by Amy Cross
"Fuck off!" I shout half-heartedly.
"What're you gonna do about it?" one of them calls back to me, before collapsing into laughter along with his friend.
I take a step forward, filled with a kind of animal-like rage, but finally I manage to make myself calm down. Taking a deep breath, I watch as the kids turn and run. I guess I have to get used to this kind of thing, since I'm the closest thing to a local celebrity that exists around these parts. Seriously, this town has never produced anyone of note, but I've sure as hell put the place on the map. All across America, maybe even all across the world, when people hear the name Fort Powell, they think of me. I guess I'm famous, in some kind of sick and twisted way.
As I'm about to head back inside, I spot my father's truck coming along the street, and I wait while he parks. He stares at me for a moment, before climbing out.
"I didn't find a job yet," I tell him, figuring I might as well be honest.
"Figures," he replies.
After a moment, I realize that he's not actually looking at me; instead, he's looking at the house. When I turn and follow his gaze, I see to my shock that someone - almost certainly those two kids - has used red spray paint to write the word 'Murderer' on the front of the house in huge letters. Some of the paint is so fresh, it's still dribbling down the side of the wall. At least I know what those kids found so goddamn funny. They probably took plenty of pictures, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's already a video online of me shouting at them.
"I'm sorry," I say, turning to see my father walking into the house.
No reply.
"Dad!" I call after him, hoping he might turn and at least acknowledge me. "I'll clean it off, okay? I'll fix it!"
Without even glancing at me, he heads inside. He seems less angry, and more tired, as if he's finally been worn down by all of this. I wish there was some way I could make things right, but my hands are tied.
Standing alone, I realize that I might have been wrong all along: maybe this won't blow over, and maybe people are still going to think that I killed Bobby, even though I was never convicted of any crime. I knew my homecoming was going to be hard, but I figured most people would give me a chance. Right now, staring at the word 'Murderer' scrawled across the house, it's difficult to see how things can ever get back to normal. Sighing, I figure I need to go into the garage and see if there's anything I can use to get rid of the paint. The last thing we need is to have this crap all over the house for the neighbors to see. Then again, even if I get it all off, someone'll probably just come and do it again. And again. And again...
I wish I could end all of this by telling the whole truth, but I can't. Not ever. The truth would be so much worse. Then again, I guess I can handle pretty much anything these days. The only thing that scares me is the thought that one day I might hear a noise, and when I turn around, Darper will be standing behind me. As long as she keeps away, I can handle anything.
Echoes of a Distant Voice part I
Prologue
Five years ago
"I'll be home late," Neil says as he heads to the door. "There's a job over in Fulton that needs doing, so I'll have to drive over when I've finished at the main house. Sorry, but it pays well, so I figure I need to take it."
"I'll put some food in the fridge for you," I reply, hurrying over to him and giving him a kiss on the cheek. "Don't worry. I'm sure I'll have a scintillating conversation with Cassie and Nate. We can talk about the fascinating things they've been doing with their days."
"You have all the fun," he says, smiling as he walks out to his van. I stand in the doorway for a moment, watching as he climbs into the driver's seat. Once he's gone, I make my way back into the house and stand for a few seconds in absolute peace and quiet. It's not that I find my family at all annoying, but I enjoy these rare moments of solitude.
After making a fresh pot of coffee, I sit at the kitchen table and open my laptop. I haven't told anyone yet, but recently I've begun to do some more writing. It's nothing serious, really. I just want to write a few stories again, the way I used to all those years ago when the kids were younger. I loved nothing more than making up strange tales and watching their faces as they sat next to me on the sofa, desperate for the next installment. When they got older and stopped wanting to listen to my stories, I lost all my motivation and ended up giving the whole thing up. For some reason, however, the urge has returned lately, and I'm writing things down again.
It's silly, but it makes me happy.
Some days, I get a few hours of writing time; other days, not so much. Today, I'm interrupted after an hour by the sound of Nate coming home from school. I quickly save my work and close the laptop as he comes through to the kitchen.
"Where's your sister?" I ask.
"How should I know?" he replies, grabbing a glass and heading to the fridge.
"Your father's going to be working late," I tell him, "so it'll just be the three of us for dinner."
"I'm going to soccer practice," he says as he pours a glass of juice. "I told you last week, I'm switching to Mondays. I want to make a step up, so there's no point playing against kids my own age. I need to get tougher."
"Are you sure you're not pushing yourself too fast?" I ask.
"Mom, I have to push myself!" he replies, sounding annoyed. "If I don't push myself, I won't improve, and if I don't improve, I'll be stuck doing something else." He pauses. "You don't understand. I've got talent, and I want to use it. I can't spend my life stuck in Fort Powell. Maybe that's enough for people like you, but I need to get out into the world. This is my ticket."
"You make Fort Powell sound so awful," I say quietly.
"It's not New York," he replies with the forceful vigor of a young man determined to make his mark on the world. "It's not L.A. or Washington. Hell, it's not even Austin or Chicago. It's just... I mean, Fort Powell's not the kind of place where anyone should live their whole life, right?"
