Where Silence Gathers (19 page)

“Atticus,” he echoes, almost to himself. A smile touches his lips. I shut the door, thinking he'll follow. But when I look back, he's gone. Saul is playing one of the pianos, and I stand on the sidewalk to listen. From this spot I can see through a break in the trees, to the high ridge of another peak. Mist swirls over the moss and rocks.

What's the right choice?
I ask silently.

The mountain doesn't answer.

Twenty-Two

I'm in art class when he calls.

The number on the caller ID isn't labeled, but I know it by heart. The instant I see those digits I stop breathing. Recovering—my phone keeps buzzing, but I know it'll stop in a few seconds—I raise my hand. “Mr. Kim? I have to run to the bathroom. It's an emergency.” Our teacher looks up from helping Yelena Prichard with her clay candle and nods his assent. Georgie and Briana give me questioning looks, which I ignore. Abandoning my sad attempt at a sculpture of the mountain, I slide off the stool and rush to the door.

“Dr. Stern?” I say, breathless and low. I tuck my hair behind my ear and hurry to the privacy of the girls' bathroom. The scent of unwashed toilets greets me. I grab the edge of the sink—water clings to my palm—and stare at my reflection, willing him to respond.
Don't let this be another fluke.

His accented voice is terse and urgent. “Meet me in the campus library at three o'clock.”

“What—”

“Bring the flash drive. And don't tell anyone.”

Click
.

There's no time to wonder how he knows I have the flash drive, nor about his sudden change of heart or the need for such secrecy. All that matters is that a window has finally opened when everything has been shut so tightly around me. Bolting from the sink, I sprint to my locker to retrieve my keys. Just as I reach it someone passes me, a man. His shoulder slams into mine. “Hey, watch it!” I snap.

He doesn't apologize or look at me, and I glimpse his face briefly before he walks away. I resist the urge to retaliate. Keys in hand, I turn toward the front doors … and time stops completely.

“You can't be here,” I whisper. Surprise and Disbelief once again fly to Franklin at my call, both of them gaping. They murmur to each other as their hands grip me, and their words are as meaningless as the wind. My entire body trembles. My mind races, struggles to accept what my eyes see. I'm in school. We're not alone. There are no shadows. It's impossible.

Like our last encounter, my father's expression is solemn and hard. Something is different, though. He's not as mournful as he was in the mines. I can't discern what it is now shining from his eyes. I start to speak again, strange urges ripping through me like wolves over a carcass: the desire to be with him regardless of where we are, and the instinct to deny any of this is happening.

He cuts me off, quickly and curtly. “You've let yourself forget,” he growls. “Your feelings for that creature are clouding your judgment.”

Suddenly I know what emotion glints in his gaze. Anger. It's anger.

And he's talking about Forgiveness. Somehow he knows about my struggle, my unfulfilled promise, how I keep pushing Revenge away. Shame blinks into existence. His essence is strong, and I try to swallow the lump swelling in my throat and reach out a hand toward my dead feather. “Daddy, I swear I haven't forgotten anything. I've been trying—”

“Remember, Alex.” He steps back, unrelenting. When I frown, he says it again. “Remember.”

At first I don't know what he means. But then the Emotions around us vanish until only one is left. I twist to face it, and I recognize him as he draws nearer, so near I can hear the moans and sobs and wails that cling to him. Though I retreat, my back hitting the wall of lockers, he doesn't stop. Images waver all around—someone on her knees cradling a boy covered in blood, a wraith of a girl in a hospital bed, a family standing in front of a casket. More and more and more, a planet's worth of pain coming at me and threatening to undo me.

“No. Don't do this. Please.
Please
.” I'm on the floor now and I can't see Dad. Sorrow huddles next to me, his lips pursed in a way that's almost apologetic or reluctant. Before I can plead or run, he embraces me. His grip is so tight it hurts, as though his fingers have sprouted tiny blades that dig into my shoulders.

This touch is different than the other times he's visited me. I can't fight against it, not even for a moment. My eyes roll back in my head and my body convulses with the violence of the memory I've tried so hard to keep at bay all these years. I'm falling into it, descending into darkness and cackling shadows until I'm opening my eyes … and it's starting again.

I huddle next to my bedroom door. Lightning flashes, making the white material of my T-shirt glow white. I feel like a spirit. Then the sound of my mother's gasp makes my heart seize in my chest, and for a wild moment I really do believe that I'm dying. “Is that … blood on your shirt? Will, what happened?” she asks, the words urgent and low so I won't hear. They don't know that I always hear.

Dad doesn't reply to her question, and Mom doesn't say anything either for a long, long time. I don't move. The storm howls for all of us, raging at the windows and walls that contain so many secrets and quiet agonies. Eventually Mom says, “If we're really going to do this, then I want them to go to Andrew's. That way they won't hear anything or try to come over.” Her voice wavers. It frightens me more than all the rest; I've never known her to be anything but strong.

