Whisper (5 page)

“No, what’s creepy is trying to poison all your sister’s relationships! And if you’re so jealous Mom and I are close, try being nice to her for once.” I paused, breathless with anger. None of this was going how I’d wanted it to. She was pushing my buttons with that sneer, sucking me into her psychodrama vortex. I couldn’t let her. I inhaled more slowly, straightened my itchy wig, planted my hands on my hips, and exhaled. “Okay, look, I just came to tell you one thing. I’m not going to let you ruin
this
birthday.” It didn’t sound like much, and Icka’s patronizing gaze made me painfully aware of how stupid I must look trying to sound tough in my kidnap victim’s getup. But I was proud of myself just for getting it out. I’d put up with so much—way too much—until now, but today I was taking a stand.
“Do you hear me?” I added. “Am I being clear? Stay away from the party…and my friends.”

She gave a short laugh, more like a sob. “I keep telling you, you don’t have friends! None of us does.”

The way she said it, I wasn’t sure if she just meant our family or the whole planet. Either way, she was wrong again—so wrong it made me sad for her.
No one
had friends? That’s what she needed to believe? Even the stoners had each other, and it didn’t take a genius to see why she wasn’t welcome in their dark leather huddle, let alone on the quad. As for the future, things looked even grimmer. At least now she had teachers checking up on her, and parents to go home to. But what would happen to my sister when she turned eighteen without a friend in the world?

“Hey, hey.” Icka touched a hand to the top of her head. “Don’t you start a pity party for
me
, Joy-Joy. I have my problems, I admit it, but at least I don’t need to pretend I’m best pals with the A-list, or should I say the A-hole list.”

Any sympathy I’d felt for her vanished like smoke. “You can’t go after my friendships anymore.” I’d never heard my voice so certain, words tumbling out unplanned but deeply felt. “If you ever do it again, it’ll be the last time I speak to you.”

She snorted and waved her hand as if to shoo a gnat. “Oh, you’re not actually mad at me for that. You have to admit it was funny to watch.”

“It was not funny! Can’t you even see that?”

“The only reason you’re mad,” she went on with infuriating calm, “is because just like that”—she snapped her fingers—“I proved that all your supposed friendships are bullshit. Remind me, how many seconds did it take loyal BFF Parker to turn on you?”

“She did not turn on me!” I was yelling now. “You played on her Whispers. You knew she liked Ben. Your little mind game was just stupid and cruel—not to mention a complete lie. Ben Williams would
never
call me.” I held my breath.

Icka smiled at me. “You’re so hoping he did, though.”

“I am not!”

She shrugged. “I can Hear you.”

I lowered my voice, glanced around, even though we were alone. “Maybe I wish someone as cool as Ben would call me, all right? That’s not the same.” I was aware of the defensive catch in my voice and the slow drunken grin spreading on her face. What was she Hearing now? “So what if I hoped!” I blurted out, hating the satisfaction in her eyes. “So what? It was just a stupid Whisper. Maybe I
am
attracted to Ben. Who wouldn’t be? It’s not like I’d ever let it affect my actions, so what’s the big deal?”

“Oh, I get it!” She widened her eyes and pretended to twirl her hair. “It’s not a big deal if you like him, it’s only a big deal if Parker likes him. She gets whatever she wants, your desires don’t count. Sound fair to you?”

“That is not what I said!” Suddenly I was shouting again. “And it’s not true!”

“You’re wishing it wasn’t,” she informed me with a superior grin. She jumped up from the boulder, as if Hearing me incriminate myself had given her new energy. “It means I was right, part of you already knows the ugly truth.” Now she was inches from my face, vodka on her breath. “Congratulations, little sis, you’re finally seeing the sad, shitty light of reality—where some of us have to live every day.” Her knuckles rapped the side of my head. “Our little Joy-Joy is finally growing up!”

Something snapped in me when she tapped my head.

