Silence (8 page)

Eric stood in the graveyard, beneath the same dark wilow that he’d leaned against for half of the previous night. He carried no obvious weapons, and he hadn’t bothered to wear any of the less obvious protections because he didn’t expect to need them.

He wanted to need them. He wanted to need them right now, in this place, but what he wanted didn’t matter; almost never had.

The graveyard was silent. The distant sound of cars didn’t change that; they blurred into the background. His night vision was good; it had always been good. But he stared at nothing for long stretches. Once or twice he turned and punched the tree to bleed off his growing frustration.

Not Emma, he thought bitterly.

Emma.

He tensed.

I have never been mistaken before. I am not mistaken now. She approached, emerging from a forest of headstones.

She is powerful, Eric.

“You’ve got to be wrong,” he told her, grim and quiet. He expected an argument, was surprised when it failed to come.

I will…leave it up to you, she said at last. I will not call the

I will…leave it up to you, she said at last. I will not call the others yet.

“Why?”

Because she is different, to my eyes, and I have reasons to doubt that feeling. You know why.

Eric swalowed and turned his attention back to a graveyard that remained empty for the rest of the night.

EMMA WOKE UP ON FRIDAY MORNING, which had the advantage of being formal day at school. This meant, among other things, that she didn’t realy have to work out what she was going to wear; she was going to wear a plaid skirt, a blazer, and a white shirt. Ties were optional if you weren’t male, although most of the girls wore the non-stupid thin leather ones. They often wore makeup on Fridays as wel, because, face it, there often wore makeup on Fridays as wel, because, face it, there weren’t too many other things you could wear to set yourself apart.

Emma, for instance, didn’t wear earrings. Watching a toddler grab a dangling hoop and rip through the earlobe—literaly—of a friend in grade seven had cured her of the growing desire to ever have her ears pierced. Admittedly, this was viewed as a bit strange, but they were her ears, and she wanted to keep them attached to the rest of her face.

She did spend more time in the bathroom on Fridays, which was worked into what passed for an early morning schedule in the Hal household, partly because her mother did everything she could to stay in bed until the last minute.

Emma finished dressing and went downstairs. She expected the kitchen to be quiet, and it was; Petal was hyper but not yappy. Her mother was not yet in the kitchen. Emma glanced at the clock and winced. She put the coffee on, because if her mother was stil not here, she was going to need it, and she took milk, blueberries and cereal to the table, which she also set.

She stopped on the way to get napkins and holered up the steps, waited for five seconds to hear something like a reply, failed to hear the wrong words—of which there were several— and continued on her way. When her mother came thundering down the stairs in a rush, she handed her mother the coffee and ushered her to a chair. This would have been awkward had Mercy actualy been awake.

Then again, given the last few days? Being awake was highly overrated. They ate in relative silence, because Petal had emptied the dry food dish and was trying to mooch. He didn’t actualy like any of the food his two keepers were eating this morning, but that never stopped him.

Emma, who had marshaled her arguments, waited, with fading patience, for her mother to tel her that she was not going to school today. When it was dangerously close to 8:00, she gave up on that, and instead said, “Don’t forget, I’m going to Amy’s party tonight.”

“Amy’s? Oh, that’s right. You mentioned it yesterday. You’re going straight from school?”

“What, dressed like this?”

Mercy seemed to focus for a minute. “You look fine to me,”

she said, but it was noise; Emma would have bet money that she hadn’t actualy noticed what her daughter was wearing. “Are you going to be home for dinner?”

“Why, are you working late?”

Mercy nodded slowly.

“I’l grab a sandwich or something if you’re not here.” Emma pushed her chair back from the table and gathered up her empty dishes. “I won’t be too late,” she added.

“When is not too late?”

Emma shrugged. “Midnightish. Maybe 1:00.” She waited for any questions, any comments. “Mom?”

Her mother looked up.

“Are you feeling al right?”

“I’m fine,” her mother replied. Emma thought dying people “I’m fine,” her mother replied. Emma thought dying people probably sounded more convincing. They certainly did on television.

“You’re sure?”

Mercy looked at her daughter and shook her head. “Of course I’m sure. I’m always fine the morning after I’ve seen my dead husband in a hospital.”

The silence that folowed was profoundly awkward. It was worse than first-kiss awkward. “Mom—”

Her mother lifted a hand. It should have been a familiar gesture; Emma used it al the time. But coming from her mom, it looked wrong. “You can mother Michael,” Mercy Hal said firmly, and with a trace of annoyance, “and any of the rest of your friends. I already have a mother, three bosses, and any number of other helpful advice-givers in the office. I don’t need mothering.”

Emma, stung, managed to stop herself from saying something she’d probably only feel guilty about later. Guilt, in the Hal household, was like the second child of the family. The secret one that you tried to lock in the attic when respectable people were visiting.

Instead, she turned and walked into the hal, where she gave herself the once over in the mirror, frowned at both her eyes and her lips, which were slowly returning to normal, and then picked up her backpack to wait.

Michael rescued her at 8:10.

The walk to school would have been the same type of awkward The walk to school would have been the same type of awkward that breakfast had been, but it was made easier by Michael, because Michael didn’t worry that someone would think he was crazy. Michael, by dint of understanding his own condition, also understood that he saw the world in entirely different ways than the rest of the students in his grade did; he was used to this.

