Echoes Between Us

by Katie McGarry

  “Sawyer!” Miguel shouts. “Let’s go!”

  “Our parents will be pissed if we’re caught!” Sylvia is pulling on Miguel’s arm and her stare is yanking at me.

  Mom

  Lucy

  I’m the responsible one.

  Sylvia

  Miguel

  I’m supposed to do what is expected.

  But I don’t want to turn away.

  Damn.

  Veronica tilts her head at me with a knowing smirk that I envy. One that crosses my face whenever I stand on the edge of a cliff, the one I wear when my heart is pumping so fast it feels like it might burst out of my chest. My high.

  Her smirk is an affirmation that she won this round and that causes my respect for her to grow. I didn’t know this about her—I didn’t know she had balls of steel.

  I break off the connection with Veronica and bolt through the window. A single siren wails, the cops’ only warning they’re on their way. I’m running now, and I’m fast. Faster than Sylvia, faster than Miguel. So fast that I catch them and then become the leader on the way down.

  When we’re far enough away, safe in the thick foliage, I turn and look up at the looming gray building and watch in awe. Two police officers scale the steps of the entrance of the building and then three figures lazily drop from the brick porch on the opposite side. One of them has blond curls. It’s Veronica, Kravitz and Wheeling. All of them walking as if taking a stroll through the park instead of being chased by police. Veronica seeming to be the least concerned.

  No worries.

  No fear.

  Just courage.

  Now that is impressive.

  VERONICA

  “Have the new people moved in?” Dad asks over my cell.

  It’s late and my eyesight is blurry from exhaustion. After one of Sawyer Sutherland’s merry band of mean friends was stupid enough to trigger an alarm and bring the police, Nazareth, Leo and I drove around town with the windows down and the music blaring. Of course, Nazareth being Nazareth, he saw a stray puppy with a collar and we had to find the owners, but it’s fun to be the hero for a few minutes.

  After that, they dropped me off at the Save Mart where I’m an assistant manager so I could help close for the evening since one of the other employees left early with the stomach flu. Dad and I are always hustling for money, and because Dad is preparing for the day I get so sick that he’ll quit his job and his entire life to take care of me, he shoves a ton of what we make into savings. I do what I can to add to the pot.

  I have him on speaker as I sit at the desk in our living room and search through file folders, searching for Evelyn’s diary. It’s a copy of a diary from a library in upstate New York. One my mother had heard about and asked to see, and they were nice enough to send. The same one I saw in Sawyer Sutherland’s hands tonight, and I have no idea how he got it.

  Those papers were securely placed in a hope chest in my room. No one knew I kept the diary there, not even Dad. I have ransacked nearly every part of my house in search of the copy, hoping against hope that, besides me, Sawyer is the only other person in the world who owns a copy. This riddle is driving me insane—how did Sawyer get his hands on my transcript of Evelyn’s diary?

  “V,” Dad says. “I asked if the new people are done moving in.”

  “I guess.” I shove all the accounting files for Dad’s business back into the drawer.

  Relaxing on the circular window seat and listening to me and Dad chat, Mom stares into the night. She’s peaceful, as if there’s not a problem in the world. I wish I could feel that way for thirty seconds. “I don’t see them hauling in any more boxes.”

  Dad and I are close. From the way people talk at school, we’re closer than most parent-child relationships, but I don’t feel like telling him that the guy who moved in downstairs was making fun of me. As much as I hate to admit it, their words hurt. Plus, Dad will kill him for upsetting me, and it would suck to have to visit Dad in prison.

  “All the gas receipts are officially scanned into the computer and logged,” I say.

  “Thanks.” Dad sounds as drowsy as I feel. He drives long hours before taking the mandatory rest period the government insists truckers take. In the background, I can hear the TV in the sleeper of his cab.

  Dad tells me about a character of a waiter he had at the truck stop diner and the story makes me laugh. As he talks, I check my school email and find a reply from my teacher.

