The Whispering Hollows

by Lisa Unger

  “What?” said Asher, lifting the gun higher, moving closer. “What did you say to me?”

  “Shut up, Alex,” said Jones. He moved from behind the door and started moving toward Asher. Eloise wanted to stop him, but she was afraid to make a sound. The air vibrated with bad possibilities.

  “Roger, listen to me,” Jones went on. “If you hurt Alex, you’re going to jail. You still have a family who needs you. Your wife, your other daughter. Where’s the justice in creating more heartache for them?”

  Eloise could feel the pain, the conflict coming off of Asher in waves. But all of Eloise’s tension had drained. She was in the right place, doing the right thing. Whatever the outcome, she and Jones had done what they were supposed to do.

  “Just put the gun down, Asher,” said Jones easily. “Let’s talk this through.”

  “He’s not going to get away with what he did to my girl,” Asher said. “I’ve followed the rules, gone through all the right channels. Now, it’s time to deliver justice for Michelle. I’m her father. I have to be the one to stand for her.”

  • • •

  Michelle Asher lay at Eloise’s feet. Eloise knelt beside the dead girl, put a hand to her forehead. Asher, Dahl, and Jones, the tense triangle they formed, faded away.

  And then Eloise was walking with Michelle. The girl looked peaceful, almost happy. She had her headphones as she walked the running path that edged along the FDR Drive. The river was a gray swath, the air cold in the quickly setting sun.

  “Hey, Daddy,” she said.

  It took Eloise a second to realize that she was talking into the mouthpiece on her headphone cord.

  “Not much,” she said. “Just heading off to meet Alex for dinner.”

  She wasn’t meeting Alex. He’d told her that he didn’t want to see her anymore, that she was getting too crazy for him. She’d been turned down for a job she wanted that afternoon. She was in a dark place.

  Michelle walked slowly, a slight wobble to her gait. A jogger raced past her, someone fit and strong moving with impossible ease. There was something wrong with Michelle. Didn’t he hear it in her voice, Eloise wondered? It was thick and slurry. Had she been drinking? No, Eloise realized. She’d taken pills—a lot of them.

  “I don’t know,” Michelle said. She gave a girlish giggle that sounded fake and tinny to Eloise. “But I think so. He could be the one, Daddy.”

  Eloise could hear Roger Asher say something, his voice faint and far away. Michelle’s face went dark, angry.

  “Yeah,” she said, forcing lightness. “Okay. Call me back.”

  The call was over then, and Michelle kept walking and walking. The city was a wall of glinting lights, the traffic on the highway a steady roar. The East River ran moody and churning, keeping a thousand secrets. She was just a small figure, one tiny beating heart in a chaotic world.

  Eloise watched as Michelle came to stand on the end of an empty pier, and seemed to slouch there, then sink to her knees and wobble over the churning water. It was big and cold, with a notoriously strong current.

  Don’t do it, Michelle, said Eloise even though she knew she was far too late. Please.

  When Michelle slipped into the water, she didn’t even make a sound. Eloise stood there helpless as the girl drifted away, eyes closed and face pale and peaceful. She just walked off the edge, let the darkness that waits take her. She never even put up a fight.

  Eloise tried not to be angry, not to cry out. But ever since she lost Alfie and Emily, suicides enraged her. So many people would do anything for just a little more time with the people they loved. But suicides just threw it away.

  Eloise knew that it was so much more complicated than that. There are no trades in this life, and depression is a dark, dark doorway some people have no choice but to walk through. But it always hurt Eloise to hear about a life discarded. Though Eloise almost never got visits from those folks. In fact, this visit was about helping Roger Asher and even Alex Dahl. It was not about Michelle, Eloise realized as she watched the white point fade to nothing. Then she was back with Jones.

  “He didn’t kill her, Mr. Asher,” said Eloise. She hadn’t said a word before, and Asher turned to her surprised, as if he hadn’t even seen her. “You know that he didn’t.”

