The Whispering Hollows

by Lisa Unger

  “Christ,” she said to herself. She’d never been beautiful, but she was really starting to look like hell. She was turning into a crone like Agatha, who was eighty years old if she was a day.

  She opened the door for Ray, and he stepped inside. She ran her hands self-consciously through her hair. But he wasn’t looking too great himself. He’d been drinking too much, eating nothing but garbage. We are letting this thing eat us alive, Eloise thought but didn’t say. It was ruining both of them.

  Agatha had warned her. They’ll take everything if you let them. Everything from you and everything from those involved with you. Eloise knew it was true; it was why she didn’t fight to stay closer to Finley, Alfie, and Amanda. It was why she kept trying to push Ray away. Let them save themselves, she thought. They deserve to be happy.

  But Ray wouldn’t budge from her. She couldn’t quite figure out what was in all of this for him. It couldn’t just be the money. No, it was something more. She should know, but she didn’t—probably because he didn’t know himself. And she hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  He walked over to her and put an arm around her shoulder, ushered her to the couch in the living room where she gratefully sat. The events, the visions, were taking more out of her lately.

  Eloise tried to get back into the present the way Agatha had taught her, though she still felt wobbly and light-headed. She needed to ground herself in the moment by observing the details of the real world: the sun washed in and dappled the floor; outside, the wind chimes sang in the breeze; sheets billowed on the line. She watched them fill and flap as Ray went presumably to get her some water.

  “I don’t know,” she called after him. He’d asked his question a while ago. But she was just getting around to answering. “Nothing current.”

  He made an affirming noise from the kitchen. Since retiring from The Hollows Police Department, Ray had opened his own private investigation firm. Eloise helped him with his cases, when she was able. She had her own things, and the things they worked on together. It was usually pretty clear which was which. Although not always. It was a tricky business. Eloise never knew what was connected to what, or when those connections might reveal themselves to her. Adopt the pace of nature, said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Her secret is patience.

  Ray returned with the water and handed it to her.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  He sat in the chair across from her, regarded her with worry. He had a lot in common with the old recliner. It needed reupholstering, was showing its age. But it was the most comfortable, embracing seat in the house. It was reliable, did the work it was designed to do, unfailingly. It had been Alfie’s reading chair, and it still wobbled from bearing his substantial weight, though Alfie had been dead nearly fourteen years.

  Her Alfie was gone now almost as long as they’d been married. And she still missed him every day. Some losses you never get over. There would never be another love like that in her life. She knew this in a practical and not self-pitying way. There was such a paucity of true, selfless love in this world; it wouldn’t be fair for her to have it twice. Whatever it was she shared with Ray, it could never approach what she had with Alfie. She hoped that Ray might find it with someone. But she suspected it was too late for that.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  She could still smell The Burning Girl, the acrid odor that remained after fire. It never went away; whatever fire had touched must be discarded.

  “You look tired,” Ray said. She took a sip of the cold water and let the sensation wash over her. The cold in her mouth, moving down her throat. The water, the sunlight, the billowing sheets. Seize upon the moment, Agatha would say, to hold on to what’s real right now.

  “I am tired,” she said.

  But she couldn’t stop thinking about the girl. Eloise felt a vibration unlike anything she’d felt before. She would need to talk to Agatha. She considered telling Ray about it, but she wound up staying quiet.

  They weren’t working on anything now, and she sort of wanted to keep it that way. They’d had a couple of high-profile cases in a row, and her voice mail and mailbox were full of requests for their help. But she didn’t have the feeling. She couldn’t help any of the people who needed her right now. And that was weighing heavily on her.

  But she didn’t have a choice in these things. She didn’t invite the visions. It wasn’t on demand—even if someone brought her an article of clothing, or a picture, or a plush toy (though this sometimes worked when Ray brought it). Even if desperate people wept on her doorstep, or waited in her driveway for two days, or followed her around town—all of which had happened—she couldn’t make something happen.

  She could only walk through the doorways that were opened for her. That’s why she thought there was more to it than Agatha believed. Eloise thought there was a puppet master, someone pulling the strings. There’s no puppet master, honey. That’s the problem, Agatha insisted. The old woman was always very sure of herself. But that didn’t mean she was always right.

  “I came to take you out to dinner,” said Ray.

  “I’ll cook,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “Let’s go out. You look like you could use it.”

  She didn’t like to go out anymore, especially in The Hollows. It was one thing if they were traveling and no one knew who she was. But here at home, people stared, they whispered, they scowled. Some people snickered, some looked on in sympathy, or fear—suspicion, disdain. The one thing no one ever did in a small town was mind their own goddamned business.

  In the end, she acquiesced because she always did where Ray was concerned. She loved him in the way that she could. It was he who needed to go out. He was an extrovert, needing human contact all the time in order to stay energized. That was why he dealt with the clients. And she dealt with the dead—though they weren’t always dead. It was complicated.

  She showered, dressed, and did her hair—which basically just consisted of drying it and pulling a brush through it. It was brittle and dry. She even put on some lipstick, but she still looked like an old hag.

