Whispers From the Grave

by Leslie Rule

  “Quit pulling on me, you guys!” Rita laughed, oblivious to the hostile exchange between us.

  Ben drove us home in his ’59 Chevy—a rounded, dusty, sputtering vehicle that lurched forward with each stop. As I bounced about in the backseat, watching Rita watching Ben, doubt crept over me. She was cuddled up to him and her eyes shined so adoringly when she gazed at him. How would I keep her away from him? How would I tell my sister the truth about the boy she loved?

  “It looks like my parents aren’t home,” Rita announced as Ben pulled into the driveway of Banbury House. I felt both relief and disappointment. I wanted so much to see my real parents. Of course, I could not meet them—not unless I was prepared to tell them the truth. Rita had believed my lie about the embryos getting mixed up. But our parents would surely look into matters.

  We got out of the car, and Rita leaned through the window and passionately kissed her boyfriend goodbye.

  “Want to walk on the beach?” she asked me as Ben’s car chugged away and disappeared around the corner. “It’s such a gorgeous day, we can hang out there until the sun sets.”

  “I thought you were grounded,” I said.

  “Not me! Why do you say that?”

  “I heard you got pretty drunk last night. I figured you’d be in trouble.”

  “I would have been! But Mom didn’t catch me. She and Dad went out for Chinese food and ran into some friends. They got home after I did.”

  According to Rita’s diary, our mother had found her throwing up in the yard and grounded her. Why had things unfolded so differently this time?

  “I can thank Tiny Tim for saving my butt,” Rita said.

  “Who?”

  “Tiny Tim. He’s my cat. He jumped up on the counter and ate a big chunk out of the tuna casserole Mom made for dinner. That’s why my parents decided to go out to eat.”

  So that was it! I’d let the cat out of the attic. Last time around, he must have been shut in the attic, unable to get to the casserole.

  Rita gave me a tour of Banbury House. The wood floors that Mom was so proud of did not shine in Rita’s time. Dulled by dust and a big family’s footsteps, they were covered in places by the same type of shaggy carpet Rita had in her room.

  In the living room a long vinyl couch, flanked by end tables with voluptuous green lamps, faced a noisy black-and-white television. “My kid brother must have gotten home early because of the parent-teacher conference,” Rita said, turning off the TV. “He always turns the TV on full blast and then runs outside to play.”

  Olive-green, vivid oranges, and earthy brown seemed to be the color scheme for 1970 decorating. It was as if Banbury House was dressed for a costume party in funky clothes. If I had traveled back in time two centuries, I would probably have found more familiar decor, because Mom had very carefully decorated in authentic Victorian.

  The Mills family decorating made more sense. Why try to imitate a thing of the past? People should live in the time and place they were meant to. As I watched my smiling sister, I knew I was meant to be here.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, gazing out the bay window at the sweeping view of Puget Sound’s glittering blue water. I pretended to see it for the first time. “You’re lucky.”

  “It’s really blowing my mind that I suddenly have a sister,” Rita said. “But I’m glad you found me, Jenna.”

  “Ever since I learned about you, I could hardly think of anything else,” I admitted.

  Meeting my sister was as wonderful as I’d imagined. It was as if I’d found my other half. Looking into Rita’s eyes was like passing through a doorway into a familiar place where I was welcome and comfortable.

  There was none of the self-consciousness that usually goes with meeting someone new. We understood each other so well it was scary.

  Rita loved the sound of wind chimes tinkling in the breeze. “It sounds like mermaids laughing,” she said, tilting her head and listening to the faint jingling of faraway chimes as we headed for the beach.

  “Maybe it is,” I said. I could imagine the milky-skinned creatures bobbing to the surface, their huge green eyes blinking away bits of seaweed as their sweet peals of laughter drifted away on the wind.

  “My friend April thinks I’m crazy when I say stuff like that,” Rita said. “But you understand.”

  “We think alike. We’re sisters.”

  Rita and I both loved the feel of the salty breeze combing through our hair, the color blue, and raw chocolate chip cookie dough. We were both allergic to bees, had fierce tempers, and rebelled against authority.

