by Marissa Lete
Grace puts a fist up like she just won a trophy. “Yes! This is great, but we really need to start working on your costume, then.”
“I’ll pick it myself,” I say firmly. Not firm enough, though. Grace ignores me, pulls out a notebook, and starts listing off ideas for wild, over-the-top costumes she knows I’ll never wear. “I’m just going to wear all black and put on a pair of cat ears. Minimal effort, and still technically a costume,” I say.
“But it’s the only day of the year where it’s okay to go overboard. We have to take advantage of it while we can!”
I sigh.
“So we need to go shopping after school. I bet we could find some good inspiration at the thrift store,” Grace tells me.
“Sure. Let’s just get it over with,” I say.
“You in?” Grace asks Leo.
“Heck yes!”
After school, we spend three hours scouring the clothing racks at the two different thrift stores in downtown Shorewick. By the end of the trip, all of us have at least half-completed costumes, so Grace deems our work a success. When we leave the store, we don’t have to discuss our plans for the rest of the night because it’s become a tradition that Friday nights are movie nights at my house. My parents have made it abundantly clear that my friends are always welcome to come over—probably because it makes them feel more like normal parents—and started making sure they stocked up on all of the best snack foods to lure them in. When Grace and Leo realized this, my house became the go-to spot for movie nights.
“What in the world is going on in here?” Grace exclaims as we walk into my kitchen. Dad is laying on the ground, the cabinet doors under the sink wide open and half of his body tucked underneath. Cleaning supplies, water bottles, vases, and a ton of other miscellaneous items have been pulled out and are scattered on the floor around him. He backs out of the cabinet, sitting up and banging his head on the door as he does.
“Ouch!” he yells, rubbing his head.
“Did you lose something?” Leo asks.
Dad sighs. “Yeah. I dropped my wedding ring down the drain. I took it off while I was chopping the vegetables and set it on the edge of the sink. One bump and down it went.” He looks at me. “Please don’t tell your mom.”
“Tell me what?” Mom calls from the entranceway.
Dad groans. “Perfect timing.”
“Big yikes. Well, good luck with that one Mr. Jones,” Grace says, laughing as she plops on the couch in the living room. Leo follows suit.
Mom walks into the kitchen, a strange look on her face. “What’s that smell?” she asks.
Dad jumps up from his spot on the ground, immediately reaching for the oven. “Crap!” he says. As he opens it, a plume of smoke flows out. “I forgot to set a timer.” He turns it off, then grabs a towel while Mom starts opening windows.
“And you dropped your wedding ring down the drain again, too?” Mom asks, taking in the mess in the kitchen.
Grace and Leo laugh from the couch. I try to hold back a grin.
Dad looks defeated. “We can order pizza?” Then Mom laughs, too.
“It’s fine, we’re good with pizza. Right guys?” I reply, chuckling.
“Pepperoni, please!” Grace calls out.
“Hawaiian!” Leo adds.
“You sinner,” Grace rolls her eyes at him.
“I’m not even going to have this argument again,” Leo replies. I can’t help but laugh at them.
Dad goes back to his spot under the sink to keep looking for his wedding ring and Mom pulls out her phone to order the pizza. I move into the living room, where Grace and Leo have already started fighting over what movie to watch.
“Let’s watch an action movie,” Leo says.
“You always want to watch an action movie. What’s wrong with the one about the dog?” Grace replies.
“Why would you want to torture yourself like that?”
“You’re just afraid you’ll cry in front of us.”
“Okay, you two,” I jump in. “Stop bickering like an old married couple. If I do recall correctly, it’s my turn to pick the movie.”
When no one protests, I choose a new movie, an action-filled comedy, and it appeases them both.
About thirty minutes in, the doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it. Don’t worry about pausing it, I’ve seen this movie a million times,” I tell my friends. I walk into the kitchen and find Dad still sitting on the floor. He holds up his left hand, a ring on his finger.
“I found it!”
“Thank goodness,” I reply.
“Here,” he holds out a wad of cash. “Can you get it? I’ve still got to put all this stuff back.”
“No problem,” I tell him, grabbing the cash from his hand and heading to the door. A minute later, I come back into the kitchen bearing three warm boxes of pizza. I open my mouth to announce the food to Grace and Leo but stop when something in Dad’s hand catches my eye. It’s a vase.
“Hold on, let me see that,” I say quickly, setting the pizza down on the counter.
Dad holds out the vase to me, and the second it’s in my hand, I have a flashback to the echo I heard earlier in the week.
“...we did want to bring you this,” Annie, Maverick’s mom had said.
“Wow, thank you so much! This vase is gorgeous.” Mom had replied.
“Don’t be fooled, it’s only some fancy paint, not real stained glass,” Annie had explained.
I look at the vase in my hands. It looks like it’s made of stained glass, little pieces intricately placed in yellows, blues, and greens, creating a beautiful floral design. But like Annie had mentioned, upon closer examination, I can see spots on the edges where the paint has chipped off, revealing clear glass underneath.
I recall a faint memory of the vase sitting on the counter after we moved in, a few long, yellow flowers standing in it, but I still can’t remember Annie or Maverick.
