Where Silence Gathers (Some Quiet Place #2)(61)

People in these mountains tend to open their doors with sawed-off shotguns in their hands, so I pull out my eyebrow ring in an effort to look less menacing. I glance in the rearview mirror. Two tiny holes glare back at me, red and aching. It might be worse than having the ring in, but I don’t want to be here a second longer than I have to be. I get out, Apprehension fretting around me all the way up to the door. The air smells fetid, like there’s a dead animal under the porch. There probably is. I force myself to lift my hand and knock on the side of the screen door.

Minutes pass. No one answers. Holding my breath against the stench, I knock again. Something stirs inside, then a crash. Someone curses. Footsteps. A woman opens the door and squints at me through the holey screen. She has stringy brown hair and wears a T-shirt so big it hangs off one boney shoulder. But the most noticeable thing about her—though I do my best not to stare—are the jagged scars running down her cheeks and neck. As if something with claws tried to rip her face off.

“What do you want?” she snaps. “I ain’t got no money and I don’t need no religion, you got it?” She swipes at her nose and starts to close the door.

“Does Christine Masterson live here?” I blurt.

She pauses. Opens the door wide again. “What?”

“Does—”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time. Is this some kind of joke? Do you think it’s funny?” Anger and Sorrow are behind her now. She grips the edge of the screen and glares at me. Danger, my instincts whisper.

“I-I’m sorry. This isn’t a joke. My father died a while ago, and I just found out that he and Christine may have known each other. I was hoping to talk to her, to see if she knew anything about him.”

Pause. “You really don’t know?” she asks, the fire in her eyes fading. I shake my head. The woman purses her lips, and Anger departs. She still doesn’t emerge from behind the screen, but she tells me, “Christine disappeared six years ago. No one’s seen her since. Police think she’s probably dead. Hell, so do I.”

Instantly I see that it was stupid to come here. I wasn’t looking for Christine; I wanted something else. More about her Sight, her experiences, how she kept the madness at bay. What the purpose of the experiments actually was. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’m not going to get anything from these people.

“Why do you think she’s dead?” I ask finally, reluctant to let go of one last shred of hope. Stalling. Delaying the inevitable.

The woman’s gaze becomes as distant as her answer. “Someone came and took her away. A doctor. No one raised a finger to stop him. They thought she had a demon in her; they wanted her gone. But I never did. She still called me every day after she left. She always sounded scared. Then the call didn’t come one morning, and later I was attacked by a guy who kept asking me where she was. I never heard from her again, even when I was in the hospital.”

There’s a wealth of feeling in her voice, obvious even if the Emotions weren’t hovering around her. Suddenly, watching her, I see it. They have the same gold flecks around their irises. “You’re her sister,” I say softly.

She doesn’t deny it. Instead she retreats again, her face falling into shadow. “You better go before the folks come home,” she mutters. “They don’t take too kindly to strangers on our land.”

But still I hesitate. I step forward, a board moaning beneath my foot, and reach out as though to touch the door. When she tenses, I falter. Maybe she doesn’t feel it, the connection between us, forged from the white-hot pain of loss. “What’s your name?” I hear myself ask. A bead of sweat slides down the small of my back, and I wonder if somehow one of the creatures from the other plane reached up into the sky and fanned the flames of the sun.

Another palpable silence forms after I’ve spoken. At first I think the woman is not going to answer. She keeps staring into the trees, her features tight and distrusting. Something buzzes past my ear and it feels like the only thing in motion in this tiny space. Relenting, I slowly pull away.

Then the woman surprises me by meeting my gaze, looking at me like Christine looked into the camera. With uncertainty and a strange imploring. “I’m Nora.”

I try to smile. “I’m—”

“I don’t care who you are, girl. You have to go. Now. And don’t come back.” With that, she slams the door.

It doesn’t faze me much; I’m getting used to having doors shut in my face. Sighing, I trudge back to my car and slide behind the wheel. Before the engine has finished rolling over there’s a shimmer out of the corner of my eye, and I know I’m no longer alone.

Part of me expected—hoped—it would be Revenge. We haven’t spoken since he threw his feelings at me. There’s so much to figure out, so much to think on. But that minty fragrance prepares me, and when I turn to face Forgiveness, I’ve buried my disappointment so deep that the Emotion doesn’t even feel my call. My knee bumps the keys dangling from the ignition and they clink into the stillness.

Forgiveness studies the run-down house, interest in his eyes. “Why are you here?” he questions.

It’s a reminder that Nora told me to go, and I wouldn’t put it past her to stomp onto the porch with a gun in her hands. Quickly I reverse onto the road and start the drive back home. Home. The word is so weighted it’s a piece of iron in my head. I don’t respond to Forgiveness and he doesn’t press me. Revenge wouldn’t do that. He would demand and prod and tease until he knew everything.