Hush by Eva Konstantopoulos.
Title: Hush.
Author: Allison Pearson.
Genre: Fiction, horror, paranormal investigation.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 2011.
Summary: Angela Sayers is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Convinced by her controlling brother to strop taking her medication, Angela's world unravels just a little more when she discovers she can communicate with the dead. It's not a welcome revelation. Her dead mother was driven mad by this gift. Eager to capitalize on their mother's fame as a medium, her brother forces Angela to publically become the unwilling heir apparent. Soon, Sayers' Medium Services is shamelessly exploiting the fears of the most vulnerable-the elderly, the feeble-minded, the grieving-for obscene profit. Uncertain if her increasingly fragile state of mind is caused by lack of medication, sleep deprivation, or guilt, Angela endures a plague of sleepless nights. If she's going to have any semblance of a future, she knows she must find a way to confront her own demons-including the fear that it's all in her head. When they are hired to cleanse an old orphanage that is genuinely haunted, it's up to Angela to get everyone out alive. But with reality slipping away, can she escape the prison of her mind long enough to save them?
My rating: 6.5/10
My review:
♥ Then I set up candles and place a pendant around my neck. Jackson says it's important to properly accessorize when on camera. The pendant is my mother's, thought she hardly wore it. She liked to be free of jewelry, that way the spirits wouldn't have anything to latch onto, but little bells and whistles like pendants tend to put our customers at ease.
♥ He holds a loose wooden board connected to a wire. "Found what was casing the banging," he says. "There are tons of loose boards up there. I secured a few. Probably should go up for all of them though."
"Good thinking," Jackson says. He tests a floorboard with his shoe. "We need to secure these, too," he says.
"You made a great ghost." I smile. Elliot gives me a small hug.
"Come on people," Jackson says. "Let's do this."
We go to work fixing the floorboards and make sure there are no loose beams. Then we replace rusty nails, tighten leaky faucets, wash the comforter on the bed, fluff the pillows, and even manage to lure two chipmunks out of the hole in the cupboard (with excessive amounts of cheese and whatever else we can find in Mr. Hampton's mostly empty fridge. By sunrise, the house is practically brand new, and if not that, at least it's tidier. Cleaner.
Still, I'm convinced Mr. Hampton isn't going to buy any of this. After all, we pretty much winged it, and none of us can really see ghosts.
..At night, I begin to dream about the faces of our clients, their hopeful, tortured eyes just wanting peace. It makes me toss and turn, thinking about how happy they are when the noises stop, and all it takes is a new nail in a floorboard, the removal of a dead raccoon in the wall, the organization of a basement's clutter, changing an old light bulb or straightening a step so it doesn't creak.
These ghosts, these stupid, stupid ghosts, are easily disposed of my merely cutting back the branches on a tree or providing a little landscaping in the backyard. Most of our clients just need someone to look after them, to make sure there are no loose ends.
Afterwards, without fail, we walk around the house with our clients like good old friends, clasping hands, sometimes exchanging hugs. None of them ever ask for a refund, though they do wonder where the ghosts go after we're done. Nowhere and everywhere, I want to say, because all the ghosts vanish once we leave the perimeters, disappearing into the ether. Like magic. Voilà.
♥ So, I go. I get in the car and we drive up into this polished neighborhood with perfect cars and perfect families. Except everything isn't perfect. That's the thing about death. It touches everyone. Even people with perfect lawns.
♥ Frank's cheek trembles. I pretend to write something down. Please don't cry, I think. Please don't lose it. It's harder when they cry. Harder to fake that I have the answers.
♥ Walking closer, I see the bathroom light is on. Jackson's bedroom door is open, but when I peek in the room, Jackson and Beth are sleeping, the sheets tangled between them. If they're here, then who's in the bathroom?
I take a deep breath, walking towards the closed bathroom door. Slowly, I reach out a trembling hand. Easing the door open, my eyes widen. A strange woman in a ratty blue nightgown is by the sink. Her back's to me, and she quakes violently, her shoulders shaking.
"It's too much... too much," she says, the blood pooling and dripping off the counter. Her red fingers stain the porcelain. On her right hand she wears a simple wedding ring. And that's when I realize... I know the wedding ring. I know that ratty blue nightgown."
"Mom...?" I whisper.
At first, the woman doesn't register that I'm there. My voice wavers. "Mom?"
