The Feel of Echoes

by Mari Labbee

  The long, thin arm was repeatedly raised as she painted the sky. Slowly, the woman began to turn, and Bri felt fear rise in her throat. She wanted to go now but found she couldn’t move. She didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know who the woman was. She just wanted to go, to be in bed asleep and safe.

  The woman’s profile came into view: a perfectly straight nose that stopped just above bow-shaped lips and porcelain skin, the color of cream. The rest of her face came into view, and soon the woman was looking at Bri with inky-blue eyes that threatened to pull her into an abyss from which there would be no return. The woman’s stare bore into her, pleading, and Bri thought, there is something familiar about that face, but then the room closed in on her. She was being pulled again, this time straight toward the woman. If she didn’t stop, she would crash right into her.

  Panicking, Bri flailed and dug in her heels. Anything, grab anything, she told herself but to no avail. She let out a silent scream, one that she could only hear in her head as she sped toward the woman, until suddenly she was in the dark again.

  A moment later her eyes fluttered open, and she found herself inches from the wall. The humming was deafening. It vibrated through her body, a body that was not her own. She felt the swaying, looked down, and the fear turned to panic. Bri was no longer in her own body; she and the woman were one. She could feel her breathing, see her thoughts, and feel the wall as her fingers streaked across it. Bri’s eyes darted from side to side; they seemed to be the only thing she could control. She tried desperately to close her eyes, but now they wouldn’t obey. Whatever was coming, she didn’t want to see.

  Her head turned—quite by itself—and her eyes moved down to look at the small bowl that sat on the floor next to her. The long, thin arm—one that was Bri’s for now—reached out and dipped two fingers in the red paint that filled it. In that instant, Bri noticed something else, something horrible. It couldn’t be, but she knew it was, and now the panic turned to terror.

  Just below a tiny crescent-shaped depression that looked like a birthmark, there was a cut, a sliver of a slash across the thin, pale wrist. It wasn’t paint.

  Dear God, how do I get out of here? Bri screamed in her own head, but the incessant humming drowned everything else out. Images flickered by quickly; a jungle, a beach, all of it went on the wall. Then, faint and far away, but getting louder, it came—laughter.

  As the laughter grew, so did the humming, and the rocking overtook the woman completely. She extended her thin arm straight out this time and pointed to the hearth—or, more precisely-to a corner of the hearth, but there was nothing there.

  How is this happening? Bri asked herself.

  Through the cacophony of the laughter and the humming, and the thunderous beat of her own heart, came the whisper.

  “What is yours is mine. What is yours is mine. What is yours is mine…”

  Over and over the whisper—someone else’s whisper, not the woman’s—surrounded her. Instinctively Bri knew that the voice wasn’t coming from anywhere in the room, yet it was everywhere. Then it was inside the woman’s head—Bri’s head—and that’s when she realized.

  She’s humming to drown out the voice. That’s why she’s humming. Another streak of crimson on the wall—a jagged line that stretched across the length of it—and Bri heard the woman murmur softly.

  “I will never leave here.”

  Water rushing up toward her…falling…a scream.

  Bri shot up in bed, her hand on her throat. The sheet was on the floor, and her forehead was soaked with sweat. In fact, she was completely soaked with sweat.

  She was safe. Safe in her room, in her bed—safe. The moon was long gone, and sunlight filled the room. A warm breeze drifted in through the open windows, and though warm, the moment it touched her clammy skin, she shivered.

  Oh my God, she thought, another one.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  These were not ordinary dreams—they didn’t feel like dreams. Had she conjured up the woman painting the mural and the girl in the lighthouse? She had to have done that; any other explanation was…ridiculous. Every dream ended with the same images: water rushing up toward her, falling, and a scream. What did they mean? A sick feeling came over her; she felt violated and didn’t want these images in her head.

  Who was the woman in this last dream? Who was the girl from the lighthouse? She recalled Chris Cutter’s story. Could they have been real? Why was she having these dreams? Would there be more? It was too much to think about.

