by Jamie Magee
Chapter Five
Back in my room, I shed my dress and pulled on my favorite jeans and a black tank top, covering it with my hoodie. I grabbed the box with my phones and scooted to the center of my bed. My phone had my headphones wrapped around the top. Like an addict needing her next hit, I unwound them, but then I stopped.
Under the silence I thought I heard the guitar, the same sound that played when I was upstairs. I was determined to soak in as much of the mood I’d found as I could. When it faded, if it faded, I’d start to open the time capsules every song on my phone was. I’d listen to each lyric, every note. With any luck why I loved the song would painlessly flood forward.
I had a theory; no song is heard the same way. What I hear and what Madison hears are going to be two different things. We’re coming at it from two vastly different directions. I could’ve endured something the song was helping me get through. Maybe she hadn’t, maybe that song was just noise to her right then, and the one song she was hung up on was noise to me. It’s the same with books, movies, and artwork—anything. No one else has the view I have. No one notices the same things I notice.
Kara had a point before—perspective changes everything.
Before I scouted any playlist I ripped the case off my phone and like before the aroma of the note stilled me. My fingers ran across each letter. It hurt so bad to read the words, not in my head, but in my heart. Draven Michaels should be staring in every thought I had after the impact I felt when I was close to him today. The thing was, right now he was a possibility. I didn’t want to find out we were history, or why.
It was his eyes, how pained they were when they came to my mind the night of the party. I put that look there, the sick feeling twisting inside promised it wouldn’t be an awesome moment to recall.
This note was all I had. Not a single picture of him was in my room in the city. I talked to hundreds of my classmates this morning, no one mentioned any guy I had. Until I broke into my apps and photo albums, so I could stalk the truth behind closed doors, I’d remain in the dark.
Once my note was tucked away I texted Madison telling her I was home. Get Ready was her instant reply.
I reached for her sketchbook wondering what coded message she was trying to slide in under the parental radar but stopped, thought about it, then reached for the box with Britain’s phone in it. If I had a prayer of making sure he stayed where he was with Bianca it would come from acknowledging him. I could play out how much trouble I was in for a while, but not answering him would be an insult. Those two are not the type to let you burn them and walk the other way.
I typed the first text ten times and then finally just went with one.
Thanks. More trouble than it’s worth. Catch you when I can.
He responded immediately.
I told the messenger to give it to you and no one else.
I texted back. Yeah. That part worked out. Service sucks here. How did you know where I was?
The phone began to vibrate with a silent ring. I glanced to the short wall, knowing Kara would hear whatever I said. I didn’t want her to know I was talking to him. I crawled off my bed and walked to my closet.
“Hello?”
“A whisper…,” he said in an amused tone. “You really must be in trouble.”
“The house echoes.”
“Were they mad when they saw the phone?”
“How did you find me?” I asked again.
“It wasn’t hard. There’s this thing called Google.”
“Stalker,” I said in a flat tone.
“Did you not want me to know where you were?”
I squinted my eyes closed and balled my hand into a fist. “Space. I can’t land in the ER then just chill with the people I got in trouble with.”
“Guess I should tell them to hold the house warming invitation.”
“The what?”
“Once we get settled in Salem we planned to have a party, meet the town thing.”
“You’re joking.”
He laughed. “Maybe if you spent less time dodging conversation openers you’d know what’s going on in my life.”
“I had my reasons.”
It would be cool if I knew what they were!
“Bianca made a stupid mistake. You can work that out with her.” When I didn’t fill in the silence he said. “By the time I get there, you and your mom will be cool again. We can start over. Friends do that kinda thing.”
“When is that?” I asked in the flattest tone I had.
“Few days. I’ll keep you in the know.”
“Gotta go,” I whispered like I was busted and then hung up.
I opened my closet door, and in a daze walked to my bed and fell across it. I stared at the open ceiling, fighting frustrated tears. I’d landed right on Madison’s sketchbook; I pulled it out from under me and opened it up.
The first sketch was of a guy looking out at masses of dark shadows. I turned the page as fast as I could trying to keep myself chill. I’d often imagined what my whispers would look like, if there were only one or two near me, or masses of them. Thinking about it now wasn’t helping anything. In my minds eye I saw these damned souls being obliterated. The sick part was, instead of thinking I was freeing myself from them, my jacked up gut was pushing me to defend them.