I knocked her hand away, hard. “I hate you.” I didn’t mean for those words to come out, and when they did I was amazed at how hard my voice sounded. But as I watched her take a slow puff on her cigarette, watched her smirk at having got to me, I realized I wasn’t done. Not close to it. “I hate what you do to our family,” I said. “I hate what you do to my friends. You act like you’re so much better than all of us, when you’re nothing but a mean, nasty, negative…bitch.” I heard her snicker at my hesitation to swear, but I felt detached. This was no longer a conversation, or even a fight. I was just telling her how it was. The ugly truth. “You’re not a misunderstood victim,” I said. “You’re just spoiled and selfish. You have a gift, a power that could make this world a better place, but all you do is make people miserable.”

“Oh, grow up. Making people happier doesn’t make them better.” Ahh, the Humanity Is Evil rant. “People suck. Get it through your head: They’re beyond saving. If
you want to help the rest of the planet, stop spraying chemicals on your head. Stop eating tortured animals shipped using fossil fue—”

“Shut the hell up, you self-righteous bitch.” I was on a swearing roll. Icka’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “I am so tired of feeling sorry for you, when all you do is hurt me and hurt our family and hurt my friends. It’s like the only thing that makes you happy. Well, I’m sorry you can’t be happy, Icka. I really am! I’m sorry you hate your gift. But I’m not going to let you drag me down too. Because I’m not like you. I’m not a freak, like you.” It felt freeing to say the words, so I said them again. “I. Am not. A freak. Like you.”

She groaned. “Too true, you’re not a freak. You’re just like everybody else, another stupid human Whispering stupid, horrible, disgusting desires. I Hear things, all the time. Things that would make you curl up in a fetal ball…and not just from creeps on the bus, either. It’s everyone.” She stared right into my eyes. “It’s you too. What the hell happened to you, Joy? The things you want these days. The things you pray for…it makes me sick. And I don’t have the luxury of shutting bad things out.” She bared her teeth, reached out, swiped back the vodka bottle before I could stop her. “The only thing I can do is stay the hell away from everyone…even you.”

I put my hands on my hips, nearly tottering forward on my four-inch platforms.

“Good, keep talking like that,” I said, surprised at how
tight and angry my voice was. “You’re going to get your wish—you’ll end up all alone, with no one, with nothing. Hiding away from the world like Aunt Jane did. And you know what? The world will be a happier place without
you
in it.” My heart was pounding as if I was about to jump off a cliff—or maybe I’d already jumped. I had tried so hard. To love my sister and be loyal to her, no matter what she said or did, the way Mom could. But we had become the people we’d become, and I had to protect myself. “Stay away from the party tonight,” I heard myself say. “Stay out of my life from here on out. I’m done with you, Jess.”

A strange look had come over Icka’s face. Maybe it was the childhood nickname that no one had called her for so many years. Maybe it was the hardness in my tone—me, Joy, the good sister, owner of the Sweetest Smile. Stiff superiority drained from the corners of her mouth and her eyebrows seemed to sag. I was shocked to realize I didn’t feel a bit sorry for the harsh things I’d just said. I was being cruel like she’d been to my friends, but they had been innocent while she completely deserved it. Even when her black-painted lower lip trembled, all I felt was a sour satisfaction.

Slowly she ground out the cigarette with her boot, then looked up. “I have to go now.” Her voice sounded flat, not even angry anymore, almost like she wasn’t even talking to me. And then she had her bag and her fake 7Up and she was weaving farther down the path, away from school. Into the woods. Typical. She would probably cut the rest of the day. She’d miss her calc test, Mom would
get another call from Mr. Rich…

I leaned against the cold boulder and sighed. I’d done it. I’d finally stood up to my sister. I felt different: grown up. Strong. I also felt alone. But maybe that was part of being grown up and strong. I watched her black-and-purple shape shrinking as the eucalyptus trees around her grew taller. When she was the size of an ant, she seemed to stand still for a second, and my heart thumped. Was she marching back here to fight with me some more? Then I Heard her, as clearly as if we’d been side by side watching Cartoon Network together on the old beanbag chair:
I wish, I wish, I wish I could go back in time.
A moment later, she disappeared behind a tree.

