The Murmurings Read Online Free PDF

forward.” The orderly holds the head of a gooseneck microphone in front of her face. “Walk toward it,” she says slowly, as if I’m a child she’s sick of babysitting.
    I keep expecting my reflection to change back into that hideous thing, but I step toward the door, and it swishes open. The smell of sweet desert air conjures memories of playing beauty parlor with Nell on the porch at night, cicadas hissing as we moved scissor fingers over each other’s hair and begged Mom to let us stay up a little longer.
    I walk back to the car and gingerly place Nell’s box in the trunk before sliding into the driver’s seat. Evan stops bobbing his head to the Bob Marley song on the radio, looking embarrassed at being caught.
    I make myself laugh and roll my eyes. “Sorry that took so long. Bureaucracies and all.”
    “Yup, they’re the worst.”
    Something about the way he says this makes me think he wants to say more. It’s like he’s trying to see if I can read his mind or something. Evan stares at his lap, but every couple of seconds he ventures a look at me.
    I keep my hands on the steering wheel, but I’m not readyto start the car yet. It feels like there’s more to say, only I’m not sure who should do the talking.
    I want to tell him what just happened. All of it. Part of me thinks he’d listen, maybe believe some of it. But then I remember everyone else. Nell’s friends from school, who now call me a freak. Dr. Keller, with his confidence and fake empathy. Even my mom, who had her own daughter locked away. I bet Nell thought all of them would believe her, too.
    So I start the car and back out of the parking lot. Neither of us says much on the way home.

4
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    T HERE’S AN OLD YELLOW G EO Metro sitting in my driveway as we round the corner onto my street.
    “Wow,” Evan says. “I’m impressed. That thing’s bordering on vintage.”
    I smile and silently thank him for acting like everything’s normal. I basically ignored him the whole ride home and he doesn’t seem to be taking it personally.
    “It’s my aunt’s car. She’s had it since, like, the dawn of time.”
    “Well, she’d be crazy not to keep it. I mean, they don’t make ’em like that anymore. What is that, a three-cylinder engine?”
    I can feel him smiling at me from the passenger’s seat,and I know my ears are burning red. I just hope my eggplant hair is hiding them. I smile and nod, then roll Mom’s old blue Buick into the driveway beside the yellow Geo.
    Evan is by his car before I can even close the driver’s-side door. So much for everything being normal. He probably had his hand on the handle the entire drive home from Oakside. Not that I could blame him. So I plaster on my best easy-breezy-it’s-cool-if-you-don’t-want-to-hang-out-with-the-class-freak-anymore look and tuck my hair behind my ear (which I’ve confirmed in the side mirror is, indeed , bright red).
    He gives me an awkward wave and swings his door open.
    “See you in Sweep,” he smiles, but I’m too exhausted to know if he’s making fun of me.
    “Yup. Same time, same place,” I say, waving back.
    He’s down the street and around the corner before I can get my key in the lock of the front door. I tuck Nell’s box under one arm and brace myself for the onslaught of the usual questions from Aunt Becca. I know she’s concerned about Mom, but I just don’t feel up to dealing with her on top of all that’s happened today.
    When I open the door, the smell of garlic and basil practically knocks me over. I can hear the kitchen faucet running and something clanging against one of our big cast-iron pots. I hover in the kitchen doorway and watch as Aunt Becca—clad in Mom’s Nosh Now, Kvetch Later apron—brushes fat brown curls from her shiny face and maneuvers a wooden spoon around a steaming pot of what smells like lentil soup. Our cutting board, which I haven’t seen in months, is covered with green stems and onion skins. A tight knot of guilt wrenches