“Yes, fine, okay. Let's go.” Dad sounds just as desperate as I feel. There's the sound of footsteps now, coming down the hallway and closer to my door.

I run back to bed and pretend to be asleep. The sheets are freezing. Then Mom is coming in, gently urging me awake, telling me to get dressed. As I hurry to obey she goes into Hunter's room. She comes out with my brother, who's in her arms and blinking blearily. We walk past Dad, who's standing by the apartment door with the keys to the truck in his hand. He doesn't look at me, but I look at him so hard my eyes burn. There's a speckle of red by the collar of his shirt, a color that doesn't belong among the blues and greens and yellows of the plaid he's wearing. My alarm grows. What's happening?

Something stops me from asking. Together we all go down the damp stairs. Mom shields me as best she can from the wetness, and she watches me get into the back. Next she circles the truck to buckle Hunter into his car seat, and he starts to cry. She soothes him but it doesn't help. Dad climbs in behind the wheel, tapping his fingers restlessly, and it's time to go so Mom leaves Hunter to get into the front. He keeps screaming, and I scoot over to comfort him. He swings his arm up and his little fist connects with my nose. Pain slices through the bone, but I don't leave him. I stay. Because that's what Mom told me to do. Stay. It doesn't matter where; all that matters is that I'm doing it.

The truck lurches into motion and Dad drives fast, tearing onto the road and away from our home. It's raining so hard now that the world seems to be made of tears. The windshield wipers whip back and forth, back and forth, steady as a heartbeat. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. With each movement water sloshes off the glass. Worry sits between Mom and Dad, blocking my view of her as she murmurs, “Will, I really don't think you should be driving—”

“I'm fine.”

She keeps arguing with him, but it's hard to hear with Hunter and the thunder. I find a toy airplane on the floor and swoop it through the air in front of my brother, hoping it will distract him. It does. He forgets to cry and stares at the plane, hiccupping. The trails on his plump cheeks begin to dry. I smile and make engine sounds, gliding and soaring the tiny thing through its tiny sky.

“Will!” Mom suddenly screams.

He jerks the wheel to the right, but it's too late. Too late.

I drop the plane, and there's an instant of absolute silence. My wide eyes see the headlights coming for us, the vein in my father's temple, the horrified way my mother raises her hands in front of her face as if that alone will stop it. I see the brightness of the radio buttons and hear Elvis bellow even as the tires screech and the storm rages and my little brother wails again.

And I see him. The man in the other car. Our eyes meet just before everything explodes.

My world goes white. As I've done so often these last few months, I listen. I listen to metal tearing and my family's screams cut off and the thud of the vehicle rolling and hitting the ground over and over. There's more pain, but I don't know where it is and it doesn't matter anyway. My eyes are squeezed shut so tight it feels like they won't ever open again.

Then everything is still.

Mom and Dad aren't fighting anymore, and Hunter isn't crying. They aren't doing anything. I don't want to open my eyes and look, but we're upside down and my head is tingling. I have to move. So I look.

I don't scream. I don't recoil. I don't sob. Blood pools on the ceiling, just next to my head. My family is utterly broken, and I know without touching them that I've been left behind. Hunter is still strapped in his car seat, within reaching distance. I can't bring myself to touch him, though. I just stare. Can't look away. Can't understand how he was smiling moments ago and now he's that thing that vaguely resembles my brother. There's a strange smell in the air, not rain or soaked earth. Almost … rusty.

Suddenly I want out. I want out, I want out, I want out! I flatten my hands against the ceiling, mindless of the blood, and finally scream. No words, just a sound that isn't even human. And someone does come.

Gradually I realize that I'm not as alone as I thought.

There's movement out of the corner of my eye, and I turn my head so fast it hurts, thinking I was wrong and Hunter is alive. But this being has no trace of dimples or toothless grins. Instead, Death gazes at me with cold eyes. I have never met him before, yet I know it's him. I shiver, unable to look away. He's kneeling beside the truck, his coat dragging through the mud and his knees dampening from the puddle. Somehow it's not demeaning. It only makes him more surreal and horrible. I know he's here for my family.

This is the moment I begin to hate the creatures from the other plane.

Unable to meet those eyes anymore, I focus on my mother. She's still so beautiful. Even though she's silent and she'll never speak again, her frantic whisper from earlier in the night fills my entire being until it's my blood, my bones, my veins. I'm made of it. Stay, stay, stay.

“I don't want to go,” I whimper, looking at Death again. I don't know if it's the truth. All I know is that I don't want those pale hands to touch me.