Ten years, one month, and three days ago, my first day of kindergarten never really happened.

Instead, Jessica’s cool small hand on my back woke me in the darkness.
I wish you’d get up now, Joy.

“Already?” I rolled my head to one side. Two stars twinkled outside my window. “Is this a dream?” I said hopefully.

“Nope,” Jess said, whispering out loud this time. “It’s time for me to walk you to the school bus. Now hurry.” She tossed me the hot pink overalls and short-sleeved white T-shirt Mom had gently laid over my desk chair the night before.

I must have dozed off again, because next thing I knew
Jess was shoving one of my arms through an armhole of the T-shirt, then the other. The shirt had a ribbon at the neckline. Even my sneakers, socks, and underwear were all brand-new and had lain in tissue paper for weeks, sacred, waiting for The Day.

I frowned as she snapped on my overalls. “Mom’s s’posed to walk me.”

“She was going to,” Jess agreed, “but then she found out today’s a special early day for kindergarteners and third graders, so she asked me to do it.”

I took this in. Mom hadn’t mentioned a special early day, but Jess was eight. She knew everything. “What about breakfast?”

“I’m bringing it with us,” Jess said in my ear. “We have to be really quiet till we get to the bus stop, okay? Let’s go.” I wanted to ask why we had to be quiet, and what about brushing my teeth, but she didn’t give me time, she just pushed me out the door. I had to keep moving forward or I’d stumble.

In the kitchen, Jess swooped down and grabbed the pink tote bag she had waiting behind the back door. As soon as the latch snapped shut behind us, she grabbed my hand and Whispered,
I want you to run!
and together we ran in the cherry-and-peach-colored dawn up the street, and down another one. When we were several blocks from home and my heart was racing, Jess breathed a huge sigh. “We made it!” She consulted her Hello Kitty digital watch. “Twelve seconds before the bus.”

I felt a funny feeling in my stomach. “Jess? I thought the bus was yellow.”

“Not the third-grade bus,” she said, and she was a third grader so she’d know.

She took my hand, and as I followed her up the steep steps I Heard her frantically praying I wouldn’t say anything in front of the driver. I didn’t know why, but I stayed perfectly silent. She plunked down four whole dollars, and the driver, a lady, narrowed her eyes and asked, “Shouldn’t you kids be headed for school this morning?”

“We’re homeschooled, ma’am,” Jess lied smoothly. “We’re going to Canon Beach to meet our aunt.” I tried not to show how startled I was. Why did Jess lie to the driver? I kept quiet while she led me to the back row. As soon as we sat down, Jess pulled away from me so we weren’t touching.

“Why’d you tell that driver lady we were going to the beach?” I said quietly.

“Oh, that,” she said, “that’s just the password code to get on this school bus. It’s a pretty long ride,” she added. “Why don’t we play I Spy?”

I knew she was trying to distract me, so I just folded my arms.

“I Spy with my little eye, something that is pink.”

“My overalls!” I blurted out, engrossed despite myself. We played until the bus driver said, “End of the line!”

It was a weekday in September, so when the bus dropped us off right across from the beach, the sand was deserted.
Haystack Rock rose up ahead of us like a small mountain, reaching for the sky.

I remembered this place. Earlier that summer, Mom and Jess and I had come here at dawn to meet Aunt Jane, who was taking a one-day break from being a hermit to sell some mushrooms she’d foraged. But Aunt Jane never showed, and pretty soon the beach filled up with strangers. The drone of Whispers I couldn’t understand surrounded me, and I curled into Mom’s lap, covering my ears as if that would help drown out the noise. When Mom said we had to go home, Jess protested, and Mom had snapped at her to be more considerate, not so selfish. Which was what Mom said a lot to my sister back then.

At the beach Jess let out a whoop, dropped her tote bag, and ran across the sand shrieking. Then she ran back and lay down with her head resting on a perfectly round boulder. Had she lost her mind? “We did it!” she crowed. “We did it.”

