Whisper (The Whisper Trilogy)

by Dana Faletti

  At that moment though, lying on the floor, eyes closed, fingers working my temples, I had no idea what had thrown me to the ground. I couldn’t tell my parents not to worry – it wasn’t a seizure or a tumor or some kind of epileptic fit. I couldn’t even speak.

  Funny thing though, I could hear, and what I heard was not the rock band music in the background or even my mother’s frantic voice, calling my name and trying to bring me back to reality.

  What I heard were whispers.

  ---

  Several hours and one very nasty trip to the E.R. later, I was finally curled up in my bed, with my new phone, of course, ready to escape the recent memory of cat scans, I.V.s and more prodding and poking than anybody was comfortable with. It had been an eventful birthday, so I thought. I had no idea what lay ahead, behind closed eyes.

  “Crap, I’m dreaming of the fairies again…” I muttered through sleep with one eye open.

  “Huh?” My mom had decided to bunk in my room for the night, in case whatever had happened earlier to my head happened again. She squinted at me, her face pale in the glow of the nightlight.

  “Nothing, Mom.” I sighed. What was that fluttering noise? I just wanted to go back to sleep, but how could I sleep with that annoying flapping? There had to be a stink bug in here or something. “Mom, why don’t you go ahead to bed with Dad. I’m okay, really.”

  “You sure, honey?”

  I nodded.

  “Make sure you call out if you have any trouble, okay?”

  The trouble was a comin’ “Okay, Mom.”

  And the door closed quietly, and my eyes closed silently, and my head exploded with colors and noises and smells, and nobody in my house ever even heard my screams.

  “It’s not a dream Calliope.” said a little British man with wings, and everything else in my head went quiet. He was about the size of my forearm, thin but muscular with wavy blonde hair and pale yellow wings. He was dressed in a pink polo shirt and white chinos which in hindsight was just a wardrobe catastrophe. He was floating in mid air, looking mostly smug but slightly concerned, his tiny forefinger resting on his face, just below a large dark brown mole on his left cheek (which looked as if he’d plumped it with eyeliner). Anyways, so yeah– there was a floating winged guy in my room. This wasn’t good for my reputation any way you looked at it. “We’re real, Calliope.”

  We? Who’s we?

  “And, we are not, how you say? Fairies. Aye Mama”

  Okay, so not only was there one apparently non fairy here talking to me, but here was another one, and she was... Wait a minute… Italian? Was that the accent I heard? What the hello was in that cake? You’ve got to be kidding me. I ran my hand across my forehead and stared in disbelief at the scene in my bedroom. One of the not fairy thingies had switched on the light. Hey, I knew where that flapping sound was coming from now! “It’s not a stinkbug,” I unfortunately spoke my thought out loud. The Italian fairy almost crapped her pants… Wait, did they crap? Whatever, anyways, she wasn’t too happy with that comment.

  “Stinkbug?!” She was totally offended. “Do I look like a stinkbug to you, you little sheet?” And, she didn’t. She was gorgeous, a teensy weensy supermodel in a midnight blue sequined ball gown that looked as if it had been painted onto her body, a perfect sparkly fit. Her dark auburn wavy hair fell just past her shoulders in big curls and was framed by a huge set of silver studded black wings that shimmered as if somebody had shaken glitter all over them. She had huge boobs (I admit I was jealous,) and a tiny waist. She was curvy everywhere, and so comfortable in her curves. Even her red lips looked curvy to me. Her dark eyes were heavily outlined with makeup, and her fingernails were red talons. “Didn’t Mama teach you? It’s no polite to stare.”

  I blinked. “Sorry.” Wait a minute, what? Did I just apologize to a fairy? “What the freak is going on here?”

  “Calliope-“the winged guy started towards me, but I retreated.

  “It’s Callie, just Callie. And… what are you?”

  “Watch yourself, leetle girlie.”

