Deadly Little Voices (26 page)

But then what about Aunt Alexia’s sketch? Or the fact that Danica got so upset when Kimmie and I mentioned skating?

“Well?” Dr. Tylyn asks.

But by now I’ve forgotten the question. “I think that my aunt and I are truly connected,” I say.

“And you two share the same power,” she agrees. “But that doesn’t mean that you have to share the same destiny.”

I look away, but out of the corner of my eye, I can see Dr. Tylyn staring at me, studying my every blink, swallow, and twitch.

“That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?” she asks. “If your aunt is out of the hospital, it means that she isn’t mentally ill. And if
she
isn’t mentally ill, it means that you won’t one day become mentally ill, either. Well, guess what? I can’t promise you a life of sanity. I can’t promise it to you, or for anyone else.”

“How do you know that I’m not already crazy?” I ask, staring right at her now, feeling tears course down my face.

“Simple,” she says, handing me a tissue. “Because what you predict comes true. Don’t ever lose sight of that. And don’t ever forget that you have choices here, Camelia. What is it that
you
want?”

“To not end up like my aunt,” I say, looking down at my wrists.

“Be more specific.”

“To not handle my power the way she handled hers.” I wipe my tears, feeling guilty for passing judgment on Alexia.

“Better,” she says, finally showing a hint of emotion; a subtle smile sits on her lips.

“Don’t become a victim of someone else’s choices.”

“What if I don’t have a choice?” I ask, hearing a quaver in my voice.

“There’s always a choice. Even in the face of tragedy, you can choose to overcome, to gain wisdom, to practice compassion.”

“But my aunt doesn’t have those choices,” I say.

“Maybe she doesn’t anymore, but I’d be willing to bet that at one point she did. She tried to suppress her powers, and in the end they overcame her.”

“So, what does that mean for me?”

“What do
you
think it means?” She narrows her eyes.

“That I shouldn’t be afraid of my power?” I ask, feeling a grin form on my face, knowing that I’ve gotten the answer right.

“It’s a part of who you are,” she says. “So, why not embrace it?”

I nod, feeling the proverbial hairs standing up on the back of my neck. Because at last, I finally get it.

Dear Jill,

We arrived at my apartment, and you were still acting resistant. I knew you didn’t like it, but I had no choice other than to tell you how to act. Imagine if someone saw how troubled you looked and thought that something was wrong?

“You can trust me, remember?” I reminded you, taking hold of your arm despite all your squirming to be let go.

You started to cry harder, stumbling as you walked, making things so much more difficult than they needed to be.

We entered through the back of the building, behind the surveillance cameras, to give us more privacy. I thought that’d make you more comfortable, but you screamed once we got inside, like something serious was wrong. Luckily my father’s music drowned out your voice.

We didn’t need any extra attention. In time you’d understand that.

I’m sorry that I accidentally pushed you-and that you fell down hard on your back. But you really gave me no other choice.

“What do you want with me?” you asked, still on the ground, scooting away as I approached. Tears rolled down your cheeks. You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“I’m your friend, remember?” I knelt down beside you and wiped your tears with my thumb. “And if you let me, I’ll take all your pain away.”

“What pain?”

“All of it, Jill. From grade school until now. You’ll feel like a brand-new person.”

“But my name isn’t Jill.”

“It is now,” I said, taking your hand and leading you inside my apartment.

…

Dear Jack:

Why did you keep calling me Jill and insisting that I call you Jack? Why did you sing me nursery rhymes and ask that I join in? When I didn’t, you set the tune to “Yankee Doodle Dandy” on your player piano, so that it played over and over again while you filled in your own lyrics. I hadn’t known that Jack and Jill had more than one stanza, but you knew at least four by heart.

Your apartment was huge, with high ceilings, almost like a city loft. You had the entire floor to yourself.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” you said, crossing the living room like it was Christmas morning; there was an extra skip in your step.

It looked like you really were a photographer. There was a tripod set up and some overhead spotlights with a white backdrop. From behind an L-shaped sofa, you pulled out a large box with a red ribbon.

“I’ve been counting the days till I could give this to you.” You seemed so happy, but then you forced the box into my hands, shoving me back, showing me who was boss.

I knelt down on the floor. With jittery fingers, I untied the bow and removed the lid, surprised to see what was inside: a short white dress with gold trim.

“For skating,” you said, squatting down beside me. “You used to love to skate. You said so yourself.”

I nodded, remembering having told you that during our chat.

“Go try it on,” you insisted. “The bathroom’s over there”

“It’s too small,” I said, checking the size on the dress label.

“Try it,” you demanded. “Don’t be ungrateful.”

Do you remember how I clutched the uniform against my stomach? How more tears rolled down my face?

“I also got you some skates,” you continued, wiping my tears with your thumb again.

“Eventually I’d like to take some photos of you skating. I want to show you the way I see you: beautiful.” You got up and removed your camera from the tripod. You took one, two…nine, ten…twenty-seven, twenty-eight photos of me.

From different angles.

From various points of the room.

Close-ups and long shots.

As more tears ran down my face. And the skating uniform still balled up against my stomach.

“It might be hard now,” you said, click, click, click. “But soon you’ll see how beautiful you really are”

“And you’ll take my pain away,” I whispered, hearing the sobs in my voice.

