Kelsey Sutton: Some Quiet Place

“He won’t find anything,” I say flatly. For once, I don’t have to pretend. “Fear only hunts because he’s bored.” No one in the dining room notices my scrutiny. Charles’s knife clinks against his plate. Mom and Dad discuss the crops.

Resentment doesn’t have a response to this, and we fall silent. As we stand there, it suddenly occurs to me that he might know about the presence I sensed earlier. For a few seconds I consider asking, but something holds my tongue.

Dad will notice if I stay away too long. Nodding a goodbye to Resentment, I rejoin them. Charles is saying something about Fowler’s Grocery now. Sliding into my seat, I take another bite of my barely touched meal so no one will detect anything amiss .

“I have more summons to see to,” Resentment tells me, his hairless head gleaming in the light of the chandelier. “Enjoy your time with these pathetic people.”

I can’t reply, and he vanishes. Resentment is a simple creature; he has his purpose, he is what he is, and there isn’t much more to him. He’s said before that he doesn’t understand why I bother living among humanity, living a lie. The truth is, I hide my real nature because if I don’t, my nothingness would consume me. I would become a wandering creature, with no connections and no soul. My life in Edson isn’t perfect at all, but it is a life—the only one I’ll ever have. So, even though I don’t hold any feeling for my place in this family or this town, I will hold on to it because I can.

After helping Mom with the dishes—or rather, trying to help and having her edge around me, avoiding so much as a look in my direction—I escape the house and make my way up to the loft of the barn. It’s a serene place, silent except for the cows rustling below. Gentle shafts of the fading sun slip in through the cracks in the walls. Along each of these walls, set on top of bales of hay, are my paintings. Dad allows me to keep them up here; he doesn’t use the loft because of the leaky roof. They don’t get in his way.

The paintings are echoes of my dreams. Well, dreams and images that sometimes flit through my mind at random. I put them on canvas so that I can study and possibly learn from them.

One scene occurs over and over in the brush strokes, differing only in angles and colors. One place, one event:

a beautiful girl I’ve never met before is crying out, cradling a limp boy in her arms. They look like they could be my age, or a little older. The boy’s eyes are closed, his expression one of peace. There are trees all around, and out of the shadows, a hulking, faceless form emerges. No way to tell who or what it is, since it’s surrounded by tendrils of darkness. It stands over the weeping girl, looking at the motionless boy she holds, but she doesn’t seem to notice it. And there the dream is finished. An end of one thing and the beginning of something else, but of what I don’t know.

There are other paintings besides these, though. My dreams have been consumed by more. More images, more mysterious flickers. A vague image of a stone house. The white fingers of the ocean. A pair of crinkled, smiling eyes. The long fingers of a woman, the flutter of a yellow skirt, the vibrant disorientation of parties and celebrations long finished.

Every time I look at these paintings, something inside me clenches. It’s an odd sensation, as if I’m supposed to be feeling something but my wall of nothingness is blocking it.

Again my concentration returns to the boy and girl. Somehow, I believe, they’re the key to all of this. In the painting, there she sits, weeping, torrents of tears streaming down her face. She’s in the woods, wearing jeans and a long T-shirt. Surrounded by tree trunks, kneeling on the moss-covered ground. She’s looking up at the sky—it must be sunset, like now, because the air around her is pink twilight—and she’s screaming. The girl’s teeth shine in the fading light. There is an agony in her face that I cannot even imagine experiencing. The boy she has her arms wrapped around is limp, lying on the ground. Once in a while I get a faint impression that there could have been blood surrounding the two.

Of course, these paintings explain nothing. They only raise more of the questions that I don’t know the answers to. Who are these people? Who lived in the house? Is it real? Why do I dream of it? Common sense urges me to let it all go, but instinct orders me to solve this mystery.

Tonight there are more images crowding around inside my head. The nothingness holds fast, though, a firm lock to the door that I’m trying to open. Over and over again, I see the shadow, the trees, the girl’s open mouth and the silent scream.

You will forget everything.

It pops into my head, random and fresh. I sit up straighter from my perch in the barn window. This memory is new. The voice is unfamiliar—no way to tell whether it’s male or female—but my intuition tells me I should know it. I reach out and grasp the sentence, tightening my hold, remembering it over and over again, trying, trying to place it. This might prove that there is outside involvement. Someone has done something to me, made me to be the way I am. You will forget everything.

Not everything, I think. There are holes in the wall, this I know. Where else would the dreams be coming from?

I look at all the angles, as I have so many times before. I have the ability to see the unseen. All these dreams, the nothingness—

“Elizabeth.”

At the sound of the familiar voice, I turn. Fear stands in a dark corner, looking at me, one side of his mouth tipped up in a mischievous smile. I study him, blinking. I hadn’t sensed him coming. “You don’t usually come to see me this often,” I say after a pause. “You found something.”

A breeze drifts in through the open window, and Fear’s white-blond hair ripples. Unaware, he raises his brows at me. “Something has happened here, I think. You looked like you were on a different planet when I came in. What is it, hmmm? Did you find something tucked away in that pretty head of yours?”

He’s never seen my paintings before, and though I don’t look at them, Fear glances away from my face and notices. He makes a sound of interest, striding from one to the next, doubtless memorizing them as clues to the mystery that is me. “You’ve never told me about your … hobby before.” He lingers in front of one, arms folded behind his back. He tilts his head, and that silky hair brushes against his jaw. “Your style is sloppy; there’s no way of knowing who the girl is. All I can make out is her teeth and her dark hair.” He reaches out and touches the curve of the girl’s cheek in one painting. Phantom fingers brush my real cheek as he does so.

“Stop it,” I say.

“Or what?” He spins to face me. “You don’t care.” When I don’t reply, he sobers. “Tell me.”

I shake my head. “You don’t need to know.”

He steps closer. I feel the air around us cool, and his essence clashes against me. When yet again I remain stoic, Fear sighs. I look up at him from where I sit.

“It’s not boredom, or just the need to know,” he informs me, eyes glittering. “I pity you, Elizabeth, and I want to help you.”

Now I stand, and it brings me so close to him that our chests are almost touching. My wall of nothingness quivers at the proximity. It’s an odd sensation. I just arch my neck back to meet his earnest gaze. “You don’t pity me,” I tell Fear. “You don’t want to help me. You want to help yourself.”

A scowl twists his beautiful face. He clenches his fists, checks himself, and forces himself to unclench them. A moment later his impish smile has returned. But underneath the charming façade his intent still lurks. “You do puzzle me, Elizabeth the Numb.”