“Do you know when we got this?” I ask Dad.
He shrugs. “I’ve never seen it before. Your mom might know?”
I walk to the other side of the house to find her. She’s sitting in her office, typing something into her computer.
“Mom, do you remember where we got this vase?” I ask her.
Mom turns to me, reaching for the vase to examine it. “Wow. It’s beautiful. I forgot we had this.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I didn’t get it, actually. I think it was just here when we moved in. I only put flowers in it once.”
“But didn’t we have this house built? No one lived here before, so how could it have gotten here?” I ask her.
“I’m… not sure. Maybe it was a gift from someone, then?” She raises an eyebrow.
“A gift from who, though?” I press.
She shrugs. “Honestly, I don’t know, Laura. It might have just been one of those things we forgot we had and it showed up again when we moved. I don’t really remember. Why do you ask?”
“I just…” I struggle for an explanation. “I really like it.”
Mom smiles and shakes her head. “I do, too. But it’s a mystery to me. If I see something like it, I’ll let you know, though.” She turns back to her computer, letting me know the conversation is over.
“Thanks,” I say, then go back into the kitchen. I try to tell myself that it’s all just a coincidence and that this isn’t the same vase I’d heard Mom talking about in the echo. But the problem is that if it isn’t the same vase, then Maverick might not actually exist, which means there’s something wrong with the echoes. If it is the vase, then he might exist, which means there might be something wrong with me.
Unfortunately, neither of those explanations leaves room for my sanity.
Chapter 6
Over the weekend, I continue to listen for any more echoes that might include Maverick or more information about him, but I get nothing. I keep an eye on the roads, too, searching for the black Suburban everywhere I go and come up short there, too. By Monday, t
he paranoia has subsided, and I’ve almost brushed off the entire past week as nothing more than a random incident that I’d forgotten about.
At school, Grace has news.
“Andy gave me flowers,” she tells me and Leo at the lunch table.
“Seriously?” I reply. She shows me a photo on her phone as proof.
Leo rolls his eyes. “He’s only trying so hard because he feels like he can’t have you now. Once you give in, it’s going to be the same thing all over again.”
“I agree with Leo. This is ridiculous.”
Grace’s face falls. “Maybe you guys are right.”
“Just don’t worry about it. It’s over. Live up your single life,” I tell her.
“Easy for you to say. You don’t even try to date people.”
I open my mouth to reply, but stop, letting out my breath.
She’s not wrong. Dating is the last thing on my mind most of the time. Even though I’ve heard the echoes my entire life, it still takes a lot of my focus to tune them out, to focus on the present. It’s hard enough for me to have friends who want to go out to places that are really, really loud. Grace and Leo may have gotten used to me not wanting to go out very often, but I can still see that it disappoints them every time I don’t tag along. I can’t even imagine trying to hold a relationship with someone, having to explain why I don’t ever want to eat at a restaurant or go to a movie. Sure, it sounds nice to have a person to do those things with, but when I don’t even want to do them in the first place, I don’t really need a person like that in my life.
“I don’t need to date to be happy,” I finally say.
“It’s not about needing someone else to feel happy. It’s about being close to someone. Having another person on your side, someone you can count on,” Grace replies solemnly.
I imagine having someone like that. Maybe if there was someone I could be completely honest with, someone that knew about my ability to hear the echoes, it would be nice. To not have to hide my sometimes strange behavior. To be able to talk to them about it. I mean, I have my parents, and they know. But the topic of the echoes has become such a taboo thing with them. They don’t know how to respond, or how to deal with it. What can you say to someone who’s hearing things you never thought possible? I don’t even think I’d know what to say to myself, either. So it would be nice if someone understood that part of my life.
But that could never happen. No sane person would believe that I hear echoes of the past. Even my parents, the people who love me most and know me better than anyone else in the world thought I was mentally ill for years. What would happen if I tried to tell Grace, or Leo, or some boy I liked? I shudder at the thought.
“I’m not sure I’d say Andy is someone you can count on,” Leo tells her when I don’t respond.
“He was, at first. He was the perfect guy, honestly,” Grace replies with a sad smile.
“Everyone is at first,” Leo fires back. “The more time you spend with someone, the more you learn who they really are.”
“Okay, guru Leo. Fill me with more of your wisdom,” Grace replies sarcastically.
Leo rolls his eyes at her and shakes his head.
“I’m not sure if I can even take advice from someone who’s so biased, anyway.” Grace’s tone tells me it’s meant to be a joke, but I can immediately see the tension forming in Leo.
“Biased or not, Leo has a point,” I jump in to avoid the direction I see this conversation heading. “The last time you two broke up was because Andy violated your trust, too. That’s not someone you should be thinking long term about.”
“The last time we broke up was because of a simple misunderstanding. And he broke up with me because I was stupid enough to snoop through his phone.”
“But there’s a reason you felt the need to go through his phone, right?” I reply.
“And some of the things you found didn’t exactly prove his innocence—let’s not forget about that, either,” Leo adds.
