Silent Echoes

by Carla Jablonski

  “Are you going to clean this up anytime soon?” Melanie asked.

  Lindsay kept her eyes on the curtain. “You know it always looks worse before it gets better.”

  “Huh.” Melanie seemed to assent. “Whatever. Just keep your door shut.”

  No worries there, Lindsay thought. “Did you want something?” She sat on the floor and pulled on a nearby sock.

  Melanie’s brow furrowed. “Oh, right. I heard you in here and I thought you had already left for school. Aren’t you usually gone by now?”

  Lindsay’s heart revved. Lately she kept missing her alarm because she had so much trouble falling asleep.

  “Yeah,” she said, grabbing another sock and pulling it on. It didn’t match, but she didn’t want to take the time to look for the other. Who’d notice, anyway? She stood and picked up her backpack, eager to get out of the room. “You’re right, thanks.”

  Melanie hovered in the doorway. Why won’t she move out of the way? Lindsay rummaged through her pack, making sure she had the right notebooks, the library books, her wallet.

  “Lindz.”

  Lindsay stared into the dark folds inside her pack, her hand stopped by the sound of her mother’s voice. Soft. Caressing. Reaching.

  If I talk, what will happen? She felt a wail rising inside her. If she talked, would everything explode? What would the first words be?

  “Melanie!” the Husband bellowed from somewhere.

  “Just a goddamn minute,” Melanie hollered over her shoulder.

  Lindsay stood and slung on her backpack. It was still warm for fall, so she didn’t bother with a coat. She moved toward the door.

  “Lindsay,” Melanie said quietly. “This has been a lot of adjusting for you. I get that.”

  “Mmm.”

  “So…so if you want to talk to me about…things…”

  “Melanie! Get your ass in here!” the Husband shouted again.

  “Shut up!” Melanie shouted back. She sighed, then glanced at Lindsay. Her eyes had changed: they were shaded, shifting. “We can talk later. Don’t want to start the day badly.” She peeled herself off the doorjamb and slouched away.

  Lindsay shut her eyes. She counted to ten, then she counted to twenty. Enough time to let them be so wrapped up in screaming at each other they didn’t bother to notice her as she slipped out the door.

  Gotta make headway on the history-of-science paper, Lindsay vowed. She began making a to-do list in her head. She’d blown a pop quiz in calc yesterday, screwed up equations she could write in her sleep. Talk to Johnson about a makeup quiz. Study stupid French and catch up on the homework. Set up an inter-library loan account to get additional research material.

  Library. Damn. She’d been in the library every day before and after school for the last two weeks and still couldn’t manage to get the overdue books back. Do laundry. Stop being crazy.

  Her pace picked up. There weren’t any kids hanging around outside; the bell must have already rung. She’d been late every morning this week.

  She slid into her seat and slumped down as if she’d been there all along. The second bell rang. Safe.

  “Glad to see you could make it, Lindsay,” Mr. Chu, her homeroom teacher, commented.

  Lindsay shrugged. She recognized the warning, but she had bigger things to worry about.

  As she walked the crowded halls from one class to another, she reminded herself not to hear the voice. Not now, not ever. So far the voice hadn’t been anywhere but in the closet. Lindsay didn’t understand why that was true, but it was. She consoled herself a little with that. But she intended to stay vigilant.

  In classes she didn’t raise her hand, afraid she’d yawn, and besides, it had been two weeks since she could really pay attention. She’d lost track of subjects, hadn’t done her usual exhaustive investigation of discussion topics.

  At lunch she decided to not go to the library. She’d been spending every lunch period there researching her symptoms. She had found out hearing voices was just one aspect, one bit of evidence, one of several elements conspiring to make a diagnosis. The books shouted out to her that she was at the age schizophrenia often first appears; big emotional stressors could bring it on, triggers like, gee, maybe a monster of a surprise stepfather?

  She got her food and then found Karin at their usual table. She stood there a moment before realizing there weren’t any empty chairs. Should she put down her tray and go grab one?

  Finally Karin glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, hey, Lindsay,” she said. She went back to her yogurt.