  She got out of bed, walked into the bathroom, and splashed cold water on her face until it was numb. Leaning on the sink with both hands, she stared at her reflection, her hands were shaking.

  What is happening?

  Matt pulled up just as she pulled out a pan of blueberry muffins from the oven. She heard the truck and breathed a sigh of relief. He was here. She didn’t want to be alone another second.

  Even though she had told Matt not to worry about coming by early, she was happy that he did. She flipped the tin over and added this dozen to the other dozen already there, stacking them like a pyramid on the plate.

  It had taken some time this morning, but finally, she was thinking clearly after the dream. She worked her anxiety out mixing batter. All morning she felt as if she were walking through a fog. Everything looked a little different…felt a bit different. She looked at the muffins she’d just put out and could barely remember preparing them. Their bottoms were a little black; she had left them in too long. Along with the muffins, she had made egg salad and fruit salad, a pitcher of iced tea, and she had set eggs out on the counter, ready for omelets. The pot of coffee was full, but she hadn’t touched it this morning. Caffeine would only make things worse today, and now that Matt was here, she’d start on the eggs and bacon. She had to keep busy, anything to keep her from thinking about last night’s dream or the mural. So far this morning, she hadn’t gone anywhere near the great room.

  Even before he stepped into the house, Matt smelled the muffins. They smelled good. He smiled, feeling the kind of comfort that one feels when arriving home. The front door was open, and he knew it was for him, which made him feel good too. As he stepped inside, he heard Bri call out from the kitchen.

  He crossed through the great room, flooded with bright morning light, on his way to the kitchen. He slowed down as he passed the mural, and he leaned in for a closer look.

  Hmm, she’s right, he thought, no brushstrokes. He touched it and quickly pulled his fingers back. It was strange looking. She was right about that too.

  The clanging of pots and pans from the kitchen got him moving and on his way again.

  “Hey. What’s all this?” he asked, walking into the kitchen.

  She shrugged. “I just felt like it. Plus, I had to give the new oven a try. I hope you haven’t eaten anything yet.”

  He hadn’t, but even if he had, he would’ve said he hadn’t.

  “No.”

  “Good.” She picked up a couple of eggs, and holding one up in each hand, she asked, “How do you like them?”

  He was about to protest and tell her she didn’t need to do that, that he should just get to work, but her expression made it clear any argument would have been futile.

  “Scrambled is good.”

  “Coming up,” she said cheerily, but before she got started on the eggs, she filled a mug with coffee and grabbed the plate stacked with muffins. Then she walked over to him and handed them both over. He took the mug and one of the muffins and then watched her as she turned around to put the rest of their breakfast together.

  She was talking, but he didn’t hear her. He had taken a bite of the muffin and had to stop himself from spitting it out. He quickly lifted the mug of coffee to his lips, took a sip, and controlled a shudder. It was the strongest coffee he had ever tasted, and it was…undrinkable. He ventured a guess that she had missed an ingredient in the muffins—probably sugar—and now she was about to make more breakfast.

  He quickly ma
de his way over to her and grabbed the hand she held poised over the rim of a bowl.

  “You know, I’m not all that hungry. The muffin is enough,” he said.

  “Really?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “You’re sure? It’s no trouble.”

  “Really,” he said.

  “OK then.” She put the eggs back in the carton.

  Could it be she was only good at making sandwiches? If this was any indication, she’d have to hire someone for the kitchen once she opened for business, but then he noticed something else was off.

  There were dark circles under her eyes, and her usually neat bandanna’d hair had given way to a sloppy bun. Tendrils escaped the bun, and she continually pushed them away with the back of her hand. It looked as if she hadn’t brushed it at all this morning.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” he said, watching her. “In fact, I really want to get on the roof and finish replacing the shingles I couldn’t salvage. I stopped and got new ones on the way this morning. Then I’ll start on the mantel in the great room.”

