The Murmurings

by West, Carly Anne

  “I know you’re a Seer,” Adam says, and my body goes cold.

  “What’s he talking about?” Evan asks quietly, as though he is trying to block Adam from the conversation.

  “He doesn’t know?” Adam asks. I look from one accusing face to the other. I feel trapped between two faltering realities.

  “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t really understand what it is myself,” I plead.

  “You’ve been hearing things? Seeing things?” Evan accuses me.

  “It started less than a year ago, and I’m not even sure I’m actually—”

  “She’s sure,” Adam finishes for me, directing his assertion at Evan, who looks like he wants to punch Adam in the face.

  “Excuse me, I don’t need your help with this,” I fire at Adam, who shakes his head like I’ve betrayed him in a way I couldn’t possibly betray someone I barely know.

  “Well you certainly need help from someone,” Evan spits at me.

  “What are you saying?” I can’t believe he could be so mad at me about this. And after everything with Deb! Who does he think he is? “Hey, you’re the one who wanted to know more about this shit in the first place. Well, here you go. Take a look,” I fire back.

  Evan balls his fist and fits it into the palm of his other hand and squeezes. He clenches his jaw so his cheeks hollow out.

  Adam casts one more cautionary glance toward Evan, but it’s pointless. It looks as though Evan has decided to stop listening, so Adam turns to me instead.

  “You want to know more about Dr. Keller.”

  I lean in, still a little angry at Adam, but at least Evan knows about me now. It’s not how I wanted him to hear it, but if this is the only way to find out what happened to Nell, so be it.

  “Dr. Keller was the first person who understood me,” Adam continues.

  I nod, then remember what made Dr. Keller believe Adam.

  “ ‘You promised me you would come back. Is that bracelet for me?’ ” I repeat the two sentences that were whispered in Adam’s ear.

  He responds with a shudder that travels the entire length of his tall body. Then he wipes his mouth with his enormous hand and begins.

  “All he said when I told him that was ‘Susan.’ Dr. Keller stayed away from me days after that. I thought I’d done something wrong telling him what I’d heard. But he came to see me a week later and explained why he was so disturbed. What I’d heard were the very last words his girlfriend, his first love, said to him before she died. They’d met in high school and were going to go away to college together.”

  Adam pauses, his lips drawing into a frown. “She was murdered. Stabbed right in front of Dr. Keller by a mugger. He couldn’t protect her. It happened just as he was about to give her a present to mark the next step in their relationship.”

  “A bracelet,” I finish.

  “A charm bracelet, with a few charms to start her collection. But he only got as far as showing her the box. Dr. Keller’s carried the guilt of Susan’s death with him ever since. It’s why he went to medical school. To maybe, I don’t know, save other people since he couldn’t save Susan. And the more his grief and his guilt deepened, the more he began to wonder if maybe his girlfriend might assuage his guilt by sending him a sign from the afterlife.”

  Adam keeps talking, his speech halting, and it occurs to me that it’s probably been a while since he’s spoken to anyone. I swallow hard as I wonder if the last person he spoke to was Nell.

  As Adam tells it, Dr. Keller knew it was dangerous to want a sign from the beyond. After all, before Adam came along, Dr. Keller used to treat people for those types of thoughts. But he began seeing signs from Susan everywhere. His loss was that deep. Somewhere along the way, he began to wonder if what some people—people like Adam—were experiencing weren’t delusions at all, but actually communications from the afterlife, someone trying to make contact from the beyond.

  “Isn’t that the definition of a delusion?” I ask, not certain how I’d rather be defined, as delusional or as a Seer.

  “Except for one minor difference,” Adam says, some enthusiasm reaching his voice. “If someone’s experiencing a delusion, there won’t be anything to show for it but someone’s description. But with a Seer, there’s always a tiny piece of evidence left behind from the encounter. It’s easy to overlook unless you know what to look for: something out of place, shifted, or marked.”

  I automatically reach for my neck, to the spot just behind my ear.

