Spinning Silence

September 24
Fourth Period:

A screech pierced the air, “If you hear this whistle, you come back immediately.” Mr Rose announced. “You will hear it no matter where you are. It will sound the same. I will only blow this whistle if I need you to rush back. It means drop everything. It means go quickly. It means do not stop to overthink.”

The Maple Creek ran through the center of the forest surrounding the town. Everyone knew how to get there. Creek Park was just at the edge of the forest, and it was the base of most of the hiking trails into the hills. There were picnic tables scattered around the edge of the water, where our class gathered.

Thankfully, it wasn’t nearly as hot as it had been during our last Treasure Hunting class. Mr. Rose brought shovels this time. “Everyone find a partner and a shovel. We’ll be digging, today.” I looked to see what other people I knew in this class. Shockingly, Pippa hadn’t. She took Cooking or something instead. Fern was in Bagpipes. Mina had Freudian Psychology. I flew around looking for anyone, although, I didn’t quite know how I could help on a team. I couldn’t exactly do much digging.

Trent, the football star, was already paired up with one of his best friends. By the time I reached anyone, they already had someone else. Finally, I found Terrance, “Well… I don’t see anyone else without a partner,” I grimaced.

“Oh…” He waved to Mr. Rose, “Alice doesn’t have a group, can she join us? We’d have three.”

Mr. Rose raised an eyebrow. He looked around, quickly counting the students, “Right, Vincent is absent today. Okay, having a group of three will be alright. Who else is in your group, Terrance?”

“Bruno,” he nodded, “he just went to the restroom.”

“Oh.” Mr. Rose shot me a glance. He bit his lip, “I suppose it’s not impossible, but there might be another group you could join, Alice?”

“Whatever,” I rubbed my fingers together, arid with phantom sweat, “I’ll just do this one for today.”

“Sure. You guys have the Low Loop Trail,” Mr. Rose walked away slowly. He said something under his breath I couldn’t make out.

Terrance ran and grabbed two shovels, holding them up triumphantly, “All three of us, this is gonna be awesome, you know! Bruno and I are like buds already! And, you and him are like… well you know.”

“I’m just going to focus on the work,” I said.

“Well, you can’t really do much digging,” Terrance shook his head, “you’re a scout, or a cheerleader, or a second string point guard!”

“A what?”

“A second string point guard? Baseball. Duh.”

“Oh,” I said, “I’ve never played baseball before. I like watching European Football sometimes.”

“Well, you’re about the height of the ball. Also, that’s called Rugby,” Bruno looked around proudly.

“No, I mean like, Tottenham Hotspur.”

“Ugh, they’d stand no chance against the Dallas Cowboys!”

Bruno descended from overhead, his wings slowing as he neared the ground. He planted his talons into the dirt and looked between us, “Oh, you two know each other?”

“Isn’t it great?” Terrance lowered his sunglasses to wink as conspicuously as he possibly could, “I mean like, you know each other, you know each other. I know both of you. You… know… each other?”

Bruno covered his face in his wings, “Who told you?” He groaned, “Oh, God.”

“Well it’s obvious, you know,” Terrance whistled.

I pressed my hands together, “So, I didn’t have a partner. Mr. Rose said I should join this group.”

“Actually I said you should join this group,” Terrance started down the trail. The gravel crunching below his fancy shoes.

“No, really. It was Mr. Rose’s idea,” I muttered, “just, we’re digging for stuff, I think.”

Bruno nudged Terrance. He whispered, “Really, it’s not like you think. It just. It’s not… I mean…”

“He doesn’t know what you’re talking about,” I flew along beside them. Already, Creek Park was disappearing behind us. The Low Loop trail went through quiet clearings into the foothills.

“Yes I do!” Terrance protested. He leaned against a wooden sign reading Caution: Monstrous Wildlife Area.

“Do you want to?” I breathed heavily, “I mean, it’s your business, so you should know, right? Go on. Ask, Terrance.”

“Alice, stop, he…” Bruno looked away from me, “He didn’t mean it… Your sister probably…”

“You have a sister?” Terrance gasped. Bruno’s beak hung open slightly. He breathed in a sigh of relief. Terrance was incapable of realizing the most obvious, and he only imagined the least.

“Her sister is Mina. The Vice President.”

“Oh her?” Terrance stuck his tongue out, “She’s like one of the mean girls, right?”

Bruno shook his head, “No. She’s mean to me, but… It’s fair.”

