Some Quiet Place (20 page)

I pick up his other bag and hand it to him. “That’s not true. I think deep down, I always wanted to paint Venice.” The lie is sudden, effortless. I don’t know why I give it to him.

He raises his head. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He looks even younger here, in the dim. I re-member Charles as a child, always leaving me behind to play with his friends, always running off when Tim was in one of his moods. “You’re going to live the life you want,” I tell him. “And you shouldn’t feel guilty about that.”

The grandfather clock at the end of the hall dongs. We stand there, and the song plays. Charles sighs. “I’m staying at my buddy Garrett’s house for a while. If you … if you need me for anything, just give me a call, all right?”

We both know I won’t. But it’s nice of him to make the offer anyway. “See you,” I say, reaching out to give him a one-armed hug since he’s carrying the bags. He doesn’t try to hug me back, but I do feel his chin rest on the top of my head, just for a moment.

I watch him go down the stairs. Before he reaches the bottom step I turn away to go back to my cold, lonely bed.

“Liz?”

I poke my head out the door one more time. Charles has stopped. He’s looking up at me. When I don’t respond, he bites his bottom lip. “You asked me a while ago if I remember what you were like as a baby.” He meets my gaze suddenly, determination in the lines of his face. “The truth is, I don’t really remember that girl. She was so different from who you are now. But I do remember one thing. I’ve never forgotten, really. It was right after you had your accident. I asked you once, ‘How are you feeling, Liz?’ It was … scary. You looked right at me and said, ‘Liz is dead.’”

I force a smile. “Thank you for telling—”

“I’m not done.” His hold on both bags tightens. “I asked you why you would say that. You didn’t answer me right away. In fact, it wasn’t until after supper. I was outside hitting some balls. You came up behind me and you said, ‘I took her place.’ I was just a kid, but even then I saw how real it was. You’ve never been my sister, but I still treated you like one, because I always thought you needed someone to show you some kindness.”

I blink. Once. Twice. “What—”

“I’m not as ignorant as I act. None of us are. We all saw the change in you. No accident could do that. I don’t care what the counselors or the doctors said. I’ve always believed that there are strange things in the world, even though we can’t see them. You’re just one of the mysteries, Elizabeth. I accepted that.”

The words hit me like bullets to the chest.
You’ve never been my sister
. Some part of me did always believe that even though I’m different, apart, I’m blood to these people. This—the need to belong to a family I should have already belonged to—might have been the real thing that urged me to find the answers. Their pain drove me to try to become the girl they once knew.

But I can’t think about this now. Later. Because it’s time for another goodbye.

I study Charles. Maybe I’ve been too quick to judge him. It just goes to show that what’s on the surface is never all there is. “Charles.” I smile down at him. “Go. You were a good brother—the best you could be—and I’ll never forget you.”

It’s as if a weight has lifted off of him; his shoulders slump and he sighs again. “See you in another lifetime, Liz,” he murmurs, grinning. That flop of hair shines beneath the entryway light. He nods at me and turns his back for the last time, leaving this life behind to seek out a new one. Just as Sarah did. A life that won’t hiss with secrets from every corner and where pretending is unnecessary.

The door shuts with just a gentle
click
and Charles Cald-
well is gone. Somehow, I know I won’t see him again.

I go back to bed, settling into the sheets as if I’d never left. The filmy curtains around my window flutter, and I focus on them as sleep claims me. The dream waits in the recesses of my mind, waits patiently to take me down into the depths.

He stands with his back to me, in that pose I’m beginning to identify as his: arms behind his back, hands clasped. We’re on a clear platform of some kind, surrounded by nothing but white, open air. The wind tugs at my hair. It hangs loose, long—I never wear it like this. I look down and see that once again I’m wearing the yellow sundress. It seems out of place now that all the illusions are gone. He isn’t using Landon this time, isn’t hiding behind meadows or stone houses.

“What are you waiting for?” I ask his back dully. “Go ahead. Finish it.”

He doesn’t turn. After a moment he says, “I find that I like my opponents to be invested in the game.” His tone is light, casual, as if he’s commenting on the weather. His clothing presses against his body; he’s facing the wind. I glance around and wonder for a brief moment where we are. Then I remember that it doesn’t matter. None of it is real. He’s in my head.

