Girl in the Shadows (Shadows 2)

I held the receiver in my hand and against my ear as if his words were still reverberating. I knew Echo was standing right behind me and I didn't want her to see the tears streaking down my cheeks. I sucked in my breath and with my back to her. I wiped my tears away. Then I hung up the phone and slowly turned to her. smiling.

She was worried it had been the hospital and something about her grandmother.

"No, no," I assured her. "It was... Tyler."

"Ty? What did he want?" she signed.

I thought a moment and then, keeping my smile. I told her he called to see how her grandmother was, but also to say he was having problems at his business and he wouldn't be coming around for a while.

"When will he come?" she wanted to know,

"Soon," I said. "I'll work with you until he does," I said.

She stared at me. "You're lying," she signed. "You're lying!" She turned and ran out.

"Echo!" I cried.

I heard Rhona's laughter on the stairway.

"April Fool, don't you know she's deaf?" she screamed, and laughed even harder.

I followed Echo into her room to reassure her. She sat on her bed, staring down at the floor, refusing to look at my signing or my lips. Her whole world was in free fall, a mad state of turmoil with Mrs. Westington in the hospital, her mother behaving badly, and now Tyler Monahan refusing to return. I was all she had and I wasn't much. I thought.

Rhona paused at the doorway as she and Skeeter made their way to the guest room.

"Look at them. How pathetic. I want you out of my room tomorrow. April Fool, You move into the guest room until you leave, which won't be much longer, understand? I don't know why I stood for you being in there in the first place."

I didn't answer. I sat quietly, waiting for her to pass.

"C'mon," Skeeter told her. "I'm tired of all this crap. We got a lot to do tomorrow."

"Yeah, we got a lot to do and everything we do moves you closer to being thrown out," she told me. She lingered there. Echo looked up at her. "Don't think you can turn her against me either. She's my daughter no matter what."

"Rhona!"

"All right, damn it, hold your water." She turned back to me. "You'll be sorry. You'll all be sorry," she said, and walked on.

Echo looked at me for some explanation.

How do you sign she's drunk? I wondered, and just improvised with gestures showing drinking and wobbling and spinning my eyes. It brought a smile to her face.

"C'mon," I told her. "You can sleep with me tonight. Bring Mr, Panda."

She liked that idea and followed me out. We both got ready for bed. I closed the bedroom door, but there was no way to lock it. For a moment I considered putting the vanity table chair up against it, but decided that was too much and I didn't want to frighten Echo any more than necessary.

Before she got into bed with me, she ran back to her room. I thought she was going for her pajamas, but instead, she returned with the dream catcher.

"Good idea,'" I told her. If there was any night we needed it. I thought, it was tonight.

She got undressed and into bed and I did the same. I saw her signing her prayer, which included her grandmother and then something about her mother. Then she turned over and went to sleep. I lay there staring into the darkness slightly brightened by the starlight coming through the windows. I heard Rhona's laugh and then her curses and eventually, what sounded like her sobbing.

Skeeter doesn't have it as good as he thinks being with her. I thought. She'll bring him bigger and bigger problems. The question was how big would the problems be that she would bring to us.

A few hours later. I had the first indication when I realized the bedroom door had been opened and Rhona was standing at the foot of my bed. She was naked and had a glass of water in her hand. Her disheveled hair flew wildly about her face masked in the darkness. There was just a small glitter of light caught in her eyes. She looked ghoulish, ghostly, the shadow of Death itself in some female form.

"What the hell is going on here?' she demanded. Echo didn't see her there and was in a deep sleep.

"What do you want?"