“What are you saying?” Terrance shoved him, “She has no right! Alice, why don’t you make her stop?”

I spoke through my teeth, “Terrance, I… That’s…”

“Mina and I used to be friends,” Bruno spread his wings out defensively, “she’s mad at me. That’s all.”

She’s a fairy, too, right?” Terrance thought out loud, “I mean, you’re a giant compared to her. Just stand up to her. See how bold she is when…”

“No!” Bruno yelled. He leaned toward Terrance, “I thought you wanted to be friends because you thought I was nice. I thought…”

I flew closer to Bruno, “You’re alright,” I whispered, “he doesn’t understand.”

Bruno took a deep breath, “Don’t do anything stupid, Terrance. It’s nice having a friend, you’re nice. I want to keep things this way.”

Terrance scoffed, “What’d I do, man?”

“I’ll tell you someday,” Bruno walked ahead. He stepped off the trail and into the treeline, his eyes watching a little rodent running across the ground. “This place takes some getting used to.”

I hovered beside Terrance, “I tried telling you not to talk about this,” I whispered.

“I didn’t know he was gonna be this dramatic.”

“He’s had some bad experiences.”

Terrance cupped his head in his hands, “He’s being bullied, Alice. We have to help him. It’s not…”

“It’s not that simple, Terry.”

Bruno stepped back onto the trail before he could respond, “I heard you guys, you know.”

“Sorry,” I said, “I was just trying to…”

“No, Alice,” he chirped, “you didn’t say anything wrong.”

Terrance held his breath, “Okay, so now that we’re in the middle of the forest, you guys like, so like each other, right?”

“No!” I shook my head.

“She’s two years younger than me, Terry,” Bruno waved his wings out in front of him, “we were in an accident together, okay?”

“Oh,” Terrance rubbed his hand against his forehead, “I didn’t know. So, what happened?”

“It’s a really long story,” I said, “really long and boring, Terry. It starts with us doing homework. Really long, boring homework. And the homework is important context, so I’d have to tell you all about the homework.”

“Nevermind,” Terrance looked disappointed.

“What was the assignment again?” Bruno asked, “It was a group project. Mrs. Strahn’s class, right?”

“I don’t remember. I got a failing grade because we didn’t turn it in.”

“I should have finished it… I mean, it’s not fair that you failed,” Bruno looked away.

“Who cares?”

“I thought you guys were like nerds or something,” Terrance walked backward along the trail, “you know, kind of teachers’ pets and stuff.”

“Our work on the group project got a bit interrupted,” I sneered.

Terrance tilted his head side to side, “You must have been doing it last second or something, since you didn’t just pick it up another day.”

“I had to go to the nurse’s office the first thing the next morning,” Bruno looked down, “she went there a bit later, too. For… a few days…”

“What did you break a bone or something?”

“Well, kind of…” I said, “Technically.”

Terrance stepped off the trail also, “I’ve never broken a bone before. I got stung by a bee once, worst thing that’s ever happened to me. It was really bad, like you couldn’t imagine!”

“Yeah, that must have been terrible,” Bruno followed him.

“Nothing for the Chosen One,” Terrance pointed ahead at a little deer trail that broke away from our path. It curved deeper through the forest, a little break in the underbrush, “Hey look, a shortcut.”

“Let’s not,” Bruno said, “Maple Forest is kind of dangerous.”

“It can’t be that bad!” Terrance thought for a second, “Mr. Flower might give us extra credit if we get back faster.”

“Mr. Rose,” I said, “he said for us to specifically stay on the trail.”

“He won’t know,” Terrance walked forward along the offshoot.

“Why don’t you go back?” Bruno whispered to me, “I’ll go on and make sure he doesn’t get hurt.”

“I’ll stick with you guys,” I said, “I can make more Dames than you.”

“Okay,” Bruno rushed after Terrance. I flew alongside them “This is a really bad idea,” Bruno spoke clearly.

“Then don’t come, chicken,” Terrance teased.

“I’m more of an owl,” Bruno said. I wasn’t sure if he missed the joke or not.

Terrance snapped, a tiny ball of light appearing on his fingers, “It’s dark up ahead,” he said ominously. The foliage did grow thicker, and on an overcast day it wasn’t perfectly bright. But, it was easily bright enough to see.

“You’re wasting Dames,” I warned him.

“The dark is no match for me,” Terrance smirked, “it’s super quiet around here!”