I nod. What can I say? He's right.
"I'm running late," he says after a moment, finishing the glass of juice.
"But you need dinner -"
"I'll get something on the way," he says, hurrying out of the kitchen and heading upstairs.
Sitting alone, I can't help but recognize that Nate's right. If he's got talent, he should at least use it, especially if it means he might be able to change his life. So few of us ever get the opportunity to break free from our mundane lives, and it'd be a crime if he ended up trapped in one place all his life. I wish I'd had the talent to strike off and be recognized for doing something well. Unfortunately, all I've ever been able to do is write these stupid stories, which no-one wants to read. My children, maybe, were just about willing to humor me when they were younger, but they were a captive audience and, besides, they weren't exactly difficult to please. Now that they, and I, are older, the whole thing seems rather foolish.
Damn it, when did I become such a silly woman? It's almost as if I can suddenly hear the echo of my own voice from years ago, screaming with anger at how pathetic I've become.
Opening my laptop, I start deleting all the short stories and novel fragments that I've been writing recently. It's wrong to devote so much time to these things, when they're never going to lead anywhere. The only reason for writing is to keep myself entertained, but I should probably find better, more productive hobbies. Nate has a talent for soccer, but I don't have a talent for writing: it's just something I do to fill the long, gaping afternoons when everyone else is out of the house. It's a way of scratching an itch, but the best thing is to ignore the itch altogether. It'll go away, given time.
Finally, with the files all safely deleted, I close the laptop and look around the empty kitchen. Above, I can hear Nate stomping around in his room, getting his soccer kit ready. He's doing something real. Something practical. Something that doesn't only exist in his head. He can make something of himself, whereas it's already too late for me. Not that I'm complaining. I have a family, and I have plenty of other thing
s to be doing. God alone knows how many hours I've wasted in my life, writing these silly stories and convincing myself that I'm doing something worthwhile. I've just been fooling myself, and I'm quite sure that everyone else has been laughing at me. Well, no more. I won't be writing any more silly stories.
Hearing the phone, I grab the handset and answer. All I hear on the other end, however, is distortion, although there seems to be a voice somewhere in the mix.
"Hello?" I say. "I can't hear a word you're saying!"
I wait a moment longer, but the howling, distorted voice continues. It sounds as if someone's screaming at me, but their voice is being buffeted by a storm while the line crackles and hisses.
Putting the phone down, I check the number and see that the caller withheld their I.D. I guess it was just one of those wrong connections that happen now and again.
I should probably start making dinner. That's what I should do. After all, my stupid stories won't put food on the table.
Today
Cassie Briggs
Trudging through the undergrowth, weighed down by an unnecessarily-heavy backpack that's filled with emergency provisions, I continue my climb up the side of the hill. There are trees all around, rising tall and thin toward a gray sky that threatens rain at any moment. It's a bad day to be hiking, but I'd rather be out here than down in Fort Powell. My hometown has become a seething pit of gossip, and it's my name that's on everyone's lips. I thought I'd be able to handle it, but I can't. I guess I'm not as thick-skinned as I'd expected. It's difficult being the black sheep of the whole goddamn town.
Hearing a muffled ringing sound, I pull my phone from my pocket and see that my mother's trying to get hold of me. For a moment, I consider ignoring her. After all, I feel a little under the weather already, and a conversation with my mother isn't likely to make me feel any better.
"Hey," I say as I answer. "What's up?"
"Nothing," she replies flatly, her voice a little distorted thanks to a bad connection. "I'm just going to the shop and I wondered if you wanted anything."
"No," I reply, climbing over a fallen tree, "I'm good."
"Are you in your room?"
"No," I say, "I'm..." I pause as I realize that I definitely can't tell her what I'm doing. "I couldn't sleep," I say eventually, "so I went out for a walk."
"Oh." She pauses, and all I can hear for a moment is the swirling static. "Well, I should get going. I'll see you later."
"See you later," I reply, cutting the call and putting the phone back in my pocket. Damn it, I swear I feel a little sad every time I finish talking to my mother on the phone. She always sounds so sad and lonely, as if she's got nothing to do. Then again, it's not my job to fix her life. Nothing's stopping her from getting up and doing something. It's as if, since my brother and I got older, she just -
And suddenly I see it, up ahead.
My heart racing, I stop dead in my tracks and stare at the remote, run-down cabin. It looks so bare and innocent, and if someone just happened to wander his way, they'd have no reason to think that anything terrible ever happened here. Not unless they'd read one of the many books on the subject, or trawled through the endless websites devoted to theories about why 'sweet, hard-working and studious' Cassandra Briggs murdered one of her best friends. Even though I'm out of prison and I've never been charged, I doubt those claims will ever be corrected. I'll never be able to shake the events of that single day five years ago.
After it happened, I swore I'd never, ever come up here again. In fact, I don't think a day passed during my time in prison that I didn't make an explicit promise to myself that I'd stay the hell away from this place. It became a kind of mantra that I repeated to myself over and over again, insisting that no matter how much I wanted to come back to the cabin, I'd resist. I thought I'd be strong enough, too, but then I didn't anticipate that certain 'evidence' would show up so soon. There are thousands of reasons why it's a mistake to come here, and only one reason why I felt compelled to make the journey this morning.
