Free The Murmurings by Carly Anne West Page B

Thurs—”
    “God, Becca. Seriously, not this again.” Mom sounds more like a teenager than I do.
    I’m instantly pissed at Mom, and I want to throw my plate of food right at her head. Not that I’m any huge fan of Aunt Becca at the moment for stonewalling me about Nell, but at least she’s trying to get us all to move on. Anything’s better than staying in this limbo. But it’s like Mom’s completely given up. And right now, that’s all I feel like doing too. My head is pounding like a snare drum, and if it weren’t still more than a hundred degrees outside, I’d probably run until I hit Mexico.
    Instead, I slide from my chair without saying good night to Mom or good-bye to Aunt Becca and drag myself down the hall toward my bedroom. In my wake, I can hear them arguing, their sisterly voices sounding nearly identical the more walls I put between them and me. My bedroom looks somehow foreign in the orange dusk that slips in through the window. Being in there isn’t any more comforting than being in the kitchen with Mom and Aunt Becca.
    I push open Nell’s door and lie down on her bed, the boxof her Oakside belongings right where I left it on top of her dresser. I close my eyes to block the sight of it, to block anything that isn’t the picture of Nell curled up on this very bed, knees under her chin, and a journal splayed across the bedspread, left hand flying across the page as the poetry spilled from her mind. I want to remember the way she used to pull my hair into tight braids after a nighttime bath and instruct me not to toss and turn in my sleep. In the morning, she would unravel the coils to reveal wavy hair just like hers, just like I’d always wanted. I want to remember how she used to tell me, her voice strained and urgent, that if I ever thought I saw things that no one else saw in the dark, if I ever heard things when no one else heard them, to know those things could never hurt me.
    I let my head sink into Nell’s pillow, trying as best I can not to crease the sheets I’ll only let myself lie on top of. My mind wanders to the times after Mom had gone to bed, exhausted from ten hours of making people’s hair gorgeous, and Nell would tell me about what she heard when she was alone. She said she thought she might be going crazy, only there was something about the way she would push on the words, as if pressing a cut to make it bleed more, that made me think she wanted to believe she was going crazy. Because then whatever was scaring her wasn’t real. I replay those late-night scenes inmy head, imagining myself saying something that might have helped her, that might have made things different. I picture myself telling her what she used to tell me: Whatever it is, it can’t hurt you. I imagine my words releasing Nell’s shoulders from their vise around her ears, her eyes softening and her pupils returning to their normal size inside her deep-green irises.
    But then the image is shattered. In my mind, Nell’s face twists at the approach of something only she can see.
    What is it, Nell? Tell me what it is.
    She shakes her head as if I can’t understand. As if I won’t try to understand. She looks like a child, small and afraid, her bottom lip trembling.
    Nell, tell me what to do. What can I do?
    But she can’t hear me, and then, I can’t hear anything but the faintest whisper. It’s more tonal than a whisper. Like mumbling. Words indistinguishable from one another slur together like overlapping shadows. The wispy sounds fill my ear and command my attention. Nell’s face has gone completely still, and soon she’s rising from the ground, and flipping over like an upturned hourglass. An invisible hand grasps her toe, drags her up the wall, and suspends her from the ceiling so that she’s ready to listen to the words I can’t quite hear from the thing I can’t see.
    As Nell listens, her face goes slack, her eyes widen, and her body drains of life. One leg falls to a bend behind her