Some Quiet Place

by Kelsey Sutton

  “If you’re normal, then maybe it’s a good thing I’m different,” I tell Sophia in a mild tone. I step over her and sidestep her swiping nails.

  “I’m going to kill you!” she swears, eyes blazing. She’s cradling one of her arms. I turn my back.

  The entire party has encircled this little tête-à-tête, and though most move aside for me to pass, one person stays where he is. He stares like he’s never seen me before. I offer Joshua a wry smile, showing him that this is really who I am, not the perfect girl he’s made me out to be. Why did he come?

  To see you, that voice in my head whispers.

  It doesn’t matter.

  “Elizabeth?” Joshua watches me walk by but doesn’t reach out. Fear pats his shoulder, mockingly sympathetic. “Let her go, boy. She’s a mess.” Joshua doesn’t hear or see him, of course, but he does frown, sensing something off about me and the air around us.

  “I’m a mess?” I repeat blandly, going around to the back of the house. Fear just snickers.

  The house is dark but clean. The place hasn’t changed much from when I visited here as a child. Same wooden floors, same beige furniture. Sophia probably didn’t want anyone to come inside because her sister is here. I travel through the kitchen, then the living room until I find some stairs leading up. My ears pick up the faint sound of Wheel of Fortune somewhere. I trip in the dark, and at the last second I throw my palm before me as a buffer to save my face from smashing the edge of a stair.

  Wordlessly, Fear holds out his hand above me. A small orb of light appears over his palm, illuminating the dark hall. Recovering, I keep going. I notice that while my weight makes the stairs creak, Fear is soundless. Using the light, I pause to study some pictures hanging up on the wall. Sophia hardly smiles in any of them, and in every single one she’s by her sister, either supporting her or looking at her with indiscernible expressions.

  I keep going. The stairs open up to a large hallway, and my eyes alight on a doorway at the far end, where sounds of the TV and a blue glow pours out. Without hesitation, I go toward it.

  The room is small and pink. There’s a rocking horse in the corner and a big, fluffy bed against one wall. These aren’t the first things I see, however. What I spot first is Sophia’s sister, sitting on a rug in the center of the floor, staring at the box that has been put in front of her. If my memory serves me correctly, she’s four years younger than her capricious sister.

  “What are you doing?” Fear stays in the hall when I enter the bedroom, so I leave him there and move toward Morgan Richardson.

  She isn’t startled by the sight of a stranger in the privacy in her house, this much I know. Does she remember me? As I approach, Morgan tilts her head back to look at me, and I in turn study her thick lashes, her round face and bleary eyes. She’s in pajamas, and the material has frogs all over it. She’s so tiny. The pants are too big for her. She must be in one of her withdrawn moods, since she doesn’t say a word. In the past she wasn’t able to communicate well, and it seems time hasn’t changed that.

  “Hello,” I say, glancing around. Besides the furniture and toys, Morgan is alone. It looks like Morgan’s babysitter has left and, judging from the fact I haven’t seen her anywhere, doesn’t intend to return tonight.

  “Elizabeth, this is pointless,” Fear says from the doorway.

  Ignoring him, I squat down so I’m at Morgan’s level. I smile at her and she stares back. But then, so quickly that

  I wonder if I imagined it, her eyes flit to Fear. A second later she fastens her gaze back on the TV. There’s some cartoon on, something involving a talking sponge.

  “Oh, fabulous,” Fear mutters, stalking to the window. “Another human that can see me. That’s just wonderful. You know, my ego can’t take much more of this.” He glares down at the lawn, the moon casting square patterns on his high cheekbones.

  Processing Morgan’s stiffness, I reach to brush a strand of hair back from her face. “You see things, don’t you?” I murmur. She leans into my touch. “You know more than you should.” The girl shudders. I acknowledge this with an incline of my head, understanding. “Sometimes the things you see aren’t very nice, are they?”

  Fear whips around, his glare burning through me. “I’m nice!” he protests.

  When I still don’t respond he steps closer, growling. “Elizabeth, we’re wasting time. Hold up your end of the bargain.”

  “I will. Now hush.” I keep my focus on the girl, but I can sense Fear fuming. Morgan meets my gaze directly, and for the briefest of moments, her eyes become clear and focused, as if she knows me and knows all my secrets. I straighten, alert.

