The Whispers

by Daryl Banner

  In my heart … which still beats, but now quicker.

  A poet in my Theories class last semester once spoke bravely about the human necessity for passions and wiles and recklessness. Isn’t there such a thing as well-intended deception? As an honest thief? As a lie told … in order to reach a most valuable truth?

  “John, Marianne.” I smile innocently. “What are your plans today?”

  Mari squints suspiciously at me. John’s brow narrows.

  “Follow me … if you want to make History.”

  As swiftly as a thought, I dash out of the cafeteria. Down the hall I go until I reach the back door which, upon opening, spills the light of impending noon over my face. I skirt around the edge of the building until I’m upon the very large object of my desire.

  I don’t need to turn around to know John and Mari are on my heels waiting and, if they’re smart, worried on what I have spontaneously planned to do.

  “We have to make a run for it when the pilot debarks the craft with his delivery crew,” I tell them. “We’re not going to have much time.”

  “What??” protests John. “No way …”

  “My heart’s still beating,” I note. “Isn’t yours?”

  “Racing,” John verifies. “When I said the Jennifer I know fights, stealing food from a university hovercraft isn’t what I meant.”

  “We’re not stealing the food,” I tell him. “We’re stealing the craft.”

  That answer inspires an audible rasp from poor Mari. “No!” she exclaims in a hushed whisper. “We’re not doing that! No, no, no. I’m with John on this. What in Dead hell are you planning to do with a hovercraft??”

  I face my friends, the worried pair of them. “Professor Praun also told me I was an intelligent young woman. He told me not to waste my potential. So here I am, not wasting my potential.” I smirk at my cleverness. “Praun told me the Beautiful Dead don’t exist. I’m going to prove him wrong. And when I return with my proof, it won’t be their laughs I earn anymore.” I face the craft once again, determined. “I know they’re out there. I’m going to the Sunless Reach, whether with or without you two.”

  “With,” decides John suddenly.

  I’d hoped he’d say that. I study the side of his face, curious what made him suddenly change his mind. Is he going to say it now? Is he going to tell me how much he cares about me? Is he going to say that it’s his undying love and admiration for me that inspires his courage?

  “If I have any part in you making the world’s greatest Historic discovery of our time,” he says, “imagine what the financial aid would say. The Engineering department. They’ll have to accept me then. I won’t have to hide.”

  Well, I should’ve expected that angle. “John …”

  “No.” He cuts me off, stubbornly shaking his head. “I’m coming with you. You can’t possibly do something this radically irresponsible alone.”

  He wants to be close to me. I want to believe that this handsome person I invited into my home and broke rules for actually has deeper feelings for me. Feelings that go beyond the kisses, beyond the cuddling at night, beyond the brooding demeanor he wears on the outside. Surely, beneath that body of stone, therein lies a heart that beats as hungrily as mine.

  “They could imprison us for theft,” I point out.

  “We could go the rest of our lives believing the lie they feed us,” John says back, “that the Dead never lived. Ever since the day I met you, Jennifer, I’ve believed you. I want to see it for myself.”

  Marianne, in a rare moment of defiance, stands in front of me like a round wall of fabric, dramatic hair, and over-rouged cheeks. “I’m not letting you do this, Jen. I’ve been with you since we took that class together our first year. I’ve seen you act irrationally and I’ve picked you up every time your crazy decisions have shattered you. Jen, you’re throwing away your future if you do this.”

  “I’m throwing it away if I don’t,” I retort.

  The bottom of the hovercraft opens with a harsh, metallic groan. The ramp slides out and touches the ground, giving a path for the pilot to exit, followed by four men who each carry a smooth metal crate. In a matter of seconds, they’re out of sight and the hovercraft waits like a great and patient creature.

  “Now’s our chance,” I whisper. “Mari, I love you. Please water my Hydra’s Kiss twice a week for me until I’m back.”

  “I don’t even know what that is,” Mari complains.

  “I’ll see you again when I’m back with proof of the Beautiful Dead.”