  She stiffened at the mention of the great room. She felt a lot better now that he was here, but last night’s dream wasn’t fading quickly enough in the light of day.

  “I guess I could start painting the dining room. There’s lots to do,” she said nervously.

  Matt walked back outside to his truck with the coffee and the muffin. He looked over his shoulder to be certain she wasn’t watching him and then poured out the coffee and tossed the muffin into the bushes.

  They barely talked to each other over the next few days. Bri left the dining room half-painted and left the house on several errands for hours at a time. Matt had finished on the roof and started on the mantel. As he began sanding, the smell of spice from the wood filled the great room, which was made more intense from the heat.

  The banter that came so easily once was forced and initiated mostly by him. Something had changed drastically, and he didn’t have a clue what it could be. Since he began work on the house, Bri was always full of questions. She was curious, and she’d come by throughout the day, checking on his progress and sometimes just sat nearby, making conversation. But since their dinner the other night, she’d become distracted, uncommunicative, and he had to add, sloppy, which was unlike her. They’d had a great time—at least he thought so. He went over the events of the previous evening in his mind, wondering if he had done anything to put her off, but he was convinced it wasn’t him, so what was bothering her?

  He set his tool belt, filled with his files and chisels and the small hand sander, by the mantel. One leg of the mantel was split along its length. He planned on removing it, sanding it, and then gluing it together. It would have to sit for at least a day with vise grips before he could reattach it and add stain. Then he’d finish up by buffing it out. He hoped that the repair would be invisible, and nobody would be able to tell it was ever touched.

  He had been at work for a little over an hour when it occurred to him how quiet it was. He hadn’t seen or heard Bri at all, and that was unusual. Even the strange Bri of the past couple of days had checked in on him occasionally, but since he’d been in the great room, she had all but disappeared.

  He set down the sander and stretched, moving his head from side to side, loosening up tight shoulder muscles, and then he went in search of Bri. He found her in the dining room—painting.

  “You changed your mind?” he asked.

  “Huh?” she looked over at him listlessly.

  “I thought you said you were going to paint this room green.”

  Matt stood at the threshold, looking at the wall. Bri looked up and frowned. Surprised, she wondered how it came to be that color.

  “No, I didn’t change my mind.”

  The color on the wall was yellow. She realized how strange her response sounded in light of that fact.

  “But…” Matt began to point out the obvious but stopped. “Hey, why don’t you come into the other room and keep me company? I’m getting lonely in there by myself.”

  At the suggestion of going into the great room, her insides turned. She didn’t want to go anywhere near it.

  “No…I…should clean up the kitchen; I didn’t finish up earlier. I’ll go do that now. And then I’ll figure something out about this mess,” she said, gesturing to the yellow wall.

  He watched her set the paint roller in its tray and walk off without closing the paint can.

  “OK,” he said, not entirely sure she had heard him.

  Matt stood looking after her several minutes after she’d gone and wondered what he should do. Should he go in after her and try to get her to tell him what was wrong, or would that make things worse? He decided to keep as close an eye on her as possible without hovering. He was getting a little concerned now. This wasn’t the woman he’d first met or come to know. She wasn’t just tired; it was more than that. He decided to finish the sanding. For now, he wasn’t going to try to pry it out of her. If she wanted to tell him, she’d come around to it eventually.

  By afternoon, he had finished most of the sanding and switched from the power sander to sheet sandpaper for the tight spot he was working on. He worked the sheet rhythmically back and forth, lost in thought, when a shot of pain brought him kicking back to the present. He let go of the sandpaper as if it had caught fire. He hadn’t been paying attention, and a splinter had lodged itself deep in the tip of his right middle finger just under his fingernail. They didn’t call it torture for nothing.

  This sort of thing rarely happened to him, but he had been preoccupied. He was angry with himself; he should’ve been paying attention. Luckily (or not, depending on how one looked at it), the splinter was big enough to see, which would make it easier to extract. Unfortunately, the size of the thing also made his entire hand throb, never mind the finger.

