Not Alone

by Frederic Martin

  Will looked at Blue. “So how is it going with the O’Days and everything,” he asked her. His vox voice didn’t disturb the night sounds in the least.

  Blue didn’t reply right away. It seemed like she was choosing what she wanted to say very carefully. “It is the best situation I have had since . . . in a long time.” She looked down as if she was embarrassed to confessing a tiny bit of happiness.

  “That’s awesome,” he voxed. “I guess I’m not surprised. The O’Days have been practically like our extended family—well, for Rose and me, but really mostly for me. Wu is the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  “I like Wu,” voxed Blue. Then she blurted out, “My other foster brothers were jackasses!”

  Will got caught off guard by Blue’s burst of profane honesty, but he also found it refreshing. It was like the ice was melting off of her and a bit of color was shining through.

  “So, not so great at your other foster homes then,” asked Will.

  “No, not so great,” she answered. “And let’s leave it at that.”

  “Fair enough,” replied Will.

  Another pause. This time it was Blue that broke it.

  “What about you, and your family? Can all of them ‘hear’ like this? Are there others like us? How do you manage to keep it secret? How do you keep people from . . . from hating you?” Her questions came out like a dam breaking.

  “Wow. Where to start?” voxed Will. “Yeah, my Mom, Dad, and Rose can vox, and so can my grandma and grandpa.” Will thought over her questions again and asked “You said ‘hear’? Do you mean vox?”

  “Yeah. Vox. That’s what we . . . what I . . .” she paused. “I mean I wasn’t sure if you would call it the same thing. I never knew anyone outside my family.”

  “Yeah, vox. Vox oculis—you know, ‘voice of the eyes’,” said Will.

  “Vox oculis?”

  She sat there quietly.

  “You didn’t know?” asked Will.

  “No. I mean, we just called it vox. My m . . .” she paused again. “. . . We called it the ‘voice from your eyes’.”

  Will thought for a moment. He hadn’t really considered that. It seemed so normal to say ‘voice of the eyes’ but he guessed it could be from the eyes. “That would be ‘vox oculos’, I think. Oculis is accusative, and oculos is ablative, so I guess it could be vox oculos, ‘voice from the eyes’.”

  “What are you talking about? Accusative, ablata . . . blatism, whatever?”

  “It’s Latin,” voxed Will, “I am taking it in school.”

  Blue was silent. Her shadowed face was deep in thought. Will tried to wait patiently to let her speak next, but he had questions of his own that had been building up all summer. Where was she from? Did she have relatives? How did she wind up here? These questions had been pounding away at him for weeks, but with what had happened recently, he had a more pressing question.

  “Blue, these two guys in the park . . . are you sure you aren’t imagining it?”

  Blue’s form instantly became rigid. Her vox shot from the shadows and burst into his brain like a firecracker. “Imagine it? Jesus! I thought i’d finally found someone that would actually take what I said seriously and not assume I lived in a dream world!”

  “Whoa . . . I didn’t mean it that way!” Will wasn’t quite sure what just happened.

  She stood up. “If you didn’t mean it that way, why did you say it?”

  “Jesus Blue! What the hell?” He felt like he had just been sucker punched. It made him angry. “Well, maybe I did mean it that way! You hole up in your room for weeks, barely say a word edgewise, and then show up at my window at night, scaring the crap out of me, and then you go nuts when I ask you a reasonable question? If it’s not a dream world, exactly what kind of world do you live in?” His room suddenly felt unbearably hot.

  The fierce look that had taken over Blue’s face vanished. It looked now like she was fighting an internal battle. It ended with a sigh, “Okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Just don’t . . . don’t . . .” She stopped, as if she’d run out of words. The branches of the trees outside the window clicked and creaked, filling the silence until she said, “Just listen . . . please.” She sat back down.

  Will didn’t answer right away. Blue waited patiently, like this was familiar territory to her. He finally said. “Okay. I’m listening.”

  She began, “It started the first day I went to the park. Do you remember? I pointed those two guys out to you?”