  With that, I slip around Mari, who makes no effort to stop me, and hurry for the ramp. For as close as it is, just the crossing of the courtyard seems to take ages. I feel every eye of the world on me, imaginary or not, as if the authorities are already alerted to my brash, criminal act. I can already hear my mom and dad admonishing me for my foolishness. Don’t worry, I imagine myself explaining to all of them. I’m only borrowing the school’s property, and it’s for a very good cause. I’m sure they’ll be understanding.

  I’ve never been aboard a hovercraft before. The sound of my shoes against the metal is softer than expected, and it smells clean as polished silver with a hint of something medicinal, like an antiseptic bandage or a hospital room. My lungs fill with the cool, sterile air as I enter the craft, surprised to find so many crates and undelivered parcels still aboard. That means the crew will be back soon for another trip, I realize. We’ll have to act fast.

  The craft itself is quite small, approximately the length of my bedroom inside, an oblong oval lined with chrome plates, blinking screens with numbers and lights flashing across them, and a thin neon blue strip of light that runs down its center, terminating at an expansive control panel in the front.

  I walk toward the controls, daunted by them. The sun burns bright through the front windshield, blinding me. It is a very annoying and inconvenient time to be almost-noon. I shield my eyes, trying to understand the console.

  “Can you fly this thing?” asks John at my side.

  I imagine racing the hovercraft across the gardens, cutting every tree in half. I imagine colliding into the math building, killing us all in one fell explosion. I imagine flipping the craft over with its own hover propulsion technology, ending us all on our heads or worse.

  “Can’t be too hard,” I answer instead, trembling.

  Marianne, to my surprise, emerges by my other side. “Please, Jen. Please reconsider. We can speak to the president of the school. Maybe she could reach some sort of compromise with your professor and, like, publish your findings under Myths instead of Histories. Wouldn’t that be a reasonable compromise?”

  “Publish it as fiction instead of fact, you mean?” I try and fail to hide the resentful tone in my voice.

  “Your mother would be so disappointed in you, Jen.” Mari’s trying to hit me where it hurts; at the mention of my mother, however, it does hurt. “What happens when they find out you’ve stolen a craft? They’ll locate you. I’m certain they can. They’ll, like, override the controls or something. You won’t even make it to the water—they won’t let you.” Mari puts a hand on mine, and now she knows how terribly I tremble; she literally feels my doubt. “It isn’t too late. We can just go. You and I, we’ll go and request a meeting with the president. She will see you. You’re top in your department. Professor Praun will appreciate your initiative, if nothing else.”

  With my resolve suddenly broken, I abandon the confusing mess of buttons and dials and knobs, turning my sullen face to John, my final appeal, my dwindling light. I see the truth in his eyes: I’ve lost my mind.

  “Jen,” my roommate goes on to my back. “There’s … something I didn’t tell you. This morning when John was asleep and you came home. I … I couldn’t tell you.”

  I look at Mari, her glowing red cheeks dancing as she speaks, her bright purple irises shining with sympathy as her gaze meets mine.

  “Your mother called on the holograph,” says Mari. Her mouth opens, then closes, then open
s to say, “She … She had news, Jennifer.”

  “News …?”

  Marianne swallows hard. Then, tears fill her eyes before words can fill her mouth. And in that instant, somehow, I already know what she can’t say.

  “My father,” I whisper.

  “L-Late last n-night,” Mari confirms, the tears letting go. “Oh, Jen, I’m so sorry! He went to sleep and never woke! Oh, Jen! His heart stopped … His heart stopped!” Her puffy hands slap over her mouth, the tears dressing them as she shudders with emotion.

  I stare at her, struck by the news. I’m about to shout at her, asking why the hell she didn’t tell me earlier, but suddenly the whole world becomes Marianne’s two sad, purple eyes, and I can’t say anything at all. In the swirling numb nothingness that’s become of my mind, I suddenly find myself struggling to remember the last time my father and I spoke. What did we talk about? Was it something as trivial and silly as the weather, or some gripe I had with the workload of a class, or a thing I read in the paper? When was the last time I said I love him?

