It Started with a Whisper Read online

  Contents

  Copyright for Smashwords

  Also by A.W. Hartoin for Smashwords

  Dedication

  Summer Playlist

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  About the author

  Also by A.W. Hartoin for Smashwords

  It Started with a Whisper

  by A.W. Hartoin

  Copyright 2016 A.W. Hartoin

  Smashwords Edition

  “This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Also by A.W. Hartoin

  Young Adult fantasy

  Flare-up (An Away From Whipplethorn Short)

  A Fairy's Guide To Disaster (Away From Whipplethorn Book One)

  Fierce Creatures (Away From Whipplethorn Book Two)

  A Monster’s Paradise (Away From Whipplethorn Book Three)

  A Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four)

  To the Eternal (Away From Whipplethorn Book Five) To be released July 2016

  Mercy Watts Mysteries

  Novels

  A Good Man Gone (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book One)

  Diver Down (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Two)

  Double Black Diamond (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Three)

  Drop Dead Red (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Four)

  In the Worst Way (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Five)

  The Wife of Riley (Mercy Watts Mysteries Book Six)

  Short stories

  Coke with a Twist

  Touch and Go

  Nowhere Fast

  Dry Spell

  A Sin and a Shame

  Paranormal

  It Started with a Whisper (Sons of Witches)

  Dedicated to Shasta Groene and Natalee Holloway

  Two girls who deserved better.

  Much love and thanks to Mark without whom there would be no books.

  Summer Playlist

  1. “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses

  2. “Headstrong” by Trapt

  3. “Wide Open Spaces” by Dixie Chicks

  4. “Hard to Handle” by Black Crows

  5. “On a Night like This” by Trick Pony

  6. “Transform Ya” by Chris Brown

  7. “The Times They are A-Changin’” by Bob Dylan

  8. “Shackles” by Mary Mary

  9. “The Pretender” by Foo Fighters

  10. “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by Scorpions

  11. “O Mio Bambino Caro” by Charlotte Church

  12. “A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash

  13. “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash

  14. “Blue on Black” by Kenny Wayne Sheppard Band

  15. “When I’m Gone” by 3 Doors Down

  16. “I Love a Rainy Night” by Eddie Rabbitt

  17. “Better Now” by Collective Soul

  Prologue

  PEOPLE THINK I wanted revenge on Miss Pritchett. I did, of course. Who wouldn’t? But my intentions had unintended consequences. Nobody believes that though. My family thinks I knew what I was doing. But how could I plan the events of that summer? So many variables. A crazed llama, feuding cousins, not to mention Miss Pritchett herself. I couldn’t control them.

  If I’d been paying closer attention in the months and years before that summer, I would’ve seen the truth. It was painfully obvious who we are and who I am. I deserve what I got for being so dense and, in the end, I forgave myself for my blindness because it saved a life, perhaps two. Besides, all the paths I could possibly have taken would all lead to the same place. Ernest made sure of it. So that strange summer that began with a haircut and a wish would end in a disaster no matter what, and it was exactly what I asked for.

  Chapter One

  MOM CUT MY hair at the beginning of every summer with a pair of rusty old clippers, once used on a poodle named Ragamuffin. She didn’t see anything wrong with that, even though the clippers cut odd furrows and missed some of my hair altogether.

  I stretched out across the kitchen island between flour sacks and stacks of well-worn pots, shivering as the small strip of skin between my uniform shirt and pants touched the frigid zinc countertop. There was no escape. When I was younger, I tried running away, or hiding in the storage closet with the rest of the family’s odds and ends, but Mom always found me in three minutes flat. I think she had a secret weapon, it might’ve been Grandpa Ernest, but I was never sure.

  “I’m too old for this,” I said.

  Mom didn’t look at me, but continued to search through a drawer filled with rusty egg beaters, broken crayons, and bits of jagged scrap metal.

  “You’re not too old for anything until I say you are,” she said.

  I picked a walnut off a loaf of zucchini bread and popped it in my mouth. “Can’t I go to the barber like other people?”

  Mom smacked my hand as I went for another walnut. “Why would I pay someone to cut your hair, when I can do it for free?”

  Then she discovered the clippers in the back of a drawer with dog hairs still sticking out of the blade and pulled me upright. She switched it on with a look of triumph and my curls rained down around me, sticking to my sweaty arms and tickling my neck. After Mom finished, I ran my hand over my head. Spiny hair pricked my fingers and I sighed. It wasn’t so bad. If I could stand being called Puppy, I could stand anything. My real name was Ernest, like Grandpa, and that was worse. Mom nicknamed me Puppy when she was potty-training me, because I kept peeing all over the house. She loved telling everybody the origin of my name, so the hair wasn’t so bad in comparison.

