Some Quiet Place

doesn’t follow me.
    Fear does, though. He doesn’t speak again until we’re out in the hall. It’s empty at the moment; everyone is at lunch. I stop in front of a poster that says, QUIT SMOKING. IT KILLS . The picture is of a person lying on a metal table, covered by a sheet. I stare at it, waiting for the inevitable.
    The silence drags on too long; now it’s my voice shattering the air, and it sprinkles over our heads like shards of glass. “I don’t belong to you.” I say it because it must be said. No matter what other components there are in the equation, this is the most prominent.
    Fear stands behind me, and there’s a gust of wind where there shouldn’t be one. The lights flicker. He’s so close to my back that his coat flaps against me. I can hear screams, sobs, moans of people all over the world, trapped in Fear’s shadow.
    “For the first time in your life, you act without thinking,” Fear finally says, his voice a growl. “Nothing good can come of this.”
    I face him, arching my neck back. His beautiful eyes blaze and his mouth is set in a thin line. His long hair whips at his cheeks. He can’t ever know about how often he invades my thoughts; by just doing nothing, I’ve encouraged him, and for both our sakes, this has to end. “Do you care for my benefit, or for yours?” I ask.
    My words displease him greatly. He’s tolerated my oddity and insolence up until now, but in his world, mortals obey and tremble when confronted by those from the other plane.
    “This boy has disrupted everything,” Fear snaps, grasping me by the arms. His hold is so tight that I wince. “You’ve stopped looking for the truth. What do you think can happen from here? You grow up, marry him, live a normal life? No. Whatever you think, you can’t live a life like this. Eventually he will want to tear away your façade, and when he realizes there’s nothing behind it, everything you think you have will be destroyed. It’s all pretense, Elizabeth. You especially should know this.”
    The feeling goes out of my arms, and instinct shrieks to succumb to Fear, but I don’t. I know what I need to do to pierce him, drive him away. Even Fear wouldn’t want to remain if it seems I’m drawn to another. “What if it’s not?” I whisper. The statement is quiet, helpless, a fragile thing, but Fear’s eyes widen as if I’ve sprouted seven heads and stuck out a forked tongue at him.
    “Have you changed?” His voice is hoarse, and he’s even paler than normal. “Do you feel?” He leans closer, inhaling my scent. When that’s not enough, he presses his cold, cold lips to mine. I close my eyes, seeing terror in the darkness of my eyelids. Fear pulls back, breathing heavily. “No, you’re the same. But … ” He shakes his head. “This boy,” he repeats, fingers tightening even more like I’m about to float away and he’s all that anchors me to the earth. “Stay away from him. He’s a danger to you.” Fear is earnest in this; I see the desperation in the depths of his gaze. But again, it’s for his own purposes that he says it.
    The bell is seconds away from ringing; I hear doors slamming open, a loud laugh breaking out. Sophia calls out to a girl about her birthday party this weekend. “There are people heading this way,” I tell him. “I need to go.”
    He only jerks me closer. “You can’t love him ,” he whispers. “I’ve waited so long. Why the boy? Why is it he that pounded a hole through the wall?”
    Finally he lets me pull away, watching me go with wild eyes. And even though it causes an alien sensation in my wall to say it, I do, because this is not the way things should be. “Maybe it’s because he wasn’t trying to.”

FOURTEEN
    This time, when I walk into Maggie’s dark hospital room, she’s really asleep. I falter. It would be smart to turn around and head straight back home before Tim notices I’m gone. But after a moment I find myself walking to the chair by her bed and sitting down, looking at her. Light slants across the floor from the hall.
    She’s steadily getting worse. The evidence is there in the lines of her face—lines that shouldn’t be there—and it’s there in the way she frowns even as she dreams. Her eyelashes brush gently against her sallow cheeks. There’s no black eyeliner, no skull necklace, no black wig. Just a sad, dying little girl. She breathes evenly, and my gaze slides down to the IV in her wrist, the pulse-oximeter clamped down on her