Suddenly, disregarding it all for a moment, I jerk upright. After a moment I jump up and go to my door, opening it just a crack. I poke my head out into the hallway. Tim is downstairs on the couch, and he lets out a long belch as he watches TV. Mom is at her sewing machine in the corner—the steady hum of the needles drifts to my ears.
But this isn’t what makes me so alert, so attentive. The wall inside me is moving again; there’s someone near. Someone with power. A haze at the edge of my consciousness confirms it: the presence from the road is back. Not in the house. Outside.
I close the door and go to my bedroom window. But then I pause, reconsider, walk back to my nightstand, and dig a flashlight out of the drawer. Then, as quietly as possible, I return to the window and slide the glass pane open. Flashlight clamped in my mouth, I straddle the sill and grasp the trunk of the tree that’s only a foot away from the house, positioned slightly on the right. It’s easy to climb down and drop to the ground. Leaves crackle under my weight and I look around. The fields stretch out and I know that the stranger is in there, waiting for me. The power is strong. Without hesitation, I plunge into the dark depths. I wait to switch the light on until the house is out of view.
The air is cool tonight. Ignoring the discomfort of going barefoot, I move stealthily through the corn stalks and focus on the being moving in the trees beyond. I know it’s there because its presence is still an insistent poke in my mind. After a few more yards, I reach the edge of the woods. I start to run, light on my feet. I do make some noise, but the visitor doesn’t disappear at the sound of my approach. Pain suddenly pierces through my heel—I’ve stepped on one of those weeds with prickles decorating its leaves—and I stop, hissing as I exhale. But I attempt to ignore the ache and continue through the trees. The nothingness is thrumming inside me. My mysterious visitor is closer than ever.
When I know for certain that it’s just a couple yards away from me, I halt at the edge of a clearing, tilting my head to listen. My flashlight sweeps the tree line. The presence is still palpable, still nearby, but I see nothing. Is it taunting me? I wait for a sign of its location, gazing around silently, alert. My heel is throbbing.
Finally there’s the sound of a twig snapping—it’s on purpose. This creature wants me to find it. I jerk the flashlight toward the noise, my entire body poised, ready for anything. I finally spot my visitor, a dark shape standing behind a tree just a few feet away from where I am.
“Who are you?” I call. “What do you want?”
For a time there’s no reply, but the stranger is still there. Is it testing me, somehow? I don’t address it again; that’s what it wants. The woods around us thrive with life, time itself seeming to speed up and slow down.
Finally there’s more movement. My senses are at their best, intent only on survival. The stranger finally steps out from behind the tree and into the circle of light. Still tensed, I take in her appearance—and it’s female, without a doubt; even though her sweatpants are baggy and a hooded sweatshirt covers her body and face, the form is willowy. Definitely not male.
“Are you going to answer my questions?” I ask flatly. At this proximity, her essence sweeps over me more than ever before, and I can’t put my finger on it. Is she an Emotion or an Element?
She keeps her head down, using the darkness as a cover. I lower the flashlight to my side so I don’t spook her. “I came here to warn you,” she says. Her voice is rich and deep, but I get the sense that she’s young. Again, there’s an ongoing sense of recognition. Before I can prod for more, she continues. “He’s found you, and you need to try harder to remember.” The words are halting, as if she’s speaking past a pain in her gut.
“Remember what?”
An owl hoots somewhere above, a deceiving sound of normalcy. “What we started,” the stranger replies, taking a step back. She’s nervous. She’s angry. She’s … scared. As if she’s reading my thoughts, she takes another step away from me. Under her long sleeves I suspect she’s clenching her fists.
“You can’t tell me more?” I ask, not bothering to pursue her. If this woman wants to evade, she’s proven that she can do it.
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” she snaps. She takes a third step. A fourth. “You already know. Remember, for both our sakes. And don’t trust … anyone.”
With that, she spins and runs, melting and becoming part of the black beyond. Her tread is almost completely silent, and soon not even the rays of my flashlight can touch her. I wait until I know she’s gone to start for the house.
