"SHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEK."
I can't I can't I can't I can't
Whispering, so many words, wisps in the air, dead dead dead dead
Breathe Breathe Breathe Breathe
"Miss? Miss, it's going to be okay. Just stay calm."
Paramedic Man in uniform, gloves and badge and tight lips set in frustration and pressure.
I need I need I need I need
But you aren't real, I say to him. You aren't here.
Him Him Him Him
The words don't even leave my mouth.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
"Have they found anyone?"
Fire and smoke and grey is the world, and I can't-
"No-not yet."
SHUT UP, I scream. DON'T TALK! YOU'RE HELPING NOTHING! JUST SHUT UP!
They don't listen, they don't listen to me, and the walls are closing in on me, and I don't know what to do-
HELP
And then it all fades away, replaced by an opaque and lucid silvery smoke, and a transparent and strangely warm hand reaches for mine. "Shhhhh," it says. "It's okay now. It's okay now."
I am I am I am I am
I take his hand and then I'm FALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLINGGGGGGGGGGGG-
"Fallon," she says, "I swear, you'd better wake your butt up right now or I'm tanning your hide. You're freaking me out, girl! Wake up!"
I am thrust up and into myself again, my soul reconnecting with my body, and I'm hyperventilating and sweating.
"Alice Maria Fallon!" Fran says to me, sitting in the bus seat beside mine.
I blink at her, then lean my head up against the cool glass window and moan. The bus is a beige world of talking and colorful t-shirts and body odor; my back hurts from hunching over subconsciously.
"Was it the nightmare again?" Fran asks me, looking frantic. Her curly brown hair is sticking up in odd places, and her grey eyes search mine. Fran is a small creature of olive skin and small hands, thin face and pale lips. She is my best friend. And I've never told her about the nightmares.
I look away and tell her so. "I've never mentioned those to you before."
"Yeah, what, and you expected me not to notice something?" Fran laughs, a worried glint in her eye. "I sleep over at your house, like, every weekend. You're not exactly subtle about it, tossing and turning and groaning like that in your sleep."
My face burns red and I duck my head down behind the dark green bus seat. "Oh, gah, please tell me I didn't do that here."
"Relax. I was just kidding. Sort of-you did it once." She shrugs. "But you were like, deep into it. Freaked me out. What do you dream about, anyway?" She lightly giggles and shakes her head. "Like you didn't believe I could figure it out. What, did you forget our Best Friend-ship or something?" Her eyes widen. "Ohmigosh, it's totally about Cam, isn't it? Or is it, like, one of those where you lose all your teeth?"
"One question at a time, please, Fran. You're hurting my head." I pull my head back off the cool window peppered with raindrops and say, "I've been having these weird dreams about the old house on my street burning down."
"The old Rhodes place?" Fran frowns. "Ugh. That place creeps me out."
"Not really," I say. "It's not creepy."
"Girl. It's right outside your window. You see the thing every night." Fran rolls her eyes and leans back, putting her thin arms behind her head. "Like, doesn't it make weird noises? They say that it makes weird noises."
"It makes weird noises," I agree. "It's just . . . not creepy."
"Haunted, then. Whatever." Fran snorts. "It would be like Alexander, to have a haunted house."
I snort at that. Alexander, Virginia: the loveliest place on earth. Alexander's a beat-up, quiet, small town with old money and new dirt. We have no McDonalds, no Walmart, none of that. Pretty much all we have are old people who complain too loudly and dirt roads leading to houses in disarray and churches in disarray and schools in disarray. And somehow, I still love it. It's also the town I've been in since before I could remember, and so, I know first-hand-Alexander would be the place to have a haunted house.
Except it's not haunted. 1586 Whisper Drive is not haunted. I've been defending that giant piece of brick since I was small and will continue to do so, for no reason I can think of other than it'll help me sleep at night.
I say, "It's always after the fire, though-the dream is-and I'm sitting on the sidewalk outside the house. The paramedics are there, too, and they keep telling me that it's all right, but I can't help but feel like-in the dream-that there was something I'd lost when the house burned down. And I can't breathe because of it. That's how important it is. And then, I start screaming, and everything changes to silver-and there's this hand that reaches out to me and this male voice, telling me everything's okay now, so I shut up. And then, I take the hand, and I fall."
"Dang," Fran says. "That's some pretty serious crap. And, what, you weren't going to mention this to me?"
I shrug. "It's just a dream, Fran." The bus rolls to a stop when we get onto another street, and the doors slide open.
"Yeah, but it's a reoccurring dream. Those almost always mean something important." Her face lights up. "Ohmigosh, it's totally Cam's hand. Isn't it? Oh, my gosh!"
I try to say something, but my words don't work at first. Cameron Banks used to be the third part of our trio. The three of us were more or less inseparable, until freshman year of high school, when I decided I was more or less in love with him, and when he decided he was more or less done with us. I mean, I get it. You hit jock status, you're the star junior varsity wide receiver, and you want to have the spot of varsity wide receiver in the palm of your hand, so you start training more than anything else and you turn out gorgeous and everyone who didn't know you before starts paying attention . . . and your two best friends start to seem plain. The choice is simple. You give up the only two people who really know you and love you for glory and fame and all that.
Never mind. I don't get it.