  That was the first of many times when I snapped. Who were these wingy thingies to come into my penultimate birthday and spoil everything? “Watch yourself, Italian winged lady. And, I’m not a leetle girlie or a sheet.” I started pacing back and forth ranting, alternately kicking the floor and gesturing wildly towards the ceiling. They watched me, interested, as I lamented my plight, blaming them for everything from the poking and prodding at the hospital to the recent loss of my mind. “So, I want an explanation.” I stopped pacing and faced them, edging closer until I was nose to nose with the male. “Now. Pretty. Please.” How many times can you poke a finger into a fairy’s tiny face before you know you’re bonkers? “And, no smoking in my room!” I almost strangled her, I swear when the Italian lady nonchalantly exhaled three smoky rings towards my ceiling fan then dropped her mini cig to the ground where she landed on it, stomping it out.

  “Oh, just relax.” She flew up and landed, perching majestically on my jewelry box, legs crossed, dress slit up to you know where. “Silas, you tell her.”

  “Tell me what?” It was a challenge directed at the one called Silas. Go ahead, tell me you silly looking creature with your eighties wardrobe upset and your feathered hair.

  He smirked. This Silas was a smug son of a bun, really, and it was getting old for me. I reached out, angry, and thought to grab him, to shake him up a little, literally. I mean, he was this tiny sprite, right?

  Wrong. Tiny yes. Sprite, no.

  “We’re angels.” He spoke evenly, as I rubbed the hand that had tried to mess with him. It felt as if I’d tried to squeeze shards of broken glass. Ouch… At least there was no blood.

  Wait a second - did he say angels?

  5

  Opening one eye, I glanced at the clock the next morning; it read 9:07. Gasping, I sat up straight, thinking I had slept through the alarm. Then I realized it was Saturday. Sigh… relief. Then I remembered the scene in my room the night before. Gasp again.

  I wanted to believe it was all a dream. I could just rub my forehead for a minute and laugh it away, maybe even write it down in a dream journal, then save it to marvel over someday in the distant future. I could jump in the shower and wash the dream away, greet the new day as the sixteen year old cell phone owner that I was. I could just forget about it.

  But the fact that Silas was right now stretched out on his belly on top my dresser, legs crossed behind him in the air and reading the current issue of Seventeen Magazine like it was his job… Well, this kind of made it impossible to pretend last night never happened.

  He slapped the pages shut and turned towards me, chin resting in his hand, “Well, Calliope, good morning to you.”

  I swiped the sleepers out of my eyes. “Hey.”

  Now, yesterday, I’d never have answered him back. It took hours of convincing for me to believe they weren’t some kind of hallucination. The Italian one –Jules was her name – didn’t even stick around. She said she had business to take care of and just disappeared. She didn’t even fly out the window or anything – she really just up and disappeared. Then I was stuck with a tireless Silas who for hours provided me with explanations that made no sense and then proof that they were true. Some of what he told me even explained the craziness that had been happening in my own life as of late. Nothing could have prepared me for the information Silas shared. In fact, I was having a bit of an identity crisis over it all.

  Up until yesterday, I was simply Calliope - Callie - Evans, teen drama queen extraordinaire. My biggest concern for the longest time was – when the hello was I going to get my own cell phone? Then I start getting monster headaches, visions, hearing creepy whispering ladies and listening in on people’s thoughts. I develop some weird super strength and beat up a couple of jocks… or something like that, and Silas and Jules appear on wings to explain it all and more.

  Now, I apparently had transcended to a higher cause, namely – hunting demons, or as my new sidek
ick Silas called them – the Darks. Last night, Silas walked me through a crash course on demons, and what I realized afterwards was that there were freakin demons everywhere. Like, if you walked down the aisle of the grocery store, they’d be having demon boot camp in the banana bins or at the library, there would be hundreds of them just hanging out on the shelves. I highly doubt they read – they didn’t seem very smart – but they did whisper. And, it wasn’t because they were following library rules either.

  Apparently the Darks whispered into the ears, minds and souls of people on earth. Their whispers were powerful suggestions of terrible things, urging humans to commit acts that ranged from deceitful to heinous. These were Silas’s words.

  I, of course, met them with typical teenage enthusiasm – pouty lips, rolling eyes and heavy sighing. Did he seriously expect me to believe this?