  I had nicely begged for permission to do the research project on my own. Her answer was short, simple and to the point: No. One of the purposes of this project is to learn how to work with others. This is an essential skill you will need for your future.

  I disagree. Wholeheartedly. I have absolutely no intentions of doing anything in my future that involves me working with groups of people.

  “Did you deposit the rental check?” Dad asks, drawing me out of my melancholy mood.

  “Yep.”

  “Tomorrow, not tonight, as you need to get some sleep, can you set up all the new spreadsheets for these tenants?”

  I’ve already started them. Rent, utilities, incidentals … “Yep.”

  “Have you turned on the alarm?”

  “Yep. I’m home safe, Dad, and I’m okay.”

  There’s silence on his end, and I allow it. He eventually clears his throat, but his voice is gruffer than normal. “I love you, peanut.”

  My heart warms. “I love you, too.”

  He hangs up, and I relax back in the comfy rolling chair that is pleather and has a high back. There’s a lot of people my age who would be freaked out to be alone at night, but except when I was eleven and we first moved here, the dark doesn’t scare me. In fact, there’s a comfort in the blackness of night. A lot like a soft, heavy blanket. A lot like my mother’s hugs.

  Searching for a solution to my problems, I swivel in the chair. I need to find someone else to work with on my English project. Someone who has a car, someone who will be easy to meet with, someone who will willingly work with me and someone who is absolutely on board with what I want to research. This topic means the world to me—literally life and death.

  My cell pings and I glance down at the text. Glory: You need to contact me. I’m seeing things in your future that concern me.

  There are things that concern me about my future, too.

  Out of the corner of my eye, there’s movement. A shadow. I barely see the blur, and it darts from the living room toward the stairs that lead to the foyer on the first floor. My heart picks up speed. It’s past midnight. The time when this house comes alive. Beyond shadows, I haven’t seen the children since I was a child, and I’m hungry to see them again.

  I’m up, out of my seat and I follow. A push of a few buttons, the alarm is disarmed and I open the heavy wooden door that separates me from the rest of house. At the top of the stairs, I strain to look down into the darkness. A faint light pushes through the thick stained glass over the main front door, creating shadows in the corner. There’s silence. So loud that it almost hurts my ears.

  The children frighten easily so I creep down the stairs, working hard to distribute my weight to keep the old steps from creaking and moaning.

  What do the children see when they frolic around this old house? Do they see their own home, in their own time, back when they were alive? Are they lost in their happy memories? Because that’s what I hope for death to be, lost in a dream of joy.

  I lean my back against the wall, close my eyes and listen. At this time of night, at exactly this time, I hear their light footsteps tapping against the hardwood. Some nights, I’m lucky and can hear their giggles, and on rare nights, back when I was younger, I was offered the rare jewel of catching sight of more than just the hem of a dress.

  I breathe in. I breathe out. The energy of the house surrounds me, and a child’s high-pitched scream pierces the night.

  SAWYER

  Tuesday Jan. 1: Well, Diary, I’ll introduce myself. My name is Evelyn. I’m
16 years old. I have tuberculosis and at the present time am in the Ray Brook Sanitarium trying to get cured. You must keep my secrets well, for I’ll tell you things that I want no one to know.

  —Evelyn Ballak, 1918

  The girl is at a desk, writing into a journal. I stand at the doorway, watching, listening, confused by the look of happiness on her face. I scan the hallway and see the exhausted doctors, the worried nurses, the people deathly thin walking up and down the hallway. Someone coughs. It’s a ragged, guttural, desperate sound. As if someone is drowning on dry land. And everyone stops and turns toward the noise.

  A man stumbles out of his room and almost runs into me, and I jump into the girl’s room—my heart in my throat. He holds his chest, clawing at it as if it won’t work. He continues to cough, doubles over with it and then collapses to the floor.

  He’s sick, they’re all sick here. They’ve been sent here to die and I turn back to the girl and she’s still writing and she’s still smiling.

  “Haven’t you been told?” I say.

  The girl looks up at me and blinks like she’s confused. Her innocence causes me pain. “Told what?”