  “Who are you?” Asher said, noticing her for the first time. But something about his energy relaxed. She occasionally had that effect on some people—even though it was often the opposite case. Some people found her presence calming.

  “This is Eloise Montgomery,” said Jones easily. “We—work together sometimes.”

  “The psychic?” Asher said. He looked at her with suspicion, but also with a kind of desperate curiosity.

  “I lost a child once, too, Roger,” she said.

  Maybe it was something in her tone or on her face. Whatever it was, he lowered the gun and looked at her.

  “The pain. It’s nearly unbearable,” Eloise said. She put her hand to her heart. “It can’t live in your body; you just want to lash out.”

  He drew in a deep breath and released it. Eloise knew that sometimes it was such a relief just to be understood.

  When he stayed silent, she went on. “You want the people who hurt your child to hurt as well. You want someone to pay.”

  “Yes,” he said. He lifted the gun again, and Alex closed his eyes. Jones was moving closer, so slowly.

  “But Michelle was a very unhappy girl, Roger,” said Eloise. She kept using his name because it was important to do that. It kept people engaged, especially distraught people. “I know you tried to help her. All the best doctors—therapy, drugs, even that facility in Connecticut after her agency fired her.”

  She didn’t know how she knew that. But she did. She also knew that Alex was right. Roger Asher had taken his daughter to her first modeling agency when she was twelve years old. He pushed her to keep doing it, even when she wanted to stop. It had been lucrative for them, and he used some of that money to help pay for her education. But it wasn’t time for that. And it wasn’t any of Eloise’s business.

  “I never understood why she was so sad,” he said. “We loved her. We gave her everything.”

  “I know,” she said. It was true in a sense, without being the whole truth.

  “She called me that night,” he said. “She sounded so good, so up. You know? But I had to go; I had to pick up her sister from a party. I’m not one who can talk and drive. I tried to call her back. But she didn’t answer. I never talked to her again.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “We all think we’ll have a chance to say good-bye, to say all the things we never got a chance to say.”

  Eloise could feel her own sorrow rise up, even so many years later. It could still feel so fresh, so raw. She could still hear the sound of Emily’s voice, feel her body in her arms. She could still remember the day that her older daughter was born—with perfect clarity. That love never, ever dies.

  Jones had put his weapon in his waistband and was moving slowly toward Roger. Alex had stayed frozen all this time, arms up. He was a mannequin, still with shock and fear.

  “That necklace she wore?” Asher said. His face was crumbling with despair. “Did you know that no one else was wearing the other half? I found the other side in her bedside table, still in the box. Why did she do that?”

  Eloise hated the thought of that. That no one had the other half of Michelle’s broken heart.

  “She wanted very desperately to be loved.”

  “We loved her,” he said, his voice coming up high. “We loved her so much. Why wasn’t it enough?”

  He was really asking, as if she might have an answer he could digest. But Eloise didn’t. Some questions didn’t have answers. She’d learned this long ago, and it never rested any easier with her.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  Asher seemed to
remember Alex, turned back toward him to find him gone and Jones Cooper standing before him with his palm out.

  “Let me have that gun, Roger,” said Jones.

  Asher looked at Jones a long moment. Eloise forced herself to breathe. Then Asher sunk to his knees as if all his strength had left him. He handed the gun to Jones, who immediately popped the magazine and snapped the last bullet from its chamber. Asher slumped all the way to the ground in a child’s pose, weeping. The sound carried, long and mournful, up into the sky, then disappeared like birds and clouds and everything. Eloise found herself crying, too. For Michelle, for Emily and Alfie, for The Three Sisters—all the ones who left too soon, for all the wrong reasons.

  Don’t judge, said the voice that wasn’t a voice. We all have our season, and our reason.

  It was easy to be impassive when you had all the answers. Serenity was so much harder for those still flailing about on Earth.

  Jones looked down at Asher wearing his usual blank expression—it might be disdain, it might be compassion. Jones was a hard man to read. Eloise wondered if he would move to comfort the other man. But he didn’t, turned his gaze back toward Eloise.

