Some Quiet Place (Some Quiet Place #1)(15)
This time Fear doesn’t catch me by surprise. He approaches from the west, quick as a shooting star—I feel the wall of nothingness stir, hear the cows’ sounds of unease begin. I sit in the loft of the barn, my hands lying limply in my lap, staring at one of the paintings. My attention keeps going to the boy, and the last dream replays over and over again in my head: those words, the red eyes, the hungry insects.
There are just a few minutes of sunset left. The weakening light leaks into the loft, warming my skin. I close my eyes.
“You never did explain the newspaper to me,” I say.
Fear sits down beside me, his dark coat billowing around us, sending cool air flowing in all directions. I shiver, keeping my eyes on the brush strokes. Fear reaches out and brushes my hair over my shoulder. His finger touches my neck in doing so, and where any other person would scream, I only look at him. He pushes images into my mind that might drive someone else insane. Blood. Rape. Glinting knives and torture devices lying on a table, then a moment later being delved deep into flesh. Even more, which I only observe, a detached spectator.
“You’ve lived a long life,” I say. “Some might say too long.”
“And others may say too short,” he counters, pulling away. “I am what I am.”
“Do you ever get tired of it?” I ask, because I wonder if anyone is really capable of change. Or are we only lying to ourselves, believing in something different, something more? Perhaps change is equivalent to believing in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy.
Fear scoffs at the question, stretching out his long legs before him. “What a strange idea—getting tired of instilling terror in humanity when it’s what I exist to do.”
“Your brother said something along the same lines, I think.” I’m not paying attention to the words coming out of my mouth; my mind wanders, contemplating the dreams again. Never once has the girl or the boy said a name. And those red eyes … my instincts still want to point at someone. Or something. For some reason, the image of that menacing shadow chooses to push itself at me at that moment. The one in the painting I’m looking at now, standing over the girl. Just watching.
“You met Courage?” Fear’s voice is sharp and it brings me back to reality. His white-blond hair is wild, unpredictable. The beautiful layers are alive with light. He can be a pleasure to look at, and I understand how some other humans love to experience his essence. We can sense beauty, even if we can’t see it.
It’s colder now that the sun is slipping away. Pulling my knees close to me and clasping my arms around them, I look down at the floor as I answer. “Yes. He was visiting someone in my class.”
“And what did you think of my counterpart?” Bitterness twists Fear’s voice, his agitation making the hay around our feet stir. Some cows below sense his unrest and begin to bay uneasily.
“Calm, Fear,” I say, resting my hand on his arm. He stills at the touch, looking at my hand with a combination of bewilderment and wonderment.
“No mortal has ever touched me so willingly,” he murmurs. The silken quality to the words causes my wall of nothingness to quiver again. Instinct takes hold, but just as I start to pull away, Fear moves in a blur, snatching hold of me. His fingers interlace with mine, and his power wars with my emptiness for the umpteenth time. But on some deeper level, I do sense a connection to Fear. Not to his essence, of course … to something else. Something far more substantial. But I can’t name it.
As the quiet wraps around us, I bend my head toward Fear’s and examine the touch. Our hands are odd together—my skin is dark from hours working beneath the sun, and his is pale, smooth, perfect. Not human.
At the thought, I pull away. “I’m just not like most mortals.” I smile blandly at Fear.
Surprisingly enough, he doesn’t react. “I’ve been watching you your entire life,” he says instead, directing his attention to the beams in the ceiling. “The first time we met you were … four? Maybe five. That scum swung his fist at your mom, and my touch didn’t affect you. You were just standing in a corner watching it all. You looked right at me. You were wise enough even at that time not to speak out loud. You’re wrong when you say I’m here because I’m bored. I’ve been looking for answers since that day.”
The screen door to the house slams in the distance. Probably Tim coming in from the fields. I turn my head to look at Fear. He doesn’t notice; he’s staring at the painting straight across from us. His brow is furrowed. He’ll never quit trying to figure me out, not even for a second.
“How did you entertain yourself before you found me?” I ask him absently, just filling an empty space with words.
Fear goes against my expectations by actually answering. And it’s strange, because his tone is similar to mine: detached, blank, inconsequential. Like he doesn’t want to care. “Before you, there was another girl,” he murmurs. He shifts, restless, and I see a pain in his eyes that he can’t hide. He’s never spoken of this before, and I speculate the reasons behind this. “Not like you, of course.” He doesn’t smirk or grin. “She was … she felt everything. She danced with so much abandon that everyone would stop just to watch. She was impassioned by just about anything. Her family, her home.” He falters, very unlike his normal behavior.
“And you loved her,” I say simply. Why does the insight cause my wall to twinge? Even more bizarre is that I ignore the usual impulses and refrain from exploring this.