The Whisperer

John Cano is a new writer with no formal training, no published works and no idea where he’s going, but he’s doing it anyway. When not writing, John enjoys overthinking, pretending to be in a novel and believe rewriting a sentence for three hours is a productive use of time. He believes everyone has a story to tell, he’s still figuring out how to tell his.

I didn’t know Elie’s beautiful spirit before, only the form of her silence now. I sit with it like fire, not to control it or name it, but to nurture without flinching. The pain that burns inside her – grief, anger, shame – is the same within each of us. It may not share the same story or the same shape, just a truth we sometimes have no words for.

Still, after three days, Elie is an enigma I can’t crack. She weighs every word I’ve offered like it was poison. She’s a locked door in a burning house. For reasons I can’t explain, I keep reaching for the knob. Perhaps I recognize my own quietude in her. That frightens me.

In this liminal realm where I exist, I’m committed to guiding those whose persecution follows them as they pass from the physical world into the in-between state born out of their own emotions. I’m not a ghost or a specter, but a translucent mist that communicates without words. An internal whisper, like linen dragging over stone.

When these energies are ready to move on, I hear their cries through the static and I answer the call. While I can’t interfere in their path, I am a mirror of the truth nestled deep inside, leading them to their release.

The gentle spark once again flicks between Elie and me. There’s a burning itch to it. I’m doing my best to provide a salve to ease the sensation, yet when I do, there’s a strong presence whispering to me that Elie is not my concern. Like a sadistic lover, I feel it forcing Elie to swallow a tonic made of equal parts guilt and shame.

Lying on her bed, I see Elie lift a finger, trailing it through the air, tracing the cracks in the ceiling—no, she’s carving the number fifteen repeatedly. Is that how old you were, Elie?

I feel the flare from Elie grow brighter, threading together fragmented memories of a life: The smell of Mama’s hash in the skillet. The soaring voices of the church choir, their harmonies lifting Elie’s spirits toward the rafters. Beneath the musical glory was the steady, loving touch of Mama’s fingers dancing over the piano keys. Mama’s hum wrapped around everyone like a threadbare shawl, worn thin with time, but still carried warmth. Mama combing the back of Elie’s hair with her fingers, starting at the top, massaging her scalp on the journey down.

Elie rubs her swollen belly. The life inside Elie is sealed in silence. It has left only an echo of a heartbeat. I can sense the baby is both a piece of Elie and everything she longs to forget.

Hi, Elie, I say.

I can feel the hair on her nape rise. The Whisperer has returned, Elie mumbles. She sits upright still wondering, friend? Foe?

Elie, remember what I said yesterday?

Elie snatches the crucifix from the nightstand, waving it around, Be gone, for your words have no power over me, she screams.

Before I can blink, weight presses upon me. It doesn’t approach, just materializes, sudden and seamless, as if the air itself has shaped it into being. A chill runs deeper when it’s near, a kind of fear that settles in your bones.

It snarls at me, I believe I made myself quite clear. I refuse to back down this time.

 Remember, Elie, it is the devil who, with a cunning smile, extends his hand to the desperate, not in mercy, but in deceit, it says.

You’re wrong, Mama, Elie says. The voice fills me with lightness.

Mama? This entity is not like the others born of flesh and bone. It moves beyond the edge of what we were. A slap across Elie’s face lands with a sharp crack, waking me from my confusion and snapping Elie’s head to the side. I can feel a sting bloom across her cheek, heat rushing to the surface as if fire is licking the skin. A dull ache spreads through her jaw, and for a brief second, the world seems to shift out of place.

Why do you antagonize me, Elie? Mama says.

Mama crawls into bed with Elie. Elie’s body stiffens, her breath quickens, and she pulls away as Mama wraps her arms around Elie. Her touch feels gentle as it caresses her, but I sense a coldness within it.

I must keep you here. The world outside would never understand, Mama says. Tell me you love me, Elie.

Elie sighs, but doesn’t respond. Like tentacles, Mama’s hands coil around her neck. Elie bites down on the inside of her lips, sealing them shut. Her body betrays her and with a gasp says, I love you, Mama. I did not know how to stop it. Mama begins to purr. A hollow ache swells in my chest, emotions fumbling between light and dark. Elie keeps praying she’ll wake, but each dawn finds her still trapped.