  Lindsay blinked several times. Am I not supposed to sit here anymore?

  “Lindsay!” Pamela Martin from science club called from a nearby table. She hurried over. “Are you okay? You haven’t been to a meeting for the past two weeks.”

  Lindsay looked at the back of Karin’s head and then at Pamela. “What?”

  “Where have you been? Did you drop out of the club? I hope not.”

  That’s right. Science club. Tuesdays. Tuesday was a night that the big social sciences library stayed open late. Lindsay shook her head. “No, I had a research project.”

  That satisfied Pamela. Brains understood extracurricular studying—it was what they did. She nodded and smiled, but she didn’t walk away.

  “So…” she said, “should we go grab a seat?”

  Lindsay looked at Karin again, but she just leaned across the table and said something to Justin. He laughed.

  Does Karin hate me now? Lindsay felt herself grow cold. She knows there’s something wrong with me.

  Wait. Lindsay recognized another symptom from the list she’d memorized. Was that thought an example of paranoia?

  Focus on Pamela. She just asked you something.

  “I’ll try,” Lindsay said.

  Pamela looked confused, which must mean that was the wrong answer.

  “I mean, sure, whatever,” Lindsay tried again, figuring that response should cover a lot.

  “Okay, how about over there?” Pamela walked past Lindsay, heading for a table full of kids from science club. Mutely, Lindsay followed.

  She went over the last two weeks in her head. When had things changed with Karin? They still sat next to each other in history of science and honors calc, but now that she thought about it, Lindsay realized she hadn’t been as chatty as usual.

  When history of science rolled around, Lindsay slid into the seat beside Karin and flashed a big smile. “So, what’s up?”

  Karin raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s just, uh…” Lindsay scanned her brain, looking for something reasonable to say. “Have you come up with a paper topic?”

  Karin shrugged, then her eyes traveled over Lindsay. “I should ask you what’s up.”

  Lindsay flinched. “Wh-why?”

  “You’ve been really out of it.” Karin shook her head, her long earrings twisting. “Word is you’re getting high.”

  ‘What?” Lindsay stared at Karin.

  Karin lowered her voice. “That’s how it adds up. I mean, you’re different in class. And what’s with this getup? You trying to piss off your mom or something?”

  Lindsay glanced down at herself, heat rising in her face. With everything in her closet on her floor, she couldn’t keep track of what was clean, much less what looked good. She had stopped caring. Today, not only didn’t her socks match, her red hoodie had holes in the pockets and clashed horribly with her orange long-sleeved tee. She realized she’d been in such a rush to get out, she hadn’t bothered to put on makeup.

  Her stomach soured. Self-neglect. That’s another symptom, Lindsay remembered. “No,” she blurted. “That’s not it.”

  Karin seemed to be waiting for more explanation, but Lindsay didn’t have one she could give her. She wasn’t going to say those words out loud.

  Ten

  Lucy gazed at the dismal scene outside the carriage window. Dug-up earth, shacks, chickens, scrubby men, and grubby women.

  Are we lost?
Lucy wondered. She couldn’t imagine what could possibly bring Bryce and his parents up to this part of New York. The other carriages rattling beside them provided the only clue that perhaps this expedition wasn’t completely off track.

  The driver continued alongside Central Park. At Seventy-seventh Street he made a sharp turn, and then Lucy saw the imposing, five-story brick building rising like a lone mountain in the flat, torn-up ground surrounding it.

  “They’ve made real progress with the grounds,” Mr. Cavanagh said, peering out the window.

  “This wasteland is progress?” Bryce asked, echoing Lucy’s unspoken thought. She remembered the spirit telling her about wealthy people living all around Central Park, not just on Fifth Avenue but also on the West Side. Now that she was seeing the desolate area, she guessed the spirit had her facts wrong.

  “These things take time,” Mr. Cavanagh said. “Anything done correctly does.”

  Lucy considered it a coup—and something of a relief—to be included in this outing with Bryce and his parents. She had been concerned that her responsiveness to his amorous advances over the last few days might have marked her as unsuitable. That and his increasingly frequent, barely disguised disapproval of her life as a medium. But unless she had a ring on her finger, she couldn’t risk giving it up.