  That you can’t be happy. You’re dying. I should tell her. Someone should tell her. But why does it have to be me?

  A scream. So loud that everyone moving around me stops. They turn and stare at me. The doctors, the nurses, the patients, the man on the floor. Their eyes wide, their mouths open, as if the scream is resonating from all of them, but it’s one sound, one horrifying shriek and the real world slams into me.

  Lucy.

  My eyes open, and I shoot off the mattress resting on the floor of my new room. Evelyn’s diary falls from my chest.

  Adrenaline pumps through my veins. Someone’s hurting my sister. Her scream ends for a beat then her shrieks continue. I fly through my room, grab the baseball bat by the door and swing it over my shoulder as I charge into her room.

  The princess bed is set up in the middle of the room, the white sheer curtains hanging from bedpost to bedpost. Pillows at the top of the bed, pink sheets and comforter kicked back, but my sister is gone. Nausea races through my gut, and I fight the wave of dizziness. “Lucy!”

  Footsteps behind me, multiple ones, and I spin searching for the threat. There’s no one. Darkness. Only a smidge of light flows from the hallway that leads to Mom’s bedroom. “Lucy!”

  Cries. My sister’s cries. Heart-wrenching cries. Desperate cries. And the panic throbbing through me makes me feel like I’m going insane. “Lucy, answer me!”

  The door to our apartment bangs against the wall and I jump. A shadow rushes through it, and on instinct, I chase. Out to the foyer, my feet pounding against the floor. Pain in my chest at the sight of another shadow descending the stairs and the craziness in my head grows. “Lucy, answer me now!”

  The front door to the house flings open, light from the streetlamps floods in and my heart stalls at the sight of my sister. She’s in her long nightgown, her black hair tangled and her face red. She hyperventilates as tears stream down her cheeks. At the threshold, she starts to step out, and as the roar for her to stop reaches my throat, the shadow on the stairs leaps toward my sister.

  My heart tears through my chest, Lucy screams and I sprint with my fingers tight around the bat, the intent to kill. Then there’s a halo of beauty crouched in front of my sister, and I come to an abrupt halt. Short curls, delicate hands on my sister’s shaking shoulders and that musical voice I had heard earlier today isn’t reprimanding, but soothing. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Everything’s okay. Just take a deep breath. You can do it. Try it with me.”

  Lucy chokes as she tries to breathe, and Veronica tucks my sister’s hair lovingly over her shoulder. “Good job. Now try again. Can you tell me your name?”

  “It’s Lucy,” I say as I lower the baseball bat. I scan the foyer, the corners, and the shadows. The hair on my neck stands on end in warning. Instincts nagging that there are eyes, unseen eyes, glaring at me.

  “Hi, Lucy, I’m Veronica. Where were you going so fast?”

  Lucy shakes from head to toe, and she tries to jerk out of Veronica’s grip, but Veronica doesn’t give. I’m grateful because I’m taking my time moving toward them. There’s an eeriness in the air. A sixth sense that something’s wrong, a something I need to fight.

  “Let me go!” Lucy screeches, and that’s not like her. She starts crying again, and her body convulses with the sobs. “We have to go! It’s coming! The monster is coming!”

  “Did you have a nightmare?” I ask, and though I’m only a few steps away, I glance over my shoulder again, toward our new apartment that’s somehow darker than moments before.

  The sobs stop, like someone flipped a switch and that causes a terrified squeeze in my lungs. As if the same energy that just pulsed through Lucy is now attacking me. Lucy’s face goes white and taut, and my back itches as if I’m about to be shot. “What’s wrong, Lucy?”

  My sister methodically inches her head toward the sidewalk outside as if she already knows what she’ll see, but is horrified by facing the actuality. Veronica glances in the same direction, then shoots up. Her hand slips from Lucy’s shoulder to her elbow and with a firm grip she yanks her back, away from the door, and I’m moving again. On my toes, bat by my ear, coming in fast.