His expression is fathomless. He doesn't move. After a few unbearable seconds, he says in a voice that the darkness and the silence is made out of, “It's not your time yet, little one.”

I blink, and he's gone. So is everything else that mattered.

I come back to myself, drenched in sweat. Dad is gone, along with Sorrow and any lingering doubts I had about what I truly want. I sit against the lockers for hours, days, years, staring at a poster on the wall depicting a girl looking at college applications, preparing for a future I will never have. Suddenly, the meeting with Dr. Stern is insignificant. My search for answers, irrelevant.

I push myself up from the floor, somehow still holding my keys. There are bloody ridges in my palms from where I must have held them too tight. I drift down the hall, out the doors, to my car. I don't think about where I'm going, and when the car stops I lift my head and see that I'm back at the apartment. Saul and Missy aren't here.

When I climb up the steps, I see my mother rushing down them with plastered hair and wide eyes, her fear obvious. Then she disappears. Something twists inside me, and I pause with my hand on the railing, concentrating. But the pain doesn't fade, and my insides don't turn to stone no matter how hard I try. The sun keeps shining, oblivious to the fact that it shouldn't be allowed to illuminate a place where things like this happen. Giving up, I drift to my room and shut the door. I sit on my bed and see myself, six years earlier, kneeling on the floor with my ear pressed to the crack between door and wall.

“Alex?”

I blink, and for a moment the face across the room is blurred. Dread takes root in the pit of my stomach and becomes a weed that threatens to grow into my throat and choke me. Forgiveness? After everything I've seen? But then my vision clears, and I see that it's Revenge—not Forgiveness—who watches me. He's standing in front of the window, a black-silver silhouette outlined in moonlight. How did it become night? When I say nothing in response, he turns to gaze through the window, as if the world out there is so much more interesting than this one.

For a few seconds I just look at him. That bittersweet scent of chocolate surrounds us. And I feel it. All of this, ending. It's almost audible, like glass breaking or a page turning.

I've finally made my choice.

Twenty-Three

“Alex, don't do this.”

Silence.

Then, “Alex. Look at me.”

Still I don't react. Ignoring Forgiveness and his grating voice has suddenly become easy, and I watch the picture slide out of the printer. Over and over and over. Nate Foster and his whore, entwined and oblivious to the fact that they're not alone. No one is ever alone, even when they are. I've seen the image so many times now that it's ingrained on the insides of my eyelids, there whenever I close my eyes. Revenge is behind me, strangely silent. But he's here, even if he hasn't touched me yet. It must be only a matter of time, because I'm not going to change my mind again. The choice is made.

It's become a mantra: the choice is made. And now I actually believe it.

Making a sound in his throat, Forgiveness comes closer, probably to plead with me again or help me find reason. I don't look up as I mutter, “Get the fuck out of my face, or I won't stop with the flyers.” This makes him pause, and I know we're both thinking of the gun in Uncle Saul's glove box.

Now Revenge steps in front of me, blocking Forgiveness from view. His fists are clenched. I don't intervene. Mint clashes with chocolate and they glare at each other. “Nate Foster deserves it,” Revenge growls.

“Ruining his life won't make anything better,” Forgiveness snaps back, the first time I've ever heard his voice rise. “It won't change what happened, and it won't give you any sense of peace, Alex. It will only—”

“Save the speech about my own self-destruction, please.” I keep my attention glued to the printer.

Gilbert, the librarian, doesn't even look up from the book in front of him. He has that glaze in his eyes that gives away the fact he's high as a kite. Ironic that he's one of the smartest people in this town. He doesn't ask questions, like what it is I'm printing so many copies of or what class I'm supposed to be in. He just bends over some pages, dirty hair hanging into his eyes, and reads the words intently. It makes me think of Angus and his strange, empty jars. Odd how people find meaning in simple objects, when the real meaning is something they can't even see.

Involuntarily, my eyes meet Forgiveness's. He doesn't speak, but his eyes are screaming.
Stop. Don't do this. You'll regret it. Please.

The choice is made. The choice is made. The choice is made.

But Forgiveness won't give up. He sends his memories to me, wistful moments of release or reunion. Just when I feel myself begin to waver, Revenge steps closer and I see a flash. A memory of my own. My little brother in his car seat, bloody and broken and gone. My resolve hardens like it's a clay sculpture that's been in the oven just long enough. Finished with the printer, I take my stack of inky retribution and walk away. It's a relief to put my back to the Choices. “Bye, Gil,” I say as I pass the lanky librarian. He flaps a hand at me.

Desperate, Forgiveness calls my name, and there are sounds suspiciously like a struggle. I don't look back, but I hear Revenge say, “Let her go.” He doesn't sound as smug as I thought he would. He doesn't follow me, and I'm glad, because there's something I want to do without anyone hovering over my shoulder. I drift through the school hallways, memorizing everything even though it's already been memorized, and enter the girls' bathroom.