  While she was getting ready, The Burning Girl sat on Eloise’s bed, and the smell was powerful. Her hair was flame, her face a mask of pure fury, her body glowing like a hot coal.

  “What do you want?” Eloise asked at the door. But the girl didn’t answer. She wouldn’t, of course. She usually couldn’t hear Eloise; they did not exist on the same plane. Eloise was going to have to figure it out for herself.

  All through dinner, Eloise wondered about The Burning Girl and what she wanted. If Ray noticed she was distracted, he didn’t say. She kept seeing those fingers creeping around the door.

  • • •

  On the following Thursday, Eloise attended the big town meeting at city hall. Tempers ran high. There was much conflict between those who wanted The Hollows to stay as it was and those who profited from its expansion. The new shopping center that was already under construction was a hot-button issue.

  Eloise had a special loathing for mini-malls, those concrete strips of low-end commercialism. She thought they represented a deterioration of society, a move toward homogenization that stripped communities of their personalities. She’d been surprised when one appeared in The Hollows. The Hollows Historical Society had always been such a passionate defender of the town’s integrity of character. But this seemed to be the way of things now.

  Wealthy developers were glamouring the city government, promising big money, an influx of wealthy city dwellers looking for their country escape. Already some of the old families were selling off parcels of their long-held land to people who wanted to build neighborhoods with names like The Hollows Heights and Harrogate Manors. Trees were being cut away, land cleared. New restaurants were opening in the town center. There was a trendy new coffee place called the Java Stop offering latte
s and cappuccinos—for four dollars! There was even a yoga studio, of all things. Development, it was the big trend in The Hollows. It would not be stopped.

  Joy Martin of The Hollows Historical Society was the first to speak, but she barely had a voice at the meeting. She put forth her concerns about maintaining the historical buildings and sites, like the dilapidated graveyards, the old schoolhouse, the various abandoned structures out in The Hollows Wood.

  “These are the places that remind us of who we are and where we came from. The Hollows is rich in history,” she said. “Development is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be at the expense of the essence and character of our town.”

  Her comments were met with a lackluster smattering of applause. She took her seat with a frown.

  “Preserving the past is all well and good,” said the speaker who stood up next. Eloise recognized him as an owner of one of the local contractor firms. What was his name? Nick something. It didn’t come to her right away. “But we have to look toward the future, too. Otherwise, we go the way of the towns all around us: bankrupt, deserted, all the young people leaving as fast as they can. If you don’t build the future, it bulldozes you.”

  Nick’s comment, however, roused an enthusiastic roar of support. Eloise wouldn’t have thought he had it in him. She knew him as a quiet man, awkward with a bad temper. She wouldn’t have pegged him as a rabble-rouser. Perhaps the promise of big contracts had allowed him to tap into his inner eloquence.

  As he went on extolling the virtues of the new businesses moving into the town center, the big houses going up on formerly undeveloped land and so on, Eloise saw The Burning Girl in the corner of the room. The girl pointed a narrow, accusing finger. Eloise stared at him a moment, and she wasn’t getting anything off of him—no malice, no secret shame, no hidden perversions. He was just a man who wanted to build things, like a boy with a box of blocks.

  It took Eloise a moment to realize that The Burning Girl was pointing at Nick’s wife, Miriam, who sat beside him, holding an infant. Miriam, a former reporter for The Hollows Gazette, was now a stay-at-home mom. Ella, her infant daughter, was not quite three months. Miriam had interviewed Eloise once. The young woman had been respectful and open-minded. She was one of those Agatha called “the seekers,” people who believed that there was something more to life than what they could see before them. They just weren’t sure what it was.

  Miriam had written a thoughtful and flattering feature about Eloise, which got some national pickup and eventually led to television exposure. Of course, Eloise was no publicity hound. In fact, she actively avoided the spotlight. But Agatha had urged her to do appearances and interviews. The more familiar we are to people, Agatha had said, the easier it is to do our jobs, the less abuse we take.

  Tonight, Miriam looked sunken with exhaustion: big, dark circles under her eyes, a kind of grayness to her skin color. She was nothing like the bubbly, light-hearted girl who had interviewed Eloise. How long ago was it now? Five years? Six? Miriam was so thin that Eloise could see her collarbone, the hard knobs in her wrists. She had a kind of blank stare. Depression. Eloise could feel it, that sucking darkness within, that cave inside where you can dwell. She knew it all too well.

  The Burning Girl was standing behind Miriam, looking like a normal little girl again, not burning, not combusting with rage. She just stood there beside Miriam, almost leaning into her. If anyone else could see her, they’d assume that she was Miriam’s child. Their energies were wrapped around each other, mingled.

  Talk turned to the graveyard that sat on state land at the edge of the property that Nick himself owned and where he lived with his family. Some people wanted the graves moved to the other, larger site over by the road; some wanted the gravestones restored. There was a small church there as well. If renovated, it could serve as a museum, suggested Joy Martin, a tribute to the people who lived and died in The Hollows.

  Sounds like fun, someone quipped.

  The Burning Girl started to cry.

  What do you want? Eloise wondered.