  “Do you want to tell me something?” I ask her.

  “How long are we going to do this?” Fear seethes.

  Morgan’s strange brown-blue eyes go cloudy and clear over and over in an aching cycle. Her mouth moves, puckering. I lean in, putting my ear next to her lips. “Morgan?” I prompt.

  She swallows, opens her mouth, closes it. Fear makes another sound of impatience behind me. “I have better things to do, Elizabeth.”

  The girl touches my cheek. My hand tightens on hers. “If you have anything to say, now would be an excellent time to do it,” I tell her, forcing a note of tenderness into my tone. Longing arrives, that fickle Emotion. She kneels and embraces Morgan, smiling at me with luminescent eyes. This girl wants someone to be kind to her, just once, without the irritation and sense of duty that usually comes along with it.

  Morgan’s muscles spasm and her eyes go dull again. She looks in the direction of the window, soaking up the stars just as Fear had done moments ago. Seconds tick by. After a minute, it seems like she’s not going to talk … but then she focuses on me yet again.

  “Run,” she says, clear as a bell.

  Before I can move or react, Fear is hissing. He moves back into the hall, his coat snapping around his heels like a whip. I quickly follow, leaving Morgan there in that empty room with the box. “What is it?” I ask. The words echo.

  When Fear starts for the stairs without answering, I stop and stand there in the dark. Realizing this, Fear snarls deep in his throat, but he stops, too, and faces me. There’s a moment of silence. Frowning, he mutters, “I thought I sensed … ”

  He doesn’t finish, but he continues to glare at a spot on the wall as if it’s talking to him. “Are you going to fill me in?” I ask.

  He lets out a frantic, frustrated breath, gesturing sharply to the room we just left. “Will you fill me in?”

  Morgan holds no more interest for me. “Maybe,” I tell Fear.

  The word isn’t even out of my mouth completely when he jerks and lifts his head, sniffing the air. His eyes go wide again, and he whirls around. He rushes down the stairs at an inhuman speed. Any moment now I know he’ll disappear.

  “This isn’t a place for my kind,” is all he says.

  I try to stay close on his heels. “There are plenty of Emotions here,” I note, raising my voice so he’ll hear me. My grip is tight on the bannister. “Are you—”

  “Just trust me on this,” he snaps, reaching the ground floor. I quicken my pace as he reaches for the knob.

  Just then a boy stumbles from the bathroom. He reeks of vomit. Before I have a chance to evade him he embraces me, slobbering on my cheek. I shove him away—Fear is already outside. I start running. Cool air splashes me in the face as I sprint out the front door.

  Fear isn’t anywhere to be seen. I’ve lost him. All the other Emotions are gone as well. The party is now just a writhing mass of kids, dancing, laughing, leering, drinking, shouting. Without any Emotions, they’ll feel the same sensations for hours. And even if the Emotions don’t return, they’ll still feel something. Fear told me a few years ago that if there isn’t the actual being around to instill an emotion, humans will draw from a memory of it as a last resort.

  Sophia is standing with a group of her friends, obviously still incensed from our little dispute. Best to avoid her. I start in the opposite directio
n of the girls, toward the woods.

  Why would all the Emotions abandon their summons?

  Suddenly, the sound of sirens fills the air. Red and blue lights swirl around the house and lawn, reflecting off the water in the hot tub. Sheriff Owen’s voice bursts out, tired and hard, “All right, kids, stay where you are. Ah, Dorseths! Don’t you dare run!” Small-town party bust.

  But Rebecca was so adamant about not coming to this party. I’m not finished. Distracted from the mayhem around me, I survey the whole scene with narrow eyes as I walk, trying to spot anything out of place.

  “Get out of my way, you idiot!”

  The unfamiliar voice comes from a distance, but it cat-ches my attention. Male. Frantic. In the trees, I see bright headlights burst on. A girl falls at my feet in a drunken stupor. I hardly notice as I step over her. My gut insists that something important is about to happen in those woods.

  “She’s hurt,” a new voice says, the words bouncing through the night. This voice I recognize. “We need to get her to a hospital.”