I need to know if she's still here. I need to know for certain.
As I make my way between the trees, I can't help glancing at each of them, half-expecting to see Darper Danver's name carved into the wood. If she's been up here recently, she'll undoubtedly have left some kind of message; after all, she's hardly the kind of person who's willing to keep a low profile. If she could stay quiet, none of this would ever have had to have happened in the first place. At least we all thought she was gone for good last time, and to be fair, it's by no means certain that she's come back. After all, I might have been mistaken about her name, carved into the fence outside my parents' house; maybe it was there all along, and I just missed it. Maybe.
Bullshit. That name wasn't there five years ago. It wasn't even there yesterday morning.
Getting closer to the cabin, I try to force myself to focus on the fact that this place is empty and abandoned. Still, it's difficult to keep from thinking back to the last time I was here: handcuffed, with blood all over my hands and arms and face, I was led away by a police officer, while various investigators began the grim task of going through the cabin and trying to work out what had happened. I stop for a moment and glance over at the nearby clearing where the police cars parked all those years ago. I swear to God, it can't be good for me to be back here; it must be extremely mentally disturbing for me to even come near this place. My old psychiatrist from the prison, Dr. Anton, would probably have a heart attack if he knew what I was doing right now.
Stopping a few meters from the cabin, I reach into my pocket and pull out my cellphone. For the hundredth time today, I consider calling Fisher. After all, he's the only other person who really knows what happened up here, and it feels wrong to exclude him from this visit. I need to talk to him, to tell him what's happening and get his opinion about what the hell I should do next. Then again, his wife Edie made it very clear that she didn't want me to get in touch, and something about that woman made me worry for my safety. Putting the phone back into my pocket, I realize that calling Fisher isn't an option. I have to do this alone.
I take a deep breath and try to tell myself that I'm probably overreacting. Darper Danver's long gone. Amid all the uncertainty and chaos, that's the one thing I should know for certain. But then... why can I feel her presence nearby? Why, in my gut, do I know that she's around?
Glancing over my shoulder, I double-check that I'm alone. I half-expect to see some indication of Darper's presence, but there's nothing. Still, I can't shake the feeling that I'm being watched. Even if Darper isn't here, the last thing I need is for some random journalist to follow me up here and get some photos. People would love to see me return to the scene of the crime.
When I reach the door, I drop the backpack onto the ground and pause for a moment. There's still time to turn and run, but although the idea is certainly tempting, I know deep down that I have to do this. Hell, this moment was probably inevitable from the very moment I stepped out of the front of the prison a couple of days ago. I turn the handle and find, to my surprise, that it opens with a faint creak. Is that even possible? This place has clearly been empty and deserted for all these years. Was the door unlocked all along? Taking a deep breath, I peer into the dark interior. So far, I don't see anything, but I know I can't relax just yet. Maybe I'm alone up here, and maybe I'm not.
"Hello Bobby," I say after a moment.
Becky Madison
"That bitch was weird from the beginning," I say, sitting at the kitchen table as I sort through a pile of old photos. "I remember seeing her when she and Bobby must have been five or six, and she had that weird look on her, even back then. Like, you know, evil eyes. I'm not kidding. Right from the very first moment I saw her, I thought there was something messed-up about her." I pause for a moment and take a long drag from my cigarette. "Is it bad of me to think a little kid can be evil, Ma?"
"Please don't use the b-word," my mother replies as she comes through with a basket full of washing. "
You know how I feel about that kind of language."
"Yeah," I reply with a smile, "but don't you think it's worth using the odd curse word now and then? When you've really gotta let rip, and you really want the world to know how you feel?"
"I'd like to think that I raised you to be more articulate," she says, busying herself with the folding of some towels. "Curse words might be a short-cut to a crude and blunt way of phrasing things, dear, but surely it's better to use words more carefully and, I'd imagine, with more precision and wit." She glances at me. "You wouldn't want to start reminding people of your father, would you?"
"Ouch," I mutter sarcastically. "Ma, you sure know where to hit a girl for maximum effect."
"You know very well what I mean," she continues. "Wit and erudition are far more valuable than foul language."
"I ain't a great wit," I say, picking up another photo. This one shows Bobby, my little brother, standing in the back garden in his church clothes, looking every bit the little angel. I'm sure it wasn't his idea to dress up like that, of course; it was undoubtedly Ma who made him wear his smart outfit so he could have his photo taken. "How'd he get mixed up with that..." I pause as I try to think of a more acceptable word. "That brat," I say eventually. "How'd Bobby get mixed up with that brat Cassie Briggs?"
"They went to school together," my mother replies.
"Yeah, but how'd they become friends?"
"I'm afraid I don't know," she says, sounding a little stressed. I should probably ease off for a while, but my mother tends to get stressed about pretty much anything and everything, so I figure I might as well strike now. "You know what children are like," she continues. "They bond over the silliest little things. Shared hobbies, shared interests, that sort of thing."