  “Your mother is going to need you,” says Mari after a wet and particularly demonstrative sniffle. “Let’s go home and give her a call, alright?”

  I picture him standing in front of me. I picture him in a beige suit and cream-colored tie, the cream of whipped vanilla bean … the stuff of clouds, of winter winds. I could almost laugh. The last thing he’d want is for me to run back home to mother, casting away my dreams when I’ve come this close. He might’ve thought little of my studies, but he thought much of me. Maybe I’m just trapped in my little tornado of insanity, caught up in a moment of reckless passion, but he would want me to do this. I know it. Isn’t it strange? To have received such terrible news, and yet oddly have been in the perfect state in which to receive it? It’s almost like I don’t believe her, like I don’t believe he’s dead. How could a person like me believe in true death, anyway? There’s more than one kind of dying. There’s more than one kind of Dead.

  “Why are you smiling?”

  I look Mari in the eyes. “It’s a sign,” I tell her.

  “Yes?” she encourages me, eager to go home.

  I nod cheerfully, then face the console and stab the red button with my finger.

  The ramp slams shut with a guttural bang that sends a rattle through our bones and inspires a shriek from Mari. I press my hand to the central touchscreen and push hard. The craft leans forward suddenly, screeching in the effort, and amidst a scream of terror from Mari, we launch into the air the height of a building, then soar onward.

  “STOP!”

  The unfamiliar voice startles me, and I spin to face it. From an unseen compartment which may or may not have been the bathroom, a uniformed young man who couldn’t be more than eighteen years old spills onto the deck with his pants down. He wears a formfitting white shirt embroidered at the breast with the company logo. His pants, which he scrambles to pull back up, are pleated and starched, and he has slippers for shoes. A tiny white cap sits loosely on his head of bright blonde hair, neither of which hide his fast-growing eyes. They grow bigger when he seems to realize we’re airborne, and his gloved hands raise up. It doesn’t occur to me why he has them raised until John mutters, “He thinks we’re robbing him.”

  “WHO’RE YOU!?” the uniformed boy asks, or rather, screams.

  “Your new pilots!” I answer cheerfully, then return my gaze to the front just in time to see the face of the Histories building plunging towards us.

  “JENNIFER!”

  A panicked shift of my palm on the touchscreen twists the craft into a full-blown barrel-roll, skirting the edge of the building and thrusting us over the spire of another. Thrown off my feet, I fly back, tumbling past the panicked boy whose screams join that of my roommate’s.

  “John!” I cry out, spotting him at the front gripping a chair, his muscles bulging from the effort. “The controls!”

  He slaps a hand to the touchscreen where mine was, then struggles to keep the craft balanced, though not well. The whole ship lurches left, swings right, then seems to balance itself. My body is so disoriented suddenly, I can’t tell if we’re ascending or descending, if we’re turning left or right or nowhere at all.

  The uniformed boy collapses near me, his cap flying off his head, and he clutches a nearby tied-down crate the way a child grips his pillow during a nightmare. I’m that nightmare; I just happened to his day. His quivering blue eyes find mine. An ugly gash now decorates his forehead, appearing like a long and red third eyebrow. He seems to be muttering to himself, perhaps praying to some god or goddess I studied once in my Mythologies.

  Carefully rising to my feet and grabbing hold of a steel beam for balance, I ask him, “Can you fly?”

  “I’m in training!” he cries out miserably. “Today is my first day! I have math class in forty minutes! What the hell are you guys doing??”

  “You’ve trained, though?” I encourage him hopefully. “You’ve had, um … simulations and … and practice, yes?”

  “I’m a d-d-d-delivery boy!” he shouts, hardly able to even deliver his words. “Put the craft down! Now! I’ll tell the authorities if you don’t! You’ll be expelled! You’ll—”

  “Well,” I say, cutting him off and trying unsuccessfully to steel my own shaken nerves. “If we can manage to find a spot, delivery boy, then we’d be happy to land and let you out. Really, it’s a total accident you’re here. There’s no sense in you coming with us if—”

  “We can’t,” calls John from the front.

