Deadly Little Voices

by Laurie Faria Stolarz

  “Please,” Svetlana insists, proceeding to tell me that one of the women asked to get her money back when she found out that Spencer wasn’t going to be teaching tonight.

  I take a seat at the wheel, anxious about what may happen once I start to sculpt. And so I re-explain the steps, adding more details about posture, pressure, and moisture. By the time I finally touch fingertips to clay, the moment feels so completely clinical that I’m almost sure nothing weird will happen.

  As soon as I get the students going on their bowls, I move over to my work in progress, eager to have another look. I remove the tarp and focus hard on my vaselike bowl, reminded once again of Ben, and of that moment when he was in the hospital—when I held his hand and he woke up, and then when he asked me never to let go.

  “Would you mind giving me a little help?” a woman asks, jolting me out of my reverie.

  The woman—one of the older students—stands at my table holding a ball of clay. “I have arthritis,” she explains. “Would you mind lending me a hand with wedging?” She sets the clay down in front of me, complaining that she signed up for this class to paint, not to sculpt.

  “Why not paint this?” I ask, turning away to grab one of the already-fired humping bunnies from a shelf. I place it on a tray along with a few jars of paint.

  “Thank you, but I’d like it wedged out anyway,” she insists. “Maybe I’ll poke a finger into the center and call it abstract art.”

  “Sure.” I smile, proceeding to smack her clay ball against my board, trying not to think about anything in particular.

  “And what are you working on?” She takes a seat, swipes my spatula, and uses it to point at my bowl.

  I gaze at some other students two tables over, wondering why she doesn’t join them instead.

  “Cat got your tongue?” She makes a sucking sound with her own tongue.

  Eventually I cave, and end up rambling on about my project—how I’m not really sure where I’m going with it, but how I’m determined to get it to where it needs to be.

  The woman listens, using my spatula to scratch behind her ear. Finally, it seems I’ve bored her, and she resumes her work, sponging the clay dust off the humping bunny figurine as if I’m no longer even there.

  I continue to wedge out her clay, working all the air bubbles out, until she interrupts me again. She leans across the table in my direction and whispers something about “following her.”

  “Excuse me?” I ask, feeling my face scrunching up.

  Her lips peel open, exposing a gap in her teeth where her tongue pokes through. “Stop following me,” she snaps.

  Before I can say anything else, she spins her tray around to show me her work. Instead of a face on her bunny figurine, she’s painted the letters DM.

  “DM?” I ask.

  “Die much?” she says, with a menacing grin. She lets out a giggle, and her tongue waggles out through the hole in her teeth, as if this is all part of one big joke.

  I shake my head, completely confused. But no one else in the studio seems to notice her.

  I get up and move away from the table, toward the others, as the woman continues to laugh at me.

  I glance at Svetlana, who’s dumped an entire tray full of bunnies onto the floor. Only, I don’t hear the crash, just the old woman’s laughter. Her voice plugs up my ears and fills my head with more whispering. The letters DM repeat inside my brain and knock me to the floor.

  LYING ON MY BACK, with my eyes closed, I feel someone take my hand.

  “Ben?” I whisper. My eyes are still closed, but I’d know his touch anywhere.

  People are speaking in hushed tones, evidently wondering what just happened. I’m relieved to be able to hear them—that the laughter has finally stopped, and that there are no longer any voices inside my head.

  I open my eyes and try to sit up. The fluorescent studio lights overhead nearly blind me, reminding me of the camera flashes from my premonitions.

  A moment later, I see Ben’s face. It’s hovering right above mine now.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask him.

  Ben takes off his coat and pulls his sweatshirt off over his head. He drapes the sweatshirt over my shoulders and then helps me to sit up.

  “Thanks,” I say, noticing the people standing around me. I try to assure them I’m fine, making excuses about how the heat from the kiln room, coupled with an empty stomach, no doubt did me in.

  But then I spot the older woman, using my spatula to scratch behind her ear again.