The next sketch showed another guy. The shadows he was looking at seemed more peaceful. The sad theme in this sketch was the souls were marching down broken paths, not ones that led to visible peace.
In the third sketch, I found an outline of a girl. She was looking at images, too, but Madison had focused on the auras of color around them. In small text at the bottom, she’d written ‘emotions speak what I see.’
I bit my bottom lip, wishing I could see what my emotions were speaking. I turned to the next sketch to see another sketch of the girl standing in front of a combination of the other three sketches.
My curiosity caused me to turn the page again, and the next sketch made my heart stop. It was of Bianca glancing alluringly over her shoulder, on her neck the broken heart birthmark she hated blared its way into focus.
I slammed the book closed and rubbed my hands across my face. Did Madison meet Bianca in real life? Why would she sketch her like that?
The sound of a guitar gently playing pulled me out of my thoughts. I focused on the sound, found my way back to stillness. When I emerged again I saw puzzle pieces that fit together, maybe. The twins, Madison, and me—four of us, four sketches looking out at shadows in our own way...Bianca looking like the devil she is.
The clench of my jaw underlined one stray thought. No way, no how, would I ever want Bianca near Draven—near anyone connected to my life. Was that why I didn’t want to come here? Did she really make me that insecure? If I went through all this and figured out under it all there was only teenage drama—I’d never freaking forgive myself.
I’d hidden behind the mundane task of showering and getting ready to go out for the last bit. Every few minutes I’d test how long I could endure thinking through impossible thoughts, then fall back into a silent vibe seasoned with a guitar riff. When I came out of my bathroom Madison shocked the hell outta me, I didn’t expect her to be sitting on my bed lost in her phone—wait, no, that was Britain’s phone.
“Hey,” I said to get her attention.
She finished what she was doing on my phone before looking up at me. “Whoa, you look hot.”
“What are you doing?”
“This girl is ridiculous,” she said in her ‘come at me again, dare ya,’ tone.
Which girl was not a question worth asking, I knew. “What did she do?”
“She kept blowing it up. I texted and said, going out catch you when I can.”
I groaned as I sat next to her on my bed. I knew Bianca was either with Britain or would complain to him that I was going out which would make my argument about needing to stay out of trouble mute.
“Kara said he sent a phone here. I told you th
is wasn’t going to be easy.”
“Did you?” I said, looking at her with pleading eyes. “What’s not going to be easy?”
Madison always looked a little deeper than most when you had her attention. Right then I felt raw, wide open. “It’s not going to matter until you get your memory back.”
“Madison,” I pleaded.
She tilted her head like my agony was killing her. “I should’ve...look, you have this deal. You can’t accept blanket explanations. You’re always digging. You spin in place because you get both sides. There’s no right or wrong with you—you think from where every soul stands they’re right, at least to them they are. When I saw you tripping, trying to help things that have done no favors for us, I ignored it. I figured you’d come ‘round. When you didn’t, your walls were up. I don’t know all you got yourself into.” She leaned forward. “If I push, tell you my way—your way could be lost.” She eyed me. “No drug took you down, Charlie. Someone literally edited the hell out of your life. Diffusing the bomb this atrocious act was could be a trap.” Her grin was sad. “I can’t drink your Kool-Aid right now.”
When I glanced away she gripped my arm. “You’re a thousand times better than I was told you were earlier. Keep doing what you’re doing. We’ll beat this.”
“I wanted to stay in the city. I couldn’t argue my way, not after getting in trouble.”
“I heard,” she snipped, obviously not hearing my apology for shutting her out like the rest of my classmates, or bringing my bad influences in close.
She squeezed my hand. “I know you hear things that are scary, but trust me when I tell you that you were not scared of them before, or at least you hadn’t been in a while.” She reached her arm around me. “We’re getting through this. We’ve been through worse, well, maybe not, but still. You’re going to be just fine.”
I was cool with dark whispers before all this? Yeah right.
The painless thought burned through me—no pain meant no truth. At least I thought it did.
“It’s different here, the headaches aren’t so bad.” I glanced to the empty space. “Quieter.”
She nodded to agree. “You’re building your tolerance again.” She stared me down, I felt like a blog post being sped read. “I’d trust your gut.”
When she saw the shock in my eyes she sat up a bit. “Your instinct never got you or us in trouble before. One foul up is no reason to ditch it.”