“All of it,” you said, finally pausing from snapping photos, relieved to see that I was finally coming to my senses.

…

BEFORE I LEAVE DR. TYLYN’S OFFICE, I ask her if she’d be willing to visit my aunt at the hospital—to see if she might be able to help her. Thankfully, she agrees.

I exit the main campus building and try giving Kimmie a call, as promised, but the phone goes straight to voice mail. I leave her a message and then head for the bus stop. To my complete and utter shock, Wes is there. I spot his Where’s Waldo scarf from a block away.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, once he’s within earshot. “At a bus stop in the next town over, when you have your own car?”

He looks startled to see me as well, but as I get closer, his expression morphs into defensiveness: his lip twitches and his nostrils flare. “I could ask you the same,” he says, standing right in front of me now.

“I was at Hayden, talking to my therapist. What’s your excuse?”

He tugs nervously at his scarf. “I was trying to get away.”

“Away from what? Does this have something to do with why I couldn’t reach you last night?”

He swallows hard, then lets out a breath. His eyes are runny from the cold; at least, I think it’s the chill that’s making them tear up.

“My dad’s pissed. Someone keyed my car, so he took it away.”

“And that’s your fault?” I reach into my pocket for a tissue, suddenly realizing how distraught he is.

“Everything’s my fault.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Well, it feels like it is.”

I look toward the billboard poster that hangs over the bus stop—an ad for some dance club in the next town over—still wondering what he’s doing
here
, of all places, and not stewing over cappuccino at the Press & Grind, or taking photographs in the middle of nowhere (his new favorite pastime). “Was the keying really bad?”

“Kind of. My dad’s having the entire car stripped and repainted as a result. Pink,” he adds. “That’s what color he thinks I should be driving.”

“Wes, that’s crazy.”

“I haven’t even told you the
real
crazy part: the keying was an actual message, rather than just scratch marks.”

“And what did it say?” I ask, already sensing the worst.

“It said,
You’re out of your league
.” His chin quivers, but he clears his throat, still trying to be strong.

“Who would
do
that?” I ask, feeling my heart plummet. “Do you think it was that guy we followed?”

I peer down the main boulevard, remembering having gone in that direction on our chase, and how Wes seemed to know the area well. “Maybe he got your license plate. Where was your car parked when the keying occurred?”

“At home.” He shrugs. “But I’m not even sure if that’s the guy who did it.”

“Who else could it have been?”

He checks his watch, just as the Number 12 bus turns the corner, coming toward us.

“This is my ride.”

“You’re not going home?” I ask, feeling my face crumple up in confusion. The 12 goes in the opposite direction of Freetown.

“Honestly, if you were me, would
you
want to go home?”

“Come to my house, then,” I suggest. “Or better yet, let’s go grab a bite to eat. We need to talk about this, don’t you think?”

“Can’t,” he says, looking toward the bus, now at the curb. “I’m actually going to see a friend.”

“What friend?”

Instead of answering, he gives my cheek a tiny smooch and turns toward the bus. The doors snap open and he climbs the steps, leaving me even further in the dark.

STILL AT THE BUS STOP, I try calling Kimmie again, to see if she might have more insight into the whole keying incident with Wes’s car, but she’s not picking up. And so I decide to go to Knead, eager to sink my hands into a piece of clay.

As soon as I get there, I see that Spencer is hard at work on his life-size ballerina, which reminds me of my work in progress as well. I remove the tarp from my vaselike bowl, and immediately my mind goes to Ben. I cover the bowl back up and then fetch myself a thick hunk of clay, ready to start something new.

There’s a tiny piece of me that still feels intimidated by the process, but with each smack, plunk, and slam of clay against the board, I can’t help feeling empowered, because I’m facing my fears head-on.

I close my eyes and press my fingers into the mound; the texture is soft and slick. After several seconds spent flattening the clay with both my palms, images of all sorts start fleeting through my brain. I concentrate hard, trying to focus on the strongest one, and then I start to sculpt.

I move my fingers over the clay mound, picturing an ivy-covered building. I start to sculpt it, expecting the voices to come at any moment, but, surprisingly, they don’t. I continue to work for what must be at least another hour, forming double doors and shuttered windows.

The image of a door knocker pops into my mind, and I want to sculpt it, too. I grab another hunk of clay and begin to replicate its shape; the knocker looks like an acorn. Smooth on the bottom and with a narrow tip, the cap has diamond-shaped grooves, formed in rows, for the necessary texture. I spend at least forty minutes working on the acorn knocker, about the size of my palm, getting all the details just right, and wondering about its significance.

And then I feel someone tap my shoulder from behind.

I turn to look, but no one’s there. And the studio lights have been dimmed. It appears that Spencer’s cleared out the aisles of greenware and replaced them with an L-shaped sofa and a wooden floor. How is it possible that I didn’t notice these changes on the way in?

I open my mouth to try to call Spencer, but to my horror I discover there’s an object wedged inside my mouth, pressing against the back of my tongue, making it impossible to talk. I go to take a step—to see if Spencer’s still in his office—but I end up lurching forward and falling down hard on the floor.

Someone’s bound my feet. And put a thick chain around my wrists.