The woman reels around, startling me. Her face is matted with blood. It takes me a moment to realize that, yes, this is my mother, and yes, she is in pain, and yes, her eyes are gone. Her eyes are gone. Empty sockets stare back at me, gnarled optic nerves dangling down the cheeks.
Her hands reach towards me. She holds small mangled orbs in her outstretched palms. Her eyes. She's offering me her eyes. "It's too much," my mother says. "Too much."
I back up, the light in the bathroom blinding me. My mother comes closer. I stumble back. No escape. I'm moving so slowly, like I'm running through water.
Run, Ange, run.
But I can't. I can't move.
..It was just a dream. Just a dream.
Catching my breath, my eyes drift over to the mesh white trashcan where I've abandoned my empty prescription bottle. Is this how it's going to be? Are blood and death in my future? I pick up the photo of my mother. I never noticed it before, but there's something disquieting about how she's sitting. As if she's performing for the picture taker, for my father. It's her eyes. Her eyes are full of fear.
The realization that my mother is terrified in this photograph washes over me. My mother is afraid. She has no future. And I'm feeling more and more like her everyday. Maybe Jackson's right. Maybe I do have to face my fears head-on. Prove once and for all that I'm my own person, and if not, if that doesn't work, then take the money and run. I've taken care of a lot of my debt. If this elderly woman pays double our rate, my cut would last months. I could get out of here. Get away from Jackson. From home.
Rubbing my face, I try to erase the image of my mother's eyes and how they looked like bloody golf balls. Inanimate things. The sun trickles through the window, soft and bright. I pull the covers off the bed. My bare feet touch the hard floor.
I nudge Jackson's bedroom door open. Don't do it, a small voice whispers inside of me. Turn back. But I push that voice down, burying it deep within me. Beth blinks awake and sees me standing there. She pulls the sheets over her naked chest.
"Babe..." she says, sleep in her voice.
"Huh?" Jackson yawns and wraps his arms around her. It's only when he opens his eyes that he sees me standing in the doorway. No more fear. No more hiding.
"I'm in."
♥ He continues talking a mile a minute. I nod in the appropriate pauses, but then a sharp, aching pain shoots across my forehand. Oh, no. Slowly, the ringing noise returns, drifting into my ears and drowning out my brother's voice. I squint. Ringing means my mind is on the fritz, either that or death's coming.
But that's impossible. It's just me. Just crazy.
I stop walking. Maybe if I stand still noting will happen, but even as I think this, I can tell that there's something close by watching us from the hallway.
Turning, I peer down the long, windowless corridor. After a few moments, the outline of a small child appears. I can make out a flower-print dress and tangled hair. Tucked under her arm is a ratty teddy bear, and her hands cover her mouth like she has a dirty secret.
I stop in my tracks. It's the same little girl. The one I saw outside, by the woods. From this angle, she looks albino, her face and hair devoid of color. The longer I stare, the louder the ringing grows. She stands there, unmoving, staring right back at me.
..I break my gaze from the albino girl and look at Jackson. When I glance back down the hall, she's gone.
.."Ange, your..." Elliot gestures to my nose. I wipe my nostril. Blood smears on my hand. I step back, acting like it's no big deal.
♥ We walk to the exit. Right as we're about to step into the hallway, the first stall door groans open.
"What the...?" Elliot says.
The whimpering picks up again. Crystal clear. But Elliot doesn't hear it. Slowly, I move towards the stall. A thought suddenly occurs to me: What if everything my mother told me growing up was real? And all this time Jackson and my father were wrong? That would mean spirits secretly walked among us. It's a simple thought I've rejected all my life, that my mother may have been right, but in this moment with Elliot it feels inexplicably true.
I round the corner, peeking into the stall...
A wave of relief washes over me. There's nothing there. Thank God, there's nothing there. I laugh at the absurdity of it all. "It's empty," I say. "Completely empty."
"You are really freaking me out," Elliot says.
A stupid grin plasters on my face. Thank you, thank you, thank you, I think. But my relief doesn't last long. Soon, a dark mass appears behind Elliot. It's a bulging shadow that only comes up to his thighs. A little girl.
Shes crouched behind Elliot, facing away from us a lopsided bow in her hair.
"Oh, no..." I whisper.
Elliot studies me. "What?" He looks around. "What now?"
The pale, chubby legs of the girl quiver as she slowly turns. I pull Elliot into the stall, stretching his shirt, and slam the door behind us. We stand in the cramped space, so close I can smell the spearmint from his gum.
"Ange? What did you see?" Elliot asks.