  Still, I have to be careful, she reminded herself. If I want to be accepted in society, I have to behave as the girls in his circle do.

  Bryce grinned at Lucy. He sat opposite her with his father, while she was squeezed in beside Mrs. Cavanagh.

  “Have you ever been to the American Museum of Natural History?” Mrs. Cavanagh asked Lucy.

  “No. I’ve never been this far north before.”

  “Mr. Cavanagh is a trustee of the museum,” Mrs. Cavanagh said. “There is a new campaign to raise money for the endowment.”

  “Father is an amateur naturalist,” Bryce explained. “Though what he sees in those cases of stuffed birds is beyond me.”

  “Perhaps you’d prefer to go on expeditions,” Mr. Cavanagh said. “More excitement.”

  “And leave the comforts of home?” Bryce laughed. “Not a chance.”

  “You need to do something with your time,” Mrs. Cavanagh scolded. “I won’t have you wasting yourself on—” She cut herself off with a quick flick of her eyes to Lucy, then back to Bryce. “Now that you’ve graduated, do you have any interests you’d like to pursue?”

  “Yes,” Bryce said, with a sly smile at Lucy.

  Lucy blushed. He shouldn’t make innuendos like that in front of his parents, but she couldn’t help enjoying it, particularly after that barely concealed dig of his mother’s.

  “Perhaps you’d like to get involved with the endowment campaign for the museum with your father,” Mrs. Cavanagh suggested.

  “We’ll see.”

  “If the museum doesn’t interest you,” she continued, impatience edging into her well-modulated voice, “perhaps Alan Wordsworth’s work at Riverview Hospital is something you could become involved in.”

  “Are you actually holding Alan Wordsworth up to me as someone to emulate?” Bryce complained.

  “Alan is rising above his…antecedents…rather admirably,” Mrs. Cavanagh said.

  “Not only is he dull as dishwater, he is horribly lacking in any of the skills needed to succeed in society.”

  Lucy was surprised by Bryce’s assessment of Alan. She had thought they were friends. She hadn’t found Alan dull when they sat together at the dinner dance. He seemed nice, if a bit obsessed with his work.

  “You have advantages he does not,” Mrs. Cavanagh reminded Bryce.

  “Yes, Mother, I know. You remind me every few minutes.”

  Try as she might, Lucy couldn’t care much about Bryce’s debate with his parents. What a luxury to pick and choose a way to spend your time, to be so wealthy that a profession was merely an optional pursuit! Lucy had real fear that she was losing her means of support. The last few séances had been noticeably lackluster. She had to find some way to get the spirit back again.

  She was so preoccupied with her own concerns that she had no idea how the argument between the Cavanaghs was resolved. All she knew was that as they entered the museum, Mrs. Cavanagh’s face was a stone mask, Mr. Cavanagh was highly excited about seeing some rare stuffed bird, and Bryce was explaining that he wanted to show Lucy the bison on the first floor. If Mrs. Cavanagh hadn’t been so annoyed, she probably would never have allowed Bryce to take Lucy off alone.

  “You seem a bit distracted,” Bryce commented.

  Should she tell him her troubles—indirectly, of course?

  She thought back to all she’d heard about spirits and mediums. She remembered that many spirit guides were of other cultures. Maybe she could reach the spirit if she knew what her background was.

  “What kind of name do you think Lindsay is?” Lucy asked. She’d never heard that name before—perhaps it was foreign.

  “What was that?” Bryce asked.

  “Lindsay,” Lucy repeated.

  “Lindsay,” Bryce said. “Hmm. It is unusual.”

  “Lindsay.” Lucy said again, rolling it over her tongue. “What kind of girl would be named Lindsay?”

  “Okay, kids. Let’s go over the assignment one more time before we split up,” Mr. Nunez told the class.

  Lindsay hovered at the edge of the group, clutching her notebook. They were on a field trip at the Museum of Natural History. She had to do well on this assignment. All of her grades had been slipping, and she’d gotten her first ever C on a calc test.