When he doesn’t get a response, Nightmare finally faces me, and it’s difficult to look him in the eyes. They’re round black jewels. Snake eyes. “It’s time for a short intermission,” he informs me. His hair reminds me of Fear’s in the way it rests against his skin like silk.

His words register. “Is this a game or a play?” I ask, taunting him for some reason. Foolish. I can’t take it back, though.

His gaze narrows. “Perhaps you’d rather continue now, then.”

Again I don’t answer, but my heart stumbles. He sighs, waving a hand. “Go, little one. You’ll see me soon. I do hope you regain some of that charming emotion I saw so briefly.”

I open my mouth to speak, maybe ask the questions I’m unable to ask Rebecca, but an invisible hand pushes me right in the center of my chest. My arms flail, but it’s too late. I fall into the white oblivion. Down, down, the air rushing from my lungs.

I land in my bed.

As soon as the sun rises in the sky I know the house has turned into the fiery, cackling depths of hell. I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon. Tim has woken with a vengeance, still drunk from the night before; I can hear him muttering through the walls. He needs someone to blame for Sarah leaving him.

Too bad I’m the only one left.

I consider running for just a moment. But I can’t seem to bring myself to move. Thoughts of Fear, memories, dreams fill my head and I lie there, listening to the heavy thump of Tim’s feet against the floor. He’s still muttering to himself. I think of Landon. So much death in this story. How did he end? Was Rebecca with him during his last breath? I think of Fear, of Fear and Rebecca clasped in a passionate embrace. She had been the girl he’d spoken of in the loft, the one he’d loved. The one who I’d once thought was dead. And now they’re together, after all this time. Is she explaining why she stayed away so long? Is he telling her how much he missed her?

“Elizabeth!” Tim slurs, banging on my door. He can’t seem to figure out how to work the doorknob. It keeps slipping in his grip.

Please, please come back.

How painful it must have been, to hold someone she cared about so much in her arms and watch his blood run into the ground. How strange. Other than Maggie’s misplaced dedication to me, I’ve never witnessed any kind of real love.

“Open this door, you little bitch!”

Which is worse, Tim or Nightmare? They seem the same in my mind. What’s the point? Even if I leave here, I’ll walk into a trap just like this one the moment I fall asleep. There’s nothing to fight for, now; not survival, not love of my own. And this is no longer my home—I have to face that; nothing will ever be the way it once was. But I find myself clinging to it just the same. Pesky emotions. Even when weak, they’re a hindrance to the logic I’m accustomed to.

After Nightmare’s attack, after speaking to Rebecca in the hospital, I’ve been remembering more and more. Their past—Rebecca’s and Landon’s and their mother’s—comes fast at me now. I don’t know if it’s an unconscious decision on my part or if it’s just time, but the illusion is growing thin and my nothingness is a weak, feeble thing deep inside of me.

“Elizabeth!”

That’s not who I am. Now I’ll face the truth. As the threat of pain and darkness drools on my door, I close my eyes and say the words that I’ve been avoiding for so long.

“I’m not Elizabeth.”

Nothing happens, not that I expected anything to. There’s no explosion of realization or power or memories. No Emotions come to touch me, the untouchable girl. All I know is who I’m not, and not who I am. I open my eyes again, staring at the mural. It’s still unfinished, but I’m almost done. There’s just one more wall to do. I concentrate on that stone house, Landon’s still face, Rebecca’s pain, the death and the agony, the feelings I can’t reach.

“I’m not human,” I say next.

Still no earth-shattering epiphany. The pieces that are me remain scattered, incomplete, and there are no patterns to follow.

Tim has been pounding at the door, and now it gives way. With a
crack
, his fist bursts through, and he’s cut his knuckle. He roars, shouldering the door now. More of the wood drops to the floor in jagged chunks. Tim keeps at this until there’s a hole big enough for him to fit through. He ducks inside, eyes wild and red-rimmed. They scan the room frantically until they come to rest on me.

“You,” he breathes. “You did this.”

I did. Without my encouragement, Sarah never would have started thinking, and she never would have left. But still I don’t move, even when Tim advances in a snarling rage. He seems so out of place in my small room—he’s never been in here before, actually.