Lightning shatters the darkness. Once. Twice. It illuminates the stall for a moment, but it's enough time to see that we're not alone. She's found us. That pudgy girl stands on the toilet, hunched over, inches away. Her face is by my torso, her cheeks smeared in blood.
Go away, I think. I don't want this, and I don't want you. The pudgy girl crouches down, prepared to pounce, but just before she does, just before I think I might die if she touches me, the room spins. My knees buckle, and I feel a tingling and then gushing from my nose.
I see the wall, the ceiling, and then the floor.
And then I'm somewhere else...
Somewhere bright and warm. And I'm not alone. My mother's with me, and she's wearing a long flowing peasant dress, the one she used to wear to readings, and she's laughing. She's telling me to come closer, into the nothingness behind her. There are outlines of trees and grass and creatures around us, or maybe it's the wind? There are no shadows here.
Just the quiet of wherever we are.
A voice, tinny and muddled, breaks through the silence.
My mother furrows her brow. No. Wait.
She's trying to tell me something. She's disappearing, the brightness taking over, washing out her face, her lips. She's speaking fast, but there's no sound. No words. I have so much to ask her. I have so many questions. But I can't talk. There's nothing here. No sound. No pain.
"Ange. Ange."
I'm being torn away. The pull overwhelms me, tearing at my ribs, my legs. No. Please.
"Can you hear me?"
I like the emptiness. Let me stay. Just a little while longer. The brightness is gone now. Cold boards my skin, seeping into my blood. I'm aware of my hands. They're shaking.
"Ange. That's it. Come on."
Through the blinding haze, there are shadows, and through these shadows, there is Jackson.
♥ "I'm here. If you ever need someone."
"Thanks," I say, trying to be strong. "But I'm fine. Really. Come on. Let's get this over with."
Elliot studies me for a moment, and then nods. I watch him walk away, not wanting to admit how much it means to me that he's the last to go.
♥ "Oh, just friends along the way. People always coming and going. This was before the whispers. Before everything. You know, it's not only voices. There are visions too. I saw someone, right over here." She points to a cabinet full of glasses. "It was late at night. I heard laughter."
"But no whispering?" I ask.
"It was an awful racket. I took my cane and went around the bend. There was this little girl. This odd little girl."
"Can you describe her?"
"She wasn't looking at me, but out the door, just staring at the backyard, and then she... tangled."
"Tangled?" I ask.
"Her limbs. She bent down and kept bending in places she shouldn't have been. It was all quite dreadful."
♥ "You got it though, right?"
"What? You don't trust me?"
Throughout my life, Jackson has thrown out those little words to get me to do an array of stupid stuff. At this point, trust has nothing to do with it. I've been scraped and scratched and have fallen from so many random heights, I really don't want another scar. Plus, it's a long way down.
♥ A small shadow flits past the doorway. Claire? Or is it Tammy? Moving past the furniture, I follow the shadow down a hallway, hoping I'll have the courage to strike if Herman jumps out at me. You will me brave, I think. You have no choice.
♥ Calm down, I think. Calm down.
Inching my way through the darkness, rusty squeaking erupts in the shadows. I slow down. Listening. SQUE-EAK. SQUE-EAK.
Tammy. It has to be Tammy. But where is she? I round a corner and the corridor tightens. I have to crouch to keep going. SQUE-EAK. I halt. Waiting. Holding my breath.
SQUE-EAK. Wherever she is, Tammy's getting closer.
I look behind me, and then from side to side, moving quicker now. One hand lightly traces the cold wall. Feeling the cool rock on my skin provides a small sense of security.
SQUE-EAK! This time the sound is right behind me. Oh no. I turn in a circle, searching the darkness, but I'm the only one here. My skin crawls. Then why does it not feel like I'm the only one here?
Cautious, I turn again. This time around, a mass engulfs the viewfinder. Shiny metal glares in the green light. Tammy's face is inches from mine-or what's left of it. Her jaw is gone and her tongue dangles from her mouth.
"Gnnaaaaaahhh," Tammy says.
♥ Slipping through an arched doorway, I sink to the floor and pull my knees to my chest. Grabbing fistfuls of my hair, I steady myself, preparing for what's ahead. "It's okay," I whisper. "They can't hurt you. Only you can hurt you. Only you."
