Beyond Prying Eyes

Teaser

Mykal. . . Mykal. . . Mykal. The whispers filled her mind as they did every time the name was mentioned. The boy who ran away. The boy who got lost on his way home from a camping trip. The boy with abusive parents.

Of course, none of this was true, but who was Vienna to say? What evidence did she have to compare?

Only her brain, and the constant echo of the chanting words inside it. Only the thump, thump, thump, of her heart and the painful rhythmic beating of the hammer in her temples. Only what she just. . . knew.

Vienna clamped her palms over her ears, trying to force out the murmurs of the name, the unbearably painful name. But the thumping did not cease. She knew it wouldn't, for it never had. Not since this Mykal had disappeared. But that was when she was eight years old. And now, it was eight years later.

Mrs. Vall, her very unflattering aunt, had taken her to the family doctor far too many times, but nothing was ever found. It had been assumed to be a brain tumor of a sort; Aunt Vall was terrible at hiding how happy she was about that. Though soon after, it was in riddance from the list of fatal diseases they had conjured for her, a total of fifty-two crossed off in his dull pencil at the time. That was when the fainting began.

It was a damp morning of her thirteenth year when it happened the first time. The road had been paved with cobblestone pebbles, lined with dewy grass. She could see the school up ahead, its pale brick walls and the dark blacktop. The sky was a deep gray that morning, and Vienna could feel wet droplets tapping on her leather jacket. There was a crash and a rumble, and a whole lot of pain: a streak of light struck somewhere near to her left, and the thunder grew louder, louder. But that was the least of Vienna's worries, because then there was Ayvah, very suddenly beside her.

Ayvah had been Vienna's closest friend since grade school, and they had never left each other's sides for one specific reason: the discussion of the Whisperer's—Ayvah claimed to have them too.

The Whisperer's were the murmuring voices that clouded Vienna and Ayvah's minds. The voices that never changed. Vienna's had always been Mykal, and for Ayvah, Arro.

The only problem was, Vienna had never told Ayvah, or anyone for that matter, about the insurmountable pain the Name caused her. Oblivious to this, every morning at half past seven, Ayvah said,

"Nothing. Nothing about Arro, or Mykal—" Vienna winced, massaging her pounding temples, "—or the Whisperer's. How many more books do you think we will go through?"

Vienna sighed, dropping her hands back to her sides, gripping at the strings that drooped down from her backpack.

"Just keep looking, Ayvah. I've been trying to convince my Aunt and Uncle to allow me a library pass, but I'm not so sure I can get it through to their ego's," she said, tapping her skull lightly and showing off an impressive eye roll.

Ayvah laughed, then stopped quite suddenly, stunned by Vienna's wavering stance. Her fingers were tightly clenched around her backpack strings, where she could not move them; as she thought about it, though she could not honestly think, she could move nothing at all. The beating of her heart became irregular, thumping twice quickly, once slowly. With every beat, it seemed her heart was becoming weaker, pumping less blood. A freshly ripe lemon being squeezed for lemonade. Her fingers grew a dark purple, her face a shade of sickly green, and all along the voices were chanting, chanting the name.

. . . Mykal. . . Mykal—

She toppled over, unfeeling. She could tell nothing apart: not Ayvah from the Whisperer's, not the thump of her head against the cobblestone from her heart.

And all along the voices were chanting, chanting the name.

Then it was over, but Vienna saw nothing of the sort, remembering not a thing except that she had been standing, then was suddenly lying on the ground, the grass slightly smashed around her. . . but she also seemed to already know what Ayvah was going to explain. Everything she thought about seemed to come from another mind, as though she had two minds. But that was silly.