  “We were having such a pleasant time,” she says. “You told me about your vase…and you were helping me wedge my clay. The next thing I knew…”

  “What?” I ask, anxious to hear how things happened.

  “You don’t remember?” Her lips fall open, and I see her teeth—there’s no gap to speak of, no tongue sticking out.

  The woman looks away when I don’t answer, pretending to resume her work in progress.

  I get to my feet and rotate her tray, desperate to see the bunny’s face.

  But it’s blank. The letters DM are no longer there. They were probably part of a hallucination.

  “Camelia?” Ben asks, taking my hand again.

  Meanwhile, Svetlana comes and gives me a paper towel for my sweaty face.

  “DM,” I whisper, still focused on the woman.

  “What does it mean?” the woman asks. She gazes at my work station, and it suddenly dawns on me that I’d been working on something, too, wedging out a mound of clay. Only now it’s no longer a mound at all.

  The letters DM, carved into the clay, stare up at me from my work board.

  “We should probably go,” Ben says, clasping my hand harder.

  I pull on his sweatshirt and grab my coat, not even asking where he’s taking me. Because I honestly don’t even care. As long as it’s far, far away from here.

  I HOP ON THE BACK of Ben’s motorcycle and he takes off right away. I wrap my arms around his waist as he drives along the beach, straight toward the setting sun. The salty air rushes against my skin and helps me feel a little less unhinged.

  After several minutes, he slows down a bit, making me think that we’re going to turn around and head back. But instead he takes an on-ramp, to go onto the highway, and I feel a giant sense of relief.

  Because we’re not going home just yet.

  We drive for a good twenty minutes before he finally takes an exit and then drives down one street after another till we pull into what seems to be a retreat center of some sort. A long brick driveway leads us to a giant stucco house with bright blue shutters and a clay roof.

  “What is this place?” I ask, noticing a tulip-shaped water fountain and a large koi pond.

  “You’ll see,” he says, driving us around to the back, where there appear to be acres of land. A tennis court separates a picnic area and a place for outdoor concerts. Ben proceeds along a dirt path, taking us to the edge of a forest. Tall trees—pine, maple, and oak—line a woodsy trail that leads to a sanctuary of sorts.

  “Where are we going?” I ask, once he cuts the ignition.

  “Follow me,” he says, taking my hand to help me off his bike. His sweatshirt smells like bike fumes.

  Ben leads me farther inside the wooded area, where leaves are just starting to bud. Iron lamps help illuminate the area, and so does the sun; its orangey glow seems to follow us, penetrating the tree branches and making everything look all aglow.

  “Are you sure we’re allowed to be here?” I ask.

  “Relax,” he says, giving my hand a squeeze.

  “Meaning, we don’t have to worry about getting arrested tonight?”

  “Meaning, we don’t have to worry about anything.”

  He leads me past a tall Buddha statue, which reminds me that I should probably touch base with my mom. I grab my cell and text her that all is well and I’ll be home soon. Meanwhile, Ben moves to stand a few paces in front of me. He gazes up at the sky, and the sun shines right over him, highlighting
the sharp angles of his face, the scruff on his chin, and his rumpled dark hair. He looks too beautiful to be real.

  He notices me staring, and grins subtly. “Is everything okay?” He motions toward my cell phone.

  “It’s fine,” I say, managing a nod, trying to keep my cool. “Do you come here a lot?”

  “Enough,” he says, staring at me now. His eyes roam across my face, my hair, the motion in my neck as I swallow. “It’s part of my meditation.” He smiles.

  But I know he’s not being funny. Ben’s been practicing meditation, tai chi, and other mindful disciplines in an effort to control his touch powers.

  “Come on,” he says, extending his hand to me once more.

  I take it, feeling my insides warm like toast. We walk for several moments before arriving at a partial clearing. Logs, boulders, and heaps of rocks are strategically placed to form a maze of sorts, about the size of a basketball court, and no taller than knee-high.

  “It’s a labyrinth,” he explains.

