Some Quiet Place

and walks away. Her footsteps are soundless. At the door she pauses, inclining her head thoughtfully. “One more thing.” She turns and flattens her palms against either side of the doorway. Her tone is hard. “Fear isn’t dead. He’s nearby, in fact, since he was too injured to move very far. While that monster was distracted with you, I pulled him into the woods. I’m doing my best to make sure that he lives. I’ll return once you’ve remembered everything.” She gives me her back again.
    I raise my voice to stop her. “Fear thought you were dead. All this time he was mourning you. Why didn’t you tell him? Did you think you were … protecting him?”
    She pauses but doesn’t turn this time. Finally she says, so softly, “I wasn’t the one he was looking for.” I frown. But before I can utter another word, she’s gone.
    Maybe not quite gone. A second later, her voice sounds from farther down the hall: “If you get killed, I swear I’ll bring you back from the dead just to kill you again myself!”
    The house is a mourning skeleton of a place. Without Sarah, it’s lost its soul, its purpose. I imagine it misses the tender hands that tended to every corner of its insides, misses Sarah’s gentle footsteps and her soothing voice. Even the shadows feel abandoned and empty.
    It’s been three days since she left. Three long, tension-filled days. Sheriff Owen tracks me down to ask me his questions, to which I give vague, useless answers. Tim drinks himself into oblivion for hours on end now, leaving the fields and the livestock untended. Charles avoids the house like a plague. And since Tim isn’t exactly around to notice, Joshua has been by every day, once in the morning to pick me up, once in the afternoon to drop me off. He’s not taking any chances now, and won’t take no for an answer. To anything.
    Now. Now. Now. It’s all I am. All I can focus on. To think of anything else would only bring me around in circles. The questions are too many, the solutions too few. Should I leave? Is Nightmare nearby? When will he pounce? Is Fear still alive? And then there’s Tim to think about—he’s a ticking time bomb, set to burst at any second. Will I survive the explosion this time, especially since Fear won’t be rescuing me again?
    I’m lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, the smell of dry paint filling my nostrils. When a loud creak sounds through the walls, I instantly sit up. My first thought is that Nightmare has finally come back for me. But after a moment, I recognize my brother’s tread: slow, light. Somehow I know what he’s doing. Change is in the air. For a second I ponder if I should confront him or not. Then I slide out of bed and pad to the door.
    “What are you doing?”
    Charles twitches, dropping his bags right there in the hall. They hit the floor with two resounding thuds . He looks at me over his shoulder as if he’s been caught doing something wrong. For a moment it seems like he’s actually considering pretending that he’s not leaving, that nothing is different.
    Moving in a way that won’t startle him, I approach my brother in the dark, bend down, grab the handle of one of his bags, and press it into his sweaty hand. I smile up at him, this boy who will never grow up.
    He swallows. I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down. We both know there’s no pretending this time. And finally he does mutter, “I have to go.” As if the words have a bad taste, he clears his throat. I don’t have the reaction he’s probably expecting: hurt or maybe anger. My calm appears to bother him even more, and, unable to keep eye contact, Charles looks down at his feet. Now he looks like a child about to be scolded.
    I give him what he wants. “It’s okay. I would do the same if I could.”
    Charles laughs a little, shaking his head. “No, you wouldn’t. You’ve never wanted to be anywhere. You never seemed to care about any of it.”
    I pick up his other bag and hand it to him. “That’s not true. I think deep down, I always wanted to paint Venice.” The lie is sudden, effortless. I don’t know why I give it to him.
    He raises his head. “Yeah?”
    “Yeah.” He looks even younger here, in the dim. I re-member Charles as a child, always leaving me behind to play with his friends, always running off when Tim was in one of his moods. “You’re going to live the life you want,” I tell him. “And you shouldn’t feel guilty about that.”
    The grandfather clock at the