Sometimes, when I was little, I'd find my mother in the closet in this exact position, whispering to herself and pulling out her hair. I'd open the door, and beneath the coats and clothes my mother would be huddled on the floor, looking up at me with wide, open eyes. When this happened, I would always crawl into the closet with her and my mother would wrap her thin, cold arms around me. We'd pray together, "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love, where there is injury, pardon, where there is doubt, faith, where there is despair, hope..." We'd repeat the prayer, over and over, our voices colliding, the dangers of this world and the next crashing towards us.
I imagine my mother's arms around me now, and I can almost feel them. "Where there is darkness, light," I whisper. In the silence, my voice sounds dangerous, a trespass. Years of quiet have woven into the walls and soaked into the soil. The hush is now an entity onto itself. I think of my brother, how he's down here with that monster, that killer. Struggling to my feet, I scan the darkness with the night vision camera.
♥ My foot crunches down on a tangle of hard, lumpy sticks.
Leaning down, I investigate the small pile. I realize there are mounds of sticks around me, and that the whole room is full of them. Sticks on the walls, hanging from the ceiling like wind chimes, sticks on the floor forming little camps of clutter.
But that doesn't make sense. Why go to the trouble to construct these little tangles? Maybe, I think, dread slowly coursing through me, because they aren't sticks at all. I take another look at the pile by my foot and find a tiny skull.
"Oh, god."
Bones. They're bones.
♥ I think of the unfairness of the world, that monsters get to live while innocents die. I convince myself I'm ready for this. Maybe in death I'll see my mother again.
Remembering my mother now, I can almost hear the words she repeated so many times: "We must let the light work through us, Ange. Where there is hatred, we must sow love. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is despair. hope..."
♥ A plea this time, hoping he'll answer me. What good are the powers to communicate with the dead if I can't help the people I love?
My feet on crunching bones, and there's a new smell. Rot and urine, mixed with the metallic whiff of blood. Please, Jackson. Don't leave me. Please say something. Please. But it's so dark.
So quiet.
Something's coming. Something's coming.
Panic tickles my throat as I hear that otherworldly voice again. I struggle to breathe as I think of those girls and the things he did to them. Monster. I can feel them pulling me, trying to reach out, to scream.
♥ My mind drifts back to Jackson, seeing him on the side of the road with that mutilated grin on his face. Has he found Beth now? Is he in a better place? I guess dead or alive, we're all slaves to something.
♥ I tell my father what he wants to hear, that I'm well taken care of, that I'm safe. Punching in the code to the vending machine, it whirs in front of me. The mechanism turns, and I'm comforted, watching the candy bar fall down with a plunk. At last there's some order to the universe. At least I can press a button in a grey hallway and know a small rectangular piece of chocolate is going to plop down a metallic chute.
♥ I focus on the ringing and it lessens in intensity. A small rush of excitement tingles through me. Ringing means I'm not alone. Sure enough, over my shoulder, Jackson looms. I catch a glimpse of his face in the glass reflection. "I'm here," I say. "I am. Please don't cry."
'I'm getting there as fast as I can, Ange. I'll be there. Soon. Soon."
"Okay, Dad. Just don't rush. Okay?"
"You shouldn't have to deal with this. It's too much. No one should have to deal with this."
My brother sidles next to me, perusing the vending machine options. "Don't worry," I say into the phone. "I have someone with me."
"Not the same though. It's not family."
My eyes meet with Jackson's. I feel elated and sad all at once.
"I'm almost there," my father says. "I'm coming for you. It's just you and me now."
Okay," I reply.
Something wet trickles down my nose. I concentrate, and the blood slows. Wiping it away with the back of my hand, for the first time in my life, it occurs to me that this curse my mother gave me might just be a gift. Something useful. Something good. My father keeps talking. He tells me about the arrangements we have to make. He doesn't know how he's going to pay for any of this. I can feel the stress in his voice, the weight of the situation eating away at him.
My mother used to say there were moments in your life that defined you. Moments that you knew, while you were living them, you would never forget. Looking at Jackson's reflection, hearing the panic in my father's voice, I know that this is one of them. A turning point. A new beginning.
I will never be alone again. I will never be anyone's victim. A deep warmth overtakes me, and it's the best high, knowing we are never, ever on our own. Even in death. I want to shout what I know to the grey sky. I want to go back and kiss Elliot. All these people in the world, waiting and wishing to connect with their loved ones. They can't, but I can. I can help them. And knowing this, knowing I have some sort of worth, some sort of purpose in this life, lifts my spirits in a way I never thought possible. I take my candy bar and walk back down the hall. Without even looking behind me, I know my brother's still there.