Part 6

Echo faced the wall, her pencil held poised. She knitted her eyebrows and began to scribble again. She had drawn a picture of a flying squirrel, a maple leaf, a man with pointed teeth and seven arms watching a little girl in a bathtub, an octopus caught in a fishing net, three disembodied heads and had begun listing prime numbers. She had gotten to three-hundred and ninety-seven when Isabel came into the room.

“Echo,” Isabel asked. “What are you doing?”

Echo looked at her and turned back to her work.

“She ran out of paper,” said Lila from across the room where she sat with a book.

“What?” asked Isabel.

“She ran out of paper,” repeated Lila. “Haven’t you been around when she’s run out of paper before? She writes on everything, the table, the walls, the floor. She’ll fill every available space in every room until someone gives her a notebook.”

Echo listened to them as they talked about her.

“Well,” said Isabel, her eyes on Echo. “Where’s another notebook?”

Lila turned a page in her novel. “Sophie has them.”

“Where’s Sophie?”

“I don’t know.”

“C’mon,” said Isabel. “I thought you knew everything. Where is she?”

Lila looked up at the older girl. “I am not currently aware as to the whereabouts of Sophie.” She shrugged and turned another page. “Maybe she went out.”

“Out?” asked Isabel. “I thought we weren’t going out.” Isabel still watched Echo, who had gotten to four-hundred and forty-three.

Lila turned another page. “I don’t know where she is and I don’t know when she’ll be back. As for our little Picasso over there, there are more disruptive things than drawing. I’ll take her constantly scratching pencil over the ravings of Cheyne.”

Isabel glanced around the room. “Where is Cheyne?”

Lila sighed. “Do you mind? I’m trying to read.”

Isabel rolled her eyes. “Sorry,” she growled and walked over to Echo’s corner. She sat down next to the girl. Isabel reached out touch Echo's shoulder, but the younger girl drew away from her touch without looking at her.

“Sorry,” said Isabel again, softer this time. “What are you drawing?” Her eyes scanned the wall, lingering for a moment on the disfigured man and the girl in the bathtub and then examined the growing list of numbers. Echo flickered her eyes toward Isabel for a moment, but continued to concentrate on her work.

“Do you ever stop drawing?” Isabel asked.

“No,” answered Lila from across the room.

Isabel said over her shoulder, “Why don’t you let her answer for herself?”

“Because she won’t,” replied Lila. “Attempting to get her to speak is an exercise in futility.”

Echo heard Cheyne before she saw her. She was singing Pop Goes the Weasel, Echo’s least favorite song. She stopped drawing to watch as Cheyne staggered into the room from the back hallway and fell on the floor. There were tears on her face and blood on her knees. She lay on the floor, panting, as if she had just run a race. Face-down, Cheyne started to giggle.

Lila groaned.

“How’s it going, Cheyne?” asked Isabel.

Cheyne mumbled into the floor, “Going… going… going….” She looked up at Isabel, “Gone.” There were dark patches under her eyes. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in weeks.

“Um… yeah,” said Isabel, glancing at Lila, who raised her eyebrows but didn't look up from her book. “We were wondering where Sophie is. Have you seen her?”

Cheyne put her head back down to the floor, muffling her voice. “Plain Cheyne,” she said. “Cheyne the pain.” She rolled over onto her back and spread her arms, lying spread-eagle with her eyes closed. When it was evident that she wasn’t going to go on, Isabel spoke again.

“What have you been doing?”

Tears squeezed out from between Cheyne’s closed eyelids and she smiled a little. Echo found it frightening, her hand still frozen in air where she had stopped writing.

“Cheyne?” prompted Isabel.

Cheyne’s head rolled back and forth, the tears making streaks from each eye to disappear into her hair. “Learning,” she said. “Teaching.”

Isabel shared a glance with Lila, who seemed interested now. “So which one is it?” she said. “Learning or teaching?”

“Both,” Cheyne responded.

Echo felt cold and turned back to the wall. She didn't want to hear anymore.

“What do you mean?” asked Isabel.

“What were you learning?” Lila wondered.

Echo knew Cheyne had stopped moving. Her fingers hurt.

“Learning,” said Cheyne. “Learning how not to cry when it hurts.”

Echo began to scribble again. She made a black furious circle, larger and larger, turning it into a spiral.

“How…?” began Isabel, but Lila interrupted her.

“What were you teaching?”

“How to be a good whore….” Cheyne’s voice trailed off. She laughed.

Echo’s pencil broke.

“Who…?” began Isabel again, but Lila answered.

“Abigail,” she said.

Echo stood, swaying. She walked to where Cheyne lay on the floor, stood over her, the broken pencil clutched in her fist. Echo raised the pencil and Cheyne opened her eyes, looking up at her. She laughed again.

“What are you going to do?” she asked. “Do you want to hurt me?” She pointed to her right eye. “Put it here,” she said. “Push it in right here. Maybe it would fill up with blood and you could do all your drawings in red. What do you think about that? Maybe it would never run out….” Echo thought about it, thought about Cheyne’s eye socket, streaming red with Echo’s pencil jammed in all the way up to the little pink eraser. She started to shake, the way she always did whenever she stopped drawing for longer than a few moments.

“Don’t you want to hurt me?” Cheyne asked again. She closed her eyes and more tears squeezed out. Isabel and Lila watched in silence. Echo held out her hand and dropped the pencil. It hit Cheyne on the bridge of the nose and bounced off, rolling away. Cheyne didn’t even flinch. Echo turned away and crawled under the table, pushing herself as far into the protective darkness as she could and put her hands over her ears. She would wait for Sophie to come. She would wait for Sophie to come and bring her another notebook and another pencil and she wouldn’t think about Cheyne anymore.

But when Cheyne spoke again, Echo could still hear her.

“No one can hurt me,” said the older girl, like she was talking to herself. “I’m already dead.”