Some Quiet Place (Some Quiet Place #1)(85)
Heart in my throat, I move as if to touch him, but Fear shakes his head, moving back so he’s out of my reach. Doesn’t he know that if I could bring Elizabeth back for him again, I would?
I chew my lower lip, wishing again that I had the strength to tell him how I really feel, that I don’t want him to leave me again, that it’s him I think about, not Joshua. It never was, even that night I chose him over Fear. Where is that damn Courage when you actually want him to appear? “Fear—”
“Don’t.” Again he doesn’t let me finish. “You’ve given me enough. Just a glance in my direction was a rush.” He winks, shoving his hands in his coat pockets. He’s moving even farther away and I don’t attempt to stop him. What more is there to say? As if to agree with me, Fear shrugs, and his form begins to lighten, go transparent, as he leaves me yet again. Even though I hate myself for it, I don’t stop him.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Fear murmurs. “Just go to him. Love him. Be happy again. After all you’ve been through, you deserve it. I was right, by the way,” he adds unexpectedly.
I swallow. “Right about what?” I ask faintly.
He fades completely from sight. “You do look beautiful in a dress,” his voice whispers in my ear. Then … silence. I let him go.
Twenty-Five
Sometimes I think I hear my twin’s tread on the ground, coming closer. It always turns out to be nothing. A deer, a breeze, my imagination. That voice in the back of my head has been nudging me lately. The numbness is gone, along with everything else, and the voice of feeling hisses at me, demands that I acknowledge it’s not the absence of my family holding me back from life now. From the very thing I can’t make disappear with an illusion. Forever a part of me, no matter how much I resent it.
One afternoon, as I pick my way across a creek, Courage is suddenly beside me. When I don’t stop he walks with me. I glance at his profile sidelong, curious as to what he could possibly want. But I refuse to ask, so we trek in silence together. The bare trees watch us.
Courage doesn’t let the stillness remain for long. “So is this your plan? To wander around here and mope for the rest of your life?” He walks so perfectly, so controlled, arms behind his back, shoulders straight. His boots hit the ground with tidy clips. I can’t help comparing him, over and over, to his brother. Fear has a bright fa?ade and dark insides; he’s horror and a windy recklessness that carries millions over the plains with no hope of ever stopping. And Courage … he’s dark on the outside but carries a light within; he’s calm and encouraging and his very breath is a soothing dash of water on a hot, hot day.
“You’re easily distracted,” Courage notes. He stops, and I choose to stop alongside him. A slant of sunlight falls across my face, but I don’t move out of the way. Instead I revel in the warmth, shivering when I remember the darkness of Nightmare’s shack.
Suddenly, when Courage speaks, he is hardness and de-termination. He cuts right to the point, wills me to accept his words. “The other plane loves you. They always have. It wasn’t your brother that was the strong one. You were able to bring us all together as no others could, because of the sound of your laughter and your smiles. Your very step on the forest floor had the trees stretching tall to impress. It was you, Rebecca, and not Landon that survived Nightmare. And why do you think that is?”
I consider walking away, but Courage has me intrigued. Instead of answering his question, though, I tilt my head and study him in a removed way, as if I’m hardly bothered by his confrontation. “Why do you care so much?”
Finally his stony expression cracks. He sighs, impatience leaking into the sound. A small breeze stirs a strand of my hair. “Because not only does my brother care for you, silly creature, but I hold some affection for you as well,” he snaps. “Have you forgotten the dances? The stories you told me on the days I thought my brother would smother me with his zealous campaign of terror?”
Of course I haven’t forgotten. I do remember all those nights in these woods. Courage always stood by in the shadows, watching the festivities. If he continued on in that manner for most of the party, I would eventually drag him into the noise and the lights and force him to dance with me. And
the stories … they were Landon’s, but I repeated them to Courage when I found him rubbing his temples, deep in contemplation. Fear is strong, and sometimes courage is not so easy to instill in a human inclined to succumb to the panic.
I turn my back to Courage, smiling. “It’s nice, seeing you ruffled. It’s been too long since I’ve kept you on your toes.”
“Yes, much too long,” he agrees, wry now. “No games, please, Rebecca.”
Frustration bubbles up within me. “What do you all expect me to do? Go back? Live with the humans? No. No one can make me.” I hate how that last part comes out so petulant, as if I’m a child. Scowling, I feign interest in a withering tree. It crackles and grows taller, greener, at the brush of my fingers, a strange appearance in the middle of this sleeping forest.
Courage touches me for the first time, grasping my arm. A surge of feeling rushes through my body, and I’m seized with a desire to conquer the world. There’s nothing but horizon before me—I can run and leave this place of ghosts and do whatever I want—