I’ve only taken a few steps when I see another movement out of the corner of my eye. I stop, every muscle in my body taut, and then I realize that it’s only a deer, standing by a bush. Its ears flick back and forth and its nostrils flare, probably smelling me. I turn my back on this place and its quiet lure. I have more to think about.
And I need to pull the thorns out of my foot.
“No,” she sobs, clutching the boy tight to her chest. Her shirt and skin are saturated with bright red blood. She glares up at the sky, tears of rage and anguish pouring down her cheeks in skinny rivers. She starts to scream at the innocent stars.
When her throat has gone hoarse, she rocks the two of them back and forth, back and forth, sobbing some more, jagged rasps of sound. “No, please. Please, come back,” she whispers, stroking a bright head of blood-smeared hair. “Don’t leave me alone. Please, please, come back. Come back … ” She rests her cheek on the boy’s head, whimpering.
There is no answer, no reply. Not from the boy, at least. “We need to go,” a voice says, somewhere in the trees. The girl doesn’t bother replying, just keeps rocking. She digs her fingers into the boy as if she’ll never let go. She murmurs something—his name—and kisses his forehead. When she pulls away, her lips drip with blood.
“It’s not safe here. We need to—”
“Leave me alone!” the girl shrieks. Her eyes blaze. Just an instant later, though, she’s a moaning hole of pain again. “You can’t leave me all alone. Please, please, please,” she chants. “Come back … ”
But he never will.
My eyes flutter open to embrace the stark and colorless walls of my room, and the first thing I’m aware of is the fact that I can’t move. Pain rips through me, shrieking. I glance down and note the fact that my wrists and ankles are duct-taped to the four posts of the bed. There are numerous cuts on my body—legs, arms, stomach—some deep and still bleeding. Tim stands in a corner, watching me, holding a long, glinting knife in one hand. It still drips with my blood.
I lift my nose and sniff the air. Power fills the room. “I can’t be late for school,” I say, unable to see him, but of course he’s here. I make the mistake of shifting a bit, to get a cramp out of my leg, and wince at the second rush of pain.
“You already have more tardies than everyone else,” Fear says, appearing at my side. “One more isn’t going to hurt.” He sits down and cool air rushes into my face. He smells of dew and sunlight and horror. “Why is that, by the way?” he adds, small wrinkles appearing in his otherwise-smooth forehead. “You’re a robot in every other aspect, but you can never seem to make it to class on time.”
Struggling is pointless, so I try to find a more comfortable position, hurting myself in the process. Fear only watches me; he’s still angry. I’ve injured his pride, and he won’t be able to forget that easily. “Could you at least get rid of part of the illusion?” I ask, nodding to my limbs and torso, where the cuts continue to bleed.
Fear smiles faintly, but it’s not a real smile. “No,” he re-
plies. “I want answers.”
I give up, going completely still. “What could I possibly know?” I ask.
In answer, Fear reaches down and picks up one of my paintings. He must have brought it over from the loft. It’s the one of the house by the ocean. Foam shoots into the air, reaching up the cliff side with white fingers. “You create these,” he says. “You dream. And I know you think about it constantly. I want
you to tell me everything you know. Who are these people? What happened? Ah … ” He holds up one long, pale finger. “And don’t lie to me. I’m afraid I don’t have the patience for it today.”
“As you said, I dream and paint,” I say after a moment. I’m weakening from all the blood I’m losing. I wonder how long Fear will let the charade go on. “I know next to nothing; I’ve never seen the girl before. She screams and weeps, and she begs the boy to come back. There isn’t much more than that.”
Fear grimaces, leaning closer, his hands clasped loosely between his knees. “You’re keeping something from me, Elizabeth. I need to know. Please, just tell me.”
The wall within me trembles. For an instant, I see the depth of his desperation, his desire, before his mask falls back into place and he’s the cocky, arrogant, self-assured Emotion that I know. The pain is almost gone now; my body has gone numb. I turn my head away from him to look out the window. Morning light is always the most gentle, most serene.
