very top.

  It’s a sculpture of a broken piece of glass.

  I clench it in my palm, almost able to feel the cutting of my skin, the severing of my nerves.

  “What’s wrong?” Kimmie whispers. Her paisley scarf is still tied around her neck, exactly as it was before class. She lets out a nervous cough.

  “Issues,” Davis Miller sings, somewhat under his breath.

  The comment ignites an explosion of snickering.

  “I have to go,” I say, getting up from the table. I apologize to Ms. Mazur, telling her that I’m not feeling too well.

  She nods, more than happy to give me a pass to go see the school counselor. As if somehow that will save me.

  I HEAD TO MS. BEADY’S OFFICE, eager to be dismissed from school for the day, but she insists that we talk first. She has us sit in the two comfy chairs in the corner of her office. It’s a setup she’s designed to try and fool unsuspecting students into thinking they’re just there to chat. But I already know the drill.

  I decline her offer of a cup of tea, and remain staring at the wall above her head—at her PhD from the University of Texas, and her newly acquired certificate in Adolescent Development.

  “So, tell me about what happened in sculpture class,” she says. Obviously, Ms. Mazur has already called to tip her off.

  “I guess I sort of freaked.”

  “What do you mean by freaked?” she says, making lame-o air quotes as she talks.

  “I mean just what I said,” I tell her, unsure how much clearer I can actually be, or how much I want to reveal.

  Ms. Beady nods as if what I’ve said were utterly fascinating. “And do you know why you freaked?” More air quotes.

  I bite my lip, wishing she would just let me call my mom to come pick me up.

  “Well, I’m actually glad you stopped by,” she says, when I don’t answer. She crosses her legs at the knees; there’s a run in her nurse-uniform-white panty hose. “I’ve been meaning to check in with you. You’ve been through a lot these past several months.”

  I nod, thinking about the last time I was in here—not long after I was kidnapped, when I’d just begun to hear voices, and when Ms. Beady attributed both to posttraumatic stress of the stalker-ex-boyfriend-Matt kind.

  She tucks a strand of mousy brown hair behind her ear and gazes down at my hand.

  “What have you got there?”

  I loosen my grip, surprised to find the clay replica of broken glass still clenched in my hand
. “Just something I was working on. I left class so fast…” I don’t even bother finishing the excuse; I can already hear how dumb it sounds.

  Ms. Beady scrunches up her face for just a second before going therapist-neutral again.

  “You like pottery a lot, don’t you, Camelia?”

  I shrug, almost surprised at how little she seems to know me. I mean, we’ve been through this stuff before. We’ve talked about my job at Knead, and how I want to open up my own pottery studio one day.

  “Do you find that it helps you relax?” she continues.

  I clutch the clay piece again, feeling a slashing sensation tear through my palm. The pain sears my skin and shoots up my arm.

  Ms. Beady’s lips are moving. She’s telling some happy story; there’s an animated flair to her speech.

  But I don’t hear any of the words. It’s like someone turned down the volume, pressed the mute button on her voice.

  “Ms. Beady?” I say, reassured that at least it seems she can hear me.

  She furrows her eyebrows, finally acknowledging the troubled look on my face. She leans forward in her seat, clearly asking me what’s wrong. There’s a confused expression across her round face.

  Still I can’t hear her.

  Instead, I hear the whispering again inside my ear, which makes my head ache. The voices tell me that “there are two.”

  “Two what?” I want to cry out.

  I try to tell myself that the whispering is coming from Ms. Beady, but her lips aren’t moving. She gets up from her seat and scoots down in front of me. Her expression is full of concern.

  Finally, she starts talking again. I’m tempted to pretend I understand what she’s saying, but instead I shake my head and cover my ears, fighting the urge to shout over the voices.

  Ms. Beady gets up to make a phone call. I drop the glob of clay and huddle down in the chair, desperate for someone to help me, even if that means her.

  FINALLY, I CAN HEAR AGAIN—can hear that Ms. Beady is leaving a message. I assume it’s for one of my parents. I assume she’ll try contacting both of them (if she hasn’t already).

  “Just one more,” she says, talking aloud to herself. She searches her computer for what I imagine to be the number of my in-case-both-parents-are-unavailable emergency contact person.