  Not only did he expect it. He was out to prove it all.

  Seriously, we took a little field trip last night, and I learned loads about them. Of course when Silas started explaining the whole thing to me, I didn’t believe him, so he showed me.

  “Take my hand, Calliope.”

  “It’s Callie.” At this point I was over the whole “don’t argue with an imaginary fairy,” business.

  “Callie, then. Just take my hand.”

  “The last time I touched you, it felt like razor blades digging into my skin. No thanks.”

  “That was only because your intentions weren’t benevolent.” He flew over to where I was sitting, legs crossed on my bed. “Come on.” Gently, he took my hand in his tiny one.

  Suddenly, we were in the hair care aisle at Wal-Mart.

  “Silas!” I yelled, attempting to cover up my key parts. “I’m in my pajamas!” I was horrified that someone was going to catch me, braless, in my tank top and Victoria’s Secret Pink boxers, no shoes, not even slippers. This floor was so gross – ew. In the next second, I forgot about my bare feet and inappropriate attire and screamed for a totally different reason.

  All around us were these… creatures. Some were about my size, maybe a little taller. Some were smaller than Silas. And some were in between. Some had fangs that slid in and out of their mouths, and some had pointy ears. Some had wings and some had webbed feet. Most of them were greyish brown and leathery looking, but some were dark purply red and looked to be made of clay. They all had beady little black eyes, and most of them had snot or something that looked like it, running from their piggy snout noses, oozing all over their faces.

  Wait… they reminded me of something…

  The creature from Heather Chandler’s locker. The one that looked like mush. Hadn’t that thing been telling Heather something in her ear? Had it been a Dark I’d seen back then?

  My head felt like it was about to split in two. I focused again on the Wal-Mart Darks. What a motley crew.

  One of them, a purply red ball of play dough, about the size of a bulldog, started to waddle towards me, not really looking at me.

  “Silas… what the - ?” I started but then stopped. I looked at this creepy little pudge ball, brought my leg backwards and with as much force as I assumed an NFL player would, I kicked it like it was a career field goal for me. Pow – all of the anger I, for some reason, felt towards this ugly little guy, just burst out of me and into him… or her. Truly I didn’t know if it was male or female. The ugly pudge ball flew towards the back wall and into the pharmacy window. It exploded with a noise that sounded like “oops,” in a hushed baritone voice.

  I looked at Silas, unbelieving what I was experiencing, “What the hello is that smell?” It burned the inside of my nose and made me want to gag, like dirty diapers or garbage or worse. Gross.

  “That’s what the Darks smell like, Callie.” He looked at me. “I think you’ve experienced it before. Your birthday?”

  I thought back to that fateful night. Yes! I thought it was the twins playing a joke or just passing gas… “These guys were at my birthday party?” I gestured to the menagerie of creatures mulling around the shampoo and conditioner, seeming to take no notice of us.

  “Probably not these ones, but, as you can see,” He pointed at them, and all around us, “they are everywhere. Even at the Wal-Mart in the middle of the night.” He grabbed my hand, and we were in an instant somewhere else, somewhere dark and cold. It still stank, even worse than “the Wal-mart,” as Silas called it.

  I held my nose and spoke. “Okay, where are we?”

  “Duncan Avenue. Behind a cafe.”

  My brain tried to process the information. Cafe? Duncan Avenue? “Are we in the alley behind Starbucks?”

  “Yes, Calliope.”

  “It’s Callie,” I sighed, “and why?”

  Silas said nothing. Instead of his answer, I heard whispering voices.

  “Feels so good… A little more.” It was a female voice and definitely not human. I squinted into the blackness and could make out a half dozen or so creatures, all fairly tall and mushy looking. They were circling a pair of young girls and a guy, all seeming to be about my age. Although it was totally pitch black out here, I could see them as if I were shining a flashlight on them. Suddenly I spotted the needle they were passing back and forth. My heart sank.

  “Push it. Push it.” Several of the mushy demons chanted, their black eyes almost smiling as they closed in on the kids.

  “I shouldn’t be doing this.” The blonde haired girl with the glasses thought.