  “I think I’ll go have a little talk with Alex Dahl,” said Jones.

  “Where is he?” asked Eloise.

  Jones nodded over toward the small one-story house, then headed over in that direction. Eloise went to Asher and helped him to his feet. She led him over to his car.

  “Who can I call for you?” she asked.

  “No one,” he said.

  “What about your wife?” said Eloise. “She must be worried.”

  He didn’t seem to hear her. He was in a well of grief and psychic pain. He hadn’t even asked her how she knew the things she knew.

  “How long has your child been gone?” he asked. He was sitting in his car now, hands on the steering wheel. She could feel his exhaustion.

  “Nearly thirty years,” she said. It was impossible. Could it really be that long?

  “Suicide?”

  “No,” said Eloise. “Car accident.”

  His eyes were blank and glassy. But the rage had left him; he was deflated in its wake. That was something. Rage masquerades as power. When you let it go, you have to find the real strength it takes to move on.

  “I feel like I can’t breathe,” he said. “Does it get any easier?”

  It was the second time she’d been asked that question today. Maybe that’s what happened when you got old. It seemed to younger people that you might have answers. Sometimes you did.

  “It does,” she answered truthfully. “It gets different. Some of the colors come back—eventually. If you let them.”

  He shook his head but didn’t say anything else. She waited for the barrage of questions, the begging to know about the last few minutes of Michelle’s life. But he didn’t ask about anything. She suspected that Roger Asher was a man who turned away from the things that pained him. It might have been why his daughter had felt so alone.

  They waited together in silence for Jones.

  When Jones returned, he and Eloise escorted Roger Asher from The Hollows, following close behind his car until he left town without a farewell gesture of any kind. They both knew he wouldn’t be back.

  • • •

  The woman in the black dress came again that night. But Eloise already knew who she was. It was Faith Good—Sarah, Abigail, and Patience’s mother. Eloise had figured it out last night when she’d seen the woman standing by Finley’s motorcycle.

  Faith wasn’t there to accuse. She didn’t have an axe to grind, as Finley had suggested. Faith Good was there to help Eloise protect Finley from Faith’s daughters—namely Abigail, who was the oldest and had always been the wildest of the three. She wanted Eloise to know that the girls were up to mischief, at Finley’s expense.

  Faith was stomping around the kitchen. Finally, Eloise got up and went downstairs. She put on the kettle for tea, brewed a cup, then took a seat. Faith stood in the corner. She had her arms folded around her middle, but her face was softer, not as angry.

  Eloise had called Joy Martin with her theory. And Joy had emailed Eloise some information on Faith. Faith Good was young, in her early thirties when her daughters were burned at the stake as witches. She died just a year later. The cause of death was sudden heart failure. Obviously, the woman had died of grief. Who could survive that? Who would want to?

  “I know you did your best to protect them,” said Eloise. “But we can’t always protect the people we love.”

  Faith Good, who was a Listener like Patience, like Eloise, like Finley, had tried to teach her girls to hide themselves, to repress their powers. Patience had learned to be silent about the things she saw. But Abigail and Sarah could never hide what they were. Abigail lost control of her telekinesis when she was angry. Sarah’s visions of the future were so powerful and sudden that they gave her fits.

  It was Abigail who loved her power, who wanted to flaunt it. Faith had the most trouble with her oldest girl. And it was Abigail’s seduction of a wealthy man in town that was the final straw. In that time, when the witch scare was at its very worst, it was enough to level the accusation.

  The arrest, trial, and execution of The Three Sisters was the biggest event of the century. Everyone they had frightened or unsettled over the course of their lives came out against them.

  “We especially can’t protect them from themselves,” said Eloise. “Choices have consequences.”

  Faith Good bowed her head. The consequences were worse than she ever imagined, and she was powerless to help them. She had tried to teach her daughters to hide themselves; she’d failed.

  Amanda, too, had asked Finley to hide herself, to hold back the things that made her what she was. And Finley, like The Three Sisters and with their help, had acted out, was still acting out. The tattoos, the bad company, now the motorcycle. The consequences hadn’t yet turned deadly. But there was still the motorcycle to be dealt with.