“No sound…” Bruno grabbed Terrance’s shoulder. “We should turn back.”

“No way, man!” Terrance cheered.

Bruno watched the little ball of light carefully as we continued down the trail. It curved around, the previous trail behind us becoming lost like the start of a maze. He suddenly stopped, his head turning around a hundred and fifty degrees. “Put it away!” He hissed at Terrance.

“The light?” Terrance whimpered, “But I can’t see without it.”

“I can see fine,” Bruno whispered, “even if it gets darker, I’ll be able to see. Take your sunglasses off for now.”

“What’s going on?” I asked quietly.

“Everything was dead silent for nearly five minutes,” Bruno muttered. “There was something back that way, behind us and closing. Large, but not huge.”

“Terrance,” I spat, “we both can fly. You can’t. Turn back now.”

“I’ll be fine on my own,” Terrance smirked, “and, it’s Terry.”

Bruno spread his wings widely, beating them back and forth loudly. Feathers scattered everywhere. “Stay behind me!” He demanded, “Terrance, you’ll be okay!”

I flew beside Terrance’s shoulder. “Come on, don’t try and be a distraction.”

“Both of you, go!” Bruno demanded.

I heard the sound of splintering leaves and twigs growing louder and louder. The bushes tore apart, and a large wolf landed there in front of Bruno. It looked at us for a brief second, then sprinted past us down the trail, ignoring us.

Terrance wiped the sweat from his brow, “See, even it knows not to try and challenge me.”

Bruno set his wings down quietly, “Y-yeah… I didn’t think…”

Terrance held his fist up like a victorious boxer, “You’re just not used to the Terry effect.”

I shook my head, “No, no… That’s not right, I mean… We didn’t do anything.”

“Don’t hafta!” Terrance yelled, his voice echoing throughout the woods. The forest slowly quieted down after his yell. It went back to nothing, just nothing.

We walked for another few minutes. I always flew in the middle of the trail and just beside one of my companions. But, I kept my eyes on the treeline. There was a tree wrapped in thick, broken webs. “Look at those,” I whispered. I’d never seen a spiderweb that large before, it more resembled a fishing net than a cobweb.

“How big is the thing that made that?” Bruno asked.

“Not big enough,” Terrance reassured us, “I’ll just pop it in the eye.” He stopped talking as Mr. Rose’s whistle screeched throughout the forest.

Bruno’s shovel clattered on the ground beside him. “Come on, let’s go back. Fast.”

Terrance picked up the second shovel, “Whatever. It’s just a whistle. We’ll get back when we get back.”

“No,” Bruno said, “he doesn’t just whistle to end the class.”

Terrance walked pitifully slow. All the duty he marched into this makeshift trail disappeared. It was like the two shovels he wouldn’t put away were weighing him down. Bruno and I refused to just leave him behind, so we begrudgingly slowed to his pace.

“You are going to get us killed,” I warned him.

“What do you know?” Terrance pouted.

Bruno spoke sharply, “She knows more than you think. You listen to her.”

“I gotta take a leak,” Terrance chucked the shovels on the floor and trudged through the underbrush off the fragment of a trail there even was. He walked behind a tree.

“Idiot…” I said under my breath. Bruno tapped his talon against the ground for a moment as I hovered beside him.

“Hey, Terrance?” Bruno asked after a long minute, “Hey, you there?” Dead silence. I flew after Bruno as he carefully waded through the shrubs Terrance had just a moment before. There was a line of liquid down the bottom of a tree trunk. Terrance was gone.

Bruno’s head swiveled around, “I didn’t hear anything… How?”

“This way!” Terrance’s voice curled through the woods. It came from the North to the South. “I’m over here!” From West to East. “Help!” From South to North. “Quickly!” From East to West.

Bruno’s beak flapped up and down. The feathers on his neck moved slightly like he was speaking, but I couldn’t hear him at all. “What are you saying?” I asked. He didn’t respond. He didn’t even notice.

He looked right at me. He beat his wings up and down. He looked like he was yelling, and I just stared at him. I tried telling him again, “I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!” He just stared at my own flapping mouth.

I slowly flew toward a tree branch and waited for him to approach beside me before I got any closer to it. Finally, I used my writing spell to create a mark on the tree saying, “I can’t hear anything.” He pointed at it and nodded.