  “Like maybe the dampness from a whispering in your ear,” Adam says, his eyes following my movement. Then his gaze drifts to my bandaged shin. “Or a mishap right after you think you might have heard something. Seen something.”

  I turn to Evan, but he’s staring straight ahead past Adam, nostrils flaring.

  My stomach twists with anger and guilt, but an earlier thought distracts me. I look to Adam again. “You were young when it started for you, right? Hearing things?”

  Adam nods, his eyes drooping like the thought exhausts him.

  “I don’t know why some people experience the whispering earlier than others. I was young, as was Nell. But I’ve met others whose onset is later. I think the younger ones are less likely to dismiss what they’re seeing and hearing. When you’re a kid, anything’s possible.”

  “I think it started for me when I was with Nell. The night she went to Oakside.”

  Adam shakes his head. “It’s not like a virus. You can’t catch the voices from being around people who experience them. Otherwise, Dr. Keller would have no need for any of us.”

  We’re all quiet for a moment, the only sound the faint whistling of Evan’s nose.

  “Maybe it’s not so much a matter of when it starts as when we start to believe it,” I venture. Adam simply looks at me, the deep pools of his eyes unreadable.

  Another silence follows. I can’t take it anymore.

  “How do you know all this?” I ask. I sound suspicious, but who am I kidding? I am suspicious of him. How could anybody believe something so unbelievable?

  “I told you. Dr. Keller worked with me for over half my life. He shared things with me.”

  “You and Dr. Keller sound like you’re pretty tight.” My throat tightens. Did I just see Adam’s eyes shift?

  “We were,” he says. His hunched shoulders take on a new tenseness. “When he became head psychiatrist at Oakside, he made me his orderly, his right-hand man, in a way. By then he knew I could detect a Seer as well as he could. He had me convinced we were going to help people. That we were going to protect them from the Takers.”

  It’s so strange to hear Adam throwing around terms for what I’ve been experiencing as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

  “The split soul.” The words feel ridiculous on my tongue.

  “Just the one half,” he corrects me.

  I’m at a loss for what to say next, but to my surprise, it’s Evan who chimes in.

  “So what, you just left? You’d had enough?”

  Adam looks him squarely in the eye. “I fell in love.”

  “Oh,” Evan backs down a little.

  “I had to help her. I could see the way Jeremy—Dr. Keller,” Adam says, and blushes a little, “was losing it. He wasn’t sleeping much, and I hardly ever saw him eat. He was getting more, I don’t know, obsessive. He’d been letting his other patients slip—the ones with actual delusions, the ones he keeps on the other side of the ward, away from those he’s identified as Seers.”

  I think back to the day I went to Oakside to pick up Nell’s box of belongings. I had tried to turn down one hallway, but Dr. Keller had cut me off at the pass and hurried me in a different direction. I can still hear the sound of his coat as it snapped in his wake.

  “They’re still there, and the orderlies are the only ones taking any sort of care of them—though I’d hardly call it that. Those patients aren’t being given the therapy they need. They’re just pumped with drugs to keep them quiet.”

  “What ab
out the other Seers?” I ask.

  “You mean all two of them?”

  “There are only two left?” Evan asks. His brow creases, but every other part of his face falls. It’s as though he was hoping to hear other news.

  “And I can’t say how much longer even they’ll be around,” Adam says, a hardness slipping into his tone. “Dr. Keller’s not worried about the safety of the Seers. He used to believe they needed help and protection. Now he just views them as a conduit. A means to getting what he wants.”

  “And let me guess,” Evan continues, apparently one step ahead of me. “What he wants is to find Susan.”

  Adam frowns so deeply his chin threatens to disappear underneath his bottom lip. “He’s convinced that if he can coax out the Taker, he can somehow communicate with her again. He won’t accept that she’s gone. What’s left isn’t her at all. It’s just some mindless creature. The Taker won’t ever be his Susan again.”