  He cursed softly and hurried out to the truck, where he had a first-aid kit tucked in the glove compartment. In it, there were several tweezers. He fished around in the bag until he found one, and then he proceeded to pull out the splinter. As soon as the splinter came out, so did the blood, and it bled profusely. Middle fingers tended to do that; that’s why they are favorites at doctors’ offices. Why did it have to be that finger and not his pinkie? He could do without the pinkie in a pinch.

  He continued searching through the kit until he found a gauze pad. He tore the package open with his teeth and held the square pad against his finger, applying steady pressure to stop the bleeding. He put the first-aid kit back in the glove box and walked back into the house, cursing himself for his stupidity. This would slow him down, and he wouldn’t be able to continue until the finger stopped bleeding.

  Back inside, he checked the mantel leg, running his good hand carefully along the wood. It felt smooth to the touch. The crack that ran the length of the leg had been superficial, and he had managed to sand it down. Satisfied with the results so far, he straightened and stepped back to look at his work.

  He checked his finger, lifting the gauze to look under it. Still bleeding—a gusher, actually. He replaced the gauze and applied more pressure. His gaze fell on the mural. He walked over to it.

  All day the sander was going, and the constant whirring irritated Bri. Finally, though, it had stopped. She noticed Matt’s worried glances of late and could only imagine how weird he must think she was. A couple of times she almost began to tell him what was bothering her, but she stopped after she thought about what she’d say. It sounded crazy, which was enough to stop her.

  Her mind kept drifting, her thinking muddled. She couldn’t stay focused long enough to get anything done. It frustrated her to no end that she couldn’t stay on track. Her memory and focus had been a source of pride when she worked at Restart. Ryan had marveled at how she rarely wrote anything down or made lists and managed to juggle a multitude of details. And that brought her to another thought. It was bad enough that she had painted the dining-room wall the wrong color, but it was more disturbing that she hadn’t n
oticed. How could she not notice such a thing? And that’s how the past few days had gone. She’d been avoiding Matt for only one reason: he was in the great room, and she wasn’t going back in there. But she missed talking to him and just being around him while he worked.

  A gust of wind rushed in through the open windows of her bedroom, in a hurry to get down the stairs. I think I’ll follow it, she thought. She’d spent hours trying to organize the last of her boxes, but somehow there was still so much left to do. She set Einstein on the sill. Outside there was a cloudless sky. The afternoon sun sparkled on a jewel-blue sea. She breathed in deep, and it was like breathing in light.

  In the kitchen, the plate of muffins she’d made sat on the counter covered with plastic wrap. She unwrapped them and broke off a corner of one muffin.

  “Ugh!”

  She spat it out and knew immediately. Sugar…I missed the sugar! Matt hadn’t said a word. How embarrassing. No wonder they’re all still here—and I think I might love him for that. She walked to the trash can and tossed them all in, snapping the lid shut. Oh my God, what he must think! She’d have to apologize. He was probably still in the great room, but she wasn’t about to go looking for him in there. The thought stopped her cold. This is ridiculous; it was just a dream, for heaven’s sake. She had to get a grip, or she would lose complete control. This was her house, and she would have to face the mural eventually. She’d even bet that once she faced it, the fear wouldn’t be nearly as bad as she imagined. She walked to the cupboard, grabbed a couple of glasses, and after a quick test sip, she filled each to the brim with ice and fresh lemonade made that morning. She set the glasses on a tray and headed off to the great room.

  Matt stood in front of the mural, holding the gauze pad firmly against his finger, and moved in for a closer look. The colors were strange, especially that sky. It had an odd blackness to it, all irregular lines and harsh edges. The breeze blowing in from outside raised the hair on his arms. He stood a few inches from the mural, squinting at it. He looked back down at his finger and removed the gauze. A small stream of blood trickled down his finger, but he was happy to see it had slowed and was beginning to dry up now. He was about to return the gauze to his finger when Bri’s voice startled him.