Grace just sighs. I can tell she’s not enjoying this conversation, so I change the subject by asking her about her costume progress for the Halloween dance. She welcomes the change, but as she goes into a detailed explanation about what she has and what she still needs, Leo’s words swirl through my mind.
The more time you spend with someone, the more you learn who they really are.
More time. Maybe that’s what I need to figure out this whole Maverick situation. More echoes, more information. Maybe with enough waiting, I’ll learn who he is and if he’s even real. But how long will it take to figure it out? A year has passed since the first echo I’d heard of him. Would it take an entire year of listening to finally understand?
✽✽✽✽✽
After school, Mom is in the kitchen cooking dinner and I’m sitting at the dining room table working on my Chemistry paper when I hear an echo of the front door opening from last year. I stop working, listening to the footsteps walking into the dining room. Then I hear the office door open.
“Laura, is that you?” Mom’s echo calls.
“It is!” my echo replies.
I’m already starting to gather my papers, ready to move into the office so that I can write my paper in the quiet, but I stop when I hear the next line.
“How was Louise’s?” Mom’s echo asks. I think back, trying to remember if I’d ever been there before last week. But I would have remembered the place, I’m sure of it.
“It was surprisingly good!” I hear myself reply. Okay, so that’s definitely not true.
“That’s great to hear.”
“And…” my voice trails off. I can feel my heart speeding up in anticipation. Will I learn more about this Maverick guy?
There’s a brief pause, then Mom says, “Honey, could you run out to the car and check for another grocery bag? I’m missing a couple of cans.”
It takes me a few beats to realize that the Mom that just spoke is from the present. I look over at her, frozen, straining to hear the rest of the conversation from last year.
“Did you see the boy? Maverick, right?” Mom’s echo says on the other side of the room. I look in that direction as if there’s going to be another Mom standing there to have a conversation with.
“I did,” my past voice replies at the same time Mom’s present self says, “Laura? Can you?”
“Uhh, yeah,” I reply quickly, but I don’t move. I’m still listening.
“He seems pretty nice,” Mom’s echo says.
“He paid for my food,” I hear myself tell her.
I’m hearing double now, because Mom’s echo says, “Really now? That’s really nice,” a beat before her present version asks, “Are you okay, sweetie?”
“Yeah,” I reply, even though my heart is thudding in my ears, and I can’t make sense of anything I’m hearing. I want to freeze time and remember everything so that I don’t feel crazy anymore, but I can’t. I can only sit here and listen.
“Hey, don’t worry about it, I’ll go grab it,” Mom says, putting a hand on my shoulder for a moment before she leaves the room.
“Do you think he likes you?” Mom’s echo asks in that nosy-motherly sort of way. It makes me want to roll my eyes even today.
“I don’t know. I can’t think about things like that, though,” comes my reply.
“Hey, that’s not true, sure you can. That’s what we moved here for. A fresh start. A chance to feel normal.”
“I’ll never feel normal,” my echo replies. I feel the same way now. Hearing this conversation that I don’t remember is the least normal thing I’ve experienced since moving to Shorewick.
Mom of the present comes back into the house just as her echo says, “Don’t rule it out just yet, okay? Promise.”
“Okay, Mom. Promise,” I answer with a sigh, but in the present, I can make no such promise.
I listen for a minute more, but the conversation seems to be over, so I sit back down.
“Doing okay?” Mom asks me across the kitchen counter. I want
so badly to open up to her, to explain all of the unexplainable things I’ve been hearing lately, to let her tell me I’m not crazy. But what if I am?
Instead, I settle for, “Yeah, I just got a little dizzy. Probably just hungry.”
“Well you’re in luck because dinner is ready,” she replies.
And as I eat, I cling to the idea that the stained glass vase is the same one from the first echo. It’s the only real, physical evidence I have from the echoes I’ve been hearing lately. It makes me feel like there’s some possible way these things actually did happen and it’s not just all in my head. I use that hope to get me through the rest of the evening.
Chapter 7
The next morning, I walk out to my car a little bit earlier than I need to leave. I’ve decided that I’m going to figure out what’s going on in the past, and that the best way to do it is to try and listen to as many of my own echoes as I can. I’d heard myself run into Maverick one morning, so I imagine it’s bound to happen again, and I want to make sure I’m there for it. So I wait outside in the brisk morning air, listening for the sounds of myself leaving. I sigh in disappointment when I hear the car engine starting, then driving away. Maybe next time.
As I’m backing out of the driveway, I glance over at the abandoned house across the street and a thought pops into my head. If Maverick exists, and he used to live at that house, there’s got to be lots of echoes inside, sounds that could give me more information about the stuff I’ve been hearing. If I could just get inside…
I shake my head. I’m not ready to cross the breaking and entering line quite yet. But I tuck the idea away somewhere safe, in case I need it later.
When I get to school, there’s a squishy white convertible parked in my regular spot. I pull my car up next to it and Grace rolls the window down, flashing a grin at me.
“No. Way.” My jaw drops.
“It finally happened! The Beast is gone forever!” she exclaims.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I squeal, jumping out of my car and half-running to the passenger side. I open the door and slide into the dark leather seat next to her.