Worried, I peered over her. “Why are we here? Where’s the school? Why’d you say we were meeting Aunt Jane?”

She turned to me. “Because we are. She’s going to come and get us and take us to her forest to live with her and her pet wolf.” My stomach felt like I’d swallowed a stone. “And then neither of us will ever have to go to school again.”

I sank down onto the sand and started to cry. “But I
want
to go to school.” Up until that moment I hadn’t been so sure of this—I knew I was supposed to go, and I wanted to be good and do what Mom said, but I was also scared
of school. Part of me had been wishing I wouldn’t have to go after all. Now, on this white, deserted beach alone with Jess, I felt a sudden longing for all the things Mom and I had talked about: cubbies and backpacks. Sitting in a circle and raising your hand to talk. Juice in a plastic cup. “I miss Mom,” I whimpered. I’d never been away from home without her. “I want Mom to come take me to school.”

“Joy.” She knelt down to squeeze my hand, and what I Heard confused me, a mixture of hopes and regrets bouncing off one another. “Trust me, you don’t want to go to school. I couldn’t stand to see you go there and be…be like I am. That’s why we’re going to go live with Aunt Jane.”

Weird, how until she’d mentioned it again I’d sort of tricked myself into forgetting her scary plan. “Mom’s going to worry about us.”

“I doubt it. She doesn’t worry about Aunt Jane being so far away.” Her voice had taken on that icy shell it got when she was arguing. “You just go play. I’m going to concentrate on Whispering to Aunt Jane that I want her to come find us. Jane has the most powerful Hearing of anyone in the world!” She closed her eyes and mouthed wishes I couldn’t Hear. Each time she opened them, her eyebrows drooped with disappointment that Aunt Jane had not yet appeared.

My new white school sneakers were gray with sand dust. Slowly I pulled the Velcro tab off one, then the other, took them off, and shook them out, concentrating on removing every pebble and grain of sand. I could have cried. But I
wanted to be brave because I was a big kid now, ready for school. So instead I decided to pretend we were on vacation. While Jess Whispered to Aunt Jane, I played quietly in the waves.

A few minutes later, Jess dug into her tote and unwrapped peanut butter and honey sandwiches with the crusts cut off. She’d prepared them exactly the way I liked, and when I took a single bite I realized I was starving. I bolted the whole thing and promptly fell asleep. When I woke up, Jess was concentrating on my face, squinting the way she did when she was trying to memorize something so she could draw it later.

“Your eyes and your lips look just like mine,” she informed me.

“They do?” I felt a swell of pride. “Maybe it’s because we’re sisters.”

“Duh.” Her eyes got that irritated, impatient look, and I knew she was done talking. She jumped to her feet. “Let’s play that we’re mermaids. No, twin mermaids!”

We were engrossed in a complex mer-family saga, standing in the shade of the rocks, when it happened.

Two motorcycles roared up from each side of Haystack Rock. The riders wore shiny helmets that made them appear inhuman. Identical blue uniforms. Then a squad car with the lights going and a megaphone on top. I was so startled and so scared that my heart suddenly felt huge and sore in my chest. Later we found out the bus driver had tipped them off. They said a bunch of words, probably—in
retrospect—something meant to be gentle and calming to a couple of little kids; but all I heard was my own heartbeat, the jumbled buzzing noise of their Whispers, and Jess’s scream.

She grabbed my hand and started to run. My shorter legs could barely keep up, but her grip was so tight I thought my hand would break off if I fell behind. One of the cops spoke through a megaphone, going on about how no one was going to hurt us and we weren’t in trouble and that our parents were very worried. There was nowhere to go. We were surrounded. But we ran through the sand anyway, tripping on rocks and glass and garbage, running toward the waves and into the freezing ocean, soaking Jess’s jeans and my pink overalls to the waist, and all the while her grip on me never loosened, her frantic Whisper never changed:
I wish I could save you, I have to save you. I need to save you.