  “So you’re telling us there aren’t a bunch of Takers floating around Oakside, trying to get to the other Seers? It’s just this one that was created after his girlfriend died?” I ask.

  “That’s the one he’s attracted, yes. But there are other Takers out there, trust me.”

  And here Adam stops, like he’s lost his train of thought. Nell used to get that same look. I find myself wondering just how many Takers tried to burrow themselves into my sister’s body before she didn’t have the strength to fight one off any longer.

  “But this is the one he’s been trying to coax out of hiding through the Seers he’s accepted into the facility,” Adam finishes once his eyes clear of their shadow. “Susan’s Taker probably found Dr. Keller, then after realizing he wasn’t a Seer, latched on to the nearest one.”

  My throat caves in on itself. I cough to clear a passage, but it only makes my eyes well with tears. “That’s the Taker that killed Nell?”

  Adam crosses the room and kneels beside me, his head level with mine. I should feel swallowed by his stare, but somehow I feel comforted.

  “I thought coming here and getting away from him would help.” Adam shakes his head slowly, his eyes never letting go of mine. “We were wrong.”

  Tears spill from my eyes like water overflowing a glass.

  “You’ve got to stay away from Oakside,” Adam says. “Nell knew you saw the Taker that night in your bathroom mirror. When she broke it, she wasn’t trying to hurt herself, Sophie. She was trying to make it stop. She was trying to hurt it, trying to protect you.”

  I lean toward Evan for support, setting my anger aside, and his hands squeeze my shoulders, drawing me to him.

  “She knew? She knew that I . . . ?”

  “You can’t go near Oakside. Dr. Keller knows too much. He can open the window to let the Taker in. He can get to you. He can send it for you. Do you understand?”

  But I’m not listening to Adam anymore. My mind is swimming through the events of the past year. “It was you watching me that day I came to Jerome. The week after they found her, you left the journal in my car.”

  But I don’t need him to answer. I already know.

  “I thought after reading her journal, you’d be satisfied. Nell wanted nothing more than to keep you safe. She talked about it all the time. You have to promise that you’ll never step foot in Oakside, that you won’t let Dr. Keller near you.”

  I don’t promise him a thing. Instead, I say, “You wanted me to find you. The journal, the blog. You even stayed in Jerome. Why would you do all that just to tell me to stay away?”

  Adam’s jaw stiffens, but he doesn’t answer.

  “Here’s what I think,” I continue, finally putting some of the pieces together. “It’s impossible to escape a Taker once it’s found you. No place is safe if you’re a Seer. You’ve proven that.” I lean in. “What you don’t want to admit is that with Nell gone, Susan’s Taker is after me. Nell told Dr. Keller that I saw what she saw that night in the bathroom. Which means Dr. Keller knows I’m the next closest conduit to the Taker.”

  Evan tenses beside me. I put my hand on his knee and continue.

  “And that means I can stop Dr. Keller.”

  Adam says nothing, but he has no reason to. I’ve said it all for him.

  Evan and I leave in silence. We head back to the car feeling no more satisfied than we did when we arrived at the mine so full of strife that they named it accordingly.

  13

  * * *

  THE DRIVE TO JEROME FELT like it took days, but the ride back feels like it takes minutes. That’s especially surprising considering it’s been almost completely silent. Neither Evan nor I even thought to put on music, and now that we’re nearly home, there’s no point.

  “Thanks for letting me drive,” Evan finally says, and I’m startled to hear his voice.

  “No biggie.” Frankly, I couldn’t care less who’s driving my mom’s beat-up Buick.

  “It helped me sort some things out,” he says.

  I’m back to being pissed at him for how he reacted at Adam’s place.

  “Yeah? How’s that going?”

  “Not so great,” he scowls.

  After I’ve grown used to the quiet again, he pipes up. “How could you not tell me?”