  “Yeah, I remember that. That was only the second time you voxed to me. You said ‘I think not.’”

  In the shadows, Will could see one of Blue’s eyebrows rise quizzically. She went on. “Just before we left I saw Greazal talking to a kid. While they were talking, they swapped a plastic bag for some cash. It was so quick that if I wasn’t looking right at them at the exact right time, I wouldn’t have seen it. Since then I’ve been watching them—mostly Greazal. Gronk only comes around every now and then, and I haven’t seen him now for a while.”

  “Gronk? Greazel?”

  “Don’t look at me like that! They aren’t imaginary! It’s just what I call them. Gronk is the older guy. I don’t know his real name yet, but Greazal’s real name is Jack. I call him Greazel because it sounds like ‘weasel.’”

  “How do you know that Gronk is a dealer? Maybe he’s a customer.”

  “I caught their chiss and then just pieced it together . . .” She stopped. “You know what I mean by chiss?”

  “Yeah, chiss, Other people’s leaked thoughts, right?”

  “Yeah.” Blue paused, “Don’t you think it is strange that we know the same words? Why would we know that? Do you think our parents knew each other? Or our grandparents?”

  Will didn’t say anything. The same thought had gone through his mind. His parents had always been kind of vague about their origins. Whenever he asked them about it, they hemmed and hawed and changed the subject so he had given up asking them long ago. But now it was different. They couldn’t dodge around this one. Then again, he wasn’t sure he wanted to ask it just yet. Blue’s vox ability was still a secret, so far.

  Blue didn’t dwell on it. She went back to her story, “Gronk basically recruited Greazal, because he’s still in high school, so he can sell there easily. And he’s not eighteen yet, so even if he’s caught he’s not going to get in that much trouble. And he is stupid and easy to manipulate.” She added the last bit with contempt. “I don’t know why I started making sketches of them, it just sort of happened.”

  Will sat there shaking his head. “It’s crazy for you to be spying on them. If they are dealers . . .”

  Blue glared at him from the shadows.

  “All right, since they ARE dealers,” Will continued, “they could be dangerous. What if they caught on to you? If you’ve been watching them this long, how do you know they haven’t noticed you? How could you get all this information without them noticing?”

  Blue gave Will another unbelieving look. “You’re kidding me, right? These idiots are practically shouting their chiss. I’d have to go over and ask them to shut up to not eavesdrop on them, and then they’d think I was a nutcase, just like everyone else. Are you telling me you don’t eavesdrop?”

  “Well, yeah, but we have some pretty strict rules in our family about eavesdropping on people’s chiss. I’ve learned to block most of them,” voxed Will. “Well, many of them,” he added. He saw her glaring at him. Again. She sure could penetrate the dark with her glares. “Okay, I have eavesdropped on people on purpose, but they weren’t frigging drug dealers!”

  She stared at him for a moment. “Yeah, well, I don’t think it’s eavesdropping when you’re trying to keep people from doing bad things.”

  “Well, I guess there’s something to be said for that,” Will admitted. “So Gronk doesn’t sell anything? He just gets Greazal to sell it?”

  “Gronk is the leader, and he deals hard stuff somewhere else. I haven’t figured out where or how yet. Gronk is teaching Grea
zal how to deal pot, but only pot. Nothing else. Gronk does all the hard stuff, and he doesn’t tell Greazal anything about it. He doesn’t trust Greazal yet,” voxed Blue.

  Will realized he was starting to buy into this story. As Blue was describing it, he started putting some of the pieces together, and it was beginning to make some sense.

  “I guess that would explain why Gronk has been around less and less. He is letting Greazal take over the pot-dealing part. Or maybe just the pot dealing in the park. Maybe he has other ‘Greazals’ dealing pot other places,” Will ventured.

  “Yeah, that’s possible,” replied Blue. “You noticed that Gronk hasn’t been hanging around as much? I thought you weren’t paying attention.”

  “Yeah, well,” voxed Will. “So now what do we do?”

