Some Quiet Place

moment of stiff quiet.
    At this she moves to stand by the bed. Her jerky movements speak volumes. Irritation and maybe a little relief at seeing me alive. “I shouldn’t have come back,” she snaps. “No one else is stupid enough to be in this horrid little place while that monster is around.”
    “Ah, yes.” My eyes narrow. “Him. Are you trying to get me killed? Because I’m assuming he’s the reason you told me not to go Sophia’s party that night. You knew he would be here.”
    Rebecca breathes through her nose, a visible sign she’s striving for control. All I can see of her is the bottom of her chin. “The key words there are told you not to . You deliberately went against my warning. He’s been looking for you, and I knew he’d be drawn to that party like a moth to a flame.”
    “Why was he after me?” I ask bluntly.
    Now she sighs, walking to the window to peer out. “You’re so stubborn. If you would just … ” She stops, begins again. “One of the side effects of the illusion on you is that I can’t tell you a thing about why I placed it in the first p-place. If I’m around when you discover something from the past, I have no choice b-but to remove the evidence.” She grips the windowsill with white fingers. “My own essence makes sure I do, and that I don’t speak of it, or it causes me searing pain. Which is part of the reason I’ve been so vague with you.”
    An illusion? That’s when I put another piece of the puzzle together. She’s the one who made the newspaper disappear . How long has she been watching me?
    Putting aside thousands of questions—about this, about Nightmare, Landon’s murder, their mother and the stone house, my past, the power—I ask the question that’s been stalking me since all this began. “Do you know why Courage told me I would need Joshua?”
    “Because I told him I thought the boy could break through!” she explodes. She’s agitated; she speaks with her arms, waving them around her head and pacing the floor. “It would’ve been the quickest way. It seemed like you were feeling something for him. All the signs were there! You were smiling, letting him close. I saw the way you looked at him when he brought you to see those ridiculous bugs.” Then, abruptly, she stops, rubbing her temples. She forces her tone to be even. “I haven’t seen you look at anyone like that since … ” She trails off, shaking her head.
    Since when? Where do I fit into all this? For a moment I experience the faintest, faintest stirrings of frustration. So many questions she won’t answer. Even though it’s useless, I can’t help but ask, “Who am I?”
    She blatantly ignores the question, of course, preferring to finger the edge of my blanket and focus on the material. Her nose wrinkles with disgust. “Hate hospitals,” she mutters to herself.
    “This … illusion, as you call it, was put on me a long time ago, and you only recently sought me out. Why did you hide for so long?” I ask next. “Why all the games?”
    Restless again, Rebecca stalks over to the wall to examine a painting hanging there. Her hood slips a little, and she catches it with fast fingers, putting it back over her face. “I already told you,” she says. “I can’t do anything but watch. In the beginning, I did stay. After a while I realized how pointless that was, so I left. But when I caught wind that he was hanging around Edson, I couldn’t just do nothing, so I came back. I had to warn you. Little good it did. My only hope of the illusion breaking was the kid. That way, you would have your powers to defend yourself against that monster.”
    Powers? What am I? But of course I won’t get an answer if I ask. “You can’t remove it?” I ask her instead, following her with my eyes as she moves around the room.
    She shakes her head. I study the small scrap of her face that I can see; she has a full bottom lip. “No. It fades with time, and if it’s to be removed sooner than it’s meant to be, only you can do it—by feeling heightened emotion, like love or terror or grief. It’s happening, though; I bet you’ve noticed. Emotions are breaking through. Your own power really is too strong to be restrained for long.”
    “It’s been restrained for more than thirteen years,” I tell her, resisting the urge to ask about my abilities.
    “Because you are unbelievably adept at lying to yourself. Truly, I’m amazed.”
    Maintaining a firm hold on all of this information is a