  “Are you kidding me?” I ask in full defense mode. “Exactly what would you have wanted me to say? ‘Hey Evan, I know we only just started hanging out and don’t even know each other’s birthdays or favorite movies or what we want to be when we get older, but here’s a fun little fact: I hear people whispering when no one’s there, which probably means I’m going crazy. Still want to hang out?’ Jesus, Evan. I was afraid you’d—”

  “What, think you’re a freak?” He grips the steering wheel so hard his knuckles begin to pale. “You’re forgetting one important detail. I shared something with you, something I’ve never told anyone. I told you about Deb. About what happened to her.”

  “Yeah, and you also told me that you thought she was crazy just like your aunt and uncle did,” I spit back.

  “I was a kid!” Evan yells. “What did you expect me to think? By the time they sent her away, I was finally old enough to understand how badly they’d treated her, but I still couldn’t do shit about it. I’ve been trying to figure out what happened to Deb ever since, which by the way is looking totally hopeless now that I know how crazy Dr. Keller is and how there are basically no Seers left at Oakside. Do you honestly think I would have shown you those websites if I didn’t think that you would understand?”

  For the life of me, I can’t think of a thing to say in response.

  “After our picnic, I thought we had an understanding. I thought you got me.”

  He pauses before delivering his final blow on my already throbbing heart: “I guess I was wrong.”

  We pull up to my house.

  “You weren’t wrong.”

  Evan doesn’t answer me. He stares at the steering wheel, the engine still rumbling.

  “I should have told you that I was like Nell. Like Deb. Because I felt a connection too, that day by the picnic benches. You have to understand, I saw what happened when people found out about Nell. They treated her like she had some sort of contagious disease. I just couldn’t stand the thought of you thinking of me like that.”

  He turns to me. “So now do you trust me?”

  I think for a second. “I have for a while. I just never told you.”

  The sun is beginning to make its way down toward the mountaintops. He reaches out for my hand, rubbing the top of it with his thumb. I would give anything to keep feeling this newness. We’ve had our first big argument, but mutual forgiveness stretches between us. Which is why it kills me to say what I have to say next.

  “I’m going back to Oakside.”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “No,” I say indignantly, though he may be right.

  Evan’s so flustered his voice actually cracks. “Why the hell would you risk—after everything Adam just told us—do you have any idea—?” />
  “You heard what Adam said,” I try to explain. “There are still two Seers there, and I already know one of them, this guy Kenny. He wants to help me or he wouldn’t have given me that poem from Nell’s journal. Nell wanted him to have it, maybe so he’d know there was hope outside of Oakside. Or maybe because she knew that somehow it would find its way back to me. The other Seer has to be MM. And if Kenny wanted to help put an end to Dr. Keller’s experiments, I’m sure MM will want to too.”

  “And what, you’re going to waltz in there after what happened last time and politely ask to speak with Nell’s other friend? You don’t have to play the hero!”

  “But what if this is the only way to make the Taker leave me alone?”

  “Sophie—”

  “Evan, I wasn’t asking for your approval!” That shuts him up in a hurry.

  He puts his hands to the sides of his head and squeezes, like he’s trying to find some restraint between his palms. I cross my arms over my chest.

  Finally, we both put our hands in our respective laps.

  “Look, all-star camp for football starts tomorrow,” he says, frowning.

  I completely forgot. Winter break begins Monday. I have officially lost all track of time.

  “I’m going to be up at Camp Verde until Thursday, and I’m not going to have my phone. Coach Tarza has this no cell phone policy.” Evan rolls his eyes more than he usually does when he talks about his coach’s rules.

  But then his face turns serious. “Please, promise me you won’t do anything until I get back.”

  “Evan, I—” I start to argue, but he interrupts me, this time taking both of my hands into his giant callused palms.

  “Please, Sophie. I’m asking you not to. I know it’s a lot to ask, but . . . ”

  “But what?”

  “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”

  This is probably the only thing he could have said to keep me from driving to Oakside the minute he left tonight.

  So I just nod in response.

  “I want to hear you say it,” he pushes.