  “We?”

  “Yeah, we.”

  There was a long pause before Blue voxed, “You said you had rules?” Her tone had softened noticeably.

  “Yeah, pretty simple rules. Rule one is not abusing our ability. Rule two is to keep it a family secret. Talk to no one outside the family about it. Except I am talking to you about it. I don’t think rule two applies with you. I don’t think Mom and Dad were expecting us to find any other vox outside the family. To tell you the truth, it’s pretty weird voxing with someone new. Just voxing with Mom and Dad and Rosie and gram and gramps gets pretty monotonous . . .” He trailed off. “Shit, I’m sorry, I guess you . . . I mean . . . has there been anyone?”

  It was as if a dam collapsed when the reply tumbled out of Blue’s eyes. “Nope. Just me. Talking to myself. For four and a half fucking years!” She looked away from Will as she said it, as if she were directing the bitterness away so it wouldn’t hit him. The hot night breeze paused and all the night sounds came to a stop as if hushed by some unseen cue.

  You idiot, thought Will. He reached out and gently touched her shoulder. She turned towards him. Her face was still in shadow but he knew she was looking at him. He looked steadily back. “Hey. You’re not alone anymore.”

  Blue really was taking a risk, and she knew it. She used to sneak out at night at her other foster homes and that was one of the reasons she kept getting booted from them. Breaking the rules. But Jesus, she only started doing it because it was the only way she felt like she was free and in control. And some of the situations were really bad, so it wasn’t like she had a choice. It was ‘stay in and get beat up’ or ‘get out and get booted’.

  But she did not want to risk getting caught when she was staying with the O’Days. She didn’t want to lose this family. She had thought long and hard before sneaking out to visit Will.

  She got back to her room without incident. No one had locked the door after she had slipped out earlier. A light was on in Wu and Sam’s room, but their door was closed. Everyone else was asleep. It was 2 a.m. after all. She sighed in relief of getting back undetected. It was worth it. So worth it. She couldn’t believe it took so long for this to happen.

  She kept going over and over how fantastic it was to feel normal again. First the basketball game, then the dinner, and then tonight. Will and she had voxed back and forth for over an hour and her head was aching with the effort. She hadn’t voxed like that to anyone in . . . in . . . well, ever! She was little when her family was alive and she just voxed childish things. But she hadn’t forgotten how—it was just a matter of having someone to listen at last.

  And that name! All her life, it was just “vox”, but all along, it had been an abbreviation for something more—a scientific name, in Latin. Vox oculis. It sounded so much more . . . real, like it was normal instead of . . . a deformity. A deformity would have been ‘vox oculitarianism’ or something like that.

  Vox oculis. Somehow, having that Latin name gave it legitimacy. Gave her legitimacy. And Will knew the same words she did: “chiss, vox.” That meant they had to have a common background somewhere—common ancestors or community. But when? Where? She knew nothing of her ancestry—did Will know his?

  These questions and so many more were buzzing around in her brain—she thought she was never going to fall asleep, but the next thing she knew, the sun was shining, and she opened her eyes and felt that she had slept better than she had in a lifetime.

  Will couldn’t sleep. He sat at his window and listened to the soft warm breeze as it rustled its way through the leaves and branches and fences and rooftops. He was still electrified with what had just happened. The long anticipation of what it would be like to vox to someone new, someone outside his family, someone with such a different background. It was unlike anything he had expected. Blue had been so tight up until now—stiff, controlled. But tonight, it was like there was an entirely different person living underneath. It was like he had met “Blue Two.” She was emotional, intelligent, explosive, expressive, and a little foul-mouthed. She didn’t act like she was only fourteen. She seemed to have the poise of a . . . what, sixteen-year-old? twenty-year-old? Age didn’t seem to be the right measure. It was more like she had the poise of a veteran soldier. Was there an age for that?

