Some Quiet Place

Fear stands in a dark corner, looking at me, one side of his mouth tipped up in a mischievous smile. I study him, blinking. I hadn’t sensed him coming. “You don’t usually come to see me this often,” I say after a pause. “You found something.”
    A breeze drifts in through the open window, and Fear’s white-blond hair ripples. Unaware, he raises his brows at me. “Something has happened here, I think. You looked like you were on a different planet when I came in. What is it, hmmm? Did you find something tucked away in that pretty head of yours?”
    He’s never seen my paintings before, and though I don’t look at them, Fear glances away from my face and notices. He makes a sound of interest, striding from one to the next, doubtless memorizing them as clues to the mystery that is me. “You’ve never told me about your … hobby before.” He lingers in front of one, arms folded behind his back. He tilts his head, and that silky hair brushes against his jaw. “Your style is sloppy; there’s no way of knowing who the girl is. All I can make out is her teeth and her dark hair.” He reaches out and touches the curve of the girl’s cheek in one painting. Phantom fingers brush my real cheek as he does so.
    “Stop it,” I say.
    “Or what?” He spins to face me. “You don’t care.” When I don’t reply, he sobers. “Tell me.”
    I shake my head. “You don’t need to know.”
    He steps closer. I feel the air around us cool, and his essence clashes against me. When yet again I remain stoic, Fear sighs. I look up at him from where I sit.
    “It’s not boredom, or just the need to know,” he informs me, eyes glittering. “I pity you, Elizabeth, and I want to help you.”
    Now I stand, and it brings me so close to him that our chests are almost touching. My wall of nothingness quivers at the proximity. It’s an odd sensation. I just arch my neck back to meet his earnest gaze. “You don’t pity me,” I tell Fear. “You don’t want to help me. You want to help yourself.”
    A scowl twists his beautiful face. He clenches his fists, checks himself, and forces himself to unclench them. A moment later his impish smile has returned. But underneath the charming façade his intent still lurks. “You do puzzle me, Elizabeth the Numb.”
    I turn my attention from him to the paintings. Shadows slant over them now as night sneaks in. “Whatever you think you found, Fear, is nothing. If someone did do this to me, they made sure that the trail to them would never be uncovered.”
    “Ah.” He lifts a finger. “But that’s not true. I found this.” He reaches into his black overcoat and takes out a newspaper, yellowed with age. He hides its contents.
    “What is it?” I ask, just as he wants me to.
    Fear unfolds the paper, mocking me as he pretends to read it. I don’t play the game by reaching for it. He sighs, relenting, and holds it out to me. “Oh, very well. Since you want it so badly.”
    I take it with both hands, noting my own picture on the front page. I’m about three or four—it’s one of the pictures Mom has framed in our living room. It’s the girl that I don’t recognize as myself; her face glows with that inner life. Girl Survives Car Accident , the headline reads. But as I start to scan the words—I’m barely past the second sentence—the entire article fades away, the letters, the picture, everything, until I’m holding nothing but a blank paper.
    “What is it?” Fear frowns when I hand it back to him. He takes in the empty page, brow furrowed in thought. “The plot thickens,” he murmurs. “But now we know that there is someone behind this. Your immunity really could be a power of some sort in play.”
    “And how do you propose we find out?” I ask, sitting back down and looking out the window again. The hay pokes at the bottoms of my thighs. “I’m starting to think whatever happened to me was meant to make me forget something. I don’t think it’s just emotions that have been removed from me—there are memories missing, too.” If that’s what the dreams are. But are they my memories? Or … someone else’s? And why can’t I remember when this change in me occurred?
    I turn to face Fear again and see his gaze sharpen. “Maybe they did this to you to hide something. You could’ve seen something you weren’t supposed to … ”
    The sun has finally left, and the moon’s faint outline begins to emerge from the other side of the sky. “Maybe,” I