Kelsey Sutton: Some Quiet Place

“He’d take you back, you know.”

Jumping, I turn to see Fear leaning against a tree, arms crossed in that arrogant manner of his. He’s staring at me with an unfathomable expression on his frozen, lovely face.

I haven’t seen Fear since I healed him, since we both thought I was a human girl called Elizabeth, since I was wearing her mask. At the sight of his achingly familiar face, the breath catches in my throat.

“Fear.” I stand, brushing off my bottom, swallowing audibly. My dark hair—still foreign to me—tumbles into my eyes, and I’m grateful for the curtain to hide behind. I don’t know what to say. I’m vulnerable. He can see me now; he knows the truth. Does he hate me for what I did? For hiding all this time? I resist the urge to throw myself at him, experience his hands on me for real after so many years of restraint and lies. I know that he wants another now. Someone who was never real to begin with.

Fear doesn’t seem to sense my inner turmoil. “Are you going to go back?” His tone is so distant it hurts.

I blink. “Go back where?”

He sighs impatiently. “To the humans. Back to the boy.”

Joshua. He means Joshua. I turn my back to Fear, trying to muster the courage to tell him he’s wrong. I can’t. I’ve faced so many things, but this … this I’m not ready to confront. I can’t handle his rejection. I’m good at running from the truth. As I bend toward the skeleton of a dead flower—fresh color streaking through the petals at my touch—I try to change the subject, asking, “Have you done something to Tim? No one’s seen him since Charles ran him off, and I don’t think he’d stay away just because Charles threatened to call the sheriff.”

But Fear isn’t going to let me run. He strides toward me, bringing a cool breeze and all his horror with him. “I warned him never to touch you again,” is all he says. Then, “Answer me. Are you going to go back?”

I cringe, and butterflies erupt in my stomach as his essence wraps itself around me. My pulse starts to race.

Fear breathes down my neck. Helpless, I am assailed by images of us together. His lips pressed to my neck. Legs intertwined. Grass sticking to our backs. I whirl around to glare at him. “Get away from me.”

“Oh, you’re mad now. You must really miss him.”

“I don’t miss him.” I’m mad at you for staying away. I’m mad at you for falling in love with someone else. I’m mad at myself.

But he doesn’t hear my thoughts. “Now you’re the one pretending, Elizabeth.”

“Don’t call me that,” I snap, glaring at him. Is he deliberately being cruel, throwing it in my face that I can never be the one he loves again? “Elizabeth was the little girl whose life I stole. I’m just the fool who tried to be a human, and I damaged everyone I came into contact with. I’m not Elizabeth. Even if it hurts so much sometimes I want to kill myself, I’m going to remember myself this time.”

Fear lifts a finger in the air, teasing. “Ah, but you are Elizabeth. You’ve brought a little of her back with you. Don’t you remember who you were, Rebecca, before Landon died?” Before I can retort or hate him for mentioning my twin’s name, Fear silences me by putting his finger over my lips. A jolt runs through me at the touch, and I struggle against the terror suddenly edging in.

“Listen to me,” Fear whispers now. His breathing is

uneven. “You’re a little of both now. Rebecca in all your beauty and grace, and that little bit of snobbery”—he doesn’t let me utter a protest—“and Elizabeth in your gentleness. The way you endured my feelings for you because of your compassion. Really, I feel like an idiot for not seeing it. Maybe some part of me knew.”

And in his search for me, he found a new obsession. I swallow, all my sharp words and outrage fading again. Endured his feelings? As Elizabeth, maybe. Now I crave them. I remember those nights we spent together, the way his fingers felt brushing over my skin. “Fear—”

“It’s fine,” he cuts in, dismisses what he thinks is an apology. When I lift my gaze, Fear sighs. Removing his hand from my cheek, he brushes his silky hair out of his face and looks away. “It’s always been my lot to want what I can’t have,” he says. “This is no exception. I’ll survive, Rebecca.” His grin is tinged with sadness and defiance, something he tries to hide from me but miserably fails.

Heart in my throat, I move as if to touch him, but Fear shakes his head, moving back so he’s out of my reach. Doesn’t he know that if I could bring Elizabeth back for him again, I would?

I chew my lower lip, wishing again that I had the strength to tell him how I really feel, that I don’t want him to leave me again, that it’s him I think about, not Joshua. It never was, even that night I chose him over Fear. Where is that damn Courage when you actually want him to appear? “Fear—”

“Don’t.” Again he doesn’t let me finish. “You’ve given me enough. Just a glance in my direction was a rush.” He winks, shoving his hands in his coat pockets. He’s moving even farther away and I don’t attempt to stop him. What more is there to say? As if to agree with me, Fear shrugs, and his form begins to lighten, go transparent, as he leaves me yet again. Even though I hate myself for it, I don’t stop him.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Fear murmurs. “Just go to him. Love him. Be happy again. After all you’ve been through, you deserve it. I was right, by the way,” he adds unexpectedly.

I swallow. “Right about what?” I ask faintly.

He fades completely from sight. “You do look beautiful in a dress,” his voice whispers in my ear. Then … silence. I let him go.

Sometimes I think I hear my twin’s tread on the ground, coming closer. It always turns out to be nothing. A deer, a breeze, my imagination. That voice in the back of my head has been nudging me lately. The numbness is gone, along with everything else, and the voice of feeling hisses at me, demands that I acknowledge it’s not the absence of my family holding me back from life now. From the very thing I can’t make disappear with an illusion. Forever a part of me, no matter how much I resent it.

One afternoon, as I pick my way across a creek, Courage is suddenly beside me. When I don’t stop he walks with me. I glance at his profile sidelong, curious as to what he could possibly want. But I refuse to ask, so we trek in silence together. The bare trees watch us.

Courage doesn’t let the stillness remain for long. “So is this your plan? To wander around here and mope for the rest of your life?” He walks so perfectly, so controlled, arms behind his back, shoulders straight. His boots hit the ground with tidy clip s. I can’t help comparing him, over and over, to his brother. Fear has a bright façade and dark insides; he’s horror and a windy recklessness that carries millions over the plains with no hope of ever stopping. And Courage … he’s dark on the outside but carries a light within; he’s calm and encouraging and his very breath is a soothing dash of water on a hot, hot day.

“You’re easily distracted,” Courage notes. He stops, and I choose to stop alongside him. A slant of sunlight falls across my face, but I don’t move out of the way. Instead I revel in the warmth, shivering when I remember the darkness of Nightmare’s shack.

Suddenly, when Courage speaks, he is hardness and de-termination. He cuts right to the point, wills me to accept his words. “The other plane loves you. They always have. It wasn’t your brother that was the strong one. You were able to bring us all together as no others could, because of the sound of your laughter and your smiles. Your very step on the forest floor had the trees stretching tall to impress. It was you, Rebecca, and not Landon that survived Nightmare. And why do you think that is?”