Some Quiet Place

embrace the stark and colorless walls of my room, and the first thing I’m aware of is the fact that I can’t move. Pain rips through me, shrieking. I glance down and note the fact that my wrists and ankles are duct-taped to the four posts of the bed. There are numerous cuts on my body—legs, arms, stomach—some deep and still bleeding. Tim stands in a corner, watching me, holding a long, glinting knife in one hand. It still drips with my blood.
    I lift my nose and sniff the air. Power fills the room. “I can’t be late for school,” I say, unable to see him, but of course he’s here. I make the mistake of shifting a bit, to get a cramp out of my leg, and wince at the second rush of pain.
    “You already have more tardies than everyone else,” Fear says, appearing at my side. “One more isn’t going to hurt.” He sits down and cool air rushes into my face. He smells of dew and sunlight and horror. “Why is that, by the way?” he adds, small wrinkles appearing in his otherwise-smooth forehead. “You’re a robot in every other aspect, but you can never seem to make it to class on time.”
    Struggling is pointless, so I try to find a more comfortable position, hurting myself in the process. Fear only watches me; he’s still angry. I’ve injured his pride, and he won’t be able to forget that easily. “Could you at least get rid of part of the illusion?” I ask, nodding to my limbs and torso, where the cuts continue to bleed.
    Fear smiles faintly, but it’s not a real smile. “No,” he re-
plies. “I want answers.”
    I give up, going completely still. “What could I possibly know?” I ask.
    In answer, Fear reaches down and picks up one of my paintings. He must have brought it over from the loft. It’s the one of the house by the ocean. Foam shoots into the air, reaching up the cliff side with white fingers. “You create these,” he says. “You dream. And I know you think about it constantly. I want you to tell me everything you know. Who are these people? What happened? Ah … ” He holds up one long, pale finger. “And don’t lie to me. I’m afraid I don’t have the patience for it today.”
    “As you said, I dream and paint,” I say after a moment. I’m weakening from all the blood I’m losing. I wonder how long Fear will let the charade go on. “I know next to nothing; I’ve never seen the girl before. She screams and weeps, and she begs the boy to come back. There isn’t much more than that.”
    Fear grimaces, leaning closer, his hands clasped loosely between his knees. “You’re keeping something from me, Elizabeth. I need to know. Please, just tell me.”
    The wall within me trembles. For an instant, I see the depth of his desperation, his desire, before his mask falls back into place and he’s the cocky, arrogant, self-assured Emotion that I know. The pain is almost gone now; my body has gone numb. I turn my head away from him to look out the window. Morning light is always the most gentle, most serene.
    “I have a theory,” Fear says, disrupting the silence. “About you. See, I don’t really believe that you feel absolutely nothing . There’s too much to indicate otherwise.”
    “Such as?” I prompt. The sooner this ends, the sooner I can get my normal world back and get to school. I’ve never skipped once in my life; I do everything I can to avoid the school making phone calls to my house.
    “You do care, Elizabeth.” Fear touches my cheek, tenderness suddenly filling his gaze. “You care about your friend Maggie, you care about your mom, you care about hurting that boy’s feelings at school. You may not feel in an overwhelming way; you’re subtle about it.”
    “Wishful thinking, Fear. You want to understand, and you want to able to put me in a category. But the reality is we’ll probably never know the truth about what happened to me.”
    “I can’t believe that,” he says, and once again he seems unable to resist touching me when I’m so near. His fingers trail down my neck and he makes little designs on my chest. His fingers are cool, and his essence battles with my immunity. Images of war and pain and terror sweep through my mind.
    The ball of fire in the sky has risen even higher into the endless expanse, and the light inches into my room. It catches the icy blue of Fear’s eyes. “You watched me grow up,” I say. “Wouldn’t a child cry when her parents ignored her? Wouldn’t a girl care when her father hit her? Wouldn’t the way