“What makes you tick, Tim?” I ask, looking up at him, causing him to pause for an instant. Death at this man’s hands will surely be better than the slaughtering at Nightmare’s.

This human who is not my father growls, reaching down to haul me to my feet. I’m limp in his hands, my thoughts a gnarled haze. We stare at each other for what feels like eons until Tim grunts once, then throws me at the wall as hard as he can. My back slams into the depiction of Landon. The plaster cracks. Ignoring the blaze of pain ripping up my spine, I reach up to touch one of the tears on Rebecca’s cheek.

Tim advances, stumbling. He reeks, the sting of his scent filling my senses. Anger is absent—this is born purely from Tim and that amber liquid he loves so much. Just as he reaches down to pull me up yet again, I tell him, “What happened to me isn’t your fault, you know.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. A dark reminder. I know it, of course. Tim’s an animal now, wounded and furious. He throws me down and jams his knee into my stomach, clenching his fists around my throat. I cry out in pain, half-laughing, and dry-heave a second later; I haven’t eaten for a while. I forgot.

“You’re a demon,” Tim mumbles thickly. He tightens his hold. As he leans his weight on me, his knee buries itself in my stomach until I can feel my organs crumpling. I don’t fight him. My instincts are a dull, throbbing mess. All I keep thinking is,
I’m not Elizabeth. I’m not human.
Who am I, then? Where do I belong? Again I envision Fear and Rebecca. He’s lying in a bed, slowly healing, and she’s sitting at his side, smiling into his eyes. The image hurts; just more pain to add to the onslaught.

Dots dance in front of me, green and blue and red, and they’re so close that I reach up with one slender finger, trying to touch one. Tim’s talking again, but his words don’t register. Exactly six seconds tick by and I give up on the dots, eyes drifting shut.

“Wake up,” someone—Landon?—orders. “Open your eyes. Now.”

I smile sleepily. His voice is familiar, comforting. “No point. No point.”

“Tap, tap,” Landon says. Now I frown. It doesn’t seem like something he would say. I don’t know how I know this; I just do. “Tap, tap,” Landon says again, and now I do open my eyes, looking past Tim’s red, bulbous face to the window. A little figure stands on the sill, her pretty face pressed to the glass. It’s sprinkling outside, and her hair sparkles with lingering droplets. As if she doesn’t even notice the rain, the creature clenches her tiny fist and knocks on the window.
Tap, tap
. She looks worried. Why is she worried?

Darkness is clouding in again. I lose awareness of anything besides Tim’s grip on my air supply, the consuming dizziness, something humming in my ear. No, wait, there’s a fly in the room. It buzzes past my nose.

And then, like a star illuminating the black night, a new voice explodes through the shrinking space. “Get out. Get out now and never come back, or I swear to God I’ll call the cops and have you put away for the rest of your miserable life.”

Without warning, the crushing weight is gone. Coughing and gasping simultaneously, I gulp in gallons of air, my lungs greedy. Suddenly time is utterly still, and it’s over. I lie there, my back to Landon, gazing around my room until my vision clears up completely. I’m alone except for my bed, the dresser, the rickety desk, a mirror, and the mural. I try to figure out what was real and what was illusion when Tim was choking me. For a wild second, I thought I’d actually heard Landon … And had Moss really been standing at my window? One quick glance shows the empty sill, the lonely glass. No. I’d been half-delirious.

Which brings me to wonder where Tim went. The house is so still—he must really be gone. How … ? I lift my nose and sniff the stale air, wondering if an otherworldly being saved me … maybe Fear … there’s nothing but the scent of alcohol. Tim.

He might come back.

I try to stand and find I can’t. Pain grips me and draws me completely beneath its murky waters. I struggle against it, but then darkness cackles and whooshes in with its inescapable embrace. This time there are no dreams, just a face. Pale hair, crinkled azure eyes, conceited grin. Fear …

Quiet.

A gentle touch.

I must have fallen asleep. When I wake, I blink rapidly. The blurred world comes into focus, as does the face of my champion. And of all the people who could have rescued me this time, it’s the boy who’s not my brother. He’s squatting in front of me, his eyes clouded with concern. His mouth moves as he speaks, and I crane my neck to see past him.