“I have a theory,” Fear says, disrupting the silence. “About you. See, I don’t really believe that you feel absolutely nothing. There’s too much to indicate otherwise.”
“Such as?” I prompt. The sooner this ends, the sooner I can get my normal world back and get to school. I’ve never skipped once in my life; I do everything I can to avoid the school making phone calls to my house.
“You do care, Elizabeth.” Fear touches my cheek, tenderness suddenly filling his gaze. “You care about your friend Maggie, you care about your mom, you care about hurting that boy’s feelings at school. You may not feel in an overwhelming way; you’re subtle about it.”
“Wishful thinking, Fear. You want to understand, and you want to able to put me in a category. But the reality is we’ll probably never know the truth about what happened to me.”
“I can’t believe that,” he says, and once again he seems unable to resist touching me when I’m so near. His fingers trail down my neck and he makes little designs on my chest. His fingers are cool, and his essence battles with my immunity. Images of war and pain and terror sweep through my mind.
The ball of fire in the sky has risen even higher into the endless expanse, and the light inches into my room. It catches the icy blue of Fear’s eyes. “You watched me grow up,” I say. “Wouldn’t a child cry when her parents ignored her? Wouldn’t a girl care when her father hit her? Wouldn’t the way Sophia treats me bother me? And wouldn’t seeing Maggie—”
“Why are you so insistent?” Fear challenges. “You’re so adamant that you’re right and I’m wrong. Isn’t that feeling something?”
Arguing with him is pointless. I glance at the clock by my bed. “Fear, I do need to go. Would you please release me?”
He sits back, sighing, roughing up his hair in frustration. “Not yet.” He follows my gaze to the window. He shifts restlessly, a wild thing, a creature no one can tame or understand, not completely. He makes me think of a pale, pale lion. Beautiful and feral and always on the hunt.
“Everything has a purpose,” I remind him, my voice soft. “And yours isn’t to solve me. If you’re ever going to be happy, you need to move on.”
He laughs quietly. “See? Right there. Why would you say something like that unless you really do care?”
I lift one shoulder in a mild shrug, ignoring the pain the movement costs me. “I have instincts, Fear. But I don’t have all the answers. So, please, let me go to school.”
He sighs yet again, waving his hand. Suddenly I’m back in my real room and Tim is gone, as are the cuts and blood on my body. “I’m sorry,” Fear says. I don’t know if he’s apologizing for the pain or the rest of it.
“It’s fine.” I slide my feet to the side of the bed, standing. Fear watches me, longing in his eyes. I don’t have time to shower now, so I move to my closet, pulling out jeans and a T-shirt—what I wear every day.
“You’d look beautiful in a dress,” Fear says, so quietly that I almost don’t hear him. I don’t bother asking him to leave—he never listens to me, anyway—so I turn my back to him and take off the shirt I slept in. I hear him suck in a breath, but when I turn again to speak, he’s gone.
Ten
After a day of Sophia making snide comments every time she shoulders by me in the halls, and Joshua doing his best not to stare at me, I pull out of the school parking lot. Instead of going home, I head to town.
Hal, the owner of the hardware store, waves at me when I pass him. Nodding in return, I go directly to aisle eight. I study the selection carefully, though it’s very limited. There are exactly three shades of green: lime, emerald, and myrtle. Debating for a moment, I decide to take them all. As an afterthought, I also grab cans of gray and black and white.
“Do you need help carrying those to your truck?” Hal asks as he takes my money.
I stack the paint cans and lean them against my chest, shaking my head at him. “No thanks.” I start for the door.
“No, don’t touch anything!”
A display of vitamins topples over. The same female voice curses, and a woman appears in the aisle. Her hair is streaked with blond and her acrylic nails glint in the light. With a cell phone pressed to her ear, she bends and begins to stack the bottles. “I told you to keep your hands to yourself!” the woman snarls. Her glare is directed at someone blocked by the display. “No, I’m fine,” she says into the phone now, still stacking. “Morgan is just being a pain.”
She has to mean Morgan Richardson. Sophia’s little sister. This must be her babysitter.
