Page 25 of The Whisper Place
“Do you live here alone?” It seemed like a safe enough question. I never asked Blake or Charlie anything too personal, but I was standing in his house, trying to think of anything to say that wasn’tCan we please make out now?
“Yeah. I had a roommate for a while, but he moved to Milwaukee.” He shrugged, and one corner of his mouth lifted. “I like a lot of space.”
“Me too,” I agreed even as I stepped toward him, closing the space between us. Suddenly we were both smiling. The air in the kitchen felt warm and taut. I wondered if he could see my heart beating through the fabric of the dress.
He asked if I wanted a tour of the grow room. I had zero feelings about seeing it, but it gave us something to do. A reason for Charlie to touch my back lightly and steer me toward the front door. And Charlie seemed eager to talk about it as he led me around the house.
“It’s insane that Iowa is still policing marijuana. Most of the cities don’t give a shit, but out here some departments still hunt growers. And there’s the DEA. You can’t grow in a field because of drones.”
“Do you use a barn then?” He had outbuildings on the property, a medium-sized barn and a handful of smaller sheds and garages.
Charlie shook his head, stopping by a cellar door on the back side of the house. “They can find grow sites in barns using infrared. That’s why I keep it under the house.”
He opened the horizontal door and gestured for me to go first. Something clenched in my chest at the sight of the door opening into the ground, the stairs that led down into darkness. It was fine, though. I was fine. I was Darcy. I took a deep breath and tried to shake out the uneasiness in my chest, flashing a tight smile at Charlie as I passed him and started walking down.
The stairway was narrow with a low ceiling and roughed-in walls that bled dirt and cobwebs. A tarp hung at the bottom of the stairs, curtaining the refracted light from the room beyond it. I stared at the light, clinging to it as my heart kicked into high gear. Two minutes. I could do this for two minutes; a quick walk around and then back out. I just had to keep breathing.
Charlie pulled back the curtain to reveal rows of pot plants baking in the artificial light. He gestured for me to go first and I stumbled ahead, trying to look like I was paying attention while scanning the far edges of the room for any windows or other ways out. There were none.
“—why LEDs really help. They don’t draw enough electricity to ping any radars.” He kept talking, and I tried to focus on what he was saying, but the more he talked the less sense any of it made. All I could hear above my racing pulse and breathing was white noise. We got to the end of the row, which dead-ended into cinderblock. I turned around, but Charlie’s massive shadow took up the whole space. I couldn’t get around him, couldn’t get outside. The stairs beyond the tarp had disappeared. The sky and sun were gone; I’dbeen swallowed by this room. My back hit the wall as Charlie’s voice rose. It wasn’t him anymore. The voice changed, became sharp and angry. The silhouette grew bigger. A hand raised and I flinched. My knees started to give out.
“No, don’t. Please.” I couldn’t breathe. Hands—impossible hands, how were these hands here, now?—caught my arms and I fought against them. I couldn’t let them grab me. I wouldn’t, not ever again. The world I’d created, the world where Darcy existed, melted away until there was only panic and sweat and screaming. My stomach heaved. The lights dimmed. I lunged sideways and felt a crash. Something hit my head and I curled up, trying to become as small as possible, contracting everything I was around my frantic, spasming lungs.
There was nothing.
Black.
Quiet.
And then, light.
I opened my eyes to blades of grass eclipsing the robin’s egg blue of the sky.
“Breathe, Darcy. Just breathe.”
The voice came from somewhere above me. A large hand gently rubbed up and down my back. I tried breathing, found I could, and without thinking began to inhale in time to the movement on my back.
After a minute the pieces of what happened in the grow room started coming back to me and I pushed myself upright, sitting with my knees drawn up tight in a patch of grass in Charlie’s backyard, a few feet away from the cellar door.
Charlie sat across from me and my back grew suddenly cold where his hand had been. I was covered in sweat and shivering, despite the warmth of the sun.
“What do you need? Water? A blanket?”
I shook my head, afraid to look at him. The back of my head throbbed and I flashed back to something crashing in the grow room. “Did I break your greenhouse?”
He waved the question away. “A plant or two. Don’t worry about it. But the light—” He scooted marginally closer, cautiously examining my hair. “I think it hit you. Are you okay? Do you want an aspirin or something?”
My stomach pitched at the idea of putting anything in it. “No. I just—” I broke off as a tremor ripped through my body, making me shake all over. “Could you maybe put your arm around me? Just for a second. I’m so cold.”
He did immediately, sitting next to me and pulling me in toward his chest. I closed my eyes and listened to his breathing, the steady thump of his heart. We didn’t talk. He didn’t press me with questions about what happened or why. He didn’t make me feel like I needed to get up and pretend I was okay, like none of it happened, like I had to be Darcy in my new dress. I could just be. I could just breathe in the grass and clover and sunshine and the warm, clean smell of him against my temple. Just be here, and not alone. His hand wrapped around my entire shoulder, his touch light but overwhelming in the amount of comfort it offered. I felt safe, truly safe, for maybe the first time that I could remember. I never wanted to move from this spot.
Gradually, my heartbeat evened out and the cold sweat soaking my Ragstock dress dried in the sun. I lifted my head, reluctantto break away from him even though I should. Blake could pop around the corner any second, and I wasn’t ready for the amount of questions, demands, and general chaos that would ensue if she found us together on the grass.
“Thanks,” I offered, scooting away and sitting cross-legged. “I’m . . . claustrophobic.”
It was true, but the shade of truth that described the ocean as wet. I couldn’t tell him anything more, and he didn’t seem to expect me to. He looked at the open cellar door and shook his head.
“You should have told me. I wouldn’t have made you go down there.”