  I had known, of course, that we were alike. I’d sensed that from her diary. In the flesh, it was more apparent. Strolling together along the beach, our strides matched step for step. And we stared at each other in amazement as we continually opened our mouths in the same instant to say the same thing.

  But there was one difference I didn’t want to think about. Ben.

  She loved him. I hated him.

  “What were you going to tell me earlier?” Rita asked as we rested on a log, watching sand fleas leap around our bare feet.

  I picked up a stick and drew a lazy circle in the gray sand. How could I tell her here? Ben had killed her on the beach, probably near this spot.

  “It’s hard to talk about,” I told her. “I’ll tell you later.”

  Later came much too soon. The sun set—another fiery display of brilliant red shades. “Strawberry pop,” I said, remembering how she’d described such a sunset in her diary.

  “That’s what I was thinking!” She stretched her arms up and tipped her head back as if to drink in the sky and gleefully shouted, “The sky looks like strawberry pop!”

  As we headed up the path to Banbury House, she promised to hide me in her room, where she assured me our parents rarely ventured. “They know I don’t like them invading my space,” she explained.

  Rita ran around the house, peering through windows until she spotted our parents sitting in the dining room. She brought me through the front and we slipped up the stairs to her room as our mother called, “Rita, is that you?”

  My heart lurched at the sound of her voice. It was rich and silky and seemed to wrap around me as I froze on the staircase. Mother!

  My legs suddenly felt as soft and limp as worn-out feather pillows and I imagined myself collapsing— tumbling down the stairs into a heap where my mother would find me and be sorry for deserting me.

  “Yes!” Rita called. “What do you want?”

  “The Daisy Garden Gift Shop might sell some of my pottery on consignment. Did they call while I was out?”

  “How should I know?” Rita said loudly, rolling her eyes for my benefit. “I haven’t even been home!”

  She nudged me and we hurried up to her room, where we talked until our voices were hoarse.

  I was surprised when no one called Rita down for dinner. “We’re informal around here,” she explained. “I became a vegetarian last year, and Mom’s given up trying to make me eat her weird meaty casseroles. Mostly we just scrounge what we can find.”

  “I’m a vegetarian too,” I said. “Where I come from, everybody is!”

  “Far out,” she said and went to make us sandwiches.

  When we got ready for bed, Rita flicked off the lights and held a match to a fat colorful candle poking from a pop bottle on her dresser. “It’s a strobe candle,” she told me. “Some of my posters are blacklight posters and they look really cool in this light.”

  The candle’s tall flame flickered wildly. In the eerie, jerking light, the images in the posters seemed to leap and dance.

  We sat on opposite ends of the lumpy green sleeping bag that Rita had rolled out for me beside her bed.

  “Crystal Blue Persuasion” played on the record player. I remembered the first time I’d heard it. It reminded me of the blue rays that had brought me here to Rita—crystal blue rays shooting from my visor.

  “What are you thinking now?” Rita asked, her eyes staring eagerly into m
ine.

  “I’m just listening to the song,” I fibbed, wishing I could tell her the truth. We’d shared so much in the last hours. I’d told her all about the people back home. The parents who raised me. My strange neighbor, Suki. My boyfriend, Kyle. I just didn’t mention that none of these people existed yet.

  By now, Rita knew I wanted to be an artist, was terrified of speaking in front of groups, and had once fallen from a window and broken my arm.

  I knew Rita had wet her pants in the middle of a second grade math test (it was the teacher’s fault because she wouldn’t let her go to the rest room), cried for three days when her hamster died, and had stolen a candy bar from the corner grocery store when she was ten. Still feeling guilty, three years later, she’d anonymously mailed them a dime to pay for it.

  “I want us to know everything about each other,” Rita said.

  If I told her everything, would she believe me?

  For now, it was enough to be with her—to hear her secrets, to hear her laugh. From the moment I first heard Rita laugh, I felt whole. She had one of those laughs that fly right out and fill a room. Fat and warm, it came straight from the bottom of her belly and bounced off the furniture.

