Some Quiet Place

motions of the milk separator. “No.” It’s not denial, only truth. The hard, cold, simple truth.
    After throwing away the heavy cream and pouring the milk into a bottle, I walk out. Fear saunters beside me with his hands shoved in his pockets. It’s still dusk, the sun ducking down in the sky behind wisps of clouds. The fields are dark. The tall corn stalks sway gently, rustling.
    “I watch you sometimes, you know,” Fear tells me abruptly, taking my attention away from the horizon. We’re at the front door of the house. He opens the door for me and stands aside. Entering loudly so I don’t startle Mom, I set the bottle down on the counter along with the separator. The milk sloshes within the glass. She looks up from her place in front of the sink.
    “Did you close up the barn?” she asks, and as always she’s blind to Fear’s presence. It’s me that causes the shadows in her eyes, her wary tone. She’s been looking at me this way ever since I can remember; I frighten her. I heard her tell Dad once that I act unnatural. She wishes I were normal, like every other teenager in Edson. My efforts seem to be futile so far.
    I shake my head no. Mom takes both the bottle and the separator. One for the fridge, one for the sink. I catch the faintest sound of a sigh as she turns away. She opens the fridge door. “Tim will get mad if he notices. Better go do it.”
    Fear watches the two of us with mild fascination. He’s seen it all before, but he never seems to tire of examining me and my life. “She really just wants you to get out of the house,” he says. Not cruelly. It’s a blatant observation.
    I let the screen door slam shut behind me. “I know.”
    The Emotion follows again, his hair gleaming in the weak light. This time he stares ahead with a thoughtful, almost frustrated expression. A crow swoops overhead. Caw. Caw .
    “Leave,” I tell Fear, entering the barn once more. “Nothing will change.” I check to make sure the cooler is shut and lock the side door. I brush past Fear to go out the garage door.
    Flames shoot up the walls. The heat throws me back, and I land on my side. There’s a brief flare of pain, but then my survival instincts kick in; I jump to my feet and search for an unblocked exit. Survive . I run back to the side door, but the floor above me collapses. I barely leap out of the way in time. I spin. All the ways out are guarded by the fire. Hay hisses and bursts. The cows bay in their terror, and my skin sears with heat and pain. I do the calculations several times, but Fear has done them, too, and he has every possible avenue of escape eliminated.
    Heat eats up my pant leg, up my side and arm. I drop and roll. The smell of burnt flesh fills the air. I’m burning alive, I realize. The physical pain swiftly grows overwhelming, and tears run down my cheeks. But pain is usually impossible to endure because of the rush of feeling that comes along with it. I should be frantic. I should be screaming with
horror.
    I feel nothing. I am nothing.
    “Stop, Fear,” I say with my wet cheeks and smoking skin. Hell continues to crackle around me.
    I hear him sigh yet again, doing an excellent imitation of my mother. Then, in the space of a single blink, the fire is gone. Everything is the way I left it, nothing destroyed or charred, although it’ll take the cows a while to calm. Power shivers around me. I search for Fear as the burns on my skin close up—it was all an illusion. There he stands, leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest. It’s as if none of it ever happened.
    “Who could have done this to you?” Fear muses for the thousandth time. “What could have that kind of power, and for what purpose? You’re completely human—I’d know if you were anything else. You haven’t been sought out, collected, or studied. Why—”
    “I’m going to the house,” I cut in. “If you’re going to come, fine. But please calm the cows down first. Dad grounded me last time he came out and saw them so riled. He thought I’d done it.”
    “Why would you care if you were grounded? You never go out.”
    I don’t say it out loud, but it’s simple, really. I pretend to care because a normal teenager would. I make any and all attempts to be just that. But I don’t want Fear to know this; it’ll only encourage his obsession.
    “I won’t rest until I’ve tasted your terror, Elizabeth,” Fear tells me. He vanishes.
    I stare at the wall for a moment, absorbing the absence