Mama releases Elie, slithering out of the bed. Elie, I’m going to bring you a peanut butter sandwich and warm milk. I know how you love that. Just as she arrived, Mama vanishes, slipping away, dissolving back into the folds of time and space.

Whatever that is, Elie, it’s not love, I say.

Mama means well. She’s had a hard life, Elie says.

I don’t think you believe that, Elie.

For the briefest heartbeat, Elie surrenders to the illusion, letting belief curl around her, warming the isolation if only for a moment. But the weight of Elie’s betrayal always crashes down around her, cold and unforgiving. Mama knew. Mama always knew.

Elie squeezes her eyes shut as she takes a deep breath. The connection flares, burning through me. A sudden heat, white-hot and blinding. She jumps out of bed screaming, I am not an animal to be caged.

Elie grabs the chair by the bedroom window and hurls it at the glass. The chair bounces off, producing an ice-like thud. No cracks. No exit. The fabric covering the window drifts like a breath to the ground. Elie shudders at her reflection, then quickly throws the fabric over the window.

Talk to me Elie, what are you angry about? I say. If you can identify the root of the anger, we can begin to loosen the knot that holds you captive.

Elie presses her hands tight against her ears, head shaking, yelling, I believe I have told you several times to leave me alone with your mumbo-jumbo. She sinks to the floor, her arms covering her head.

If you knew what I let happen, you wouldn’t want to loosen that knot, Elie says. It’s always there.

Elie, anger is the gate. Awareness is the key, I say.

I sense the walls sliding away, revealing a soft glimmer that connects me deeper to her. Our gaze darts from corner to corner, scanning the room with frantic urgency. The bedroom door is locked, the window sealed tight, Mama appearing and reappearing. The familiar comforts of home have vanished. All that remains are ghosts of items that hung on the wall. When woven together, they help create a past from negative space: pennants for poetry, ribbons for scholastic achievement, pressed flower collections. Left behind is a photo of Christ, a Bible on the nightstand and a bed.

There is no need for shame, only clarity, I say to Elie.

You throw these statements as if they mean something. Her voice barely a breath. It’s always there.

What is, Elie?

Elie rocks her body, moving slowly from heel to toe and says, All I wanted was the joy the Bible promised.

 Elie, we lose—I still don’t have words to answer this question. Why are we shamed for wanting joy? At the raw, bleeding edge of the lives I touch, this is the wound that festers in the dark corners of their soul.

Elie, we lose ourselves to darkness if we don’t give ourselves up to the joy, I say.

Elie’s voice trembles, I remember. Yesterday, you said I was dead, but that’s impossible. I’m right here, trapped.

Elie, truth doesn’t bend because you refuse to see it.

Why do you care? says Elie.

People like us weren’t given a choice. Imagine what we could have been if we had access to that one word.

Maybe you need a whisperer to free you, says Elie.

I’m not bound or tethered, Elie. I finally gave myself an option. I want to show others the joy I feel from it.

Humph. Convenient, says, Elie. Her voice is a fork on a ceramic plate.

I won’t force anything on you. It’s your choice, Elie. Something you’ve never had.

I inhale deeply, allowing the raw ache of my energy to merge with hers. My memories flood through me, spilling into her like ink seeping into water. Branded a demon because of my ability to communicate with those in another dimension. My own Southern Baptist upbringing where salvation was preached to me, but none given. Recurring, unwelcomed conversion therapies to exorcise the succubus within.

Running away at 17 because I thought that was the only answer. Sleeping behind churches, the occasional kindness of a stranger taking me in. One night, cold and hungry, curled up under an overpass, I close my eyes, imagining the streetlamp is the spotlight as I dance to the music from a nearby fair. A river of sound from the barrel organ weaves its way through the stillness.

By morning, I was gone. Just another lost soul, I say.

Elie’s gaze rises, I’m afraid to let you in.

There’s not a lot that shocks me anymore, I say.

A smirk appears across her face, Don’t be too sure about that.

After a moment, Elie lifts the fog, the connection between us so intense we become one, finally revealing the agony sewn into the fabric of her being. I don’t rush her story. I sit. I breathe with her sorrow. There is no fixing, only witnessing.