  “Go ahead...” The whispers came over and over.

  “Just do it.”

  “Your parents can’t stand you.”

  “You don’t fit in anywhere.”

  “You’re worthless.”

  Then I heard the other girl’s thoughts. “My parents hate me already, so what if I get caught…” The red head pushed the drug into her arm and threw her head back in pain or pleasure. I honestly wasn’t sure which it was.

  And, six or seven demons cackled with glee, actually jumping up and down, cheering. It’s a creepy sight to see demons celebrating.

  “Stop it.” I spoke out loud, surprising the blonde girl and the one guy with her. The red headed girl was too high to care. She just looked at me, maybe wondering where I’d come from.

  “You don’t need this stuff. It’s dangerous.”

  “Let’s get out of here.” The guy said and grabbed the blonde girl’s hand. They ran off into the blackness to who knows where. I stood still, staring at the other girl, who was sitting cross legged and dreamy on the ground, and a bunch of stinky demons grumbling over their treasures lost.

  Figuring she wasn’t going anywhere, I faced the uglies. “Shut up!” I shouted.

  “Urr?” They looked around, confused, again not registering my presence, eyeing each other as if to say “who said that? D’you say that? Wasn’t me.” What a bunch of dummies.

  “Silas, can’t they see me?”

  “No, you are not visible to their evil eyes, Callie.”

  I grinned. “Cool.” I walked easily up to a demon with sharp teeth and dead looking leathery gray skin. Grabbing its slimy egg shaped head; I twisted it, as easily as if I were twisting the cap off of a water bottle. Snap. One down.

  And the others didn’t even notice. They never even saw me coming. This was some cool superhero stuff. I looked at Silas for approval. This was worth a high five, right? Did angels slap wings or hands? He nodded at me and motioned towards the girl.

  I kneeled down and took her face into my hands. She had these amazing green eyes. They were so glazed over by the drugs, but I could almost imagine how they had sparkled at one time. Her hair was long and fiery red, and well... she was just… well… perfect.

  It sounds so sappy, but I looked at Silas with tears in my eyes. It hurt so much to see this beautiful creature being destroyed by drugs and self hatred. I just knew she was more than this, better than this.

  “You’re seeing her soul.” Silas said to me. “It’s another part of who you are, Calliope. You can see them as they were made to be,�
� He cleared his throat. “I know it’s difficult, but you have to focus.”

  I took her in my arms and lifted her up. Although the girl was my size, maybe a little bigger, she felt weightless to me. I had no trouble holding her. She giggled and mumbled something I couldn’t understand. I touched her face, and her glazed eyes found focus on mine and stayed there. Tilting her head to one side, she studied me.

  “You are loved.” I told her, not sure where the words came from but knowing deep inside they were true.

  She smiled a sleepy smile, exhaled once and then closed her eyes.

  Somewhere in the next half second, Silas did his magic touch trick and whisked us all away from the scene. We ended up dropping her off at the hospital. Hopefully, she would get some help. At least she was safe for tonight.

  It was amazing though – the emergency room was overflowing with demons – whispering to the homeless and drug induced who were curled up in corners, to the receptionists and tired parents with children. They were seriously at work. I heard one trying to convince a doctor to cheat on his wife with one of his interns. Weird.

  I shook my head, disgusted.

  Demons were just gross – there were no two ways about it. No matter what form or what package they came disguised in, underneath they were all the same.

  Foulest. Creatures. Ever.

  I guess if you’d have asked me a year ago to describe how I’d feel face to face with a demon, I would have thought to say “well duh… terrified,” but not now. Now, I knew, they weren’t really scary, just absolutely disgusting. First off, their presence gave me a whopper of a headache, and their smell was like a thousand, no wait - a million rotten eggs ever ripening in the sunshine. Yeah, it was that bad. They weren’t mysterious or even tricky. Their goal, as Silas had explained, was destruction of every human, every creation, and their strength was in numbers, definitely not wit.

  Looking around, I felt so sick with rage. I wanted to tear them all to shreds. I started towards a smaller sized demon in triage, setting my sights on his neck.