Whispers

CHAPTER 1

Even with their door closed, I’m certain Mother and Driscoll can hear me whisper if they want to. They’re always able to hear me.

I peal my dress off and wipe a layer of dust off of the bookshelf with my hand before placing my clothes on it. A girl of about my age is watching me from the end of the couch.

She coughs at the dust. As if it bothers her. As if the dead breathe.
I suck my breath in between my teeth, and shoot a warning glance in her direction, even though I know Mother and my stepfather can’t hear her coughing. She rolls her eyes in response.

But at least she’s silent. She isn’t chattering away at me. Tormenting me for a response like the lonely ones do.

I slip off my sandals and stuff them under the couch. She takes off her beautiful soft leather shoes. They disappear quickly from my view as she mimics me, pushing them under the couch too.

I packed a knit blanket in my milk crate, thankfully. Along with my toothbrush, comb, and extra underwear. I pull the blanket around my bare shoulders and curl up on the couch with my face up. The air in the apartment may be dusty, but it beats the smell of mold and cigars in the couch.

She drops down on the other end of the couch, and I yank my feet up to give her space. Her leg feels like ice against my toes.

“Did you think I would leave?” she asks with a little laugh.

I shrug and close my eyes. She’ll be gone by morning. Watching me sleep can’t be much fun for her.
CHAPTER 1.2

I’m woke by the sound of metal scraping against the pavement. Again. And again. I give up on sleeping and drag myself into a sitting position. It’s still dark, but I don’t hear the mourning doves outside, so it can’t be dawn yet. The scraping is still going on, but from this position I can hear Driscoll snoring too. The noises outside must only be loud to me.

I pull back the curtain. On the street below, men are chained together in a long line. Digging with shovels. Scrape. Scratch. Prison road work? In the middle of the night? Only they aren’t wearing orange jumpsuits.

“They’re Irish,” she says from right behind me. How I keep from screaming sometimes amazes even me. I listen for Driscoll’s snoring while my heart rate slows back to normal. Still there. “Indentured servants. But they’re not ghosts. They’re just a memory, you know.”

I nod. I know all about memories held in place and replayed over and over when the conditions are just right. Anyone can hear them. Or at least I think they can. At the farmhouse, Driscoll freaks out every time the scalded baby shrieks in the kitchen. I assume he sees it too. I would never ask.

I told them about the ghosts once. Right after Grandma died, and my mother made me come live with her and Driscoll, her husband. Though Grandma told me they weren’t legally married. Does that even matter if both of the people think of themselves as married? It doesn’t seem to.

Driscoll said the ghosts were an indication of the deep evil living inside me.

“Why else would the dead speak to her?” he said to Mother. “Why else would she hear them?”

They sent me to his sister in the woods, the one with the melted face, to have the evil purged from me. She used fire.

“That’s what the demons are running from. So now they’ll run from you too,” she said.

The soles of my feet are mottled with the scars. I feel them when I stand, walk, breathe. They remind me to never tell Mother and Driscoll anything.

CHAPTER 1.3

The girl is still here this morning, sitting with her sad sweet face on the couch watching as I wash at the kitchen sink. The water is tinged pink with rust, but I brush my teeth with it anyways.

“Gross,” she says. I shrug in response. It’s not as if I have a better option.

If it was safe to talk, I’d love to ask why she’s still hanging around. Is she trapped in this apartment? The building must have been a beautiful house a hundred years ago. Was this her home? Did her soul get stuck in it? I shake my head; how can a ghost get stuck inside of a building?

The bedroom door swings open, and I pat the water off my face in a hurry.

“Are you ready to do the Good work today?” Driscoll asks. His lanky body sidles up next to me at the sink.

“Yes sir,” I answer as I refold my towel.

“Look at me.” Driscoll cups his hands around the side of my face, holding it inches away from his own. I do my best to hold still and meet his eyes. “I know what you’ll see today will frighten you. You should be afraid. New Orleans is a city of tremendous evil. You were probably too young when I saved you to have many memories of it. What can you remember?”

“Nothing,” I answer. It’s a lie. I was ten when Mother and Driscoll came and took me to the Good Farm after Grandma’s funeral. I remember New Orleans. I remember the trees shading the streets, glasses of tea with friends on the patio, parades and laughter. I don’t remember evil.

“You must remember something,” Driscoll says. His fingers tighten on my cheeks as he waits for my response.

“Trees and Grandma?” I say. Driscoll’s fingers relax a little.

“Yes,” he sighs. “Your grandmother made it seem like fun, didn’t she?” His hands drop from my face, and I look down at the floor. “The truth is, it’s a city so evil only a few people would hear me when I tried to tell them about the Good.”

I reach for my folded towel and tooth brush on the counter and clutch them to me, making a damp patch in the stomach of my dress.

“Lucky for you, your mother was one of those few,” he continues. “Beth, no matter how horrible it is out there, you don’t have to worry, you and your mother are always safe with me.”

“Always Beth,” my mother echoes from where she’s now standing in the bedroom doorway. She looks older and faded today in her simple cotton dress. As if the blond streaks in her hair are really gray instead, and her eyes are sunken instead of tired. Was she kept awake by the scraping sounds last night too?

“Beth?” the girl says with a snort from her perch on the couch. I don’t look at her. “Beth?” she says again, when I put my towel back in my milk crate and fish my sandals out from under the couch. “But, your name is Eliza.”

I don’t know how the dead always know my true name. Are our names tattooed on our foreheads in ink only ghosts can see? I can’t imagine why they’d care. For what it’s worth, the ghost girl is only half right. My name is Elizabeth. In my head, it’s Eliza. Like Audrey Hepburn’s character in My Fair Lady, my grandma’s favorite movie.

I ignore her, and slip my sandals on. Then take the piece of toast Mother is holding out for me by the door.

“Time to do the Good work,” she smiles and places a kiss on my forehead.