I took a steady breath. “I know I never trusted Bianca,” I narrowed my eyes. “Brit, I don’t know. He means well, I guess. I just didn’t want them on this side of my life, now they are.”
This side of my life was the acoustic version. Stripped down. My identity was there in the open. In the city, my image was my front. I never tried to put roots in the concrete there. I knew I was passing through, present by circumstance, not by choice.
“I get it,” she swayed her shoulder into mine. “I’m stubborn as hell, too. Them not knowing us is cool—us not knowing about them wasn’t.”
I bit my lip wondering if that was it. If I knew she’d come to my defense. “If you did,” I said meeting her eyes. “We’d both be jacked up now.”
“I don’t believe that, but arguing it will not untwist you. We gotta charge forward. Get it behind us so we can do our thing.”
A dull pain swelled in my head as I tried to grip what our thing was. I did feel like this upset came at the worst time.
The soft sound of the guitar grew louder. I glanced to my side. “Do you hear that sound?” I whispered.
She sat up slowly and held my stare as a serious expression came across her face. “Tell me what it sounds like.”
“A guitar. Is that bad?”
She swayed her head, “It’s prob why you’re looking better than your mom said when she left today.”
“You really don’t hear it?”
“Charlie, we all have our vices. Guitar isn’t mine,” she said, nodding to her sketchbook.
I started to speak, but I knew I didn’t have the strength to say or understand that I thought my dad was haunting this house. It sounds crazy, but I needed to think he was, that I had angels watching out for me. It made the security blanket of home all the richer.
I reached for my phones and tucked them in my bag before I pulled it across me. Madison glared in question at why I had two. “It’s not a leash,” I said knowing she would see it like that. “I’d like a heads up if they’re close. Keep an eye out for an Austin Martin, Britain told me he had a house here now.”
Now we both looked like we were walking through a nightmare.
“What time do I have to be back?” I asked Kara when we walked in the kitchen, heading for the garage door.
Kara seemed surprised by my question. She pursed her lips. “What time were you thinking?” she asked, looking behind me at Madison.
“Hard to say...”
“Well, I guess just let me know if you plan to go anywhere else afterward,” Kara said.
“You get a ‘F’ in the category of supervision. Mom’s housekeeper would give me ten minutes to go to the bodega.”
“I think she gets an ‘A,’” Madison said, pulling my arm to the back door.
“Thank you, Madison,” Kara yelled as we closed the door.
I hesitated on the steps—the guitar sound was gone. It was almost silent, only almost because I wasn’t sure if I was hearing faint whispers or the wind just outside the garage. I stared at the driveway and watched as the shadows of the trees swayed gently across the pavement. I took in a breath and told myself right now it was only the wind.
“Are you driving?” I asked, knowing that if the shadows attacked again, I’d not only have to worry about my life, but hers as well.
“You’re the one with the new car,” she said, walking to my passenger door.
“How far is it?” I asked as I pulled my headphones out. I didn’t trust a spotty radio signal.
“Maybe forty-five minutes. It’s our spot. The field with a stage, screens behind the bands,” she said, climbing in the passenger seat.
Painful flashes came to mind, but I didn’t engage. Like a victim of starvation, I could only sip my way back to good health.
I slid in the driver’s seat. “Call out which way to go, k?”
She must’ve told me to turn down a hundred different roads. I was sure I’d never remember how I got to where we were going.
“I don’t get your gaps,” Madison said.
“Not like I can explain it. I don’t get ‘em either.”
“You’re fighting it though. Your vibe would say that no matter how high your walls are.”
Walls. Walls. Walls. I now hated this word. I didn’t know how to take what she meant, but I went with assuming she was pushing me to let her in, tell her every crumb I could remember.
I adjusted myself in the seat. “It hurts, okay? Sometimes...I remember two truths.”
“I told you to go with your gut,” she said like this topic had been covered. “The mind relies too much on perception. Someone gave you a bad script.”
How would she know what was going in my head—, pain stopped the thought. After a tight breath or two I started to imagine all her deep gazes in my direction differently. Was she like a medium or something? Was I? I was running like hell from dark whispers. Was she using them? I knew the dead were different. I’d heard enough to know they were.
Living and dead were both masses of energy; only on the topside we didn’t see ourselves as energy. We looked solid, grounded with gravity. I could only guess the reason the whispers could get into my head, know my name—alter my emotions as my body reacted to how close they were was because they saw us as what we were: energy/ vim. It would be like me reaching into a pool of water; how I touched it would impact the ripples.