  Mom blew my hair off the counter and shooed me out of the kitchen. I wandered around our big house, kicking up dust bunnies, and listening to Mom pack and cuss about packing. My dad came home a little later. He laughed out loud when he saw me sitting on the porch swing with dirty feet and a shorn head.

  “So, it’s that time again, is it?” Dad asked, still chuckling.

  “Yeah, can you fix it?” I rubbed my head and gave him a pitiful look.

  “Sure. Give me a minute.”

  I followed Dad into the house, watched as he dropped his briefcase and got himself a beer. Then we went upstairs and Dad changed into a pair of baggy shorts and a ragged T-shirt. He motioned for me to come into the bathroom a
nd he trimmed up my hair with a pair of nail scissors.

  “Bet you can’t wait for tomorrow,” Dad said.

  “Tomorrow after school, yeah,” I replied.

  “Right, of course.” Dad gripped my shoulder. “I know it was rough, but you’ve done pretty damn well, considering all you’ve had to put up with.”

  “I guess.”

  I had one day of school left. Mom and Aunt Calla would pick us up after the awards assembly and we’d be gone for most of the summer. I’d spent the year wriggling beneath my homeroom teacher’s thumb. The promise of Camp gave me hope that I could hunker down for the last day and finally be free of Miss Pritchett. She made freshman year misery, but home wasn’t much better. During the school year, I had to pick up, set the table, take out the trash, and make my bed. Camp was freedom from all that crap and Mom was happier in her natural element. At home, Mom was always in a bad mood because the cleaning was never done.

  Mom hated cleaning more than anything in the world. She cleaned, but our house was never clean, not like other people’s houses anyway. There were always jelly smears on the kitchen counters or poop streaks in the toilets. It drove Mom crazy. She said she had to keep a nice house in case someone came over. If people saw her house a mess, they’d think bad things about her.

  I wanted to tell her it was too late. The women at school already thought bad things about her and, in my more reckless moments, I came close to telling her. Only my sense of self-preservation stopped me.

  Those women said Mom was weird and bohemian. Once I found out what bohemian meant, I agreed. Who else wore corsets over men’s suits or lederhosen to the Fourth of July picnic? Maybe I should’ve cared, but I didn’t. She was Mom and I was used it.

  I left Dad sipping his beer and ran down the stairs dodging stacks of books, multiple pairs of shoes and the cat, Slick, who’d taken to sleeping on stair number five. Mom yelled something about freaking boxes in the freaking kitchen. I did an about-face and went in the opposite direction into the living room. There were no boxes in there, but plenty of crazy. Books went to the ceiling in odd towers, threatening to topple at any minute, and strange paintings covered the walls in a patchwork quilt of no conceivable theme or design. None of the furniture matched, and some of it looked ready to crumble. I flopped down on a horsehair sofa, careful not to slide off the slick red fabric. At least it was cool in there, unlike the rest of the house. Mom didn’t believe in air-conditioning, like it was a matter of faith. No matter what my sisters and I said, Violet Gladwell MacClarity refused to acknowledge the existence of air-conditioning and if she didn’t believe in it, we couldn’t have it.

  My eyes wandered around the room until a glint of yellow caught my eye. I went to the fireplace and stretched out a finger to touch a large brass elephant forgotten on the mantel. My finger carved a shiny streak in the layer of dust on the elephant’s back. It was my namesake great great-grandfather Ernest Gladwell’s elephant and the one thing Mom would happily pack. I picked up a long thin package of incense tapers off the mantel, pulled out a stick and sniffed it. It smelled of jasmine and summer. Mom only ever lit a taper and put it in the elephant’s trunk on the family property, Camp, and only there, like it was a smoke signal announcing our return for the summer. She never said we couldn’t light it somewhere else, but it was understood. The elephant was part of Ernest and Ernest was part of Camp.

  What could it hurt though? Maybe the whispers were true. Ernest might still be around protecting his descendants. Maybe he did take care of us as Grandpa Lorne claimed. I could use some help getting through the last day of school with Miss Pritchett, so I took the old tortoiseshell lighter off the mantel and flicked the grimy wheel. A blue flame appeared and I touched it to the taper. The tip crackled and smoked, sending its sweet scent up my nose. I stuck the taper in the elephant’s trunk and watched the smoke curve and climb in concentric circles.

  “I just need a little help, Ernest,” I whispered. “Take care of Miss Pritchett for me. Don’t let her ruin anything.”

  “Careful what you ask for,” said a quiet voice behind me.

  I turned and saw Mom standing in the doorway.

  “I didn’t ask for anything,” I said quickly.

  “Didn’t you?” she said. A smile curved her wide, thin lips changing her sharp features into soft, happy lines.

  “Well…” I looked down at my hands holding the lighter.

  “Never mind. It was bound to happen sometime,” said Mom.

  “What was?”

  “Asking Ernest. We all do it. Why don’t you go ahead and pack the elephant for me?”

  “Really?” I put the lighter back on the mantel.