Home past curfew, climbing up the trellis, crawling through the bedroom window. The lamplight on the nightstand clicks on. Papa sitting on the bed, preaching the word of the lord as he undresses us. Lying us down, pulling our dress up. We’re fighting every move. Papa inserts the life of our holy savior into us.

The violation shooting through our bodies is immediate. His hand covers our mouths as we yelp. He drives his pelvis into us over and over. We grip the bedspread, trying to pull it over our half-clothed torso. Our eyes fix on the cracks in the ceiling that branch out like tributaries, mapping an escape toward the beyond, only to find those veins of longing lead back to this unrelenting now.

An image of the beautiful birthday cake baked by Mama soothes the assault as we trace that same number in the air: fifteen.

That’s enough, Elie says.

Elie, you must know that isn’t love either, I say.

You’re right, it’s not. But what if that’s all you get? She asks.

I sit with her anger for a moment. Even if that’s all you’re given, you deserve more.

Elie rolls her eyes, Mama says that’s just how life is. You have to earn love. What does it matter anyway, I’m dead, right?

Elie, forgiveness doesn’t excuse the harm.

Elie draws a deep breath, eyes clamped shut, fingers pressed against her temples to quiet the storm. Mama’s weight begins to press on me and my breath races. The screech of a blade dragging against bone reverberates in my head. Elie trembles so violently her form blurs.

I push against the storm and yell, It’s about releasing the hatred and attachment, so they can’t hurt you anymore.

Elie’s connection begins to fragment. The fractures in the ceiling open wide with hunger. I’m beginning to lose her again. I’m struggling to push Mama aside.

Elie, stay with me, I shout.

Elie’s image stutters like a dying light bulb. Her voice shivers through the space, Mama, it wasn’t my fault. I just wanted to be good.

You can’t hide from the Lord, little girl. He knows what you did, Mama cackles. Elie’s father’s voice blends with Mama’s, his prayers morphing into groans that carry an undercurrent of pleasure.

Elie flinches and covers her ears, Please make it stop.

I can’t interfere, Elie. You must free yourself, I urge, but the more I push, the faster Elie is sucked through those cracks in the ceiling, lost to something vast and final. I can’t let that happen. I’m coming, Elie!

My hand slices through the static. Immediately the space contracts, squeezing me, forcing me to straddle between do and don’t, right and wrong. Both of which mean nothing here. I grab Elie’s ankle and hold tight. She can’t be just another lost soul. A voice faint as breath reminds me, Witness. Do not intervene. You know the consequences.

Please, we cannot work in a vacuum, I plead. She just needs someone who will listen.

No answer. Only the pull of the vortex tearing at me, dragging me in the opposite direction. If I don’t let go soon, we will both be taken under again.

Elie, I’m here. You don’t have to do this alone; I scream. Allow me to carry your memory until you can bear it on your own.

Just when it seems the storm will consume us both, Elie screams, ENOUGH! Collapsing to the floor.

Silence.

Space expands.

A new dawn blooms.

Elie lifts her head and her voice hitches; I was supposed to protect Mama.

The words are simple, but they split the air as the truth seeps into me. Mama flickers, a body spun from smoke. I mistook Mama as an anchor, but the weight was not to ground Elie. Rather, it was a burden stitched together from Elie’s guilt.

My voice breaks, And who was protecting you, Elie?

Mama couldn’t explain to the congregation the father of my child was their preacher, my father. We would have lost everything.

Elie, you did lose everything.

Tears stream down Elie’s face as her hands rake through her hair. The day Mama found out I was pregnant; Papa was between my legs praising God for the miracle he bestowed. The rifle was the only way she knew how to stop it.

Elie, Mama isn’t your concern anymore. Sometimes you’ve got to walk away to save yourself.

Clarity slowly rises like dawn upon Elie’s face. Mama only meant to shoot him, but the bullet went through both of us.

Elie, It’s time you protected yourself.

The stillness begins to glow around Elie. A path forward, blurred and trembling, yet fierce beneath the haze.

It’s time you forgave yourself, Elie.

Elie smiles, reaches out to me for one last touch and I see her mouth the words: thank you.

What I’ve done won’t go unnoticed. There is a cost to breaking rules. But watching Elie bask in the warm glow makes the penance bearable. After all, nothing is without cost. The Universe keeps its ledger, and I add my debt to it with pride.

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