  Most of the girls I’d known had high-pitched giggles that flattened self-consciously as soon as they hit a sour note.

  Not Rita. She let laughter leap from her in great unselfconscious bounds.

  When she laughed, her mouth opened wide, revealing two pointy little teeth in the top row of her mouth. They looked like fangs. That night in her room, the light from the strobe candle glinted on them as her head bobbed about.

  When Rita laughed, I couldn’t help but laugh with her. The sound of us laughing together made me happy. Our voices meshed together, harmonious as a symphony.

  We were having such a good time, I hated to broach an ugly subject. Yet I had to warn her. It was, after all, what I had come for.

  “I wish I didn’t have to tell you this,” I began. “But I can’t put it off any longer.”

  She sat cross-legged, facing me. She was still smiling and I couldn’t bear to wipe the happy sparkle from her eyes.

  “Go on,” she urged.

  I drew a long breath and plunged ahead. “I had a premonition. It was bad. Really bad. It was about Ben.”

  “Ben!” she whispered, her eyes widening in alarm. “You think something is going to happen to Ben?”

  “He’s going to hurt you.”

  “He’s going to break my heart?” Her voice shrunk with worry. “You think he’s going to dump me?”

  “I wish it was that. But it’s worse. Oh, Rita! He’s going to really hurt you. He’s going to beat you.”

  It took a moment for my words to register on her face. Her eyes flickered between confusion, shock, and then amusement. “That’s ridiculous!” she scoffed. “Ben wouldn’t hurt a fly! And he certainly wouldn’t hurt me!”

  “In my vision,” I continued, my voice wavering, “Ben killed you.”

  “You’re wrong!” she snapped, anger crawling into her voice.

  “I’m very psychic,” I said.

  “Psychics make mistakes,” she said brusquely. “I’m psychic too, and I know Ben would never hurt me. He loves me.”

  “If he does, it’s a sick love. A twisted, warped love! If you don’t stay away from him, he’ll beat you to death!”

  “How can you say that?” Rita cried. “You don’t even know Ben!”

  “I know a killer when I see one,” I said quietly.

  She flinched as if I’d slapped her.

  I shouldn’t have told her so much so soon. I shouldn’t have told her so brutally.

  But I didn’t know of a nice way to tell someone her boyfriend was going to kill her.

  She sat as still as a stick, staring at me, eyes huge and confused, lips pursed.

  “Rita,” I said helplessly and gently touched her arm. She jerked away and turned her back to me.

  “Rita, please!”

  “Drop it, Jenna,” she said coldly. “It’s late. Let’s get some sleep.”

  She refused to hear another word about Ben.

  Rita woke me the next morning with a bowl of granola. “Room service!” she said, tapping the spoon on the side of the porcelain bowl. I regarded her drowsily and inched from the sleeping bag. She was already dressed and her long hair gleamed in the soft morning light that floated through the window.

  “I hope you like strawberries on your cereal. Mom got them from an organic greenhouse,” said my smiling sister, apparently ready to forgive and forget last night.

  If only it was that simple.

  The night before we’d chosen our outfits for the dress code protest: faded blue jeans and flowing blouses. Rita loaned me a pink flowered blouse with puffed sleeves. She called it a “peasant shirt.” She wore a blue blouse with polka dots. She lifted her hair to show me huge silver peace signs dangling from her ears.

  “Far out,” I said.

  As she dug through her closet, searching for her moccasins, I sat at the dresser, brushing my hair. It was the same dresser I used in 2070, one of the few pieces of furniture that shared a history with Banbury House.

  “Do you have any lip tinter?” I asked and opened the drawer. Sure enough, she kept her makeup in the same place I’d kept mine. Scanning Rita’s assortment of tubes and compacts, I spotted a familiar item. “Oh!” I cried.

  “What’s wrong?” Rita asked, peering over my shoulder.

  “Nothing,” I said, trying to hide my confusion. “I just found my strawberry lip tinter. I don’t remember putting it in there.”

  “That’s weird-looking lipstick!” She said and snatched it from my hand.