  “Really. I trust you,” said Mom as she disappeared leaving only the warmth of her smile.

  I looked back up at the smoke rising from the elephant’s trunk. It moved and changed, thickened and thinned. Before my eyes, the smoke arranged itself into an elaborate letter E. I blinked and the E was gone. My head started spinning and I gripped the edge of the mantel.

  Somewhere in the house, Mom started singing a Guns N’ Roses song, except she started with the chorus. “Where do we go now? Where do we go?”

  My head cleared. I plucked the taper out of the trunk, dropped it into an ashtray, and picked up the elephant. Its coolness radiated up my arm and stopped the last remnants of dizziness. I rubbed the elephant on my shirt and revealed its yellow gleam. My fingers searched out every familiar blemish on its shiny surface. Ernest’s elephant and I got to pack it. So what if Mom was weird? It pissed off Miss Pritchett and anything that irritated her worked for me. Besides, I thought Mom had a good excuse. She was a famous artist. My dad didn’t seem to mind or even notice how odd our family was and he was normal. Everyone agreed on that.

  Chapter Two

  THE NEXT MORNING, I sat in Mom’s minivan waiting for my cousins and sisters, but they were late. Again. We were late for school nearly every day of the year. I was the only one who was ever on time, except for my dad and uncle. They ran ahead of time, and Dad said that evened things out, but I didn’t think our headmaster agreed. Mr. Hubbert called Mom and Aunt Calla in for meetings on a biweekly basis, but it never did any good. Their lateness was a force of its own and it was hard to understand how it happened, much less stop it.

  “Hurry up,” I yelled out the passenger window.

  Mom called for Slick inside the house. Instead of going to her, Slick came sliding out his cat door. He slunk down the front steps and went under the grape arbor to meet Aunt Calla’s cat, Sydney, who peered out between thick vines with pale blue eyes.

  The screen door flew back and whacked against the side of the house as Mom charged out onto the front porch still yelling for Slick. Her hair was wet from the shower and the enormous tee shirt she wore stuck to her thin, damp body like plastic wrap and revealed her purple underwear.

  “Puppy, have you seen Slick? I’ve got to box him before he gets away,” she yelled.

  “We’re going to be late,” I yelled back.

  Mom pursed her lips and waved me off. She began yelling for Aunt Calla next door.

  A green silk curtain drew back in Aunt Calla’s front window and a few curse words drifted through the screen. The curtains fit Aunt Calla even if they didn’t match her house or ours. Both were 1920s craftsmen houses, but they looked like they were on steroids with their huge wraparound porches and enormous windows. The houses were connected by a rickety trellis covered with jasmine, honeysuckle, and heirloom roses. The twisting, blooming foliage gave off a scent so strong that it’d been known to knock out small rodents.

  Aunt Calla came out of her front door wearing a yellowed lace blouse and Victorian bloomers. She sipped out of a tiny porcelain cup and waved at her twin sister, my mother.

  “What?” she yelled.

  “Have you seen Slick?”

  “No. Have you seen Sydney?”

  They went on yelling back and forth and some neighbors began looking out of their beige front doors
in their equally beige houses. I slunk down in my seat as Mom yelled a string of cuss words so long and vibrant they could’ve been strung on a Christmas tree.

  When Mom stopped yelling, I looked over the edge of the van door in time to see the cats dashing out from under the arbor and disappearing down the street.

  Ten minutes after we were supposed to leave, my younger sisters April and Ella came out of the house dragging book bags and their end-of-year project. April and Ella were twins, too. Although they weren’t identical they looked it with waist-length blond hair tied back with navy ribbons matching their uniforms. They were thirteen and in the seventh grade. Behind them came my cousins, Luke and Caleb, also twins, carrying nothing but Aunt Calla’s super-huge chocolate muffins. They each consumed a muffin, spraying crumbs all over the brick walk, and laughing their way up to the van. Luke boosted April in. She flew past the seat and bumped her head on the other door.

  “Luke,” April said as she settled into the second row.

  “Sorry,” said Luke. “I thought you were Ella.”

  “Hey,” said Ella behind him.

  Luke and Caleb got into the backseat. Luke handed April a chunk of his muffin and she split it with the complaining Ella when Luke wasn’t looking. Caleb came forward between the middle seats to look in the rearview mirror. He rubbed his head and looked at me with a wide, toothy grin.

  “Not too bad this year,” said Caleb. “Feels good to get all that hair off.”

  Luke and Caleb were seventeen and could make their own hair decisions. Although they were identical twins, Luke elected to forgo the annual head shearing and tucked his long blond hair behind his ears. Caleb was freshly sheared like me.

  Caleb turned back to his brother. “Dude, I can’t believe you’re not going to cut off that mop.”

  “He’s not cutting it because Sophie likes it,” said Ella, in her most annoying singsong voice.