Cagily I glanced toward her finding her engaging stare on me.
“Keep riding that train of thought,” she said.
I thought of my day. How I w
as assaulted in my schools hall and on my first drive in this car. How could anyone use those spirits for good?
“Bad detour,” she said as fear had me gripping the steering wheel.
“I don’t want to see what I hear,” I said glancing to the darkness.
“Charlie, you conquered this.”
“When,” I spat.
“Kindergarten. Before then nothing scary ever surfaced. Outside of home, away from our parents, it was different.” She leaned my way. “You’re the reason I’m not scared. You saw the good first.”
“We’re not hearing the same thing,” I swore in a quiet, controlled voice. The cold chill of the void covering the missing hours I was at that party promised me I was right.
“We are, only someone changed the way you’re coming at it. They want you to be afraid.”
I settled back in my seat and strived to untangle my thoughts as I drove. It was easier when she didn’t stare me down. I think she got that; mostly she stayed on her phone or watched the road.
She could preach all she wanted that I wasn’t afraid of the evil attachment I had; it wasn’t going to help until I believed it. Sitting in near silence, my vibe mingling with hers, a safety net I’d always known, it was easy to think I could glare down the darkness when it came. I knew when I found myself backed against a wall nothing would be easy about it.
“Turn where those cars are turning,” she said, sitting up in her seat.
I followed the cars down a gravel driveway, then across a grassy area. Once I parked, I reached for my phones. I thought I felt them vibrate when we were driving.
“Are you not getting out?” Madison asked.
“I’ll sit on the hood if I want to see better. Go ahead. You don’t have to keep up with me.”
I’d passed enough cars with our graduating year written across their windows to get that this field party was a celebration. Madison and me haven’t gone to the same school since middle school. I knew the people she roamed the halls with, but not like I used to. I wasn’t feeling all that social.
“I’ll be back,” she said getting out.
Bianca’s had texted. Glad to see the jailer is feeling generous. I’ll be at Brit’s we can hang there. No Id’s necessary.
I texted back: Don’t you have a vacation to shop for?
I knew she wouldn’t get it until I had a signal again, but at least it was sent.
Britain had texted too. The first one said: text when you have the all clear again.
The next one said: Yeah. She’s hot now. Good one.
I hesitated, trying to think of what to say back. When nothing came to me, I shoved my phone in my bag.
I glanced up and noticed that a new band had begun to play. I could hear a nervous anxiety in the lead vocalist, but his audience was forgiving as they screamed and danced to the music. By the time he reached the chorus, his anxieties were gone and he took over the stage he was on. It always made me smile when I witnessed someone own their talent.
They played their set, then two more bands played.
Madison kept coming into my line of sight, like she was making sure I hadn’t ditched, then she’d fall back into the crowd. This time she kept walking toward me.
“Having fun?” I asked as I got out and pulled myself up on my hood, trying to show effort when it came to this ‘fun’ gig.
“I guess, hard to say goodbyes.”
She stared me down, looking for a response. I was grasping at nothing. It wasn’t hard for me to tell my class goodbye. When I got my social apps back they’d all still be there. As I thought about the fall pain spiked in my head. There was something there. For all I knew Madison signed up for a school forever away. I wasn’t asking. I didn’t even know what I was doing in the fall, which was a mind bender. With the kind of mom I had you’d think my college plan would’ve been set in stone.
“I think we should go closer for the next band,” she said.
“I like this spot,” I said. “Who’s playing anyway?”
“They don’t really have a name…,” She lifted her chin. “It’s my cousins band. The twins.”
I didn’t shift my expression to the panic I felt on the inside, but Madison grinned like she saw hope in the vibe I was putting off.
The field went pitch dark right then. Then the screen behind the stage blinked on and off rapidly. Throughout almost all of the other bands, the crowd had lingered by their cars, or was having conversations over the music. They still moved to the music and cheered, making them a good crowd to perform in front of. But their attention was divided. As if on cue, everyone in the field and the cars around us moved to the stage.
The crowd, including Madison, screamed as the shadowed images of Draven and his band came to the stage. My heart pounded against my chest as I studied his perfect silhouette holding a guitar and adjusting his mic. He was just too perfect. The stage enhanced every part of his tall, powerfully lean body.