Anyway, ever since Fran found out I liked him, she's been planning our wedding. She's seriously picked out invitations already. I can't bring myself to tell her how much I dislike him now.
"I don't think so," I say, glancing out the window again. We jerk forward as the bus starts moving. "The voice is different, somehow. More . . . I don't know, colder? Creepy? Maybe? I really don't-"
And then I stop.
"Don't?" Fran encourages. She waits a few seconds, then waves a hand in front of my face. "Hello, hellooou, earth to Alice? Come in, Alice. Don't go down the rabbit hole just yet. Not without me, at least."
All the color is drained from my face. I can feel it, trickling downward like drops of water inside my skin, until it's no longer there.
". . . What's . . . wrong?" Fran says, her voice soft and slow and concerned. She glances past me and onto the street we're on.
It's my street. The one we've already been down this morning. It's the street of the mismatched houses-old beaten up bricks and houses passed down for generations and the great monstrosity of a Victorian mansion-it is Whisper Drive.
And the bus only goes down this street once.
"What are we doing going down this street again?" Fran wonders aloud, like she always does. I knit my eyebrows together, my lips parted. What are we doing, going down this street again?
We roll to a stop in front of my house. It seems young and old at the same time, a deeply red brick house with three stories including the attic. My eyes flash as the completely ridiculous idea that I'm somehow being thrown out of the bus impresses itself against the back of my head.
But no-it's not that at all.
The doors slide open.
"Sorry about this, Mr. T! I really appreciate you coming back for me," Cameron Banks says as he steps onto the bus. You know. Speak-of-the-Devil Cameron Banks.
Mr. Trent, the bus driver, coughs gruffly. "Don't expect this again, Mr. Banks. I have a tight shift to run. It's 7:00 A.M. sharp or never, you got me?"
"Yes, sir," Cameron says, flashing him a trademark You're-The-Best-In-The-Whole-Wide-World blinding grin. The same grin, I might add, he gave me when I let him eat the rest of my food at school or see my math homework.
He begins to walk down the aisle. Cameron doesn't usually ride the bus, so this must be some kind of special favor. I think his new Best Buds drive him to school everyday. And yet, even without the crew, he's still got people at the very back calling his name for him to come sit with them. Fran stiffens at my side and starts whacking me repeatedly with her elbow. This is her way of being "subtle." I grab her elbow, give her The Look, and shove it back to her side.
We're near the front of the bus, so it takes no time at all for Cameron to get to us. And as he's passing our seat, Cameron looks straight at us, his blue eyes analyzing what used to be his friend base. I swear Fran stops breathing in anticipation. In a romance book, or in Fran's fantasy world that she's come up with for me, this would be the instance where he realizes that he's in love with me, I start pushing him away because of my special "walls" that I've put up and crap, he pushes harder, and then, BAM!: eternal love. And thus, let the hormonal war begin!
But it doesn't.
Because Used-To-Be-My-Best-Friend Cameron Banks just looks away.
Just looks away, dismissing us-the two girls who accepted him before he was cool-to the back of his mind.
So I just look away, too.
As soon as he's out of earshot, Fran squeezes my arm and squeals. "Oh. My. Gosh. He stared at you, like, for a whole five seconds!"
I roll my eyes. "Oh, yeah, Fran, sure. Five whole seconds. Practically a marriage proposal right there."
"Oh, okay, sure, be all snotty with me, fine. But I'm telling you-we can work with this. This look could turn into another look which could turn into sideways glances which could turn into full-out ogle sessions! We could seriously use this, Liss!"
A slow smile break out on my face, and Fran squeals again and pumps her fist into the air, secretly. I have to love her optimism.
And then we pass 1586 Whisper Drive.
For the most part, 1586 Whisper Drive is a large, blue-black, monstrous beast with overgrown hedge bushes and vines growing up and down the sides. But it's also gorgeous and magnificent-in size, in architecture. White columns support the slanting stone roofs; dusty windows are framed by ornate, vibrant curtains; stone steps lead up to a gigantic double door. They say that if you listen hard enough when passing it, you'd swear you could hear piano music. For me, though, I never get close enough to try. What I know of the mystery of the old Rhodes place comes from old ghost stories and town legends.
What I really know of 1586 Whisper Drive comes from stolen glances from in between closed blinds in my house and rearview mirrors in buses and cars. And, most importantly, the soft pull somewhere deep inside the bottom of my torso that ties me to the house. You know. That one that I've tried my best to ignore. I figure that everyone feels something like that-a pull to a possible mystery. That pull.
Fran shudders beside me. "Ugh. Hate that place. Hey, you think you're psychic? Maybe you're having these dreams because it really is going to burn down sometime soon." Fran dusts her hands off. "And I say, good riddance."
We make a turn at the back of the road and pass back by the house once more.
Deft, careful, frozen fingers and palms slide up my ribs.
I shudder, too, and Fran takes this as the go-ahead to launch into a full analysis of every single thing that makes the house the creepiest place on earth, and I watch 1586 Whisper Drive, watch every little itty bit of it, watch the shadows that change ever so slightly as the sun moves, watch the curtain in the open window move in and out in the wind, watch the overgrown weeds sway in and out and in and out. I watch it through the rearview mirror as we drive away, away, away, and as the old Victorian house disappears from our sight.
I catch one last glimpse of it as we turn around the corner, and the words in the mirror suddenly seems to darken:
OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.