In Shadows by Chandler McGrew

not hearing like other people did it. He knew that. He imagined it might be the way they would
remember
a sound. But he didn’t have any memories of sounds. Not until now.
    Cramer heard something weird, too
, she spelled.
Out in the woods today.
    Pierce’s head popped up. Anyone who didn’t know him might have thought he was searching the crowd.
Really?
    He said he did.
    Probably just wanted to make me feel better
, spelled Pierce, shaking his head.
    He told me before I told him about you.
    Pierce paused.
It felt really bad.
    Bad how?
    Like sometimes when I have nightmares.
    She squeezed his arm, then signed slowly.
Nothing bad’s here. And nothing bad’s going to happen to you. Not ever again.
    He nodded, really wanting to believe her. She had always taken care of him, protected him—except that once, and that wasn’t her fault—and she never lied to him. Never. But thistime he knew she was stretching things just a little. Something was really bothering her.
    What are you afraid of, then?
he signed.
    Her grip tightened almost imperceptibly, and he sensed the minute hesitation before she replied.
    Someone else was killed.
    Here?
    No. Down by the highway. A teenage girl.
    Pierce nodded slowly.
    It doesn’t have anything to do with what you’ve been . . . hearing
, signed Mandi.
You don’t believe that, do you?
    This time it was his turn to hesitate.
    I don’t know.
    She slipped her hand out from under his, and he sensed her moving away. His end of the building felt suddenly empty. The crowd had milled away. He could still detect aftershave, deodorant, tuna fish salad, coffee, and other odors that lingered even though their original owners had wafted away. But when his mother told him to stay in one place, Pierce stayed. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.
    When he was a toddler he had always had the entire bottom floor of their house to be independent in, but he was not allowed upstairs. By the time he was five he’d explored every inch of the first level and even the yard outside in minute detail, and then—one day while his mother was at work and the baby-sitter was sleeping soundly on the back porch—he’d climbed the mountainous stairs. He’d rummaged inch by inch through his mother’s sleeping loft, fingering the soft wool blanket on the bed, sniffing every bottle of perfume and nail polish. Every drawer was inspected, every item of clothing, every piece of liner paper. He discovered two windows whose existence he had suspected due to drafts through the house, finding his way to them by the smell of pine on the breeze and the warmth of the sun.
    Finally, growing bored and hungry, he had wound his way back to the stairs, careful to approach along the wall, his fingers playing across it like spider feet, his toes tapping rhythmically ahead. When he reached the first step he started to squat and slide down on his butt. Suddenly powerful fingers gripped his shoulders, lifting him off the floor. He flailed for balance but found nothing solid with his hands or his feet, and then he was flung like a piece of wadded wastepaper into the air. For the merest instant he was afraid he’d been thrown into some even deeper darkness, where there was nothing to touch and nothing to smell or taste, forever.
    His hand shot through the banister at the same instant his shoulder struck a step. He felt a sickening crunch as his arm was ripped out of its socket, and then pain flared all over his body as he continued head over heels down the stairs. Finally there was a dull thud and then merciful oblivion. When he came to he was in an unfamiliar bed, but his hand was clutched tightly in his mother’s, and she was signing forcefully to him that nothing like that would ever happen to him again. Every time she removed her signing hand and then replaced it, he sensed the dampness of tears on her fingertips.
    It had taken months of painful rehabilitation for him to relearn to walk.
    Now he waited patiently in a brightly lit