The Whispers

The Whispers - Part 4

Eloise and Amanda had taken to watching dinner with the television on, something not allowed before. But the nighttime was the hardest, just after the sun set, when they would usually have all been home together-the girls doing their homework, Alfie grading papers, Eloise cooking dinner. It was always her favorite time of the day. Now she dreaded it.

But on Friday night, Amanda talked-she talked and talked. And Eloise listened as if her daughter's voice were a song she loved but hadn't heard in too long. Amanda talked about what she remembered about that day, how she'd been so mad at Emily who called her Marion the Librarian, and how she was always so mad at Emily who always seemed smarter and cooler, and more just knowing somehow. And how she thought that Emily was their father's favorite and how she hated her sister a little for that. Amanda had often wished that she were an only child, like her friend Bethany.

"But now that she's gone, it seems like the world can never be right again. I don't even know who I am without being different from her," said Amanda. "And I loved her. I didn't even know it, but I did. And I'm sure I never told her, not once."

"You didn't have to tell her," Eloise said. "Everyone in this family always knew that love was the first feeling, the foundation. Everything else was second and temporary. Emily knew you loved her."

"How?" asked Amanda. "We only ever fought."

"Did you know she loved you?"

Amanda thought about this, then nodded an uncertain yes.

"How?" asked Eloise.

"Because she let me sleep with her in her bed when I was scared at night."

"And she knew you loved her because you wanted to sleep in her bed," said Eloise. "And that's what real love is. You don't always have to say it, even though it's nice if you do."

And they talked until late, until Amanda fell asleep in Eloise's bed. And later, after midnight, Eloise heard the sobbing again. She put on her robe and went downstairs to find the girl in the same spot. Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, the girl just kept saying. Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. And Eloise ached to help her, her own uselessness a notch in her throat.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked of no one. And she could tell the girl didn't even hear her. Eloise sat on the couch, helpless and confused. Then she went back upstairs to bed. The television was still on, casting its flickering blue light on the room.

And the girl was there again. But this time, she was bright and smiling, so pretty with golden hair and freckles and blue eyes. She was happy and healthy and well in the photograph being broadcast on the television screen.

Eloise sat on the bed, staring at the television but hardly believing her eyes. The girl was dressed in the uniform of the private school she attended. Her image alternated with images of her weeping parents conducting a news conference, begging for her safe return. Katie, thirteen years old, from a rural town outside of Philadelphia.

She's in a well. If you don't call now, it will be too late. She's dehydrated and cold. She won't survive the night. It wasn't a voice-and it was a voice. It was a knowledge that leaked into her consciousness from the air. It had a particular sound-and it didn't.

The broadcast must have aired earlier that evening, because now it was nearly midnight. There was a hotline number flashing in red on the screen.

She won't survive the night.

Eloise went back downstairs, where the girl was no longer, and picked up the phone in the living room. What was she doing? This was absolutely insane. She hung the phone back up and stared at it, heart pounding. But she knew that the girl she had seen was the missing Katie from Philadelphia. And she knew that if she didn't call, Katie was going to die. There was no way not to pick up the phone. It wasn't allowed for her to do nothing. She knew that. She dialed the hotline number she had memorized from the screen.