  My heart was pounding fast. I had not brought the lip tinter with me. Yet here it was! How did it get here?

  Then I knew. I had sent it here. By accident. And I’d accused Suki of stealing it!

  Before I’d even known about my PK abilities, I was crackling with psychic energy. Apparently—without the aid of a visor—I’d sent my lip tinter on a trip, just as Rita had sent her paper clip on one. I had inadvertently snatched Rita’s paper clip from its journey, and she’d done the same to my lip tinter.

  There was such an incredible connection between my sister and me that we were sending objects back and forth through time to each other without even realizing it! It was as if we knew one another before we’d heard of each other’s existence.

  “How do you put this lipstick on?” Rita asked. Her eyes were so clear and bright, her smile so trusting. It hurt to look at her—to know she was in danger.

  “Let me show you,” I said, blinking away tears.

  “See, there’s a tiny needle here and when you push this button it injects color into your lips.”

  “A needle? You’re kidding!”

  “It doesn’t hurt,” I assured her and jabbed my bottom lip. Within seconds, my lips deepened to a bright berry shade.

  “Far out! I’ve never seen anything like that!”

  “We’re kind of ahead of our time in Idaho,” I said. “The needle has a self-sterilizing mechanism, so you can use it too.”

  “How long will it last?” she asked as she injected her lips.

  “About eight hours. It will fade by tonight,” I said and crossed the room to roll up my sleeping bag. As I did so, something outside caught my eye. I moved to the window, just in time to see an arm disappearing into a shrub.

  “Rita!” I cried. “He’s out there! He's watching us!”

  “Who?” she asked, crowding in beside me.

  “Ben.”

  “Ben? Did you see him?”

  “No,” I admitted. “But it had to be him.”

  “Why would Ben creep around in the bushes? If he wanted to see me, he’d knock on our front door.”

  How could she understand? She didn’t have the proof I did. She hadn’t read of her murder in the newspaper.

  Shuddering, I turned away and shoved my feet into the sneakers she’d loaned me. Unsp
oken words of warning scorched my mouth. I swallowed hard and clamped my lips together, not trusting myself to speak.

  Rita was so sloopy in love with Ben, she would not hear anything bad about him. If I kept pushing, I feared she’d send me away.

  How in the world would I protect her then?

  20

  As we hiked up the hill to the school, we made up a story about me to tell Rita’s friends.

  “Please don’t tell them the truth," I’d begged her. “Everyone will think I’m a freak.”

  “Because you were conceived in a test tube?” she said. “I think it’s kind of cool.”

  But she went along with my request and we thought of two good stories. The first was that I was her cousin and the second was that I was her sister who had been raised by an aunt. We hadn’t yet decided on which lie to use when we reached the school, so we ended up telling both versions to different people.

  As it turned out, no one paid much attention be-cause they were so excited about the protest. “Hey, you guys!” Lynn yelled as we headed for Rita’s locker. “Over here!”

  We hurried over to the jean clad girls who were clustered in conspiracy at the end of the hall. “How many of us are there?” Rita asked.

  “We’ve counted twenty-four!” Lynn said, beaming. “But Charlotte Wade and April Peters chickened out. Charlotte’s wearing culottes! As if that counts!”

  “Culottes are already allowed,” Rita said. “Anyway, they look just like a skirt. But what’s April’s problem?”

  “Her dad saw her leaving the house in her Levi’s and threatened to ground her.”

  “Bummer,” Rita said.

  “Yeah,” Lynn agreed. “My parents were home when I left the house, so I brought my jeans to school in a paper bag and changed in the girls’ room.

  “Hey,” Lynn said, nudging me. “Look who’s freaking out.”

  We followed her gaze across the hall to where Mr. Frink stood in the doorway, his frog eyes about popping out of his glasses as he stared at us.

  Lynn flashed him the peace sign. She was at least a head shorter than everyone else, but tougher than any girl I’d ever met. “This is a revolution not a war!” she called out to Mr. Frink. His slippery lips parted as if he were about to speak, but no words came out. He looked so ridiculous that Rita started giggling and buried her face in my shoulder so he wouldn’t see.