  “I can see that,” I say, remembering having seen one on the Cape last summer. Only it was nowhere near as enchanting as this.

  “I used to go to one regularly back home,” he tells me. “I felt like it really helped me, so I did some research to find one around here.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I tell him, amazed that a place like this even exists so close to home.

  “Do you want to give it a try?” He gives my hand an extra squeeze, sending tingles all over my skin.

  “What do we do?” I ask. The smell of a campfire is somewhere in the distance.

  “There are no tricks and no dead ends,” he says. “So there aren’t really any rules. All you have to do is walk it. The toughest part is deciding where you want to enter the maze and which way you want to go.”

  As Ben continues to explain the nonrules of labyrinths—how you can go at your own pace, find your own rhythm, and walk for as long as you wish—I do my best to focus on his words and not lose myself in the magic of the moment.

  “Some people like to go in with a specific question in mind,” he says, still holding my hand. “Others use the maze as a means of letting go…stepping into a sacred space and shedding the cares and stresses of the day.”

  “How do you like to go in?” I ask him.

  “I find that walking here helps to quiet my mind. Times when I’m feeling stressed or sorry for myself, or when I just feel like life is getting too big to handle…I come here to center myself.”

  I nod, trying not to look surprised, because I shouldn’t be surprised, because, as fearless as Ben often seems, he definitely has issues, too.

  “Some people use labyrinths as a way to pay respect to the gifts they have,” he says. “I guess I’m still trying to work on that one.”

  “Maybe I should be, too,” I say, knowing that this touch power is indeed a gift of sorts—that it helped save Adam’s life.

  “It is a gift,” Ben says, as if reading my mind. He lets go of my hand to stroke the side of my face. His thumb grazes my mouth, and I feel my lips part.

  “It took me a long time to figure that out,” he continues, catching himself. He takes a step back and withdraws his hand.

  Meanwhile, my heart hammers inside my chest.

  “I can’t stop sensing things,” he continues. “But I can try to adjust what happens when I do.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, wondering if he’s talking about me.

  “I mean that maybe you can’t quiet the voices, but there’s no reason why you can’t quiet your mind.”

  “I don’t know,” I say, remembering how Wes suggested something similar.

  “Come on,” Ben says. “At least give it a try.” He moves to the edge of the labyrinth, stepping onto the outer path and moving slowly in a clockwise direction.

  I watch him for several seconds as he takes turns and alternate routes, before beginning on my own path. It feels sort of silly at first, until I find my stride. I close my eyes, concentrating on my breath, and on the crunching sound of dirt beneath my feet. I stumble a couple of times along the way, bumping into a rock or a log, but trying not to rely on sight—to focus instead on what I can hear: the rush of water from a nearby fountain; the wind as it combs through the branches; and the sound of Ben walking somewhere behind me.

  After several moments, I come to a stop. My eyes still closed, I can tell that the sun has set. The darkness blankets me, providing a comforting sensation. And yet there’s a nervous sensation, too, because I can no longer hear Ben’s footsteps. I open my eyes to make sure that the lampposts are still lit.

  Ben is standing right in front of me now. His expression is both needy and full of questions.

  “Are you cold?” he asks.

  “Not really,” I say, even though the temperature’s dropped.

  “Do you want to keep walking?”

  I shake my head, wishing that things between us could be different.

  “So, we should probably talk about what happened at the studio,” he says.

  “Probably,” I say, taking a step closer. My forehead grazes the material of his jacket, and I can’t stop myself from touching him—from sliding my hands around his waist and resting my cheek against his chest. “I’ve missed you,” I say, without thinking first.

  He nods, like he’s missed us, too, like he can feel the same hollowness inside him. Still, he averts his eyes, perhaps trying to stay in control.

  But I insist on making things messy.

  I place my palms against his face, forcing him to look at me again.

  “We need to talk.” His eyes are fixed on mine, fighting to stay open. But I brush the skin of my lips against his mouth, and finally he caves and kisses me. His lips fold over mine, and I can taste the salty sweetness of his mouth.