  I look ahead, watching the buildings and spires fling past us, the ship hurtling ceaselessly towards the edge of campus. “Why not?”

  “They’ve been notified,” he says. “Authorities, I see them.” The view shifts leftwards, rightwards, upwards. My guts somersault, somehow unable to register the erratic movement. “If we turn back now, we face certain, harsh criminal charges. Prison for life. I can’t even think. We’ll be branded thieves, Jennifer. Endangering lives. It’s too … It’s too late to turn back,” he says and realizes, perhaps not having truly considered the consequence of his committing to my insanity until just now.

  I look at Marianne from across the cabin, surveying her as she desperately clings to the copilot’s chair and stares back at me, a look of utter loss in her colorful eyes.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, unsure if my words can be heard.

  Mari hears them. She gives a wistful shrug, then says, “Hell … I can’t remember … the last time … I had … this much fun …”

  “I’m not having fun,” the uniformed boy lets us know, still clinging to the crate with all his precious life. “You’re all criminals. I shouldn’t be here! Let me off! NOW!”

  “Can’t,” I say sadly. “You’re coming on the fieldtrip of a lifetime, apparently. Hope you remembered to get your permission slip signed by a parent or legal guardian.”

  “Fieldtrip to where??” he asks miserably.

  Through the front glass, I watch as the campus flashes out of view, and all that sprawls out ahead of us is sand, the ocean looming ahead like endless blue silk. The boy’s question goes unanswered. The fear of what we’ve done washes over all of us, just as certainly as the blue of the ocean meets our eyes and the world of the Living falls to our backs. The silence between us speaks the worth of a thousand crippling words.

  I wonder if we’re all thinking the same thing. Our faith is certainly being tested now. Is the other side of the world really depleted of all life, ruined and decayed from the centuries? Does the Sunless Reach even exist, or is it all ocean out there? Is it truly … the realm of the Dead?

  If time were an endless plain, the ocean is the chasm cut deep in the earth, its watery yawn spanning far beyond what light can reach. This awesome rift, we will never know for sure how wide it is. But on the other side, as sure as we are that there is another side, that’s where our story truly begins. Not where the land ends, but far, far beyond its lazy shores … in a realm beyond the sun’s reach, where th
e Dead live and the Living …

  … the Living …

  “Are you okay, Jennifer?”

  I turn at the sound of John’s voice. My father would have wanted this, I tell myself again, desperate to believe the words I’m forcing through my mind, now invaded by a tiny doubt that wasn’t there before.

  The crazy lady Dana summoned his spirit from the world beyond, remember? He’s here with you, wearing that silly beige suit. It doesn’t matter what your last words were to him.

  Honor him in the only way you can …

  “When we return with our proof,” I answer, “we will be celebrated. The president will honor us. You know, my dad always used to ask me, ‘What did you do today?’ The question never before held such weight. This day, my friends … This day, we write our chapter in the Histories.” I face my roomie. “Mari, you’ll be revered for your new findings in Biology and Human Anatomy and Blood. The Living Dead, Marianne! You will know them as certain as you know the colors of your cheeks and eyes. They will talk about your discoveries for years to come …”

  “I’ve forgotten which color I put in today,” Mari moans, bringing a sorrowful hand to her face, mourning the lack of a mirror.

  “We’re the new History,” I declare, happy with my dream. “Isn’t that a worthwhile way to spend your day?”

  “Yes,” agrees John, “given we survive the journey.”

  The four of us stare ahead, a view of the ageless ocean meeting our eager, dreaming eyes with its silent eternity of unknowable depths and greedily-kept secrets.

  I wake to the shriek of an alarm.

  “John! What’s happening?!” Marianne cries out.

  “I don’t know, I don’t know. We were cruising just fine, but then—”

  “The window is clouding up!”

  “Anti-fog!” shouts the delivery boy. “Turn on the—”