Because he was, he didn’t realy question what he saw, and he didn’t second-guess himself; he second-guessed (and third, fourth, and fifth for good measure) everyone else.

So he asked Alison if she’d seen Mr. Hal, as they al stil caled Emma’s dad, and when Alison reluctantly admitted that she had, he was silent for a half a block.

When Michael was silent, it didn’t mean anything in particular.

It didn’t mean that he was trying desperately to think of something to say, and it didn’t mean that he was worrying about what you might say behind his back, because for the most part, he didn’t worry about that kind of thing. It didn’t mean he was realy thinking about the last thing he’d asked about either, because he could slide into a segue so quickly you had to wonder if you’d heard the first part of what he said correctly.

But for the first time in years, Emma privately wished that she didn’t have the responsibility of walking him to school, because she didn’t want him to pick up the conversation from where it had left off last night. Guilt came and bit her on the backside; clearly, she hadn’t left it in the attic this morning.

“Do you think Eric saw him?”

Since this was so much better than the question she’d been dreading, Emma pounced on it. “I’m sure Eric saw him.”

dreading, Emma pounced on it. “I’m sure Eric saw him.”

“Oh. Why?”

“Everyone else did. Probably,” she added, “everyone in the waiting room. Most of them wouldn’t notice or care.”

“Until he disappeared?”

“Until then, yes.” She shrugged and added, “but they probably wouldn’t realy notice that either unless they were staring right at him. People in emergency rooms are usualy thinking about other things.”

Michael nodded. “But Eric?”

“Eric saw him.”

“He’s worried about you, Emma,” Michael told her.

Alison winced.

“Oh. Why? Did he say something in the car last night?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“That he was worried about you.”

Of course. This was Michael. “Did you ask why?”

“No.” He stared at her for a minute and then added, “Your father is dead. And he came to the hospital. I think most people would be worried about that.”

“I’l talk to Eric,” she said, with feeling. She turned to Alison and added, “Did he say anything else?”

“Not very much,” Alison offered. “It was a pretty quiet car ride.”

Emma skipped English that morning. Eric also skipped English that morning. It wasn’t a coincidence; she colared Eric before he that morning. It wasn’t a coincidence; she colared Eric before he entered the class. The way she said “Can I talk to you for a minute?” would have made teachers throughout her history proud.

Eric, to give him credit, didn’t even try to avoid her. He met her eyes, nodded without hesitation, and took his hand off the doorknob. “Here, or off-site someplace?”

Off-site sounded better, but it made the chance that they’d be attending any of the rest of the morning classes a lot slimmer.

Given everything, Emma reconciled herself to absence slips and parental questions and said, “Let’s go somewhere where we won’t be interrupted.” She grimaced and added, “And if I colapse again, just drive me home.”

They went to a very quiet cafe around the corner. Where around the corner meant about ten blocks away. Emma chose it out of habit, but at this time of day, almost nothing was crowded.

She took a seat by the window; a booth was at her back. Eric sat opposite her. They waited until someone came to take their order; Emma ordered a cafe au lait and a blueberry scone; Eric ordered black coffee and nothing. He glanced out the window, or perhaps at Emma’s reflection; it was hard to tel. His normal, friendly expression was completely absent. It made his face look more angular, somehow, and also older. His eyes were clear enough that she couldn’t quite say what color they were, although she had thought them brown until now.

When their order had come and the waitress had disappeared, Emma cupped her bowl in both hands and looked disappeared, Emma cupped her bowl in both hands and looked across the table. She took a deep breath. “Eric,” she said softly.

He was watching her. His hands were on the table, on either side of his coffee cup, and she noticed for the first time how calused they were, and how dark compared to the rest of his skin. He wore a ring, a simple gold band that she hadn’t realy seen before. It looked…like a wedding ring.

“What happened last night?” she asked when it became clear that he was waiting for her. Waiting, she thought, and judging.

She didn’t much care for the latter.

“What do you think happened last night?”

If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking . She forced the words to stay put, but it was hard. Instead, taking a deep breath, she said, “Something happened the other night in the graveyard. You were there.”

He said nothing.

“I don’t know if you saw—saw what I saw.” She hesitated, because it stil made her queasy. “I thought you couldn’t have.

Now I think you must have and that you understood it.”

“Go on.”

“But I don’t. I know that I saw my father last night.” She took another, deeper breath. “And there were two of me. You saw both. No one else in that room did. But when I touched my father, everyone saw him.” She added, “And he was cold.” She wasn’t sure why she’d said it, but she couldn’t claw the words back. “The headache has nothing to do with my faling.”

“You’re sure?”

“You’re sure?”

“No. But you are.”

He picked up the coffee cup as if it were a shield. And then, over the steam rising from it, he met her eyes. “Yeah,” he said, not drinking. “I am.” He turned just his head, and looked outside. Emma watched his face in the window. “Why were you in the graveyard, Emma?”

It was her turn to look out the window, although it wasn’t much protection; their gazes met in reflections, both of them transparent against the cars parked on the curb outside. “It’s quiet there,” she said at last.

“Don’t ask me questions,” he replied, “until you’re ready to answer them.”

“I’m ready to answer them,” she said, more forcefuly. “I’m not wiling to share the answers because they are none of your goddamn—” She bit her lip.

He shrugged. “No, they’re not. They’re not my business.”