  Joshua. Again I begin to hurry, pushing aside branches. Morgan’s urgent whisper invades my head: Run, run. As I sprint toward the sound of Joshua’s voice, I spot an Emotion, no, an Element, cowering in some leaves. It’s a tiny being with a slight glow. As I pass it, the creature actually jumps on my shoulder and pulls at my hair, her squeaky voice a piercing warning in my ear.

  “He’s here, he’s here!” she shrieks. “Disappear, before he gets you, gets you!” She vanishes.

  The argument ahead continues to drift toward me, though I still can’t see the speakers through the trees and darkness.

  “The cops are here, moron, and if you don’t move I swear to God I’ll run over both of you,” the first voice says.

  “Real smart, Tyler, because once you murder two people the cops definitely won’t be after you then.”

  I finally come into a clearing where some cars are parked, spotting Joshua right away in the beam of the bright headlights. He’s on the ground, cradling Susie Yank in his arms. There’s blood coming out of her ear. Tyler’s behind the wheel of a pickup, revving his engine, glaring with red-rimmed eyes at the two kids in the way of his escape.

  Neither of the boys is aware of me yet, coming at them from the tree line. There’s the sound of footsteps behind me somewhere, but I barely comprehend this. All my focus is on the situation swiftly unraveling in the clearing. “Joshua?” I call out. “What happened?” A twig snaps under my foot as I get closer. Other people are rushing to their vehicles, not even noticing this show-down in their own desperate getaways.

  Joshua keeps his eyes on Tyler. “Call 9-1-1,” he says. “Tyler shoved Susie in his big rush and she fell and hit her head on a rock or something. I don’t think I should move her.”

  “Move her,” I say without hesitation. I see the frenzy in Tyler’s eyes and in the way he grips the steering wheel. I’m still yards away, but even running, I see that I won’t be fast enough. Tyler’s truck rears forward, the engine roaring, about to bear down on Joshua and Susie.

  “No.”

  There’s no analyzing, there’s no thought of consequences or benefits. All I can think is, Not another one. I surge, a blur in the clearing, scooping Joshua and Susie into my arms and wrenching them out of the way with a super-human strength and speed I shouldn’t have.

  Whooping in triumph, Tyler drives away, not even looking back.

  Joshua breathes heavily beneath me, and I grasp that I’m lying on top of him in a protective position, having disregarded Susie completely. She’s partially crushed beneath Joshua while the other half of her is flopped on the grass. There’s no way I should have been able to save them. What is happening to me?

  My senses are coming back together now. “Good thing I reached you in time,” I say to Joshua, my voice even, casual. I stand up and brush my pants off. “Do you have a phone?” Silently he shakes his head, and he’s staring at me. Shock is making his pupils dilate; big, small, big, small. I continue, as if we’re discussing our English project. “I don’t have one either, so we’ll have to wait for the cops to come back here to get Susie help.” I scan the kids in the clearing who are still dashing past us. None of them seem to have witnessed what happened, or if they have, they’re too numbed by alcohol to realize anything. I walk away.

  When I look back at Joshua, he’s still gaping at me with that frozen expression. My nothingness reaffirms itself. I sense it prodding and poking, digging and building, strengthening the weaknesses. Again I proceed like nothing is out of the ordinary. “I thought I might be too late.” I offer him a seemingly relieved smile.

  Joshua has regained some of his senses, and he isn’t buying it—I can tell by the way his jaw clenches. But there’s no chance to confront me because we can both hear the deputies walking through the brush, shouting and swinging their flashlights. Joshua stands up and turns away. He lifts Susie and walks toward the cops, holding her against his chest. I stay where I am, looking after him.

  He doesn’t glance back, but his shoulders are stiff and determined, and I know this isn’t over.

  Seventeen

  All the lights in the house are on when I get home.

  The farm is very, very quiet. Even the cows in the barn are subdued. I hop down from my truck, listening to the familiar sound of gravel under my tennis shoes. The screen door groans on its hinges, a noise I’ve listened to all my life, every time I enter this house.

  The brightness of the kitchen hits me. It’s not so friendly a place at one a.m. I stay in the entryway for just a moment, straining to hear anything, but it’s silent. Both of them heard my truck pull in; they heard the screen door. They know I’m in here. They’re waiting.

  I step into their line of sight. Tim and Sarah look at me from where they stand behind the counter. Sarah is trying not to wring her hands nervously; she keeps pulling them apart and folding them again.