  I’m so tired. She’d had another sleepless week, to add to all the other nights. She leaned her head against one of the towering marble columns in the entry hall. She caught herself drifting and snapped up her head. Pay attention.

  “Today we’re looking at two different things.” Mr. Nunez’s voice echoed across the marble, jarring Lindsay’s jangled nerves. “We’re looking at how to use a museum as a resource, and we’re using that resource to examine evolutionary adaptation. Often species that have the same way of life—the same environmental pressures—can evolve almost exactly the same way no matter how different they actually are from each other. What you’re looking for…”

  Lindsay had trouble focusing. She tried keeping Nunez in sight—his squat, solid form disappeared as he paced in front of the taller kids in her class. Kids like Karin and Justin. Who no longer spoke to her.

  “So, you’ve got the floor plan. We’ll meet back up at the Blum lecture room in the Education wing just through the Northwest Coast Indian exhibit.” He scanned the group. “Any questions? No? Well, if you come up with any, Mrs. Cohen and I will be sitting in the café at the Seventy-seventh Street entrance overdoing the caffeine. Just behind the war canoe.”

  The class scattered and Lindsay listened to their pounding feet, their voices jumbling together like a snarled skein of yarn, echoing in the vast marble hallway.

  “Lindsay?” Mr. Nunez said, walking over to her. She hadn’t noticed he was still there.

  I’m so tired, she thought again. Will I ever sleep? She was someone else now, someone she didn’t know. Someone who got Cs on exams, who couldn’t keep up, who had no friends, who couldn’t concentrate at all but still spent as much time as she could in libraries, anywhere away from the voice. She poked the column with her pen, wishing she’d never heard that stupid girl talking to her.

  “Lindsay, is everything all right?” Mr. Nunez asked.

  “Yeah. Fine. Just tired.” She straightened up and stared down at her notebook.

  “Is something going on you want to talk about?” he asked. “You’ve seemed a bit…different in class.”

  Lindsay roused herself to respond. “Just, you know, stuff.” She wiggled her notebook at him. “Time to go investigate!”

  He fiddled with change in his pockets; she saw him making some kind of decision. “Well, you know where I’ll be if you want to talk to me.”

  Lindsay nodded. “Café. Drinkin
g too much coffee.”

  He smiled. “No such thing.”

  Lindsay looked at the floor plan. “So how do I get to the Hall of Biodiversity?”

  An hour later, back on the first floor, Lindsay managed to find her way to the Northwest Coast Indian hall. She passed around a huge canoe filled with mannequins made to look like Native Americans, noticing Nunez at a little metal table with four paper coffee cups in front of him. She pushed through the glass doors into an area that looked much older than the exhibits she’d just been in. She checked her map again, looking for the auditorium.

  “Lindsay.”

  She froze in front of a dimly lit case holding miniatures. Tiny little figures. Tiny little houses. Tiny little trees. Her head whipped around—there wasn’t anyone else in the room.

  Where is everyone? She glanced at her watch. She was early.

  “Lindsay,” a girl said. “What kind of girl is named Lindsay? “

  Lindsay’s stomach rolled over. The voice. It had followed her out of the closet. Found her here—in public. It had figured out how to follow her.

  “Lindsay.”

  Lindsay covered her ears. “Shut up!” she shrieked. “Stop calling me! Leave me alone!”

  Life-size Indian figures stared impassively ahead from the cases lining the walls.

  “Lindsay.”

  She collapsed in front of the case, huddled crouching on the patterned marble floor. “Stop talking to me!” she pleaded. “Stop!”

  A whisper of a breeze indicated the glass doors opening, chatter of kids entering, heading for the lecture hall.

  Lindsay let out a wail.

  Someone rushed over, knelt beside her. “Call Mr. Nunez. She’s totally freaking out.”

  “That chick’s on crack,” someone said. “She’s such a weirdo.”

  “Shut up,” someone else said. “She’s sick or something.”

  “Leave me alone!” Lindsay shrieked again. She flopped over, curling into a ball on the floor. She kept her hands over her face.