  I tuck the tips of my fingers into the back pockets of his jeans and draw him closer.

  “Wait,” he says, pulling away, breaking the kiss. His breath is labored and quick. “We can’t do this.”

  “You’re right,” I say, knowing we can’t. But still, something inside me really wants to.

  “I’m sorry if I led you on, just now, during our phone call the other day, at school—but trust me when I say that this isn’t what you want.”

  “How do you know what I want?” I press my cheek against his chest once more, able to hear his heart race. “What do you want?”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m trying to do the right thing.”

  A cool breeze rushes down my back, urging me even closer—until his lips are just a hair’s breadth away from mine again. “And this isn’t the right thing,” I say—more a statement than a question.

  “It isn’t the responsible thing.”

  Still, I kiss him again, unable to hold back. And soon we find ourselves on the ground, atop a pile of silkweed and soil. Lying on top of me, he searches my eyes, maybe trying to spot even a blink of hesitation. When he doesn’t find any, he kisses me, pinning me with his weight.

  The back of my shirt rides up, and the cool, lush soil feels like velvet against my skin.

  “Wait,” he says, pulling away after several moments. He gets up and extends his hand to help me up as well.

  But I choose to get up on my own.

  “I’m sorry,” he says, completely flustered. His hands fly up to his head. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

  “Because of Alejandra?”

  “Because you deserve better—much better than what I can offer you.”

  “You’re right,” I say, feeling my heart wrench. “I do deserve better.”

  “Look, I still want to help you. But I can’t give you what you need.”

  “I’m a big girl,” I tell him, assuming he’s still afraid of hurting me. “And I know what I need.”

  “Do you?” He focuses hard on me. “Do you need someone who’s going to continue keeping secrets because he’s afraid to let anyone get too close? Do you need someone who’ll never fully open up because
he suffers from serious trust issues?”

  “I’m willing to wait,” I say, my eyes filling up. “In time I can regain your trust.”

  “This isn’t about what happened in Adam’s car,” he says, clearly referring to the kiss.

  “Then what is it about?”

  “I have to go away for a bit,” he says. “It’ll only be for a few days, but we should talk more when I get back.”

  Only a few days. “Then why bother telling me at all?”

  “Because I know there’s something going on with you, and I don’t want you to feel like I’m leaving you on your own.”

  “Where are you going?” I ask, feeling stupid for having thought that his stopping by Knead happened simply because he’d wanted to see me.

  “Back home.”

  “To see your parents?”

  “Not exactly.” He kicks at a mound of dirt on the ground, seemingly as uncomfortable as I am. “I’ve got some stuff I need to take care of.”

  I bite my lip, wondering if his wanting to get away has to do with more legal stuff, even though he was acquitted, or if maybe it has to do with old ghosts.

  He reaches into the front pocket of his jeans for his motorcycle keys and then looks back in the direction we came from. “I talked to Adam,” he says. “He promises to keep an eye on you while I’m gone.”

  “Adam?” I ask. It’s like a blow to my gut. “Since when are you two talking again?”

  “He’s done some pretty stupid things in his life,” he says, “but he’s a really good guy.

  And he really does care about you.”

  “You’re not seriously endorsing him for me, are you? Wasn’t it you, on the phone the other day, who said there was no reason why Adam and I should be seeing one another? I mean, talk about mixed messages!”

  “Guilty,” Ben says. “My messages have been mixed. And, once again, I’m sorry. But here’s a message that won’t ever change: you deserve the best. And unfortunately, I’m not it.”

  “And Adam is?”

  “He’ll be looking out for you,” he says; the words catch in his throat.

  “I don’t need looking out for,” I say, holding back more tears. “I’ll be just fine on my own.” I turn on my heel, neglecting to tell him about what happened today at Knead, or about the car that Wes and I followed. Because finally he’s got one thing right: I deserve someone a whole lot better than him.