Finally, another sound echoed from all around, “Alice… Alice, come here!” Terrance called out. “He’s not well! Look at him! Bruno, he’s not well! Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong! Come here where it’s safe.” I quivered as I heard it, and I watched him out of the corner of my eyes. I heard the sound of sputtered coughs coming from him, breaking in his lungs. It was just how he coughed before he changed, but he wasn’t falling, he wasn’t crumpled over himself. I took a deep breath, and listened more closely. The cough wasn’t coming from him, it was coming from just past him.

I pointed right over Bruno’s shoulder, and my finger sparkled with electric light. A glittering projectile arced just past his shoulder, ruffling his feathers. He looked at me and threw his wings out. A gurgling scream broke the silence as black blood splashed across Bruno’s back. Four large, insectile arms appeared out of thin air, slowly clenching Bruno’s sides. They drooped down to the ground as the thing behind him died. Its body slowly became visible.

“What the hell!” Bruno’s voice escaped his beak. He turned and looked at the body.

“Oh goodness, I can hear you,” I exhaled. I flew around him. The thing was strewn across the ground. It was an ugly beast with a three-foot-long, hairy abdomen. It had eight legs, like a spider and a long, pointed tail like a scorpion. Two wide antenna on its head buzzed not with noise, but with silence. Its mouthparts were left open.

He looked down at the thing, “That was touching me…”

“It creates silence, it tries to make us distrust each other, then it ambushes,” I said, “who knows if the whistle was even real.”

“We need to find Terrance,” Bruno looked around, “its mouth is tiny. Where’s Terrance?”

“With its friends,” I looked at the monster, “this thing isn’t big enough to care about more than one person. They’re pack hunters.”

“Alice…” Terrance’s voice clicked in the wind. It wasn’t pleading, it gurgled slightly. “You will be punished, Alice.”

Bruno slashed his wing downward and an arc of fire escaped from it. It passed right beside my head. I shook at the passing heat as it dissipated in a tree branch above me. Another monster screeched and collapsed out of the branch. “Got you!” He snickered.

I watched it as it collapsed against the ground, “How’d you spot that one?”

“It was starting to project silence. There were little leaves moving, bugs falling, everywhere but in this one spot,” He said, “owls have really good hearing.”

“Great,” I flew back toward him, “we should stay close.”

“Entitled children…” Terrance’s voice echoed throughout the woods, “Come closer. Serve your purpose.”

“Coming closer? Yeah, that sounds all right!” I yelled out into the open air, “Why don’t you let Terrance go, and we’ll accept your surrender?”

“This one’s name is Terrance?” His broken voice clicked from the right, then from the left, “He will be more scrumptious than you.”

I flicked, pointing my finger straight above me, a blast of frozen wind circled into the trees above, widening as it moved. There was a discord of various yelps and screeches. Two of the creatures plummeted to the ground. “Three,” I counted. I felt my heartbeat speeding up. I was breathing slowly as my wings slumped behind me, barely moving enough to keep me in the air.

“How’d you do that?” Bruno held his wings out in front of him.

“To sound like they’re all around us?” I asked, “They’d have to be right above us.”

Terrance fell out of the tree. A scratchy voice accepted, “Just go, you brats. Murderous whelps. We’ll have you another time.”

Bruno grabbed Terrance in his wings, “Come on, let’s get you out of here,” he said quietly.

Terrance shook slightly, his eyes barely open, “Aghhh, what happen…” His mouth barely didn’t match the end of his word. I flicked, sending a spark between Terrance and Bruno. One last creature dropped dead there.

“I thought they gave up!” Bruno flinched.

“If they were giving up, why would they drop him?” I huffed, “It was one last trap.” I blinked, my wings slowed behind me, and my flight became uneven. I was feeling groggy as the last spell left me.

“Hey, Alice!” Bruno grabbed me in his wing, “How many Dames have you used?”

“I lost count,” I coughed.

Bruno carefully rested me on his shoulder. “Just stay awake in case, you know…” He used both of his arms to help Terrance up, “Come on, you have to walk. I can’t carry you all the way back.”

Terrance nodded slowly, “Y-yeah, of course… I can walk just fine!” He winced and limped back onto the trail.

When we explained to Mr. Rose what had happened, he yelled at Terrance for leading us off the trail. Terrance was shocked. He’d proudly admitted to being the one to take us off course just a moment before.

Bruno brought me to my fifth period class. He sat me down on my desk, “Alice, we saved his life. I saved his life.”

I nodded slowly, “Yeah.”

“I didn’t know I was able to do that.”