The clock over her head catches my attention, and I hurry outside.
I drive over the speed limit to get home; Tim will start bringing the cows in from the pasture, and Charles won’t be around to cover for me when it comes time for milking. Once I’ve pulled into the driveway, I park beside Tim’s truck and leave the paint cans, heading straight to the barn. Mora pokes her head over the edge of a stall at the sound of my approach—I’m even later than I realized—and I immediately move to the milking supplies.
“Where have you been?”
I should have seen him when I first came in; he’s standing by the shelf of bottles, holding a halter in his hands. He must have just finished taking the cows in. “I had school,” I answer carefully, trying to get an idea of what I can expect. My father glares at me.
“I know you had school, Elizabeth. You usually get home at three. It’s twenty after. So I’m going to ask one more time: where have you been?”
He’s forcing himself to be calm, but danger lurks beneath his scruffy exterior. I won’t tell the truth; he’ll find a reason to let his fury loose. “I was working on a school project with a partner,” I say. “For English class.” If he thinks I’m being responsible, he might let me go another night without bruises.
Tim fiddles with the halter some more, his expression becoming thoughtful. “Who’s your partner, sweetheart?”
I hesitate, assessing the situation from every angle, trying to figure out which one will let me off with the least pain. “Joshua Hayes.” I pause. No reaction from Tim. “He lives on a farm across town with his dad. His mom—”
“I know who he is, Elizabeth.” Tim finally sets the halter down on his workbench and I notice for the first time how his beefy fists are clenched. His knuckles are white. “Funny thing … ” My father takes a step toward me. I don’t move. “Joshua Hayes just called the house ten minutes ago, left a message with your mom. Said something’s come up and he can’t work on your ‘project’ tomorrow. Weren’t you with him ten minutes ago?” Tim moves even closer, until he’s backed me up against a wall.
I look up at him, blinking. Fight or flight fills my being. And for some reason I find myself choosing to hold my ground. “Where do you think I was?” I question.
He studies me, expression still unfathomable. “You know, I didn’t notice at first. It took me a while to make any connections. But the least I can figure, you changed after that car accident. The kid I knew was just gone. I don’t know wha
t happened to you, but the doctor said you were fine, we were just worrying too much. I don’t think so,” he repeats.
Clearly, I’m not going to be able to get any more out of him. I try to look afraid. “I could try harder to be that person you knew. I will try.”
“If I’ve learned anything in this godforsaken world, it’s that people don’t change. Look at me.” He laughs softly, and I smell the faint tang of alcohol on his breath. “I tried to be a good husband, I tried to be a good dad. When I couldn’t do that, I tried to be a good farmer. Nope, people sure don’t change!”
His words strike a chord somewhere inside me. He’s wrong; people can change. They can. Now is not the time for argument, however. Now is the time to appeal to his humanity. “Dad—”
The word coming from my lips seems to anger him even further. “You’re just like your mother,” he says, grabbing my shoulder quicker than I can jump out of his reach. “Always lying!”
I shove him without thinking, and my resistance infuriates him further. Swift as a snake, he bangs my head against the wall. Reflex tears spring to my eyes. More instincts shriek at me. Run, claw, reason.
“ … would you lie to me about where you’ve been unless you were with a guy?” Tim is demanding. “Did you sleep with him? How long has this been going on? What if you get pregnant, slut? Huh? Do you expect your mother and me to clean up the messes you make?” The questions come at me relentlessly, each one punctuated with a head slam. My vision blurs, the first sign that I’m going to lose consciousness. Impulse takes over again, and my fist lashes out before I can stop it, connects with flesh. Tim stumbles back, bellowing.
“I wasn’t with anyone,” I attempt to say. But the words are lost when Tim utters another cry of rage. He seizes my arm and throws me to the floor. I start to scramble up but he steps on my hand with his heavy boot, and we both hear something crunch. I let out a scream of pain, and I can tell that the sound gratifies him. He bends, lifting me by my throat. With my good hand I reach to scratch his eyes out, but he jerks away just in time. Kicking is pointless, but I try anyway.
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