  “All we can do is our best,” said Eloise. “You did yours, and I’ll do mine.”

  “Who are you talking to?” Finley walked into the kitchen. She took a seat across from Eloise.

  “Faith Good,” said Eloise. She took a sip of her tea.

  “The woman in the black dress?” Finley looked right at Faith. “I don’t see her.”

  Eloise told Finley who the woman was and how Eloise had figured it out. Finley didn’t seem surprised. When Eloise was done, Finley ran her fingers through her hot pink hair; her nails were painted black. She was wearing a lavender tank top, her tattooed arms bare for Eloise to see. Eloise had decided that she wouldn’t encourage Finley to hide or change anything about herself. She would let the girl be. Anything else was asking for trouble.

  “So where’s my bike?” Finley asked.

  “It’s at Jones Cooper’s place,” she said. “I’ll take you to get it tomorrow.”

  Eloise didn’t have a right to keep Finley from that bike. Even if Eloise was able to force her granddaughter to sell the thing, Finley would find another way to hurt herself—if that’s what she wanted. Eloise had no choice but to let her go.

  Eloise looked over to Faith, but the woman was gone.

  • • •

  The days were growing shorter, and the garden needed tending. Eloise put on her work gloves and her hat and went out into the warm afternoon air.

  Her garden was full of monarch butterflies, thanks to the milkweed plants. She loved the big fat caterpillars that came in the spring and chewed their way through the leaves. Later, she’d find the chrysalises hanging in the eaves of the house. What a wonder to think of the creature wrapped inside, changing from one thing to another, finding its wings.

  The Whispers were softer than normal today. In fact, they grew softer all the time lately. And Eloise had wondered about it enough that she’d brought it u
p with Agatha.

  “They might need you less,” Agatha had said. “Now that Finley’s here.”

  Eloise wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Not that she had any desire to hold on to the work. Just that she wasn’t sure it was the life she wanted for Finley.

  There was a stubborn weed in the back of one of her garden boxes. It was tall with a thick stalk and wide, shiny green leaves. For years, she yanked it from the earth, tossed it in trash, only to find it growing again a few weeks later. Every time she saw it, she would groan with frustration, wrest it from its spot. She’d rake the area vigorously, aerate the soil. But inevitably, she’d return to find it growing again.

  People liked to think that they had control. Faith Good sought to teach her daughters to hide themselves. Amanda had “freaked out” on Finley when she realized what Finley could do, silencing her in a way. Eloise, too, had attempted to control her granddaughter’s fate by hiding her motorcycle. Roger Asher had forced Michelle to do something that she didn’t want to do, something that had contributed to her depression and anxiety. They all had their reasons, most of them loving and well meaning.

  The weed was taller and stronger than the other plants, as if it had a right to be there. And, in fact, it did. In her research about how to get rid of the goddamn thing, she learned that it was a “native,” a plant that had grown in the region since before the European settlers. It was a Devil’s Walkingstick, its flowers and berries a valuable nutrition source for butterflies, wasps, and bees. Its fruit drew robins, bluebirds, towhees, thrushes, and rusty blackbirds to her yard. It wasn’t a plant that she had chosen for her garden, but there it was nonetheless. Ralph Waldo Emerson thought of weeds as plants “whose virtues had not yet been discovered.” Eloise decided that she would take the same position. She let the plant grow, only to discover that it flowered in autumn, giving her garden a final color show before winter fell.

  Which was not to say that every unwanted thing left to its own devices revealed itself as something valuable. Finley was still quiet on the matter of The Three Sisters, how much time she spent with them, what was the nature of their relationship now that she had moved to The Hollows. They still wanted something that couldn’t be given, and Eloise and Agatha were brainstorming about how that might be resolved to their satisfaction. And there was the issue of the “bad boy” from Seattle with whom Finley was in regular contact via FaceTime. There was a visit planned.