Light pours in through the grates over the window. Setting the flyers on the edge of the sink, mindless of the dampness, I take a sharpie out of my pocket and go into the big stall. I squat. Next to my mother's declaration of love I write,
ALEX WAS HERE
. Because I was, no matter how it begins or ends. I stayed when everyone else left, I walked these halls and laughed and lived when all I could think about was death. My hand shakes slightly. For once, though, I've created something legible. I lean back, trying to avoid touching the toilet, and study the plastic wall, the things that kids thought worthy enough of forever remembering. Love, hate, hope, pain. My parents. And me.

Finished with this, too, I leave that familiar and reeking bathroom for the last time. Flyers in hand, I walk two doors down to the office. A fan blows in the corner and the air smells like stale cigarette smoke. Julia Stork, our receptionist and nurse, looks up from her rickety desk. Her cat-eye glasses glint purple in the florescent light. “Hi, Alex.” Unaware of my purpose for being here, she smiles.

I don't smile back. The old me would hesitate, think, reconsider, but I'm past all of that. The choice is made. And it seems significant that there are no Emotions around me when I say it.

“I'm dropping out.”

Crows take flight as I turn onto Sanderson Road. In their wake they leave a mutilated deer lying in the ditch. Beside me, Revenge hums under his breath. He taps his thumbs on his thighs and his green eyes are sharp. Tonight he's wearing a cowboy outfit, complete with hat and spurs. Normally I would comment, but not now. The house comes up on our right, and though it's not huge, it's a mansion in a place like Franklin. Just one more thing to resent them for. From one glance I know that the Fosters aren't home. Lights off, cars gone, everything closed. As if locks can keep me out. I kill the engine and quiet descends. The trees stir in the breeze, making a gentle rustling sound.

Before getting out, I turn to look at Revenge, asking him the question with my expression since I can't bring myself to say it aloud:
Is it time?

A muscle twitches in his jaw. He shakes his head.

Frustration appears behind me, wrapping his fist in my hair. The force of his grip makes my head snap back against the headrest. “How can that be?” he growls for us. I grimace. “Will this not alter the course of their lives?”

“Not enough, apparently,” Revenge snaps.

The revelation makes me want to scream. Even now, after everything, I haven't truly decided?

Frustration unlatches his fingers and leaves. For the first time I notice his scent, something that resembles burnt rubber. It lingers in the confined space of my car.

Revenge and I stare at each other. Just as I did with the school, I commit everything about him to memory. His features are so sharp and pale, like strange scissors. That tarnished hair isn't so artfully gelled today. It's mussed and wild, as though he's been raking his hand through it every time I'm not paying attention. Neither of us looks away. My heart aches, I want him so badly. It's always been Revenge, even when everything else got in the way. I was just weak.
No more, though. No more. I've made my choice—
apparently my head or my heart just need to catch up.

Maybe Revenge can hear my thoughts. I've always wondered. “What do you want, Alexandra Tate?” he murmurs suddenly. Our pulses beat into the silence. Then, as an answer, I grab the stack of flyers off the floor, along with a roll of tape, and swing up and out of the Saturn. It doesn't matter if this won't seal the decision; the result will still hurt Nate Foster.

Revenge stays where he is, and I can feel him watching every moment, every movement. I march up to the front door. The color of it taunts me. As red as blood. With the ghosts of my family looking on, I slap a flyer to the center of it and tape it in place. Then another, and another. Over and over again until the whole thing is covered. There's no way Jennifer Foster will miss it. I go back to my car, get in, and wait. Revenge doesn't say anything. I don't either.

Like clockwork, she pulls into the driveway at six. Purse in hand, she totters up the sidewalk on high heels. Her hair flutters. She lifts the keys in her hand, prepared to put it into the lock … and then lifts her gaze. She freezes.

She doesn't see me, but I see her. I see everything. Every knife I've stabbed into her heart. Anger, Sorrow, Surprise, Denial. All of them appear around the woman and reach for her with invisible hands. She puts her hand against one of the pictures to cover it, or maybe convince herself that it's real, and bends over. The sound of her sobs echo. The Emotions are merciless and take their time drifting away.

There's a whisper of sensation in my stomach, the beginnings of some unwelcome feeling. I shove it down by closing my eyes and seeing their faces. Hearing their screams.

My nostrils flare and detect mint. There's a shimmer in the backseat. Revenge stiffens. “Is this what you wanted?” Forgiveness asks softly. There's pain in his eyes.

Comforting myself with the knowledge that he won't be able to come near me much longer, I smile and make myself watch Jennifer Foster. She's on her knees now, just as Death was when he peered in at my family on the night of the accident.

“No. I want more.”