  It was a little intimidating. Next to Blue, he felt naive and over-protected. It seemed like his life could have been a little harder and made him a little stronger, like she seemed to be. She even had the guts to sneak out in the middle of the night and slip into his house. There was no way he would’ve done anything like that.

  He asked her how she had managed to get in and out of the O’Day’s house undetected. She didn’t brag or explain, she just said matter-of-factly, “I’ll teach you.” Will was more than willing. It seemed risky, but that is exactly what he felt his life needed right now. They had agreed to meet again in a couple of nights. She would come to his window again, but this time, he would slip outside with her, and she would start teaching him. She told him to wear dark clothes that covered all of his skin. They didn’t need to be black, just dark enough that they wouldn’t stand out if a light shined on them.

  The wind picked up and made a swirling sound in his screen. His brain was swirling, too. He looked at his clock. 3 a.m. and it felt like 3 p.m. He finally got up and started going through his drawers and looking for the best clothes for camouflage. He didn’t even turn on his light—he just used the faint illumination from the lone distant streetlight to rummage through his clothes. He picked out some black pants and shirt and tried them on. He tilted his mirror, so he could see himself against the background of his room. He went back and forth into the shadows—out of them, and back again. The black was best in the darkest shadows, but it actually stood out a little against a lighter background. He pulled out some lighter clothes and tried them on. He kept going until almost every item in his dresser and closet were scattered through his room. He noticed that it was getting brighter in his room and when he looked out of his window, he was surprised to see the early pink of dawn. The sight of it triggered a yawn so immense, he thought for a moment that his face would split. He leaned back and collapsed onto the pile of clothes lying on his bed. It felt like a cozy nest. He turned on his side, tucked his legs up and snuggled into the pile. It was so comfortable he decided he was going to make his bed that way every night. That was the last thought that went through his head as his eyelids slid down and dimmed out the brightening dawn as it swelled into the eastern sky.

  15

  Night Stalkers

  Will sat in the grass, one hand rubbing his forehead on a spot where he was sure he was going to have a nice bruise by morning. He leaned back against the tree that had just whacked him in the head with a gnarly branch, though he supposed it was really the other way around.

  “I don’t know if I am going to survive this,” he voxed into the darkness.

  “Yeah, I agree,” came the reply. “You move like a sack of rocks.”

  “Thanks for the encouragement,” he voxed. This was the third time they had met since the first night Blue had shown up in his window a couple of weeks earlier. It had been exhilarating, being out at night, without permission, picking their
way around the neighborhood without being seen, exploring the dark. Blue moved with stunning skill. Her footsteps were completely silent and the way she flicked from shadow to shadow, he began to wonder if she wasn’t a ghost. She tried to teach him to move the same way and Will had picked up some things, but he discovered a baffling problem. In the dark, he had the balance of a dog on a hockey rink. It was ridiculous because he had some really deft moves on the basketball court. It was like the darkness had sucked away all his balance.

  “It’s because your visual reference is taken away.”

  Will stared at the dark silhouette that Blue’s head created, like a hole in the night. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear she just read his mind, for real. There was no way he leaked those thoughts out of his eyes.

  “So what do I do?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer right away, she just stared at him, or at least it seemed that way—it was hard to tell with her face so deep in the shadows. After a moment she voxed, “Move like a cat.”

  “What?”

  “I said, move like a cat.”

  “A cat has four legs!” he voxed back.

  “Use your imagination! Think like a cat—be a cat. And then move like one!”

  “Imagine a cat standing on two legs? That doesn’t make any sense.” He tried to imagine a cat standing on two legs. It kept falling over.

  “You’re thinking too hard about it. Just pretend . . . you’re a cat! Don’t think about it! Honestly, you over analyze everything.” She sounded exasperated.

  He didn’t say anything. He realized that he suddenly felt tired and irritated.

  Blue continued, “That’s another thing, your light hair shows up too much. You should wear a cap. A dark cap.”

  “Anything else I’m missing as long as we are listing all my faults?” he asked, half sarcastically.

  “You need something to hide your face, too. Your pale cheeks show up too much.”