  Veronica swings Lucy onto her hip, covers her hand over my sister’s head, shielding her from whatever horror lies in wait and dashes up the stairs. I push past them, willingly becoming their first line of defense, then disgust courses through my veins at the sight of a figure stumbling up the stairs of the porch. A trip on the final step, a collapse, then a thud of a heavy body, and I swear aloud as I throw the bat across the porch.

  It’s not a monster, at least not the ones from Lucy’s nightmares. On the ground is my mother. She rolls to her back. Her hair covers her face as her giggles grow into a hysterical laughter. I hate it when she goes out with her friends because this is how she comes back—drunk.

  “It’s all right,” I call out, but I don’t sound all right. I sound pissed.

  “Who is it?” Veronica asks.

  Not exactly the way anyone wants an introduction to go. “My mother.”

  Silence on Veronica’s end. I’m with her; there’s not much of a decent response for that.

  My mom’s laugher subsides, and that’s never a good thing. She moans, and I know what that means. I wish my cast were already off because odds are she’s going to puke, and with the way my luck goes, she’s going to puke on me. The cast can get wet, but it retains toxic smells.

  Lucy’s shuddered breaths are a sign she’s calming down but is still upset over whatever bad dream started this whole debacle. There’s one of me and two people who need help, and God help me, I don’t know who to take care of first.

  I glance over my shoulder at Veronica who is hugging my little sister close. “Do you mind taking Lucy into our apartment?”

  On the second landing where the staircase turns, Veronica leans over to get a good look at my mom just in time to see her roll to her side with a dry heave. Veronica’s lips thin out, then she rubs a hand along Lucy’s back. “Would you like me to take Lucy to my place? I can get her something to drink, let her watch TV and give you time to deal with … this.”

  Do I want what she’s offering? More than I want eyes to see, but pride is a fickle beast as I’m the one who takes care of this family. That’s the job Dad left to me.

  “I promise I won’t bake her into cookies,” Veronica says in a flat tone, and my shoulders drop with the reminder of how much of a jerk I am. “I already had a few Girl Scouts for dinner so I’m good for a few weeks.”

  I deserved that yet I can’t bear to look at Veronica as I accept her offer. “That would be great if you could take Lucy.” I suck in a deep breath as I lift my mom into my arms. She’s a bit heavier than air, but with my cast on, she feels like dead weight. “Thanks.”

  I hear a mumbled “welcome” as I carry my mom through t
he foyer and into the apartment. I kick the door shut behind me then head straight for the bathroom. Using my shoulder, I flip on the light, and when I set her on the floor, she barely makes it to the toilet before she vomits what’s left of her liver.

  Mom makes ugly sounds as she retches, and grabbing an elastic ponytail holder, I draw her long blond hair back even though she’s already vomited on several strands. I drop my ass to the floor and lean against the cold tile wall.

  I’ve never had a girlfriend. I’ve kissed a few girls, but no one steady. It drives my mom crazy and maybe this scenario is the reason why. I can’t comprehend a world where anyone would want to do this for someone they loved. It’s bad enough I have to do this with Mom. I don’t need nor want to do this with anyone else.

  A few more dry heaves that contain fluid, and Mom moans as she places her head on the toilet bowl. I wince for her—we haven’t cleaned since moving in this morning and who knows what flesh-eating bacteria was on there from the previous occupants.

  “I’m sorry, Sawyer,” she says in a rasp. “I didn’t think I drank that much.”

  “I told you that you should have eaten dinner with us.”

  “What can I say other than you’re right?”

  Not much. “Is everyone this drunk? And if so, how did you get home?”

  “Jennifer called an Uber to take us all home.”

  Which means Mom’s car is still at whatever restaurant or home she left it at. When I stare blankly back, she offers me a pathetic smile. “It was Vivian’s birthday.” But then her smile fades and tears well up in her eyes. My forehead furrows as this isn’t my mom. She’s the happy type, especially when there’s alcohol rolling in her veins.

  “What?” I lean forward, wondering if she’s going to puke again.