  Tim, of course, is the first to speak. His forehead gleams. “Where have you been?” His voice is low and controlled, and the bruises Fear gave him have become simmering hues of blue and yellow. For the first time in a long time, he’s not drunk. Sobriety seems even worse.

  I take off my shoes so I don’t dirty Sarah’s clean floor, moving slowly, as if he’s a predator and I’m prey. I look at that floor as I answer, “I went to Sophia Richardson’s birthday party.” I’d left after supper and made sure to do my chores, of course. Usually, after I shut myself up in my room, no one bothers me. But tonight, apparently …

  “Your mother just told me the school called yesterday.”

  Ah. I’d forgotten about skipping classes when Maggie died.

  “They said you were absent all morning,” Tim adds tightly. When I don’t respond, he clenches his beefy fists. “Well?” When I still don’t respond, Tim steps away from the counter, closer to me.

  Move, sense whispers.

  Following some strange instinct, I hold my ground, lifting my chin in what could be perceived as defiance.

  The faint scent of sweat and soil drifts to my nose. I look up at Tim. He seems taller than normal. He hasn’t shaved in a while; scruff dots his chin and jaw. “You’re going to tell me where you went,” he orders. Again he waits for me to speak. Sarah’s hands tremble as she reaches up to push her hair away from her face. She looks like she’s focusing hard on thinking nothing, feeling nothing, being nothing. She’s trying to be me.

  And failing miserably.

  “H-honey, don’t you think—” she starts.

  “Shut up.” He’s so cold, so empty. I should be seeing Anger, yet there are no Emotions present. Are they still avoiding whatever Fear sensed at Sophia’s party?

  At my continued silence, Tim leaves Sarah’s side to tower over me. “Elizabeth.” It’s a warning. There’s a vein jutting out of his forehead that always precedes pain. But for some reason, I keep ignoring those insisting urges to run, fight! and just stand there, silent. I don’t answer his questions, and oddly enough, I don’t plan t
o. That day in the hospital … the time I’d spent at Maggie’s side … the words exchanged … it seems pure, somehow. That day is ours. Mine and Maggie’s. No one else should touch it.

  Why do you care? that little voice whispers.

  I don’t see it coming. He slaps me. Hard. My head is tossed to the side, and my cheek feels as if tiny needles are being shoved into every pore of my skin. Tim gives me another chance to tell him what he wants to know. When I remain wordless for a third time, he tries to do it again, but I sidestep him. Tim bristles. Sarah doesn’t seem to know what to do, how to feel. She can’t watch, but she does.

  “Answer me!” Tim thunders.

  I smile up at him. “No.”

  Now Sarah looks truly frightened. Where is Fear? She opens her mouth to intervene, but before she can, Tim laughs. It’s so unexpected, she stares at him. I just keep smiling. Tim laughs and laughs.

  “You’re a demon,” Tim tells me, shaking his head. “You’re no child of mine. I want you out of this house.” His face is redder than I’ve ever seen it, and now veins stick out everywhere. He’s not angry, exactly—Anger is nowhere to be seen—but this is who he is. Even without the Emotion. Tim lifts his hand again—

  Even I don’t anticipate Sarah stepping forward, resting her fingers on his shoulder gently. Tim’s hand lowers, and he turns to look at her.

  “You can’t kick her out,” she says timidly. He’s listening to her; he’s forgotten about me for the moment. Sarah swallows. “What would people say? We could get in trouble.”

  Tim thinks. A minute goes by, and slowly, all those veins and redness fade until he’s normal again. The hand that was about to strike me inches up, twines with Sarah’s. She flinches, but Tim doesn’t see it. He’s pursing his lips at me, squinting.

  Finally, he points at me rather than trying to hit me again. There’s earth under his fingernails. “You will do your chores every morning, you will go to school, and you will come right back here,” he says through his teeth, nostrils flaring. He shifts his glare to the place just over my head as he talks. He can’t even stand the sight of me. “You’ll do the afternoon chores, you’ll do your mother’s work, you’ll do your homework, and then you’ll go to bed.” Abruptly, Tim releases his hold on Sarah and storms out of the kitchen. Glancing at me with another anxious expression, she moves to follow.