  • • •

  That night, The Burning Girl took Eloise into the woods. The girl skipped through the trees, past a dilapidated and long-abandoned one-room house, weaving in and out of the towering trees. The girl was a sprite, at home in the forest, not afraid of the dark. How long had she been out here alone?

  As they walked, Eloise could hear The Whispers. They had so many stories to tell. If you listened too hard, you could disappear into it. It will drive you mad, said Agatha. Tune it out as much as you can. This directly conflicted with the advice her departed daughter Emily had given her once. It seemed like a million years ago that Emily had visited Eloise while she was tending the garden. Just listen, Emily had said that day. Who was right?

  Eloise lost sight of the girl, but she kept walking. The moonlight, in its silver-white way, was as bright as the sun. And when she came upon the little graveyard, it looked almost magical, even with the gravestones tilting like a mouth of crooked teeth, the church that was little more than a ruin of stones. The place was overgrown with weeds and a variety of wildflowers.

  Eloise saw Miriam sitting among the stones. The young woman looked dewy and fresh, flushed with happiness, as she linked flowers into a chain. Eloise understood that she was seeing Miriam as she was in the past, before her daughter was born.

  Miriam was singing. Eloise moved in closer to hear the words.

  Little flowers in the garden,

  Yellow, orange, violet, blue,

  Little angels in the garden,

  Do you know how I love you?

  Eloise felt a strange chill move through her. And then she experienced something she had never experienced before—a vision within a vision. Talk about disappearing down the rabbit hole. She saw a woman leaning over a claw-foot bathtub weeping. She wore a long, white dress. Then it was Miriam in a dirty, flannel nightgown. Then it was the woman in white again. Then Eloise was back in the graveyard, her head spinning. Miriam kept singing.

  Little flowers in the garden,

  Growing tall toward skies of blue,

  Little flowers in the garden,

  Oh, your mama so loves you.

  The Burning Girl danced around the graves. She was laughing, but it wasn’t a nice laugh. It was mean-spirited and edgy, laced with anger and sadness. The sound of it made Eloise’s blood run cold.

  • • •

  Eloise came back to herself in her own bathtub, bleeding from the head where she’d obviously hit it on the faucet. There was blood on the white porcelain, on her hands, down the front of her blouse. She climbed out of the tub and moved over to the sink. In the mirror, she saw the big gash just over her right eyebrow; it would need stitches.

  Eloise turned on the faucet, smearing that with blood, too. Using a washcloth, she cleaned the wound. The blouse she was wearing would have to go in the trash. A vision within a vision, she thought. That was too much. Could she just go deeper and deeper, until there was no way out again? Eloise realized that she was going to need some help with The Burning Girl.

  • • •

  Agatha Cross lived in a grand old house at the end of a long, gated drive in a town just an hour from The Hollows. She had told Eloise that she had no compunction whatever in exploiting her “gifts” to the greatest extent possible.

  “Why shouldn’t I reap the monetary benefits of this?” Agatha had asked, not really wanting an answer. “It has robbed me of everything else.”

  Eloise could see Agatha’s point. This “ability,” given to Eloise in tragedy and slowly draining her of her loves, her appetites, her desires, was not something for which she’d ever asked. Eloise had come to see it as one might an accidental injury that had left her permanently disabled. You could learn to live with it, or you could let it kill you. Eloise dwelled in a kind of purgatory between those two poles, not really living, but n
ot dying either.

  Agatha, however, was “on the circuit”—talk shows, personal appearances, celebrity readings, and spiritual counseling. She had a full-fledged “Talk to the Dead” business with a waiting list three years long. She even had a private jet and was regularly consulted by law enforcement agencies, private detectives, and newsmagazine shows.

  “I’m about seventy-five percent theater, about twenty-five percent for real,” Agatha often quipped. “But that twenty-five percent? Wow, it’s a doozie.”

  Today, they sat on Agatha’s long, cool porch, where a lovely young woman served them iced tea in tall, sweating glasses. Agatha spread out her long flowing skirt and sat elegantly in a big wicker chair. She jingled—bangles on her wrists, seashells sewn into the batik design on her blouse, big, glittering earrings. She ran a plump bejeweled hand through her long, silver-white curls.

  Eloise recounted for Agatha everything she’d seen of The Burning Girl so far. And Agatha shifted her ample weight in the chair while she listened.

  “It sounds like what you’ve got,” she said when Eloise was done, “and I don’t say this lightly, is a full-blown haunting.

  “The question is what or who she’s haunting,” she continued. “And why.”

  Agatha took a big sip of her tea, then got a distant look in her eyes. Eloise knew to be quiet.

  The trees swayed and danced in the breeze. The Whispers were loud here. And Eloise had to work hard to block them out. A large swimming pool glittered behind Agatha. It was so blue that Eloise felt a powerful desire to swim. When was the last time she’d done anything like that? Anything pleasant? She and Alfie used to take the girls to the community pool in the summer. They’d rented a lake house one year and spent the whole season either swimming or sunning on the little dock. That was a long time ago—maybe close to twenty years.