After Gracie got to the mall, she found Isaac waiting by the movie theater. The voice made her get lost three times and it took her longer than expected to get there. She walked up to Isaac and smiled. "Hey."
"Well, someone doesn't dress the same when she's out of her uniform," he said, looking at her clothes. She looked down at herself, then back up at him, still smiling.
"I guess I just felt like wearing this tonight. So what are we seeing?" They talked over the various movies, Isaac venturing away from the chick flicks. After a short debate, Gracie said she didn't care and he picked out a movie. She didn't expect to see any of it anyway.
"Are you cold?" he asked. "You should be. Maybe you need a jacket."
"Shut up."
"I don't want everybody staring at you, Gracie." They walked into the movie and found two unoccupied seats near the back corner. Gracie sat down, immediately crossing her legs. When the movie started, she found his arm already around her.
"Gracie, the movie's started. Kiss him." Gracie looked around. This was not the same person who'd been talking to her all day. It seemed a lot louder, and a lot shrewder.
"Gracie!"
Gracie jumped up and immediately looked around. So far, no one was close enough to say anything that clear.
"Gracie, you're hallucinating!" She looked around.
"Did you hear that?" she asked, turning to Isaac. He looked at her strangely, silently asking why she was standing up.
"Hear what?"
"That voice. Someone said my name." Isaac looked around. No one had said anything. But whatever she heard, she heard it loud and clear.
She sat back down, upset. She was used to the voice in the back of her mind already (which she had figured out that it was a voice in her head), telling her what to do and controlling her mind. That was all right. But now people were talking to her and she was getting worried.
"Don't fuck up tonight."
"Who is that?"
"Shh!" someone in front of her said.
"Fuck you," Gracie said, giving the person a look and sitting back in her chair, feeling Isaac's arm around her shoulders. She turned to him. "Are you sure you didn't hear anyone saying my name?"
"I'm pretty sure." Her eyes flicked all around the movie theater. She was so confused and she was getting scared. There was just so many people there, and they were all looking at her, thinking about her, talking about her� she gripped onto Isaac's hand, finding a strange sense of security with him. In front of her someone whispered to his date. She saw his lips mouth her name.
"I have to get out of here," she said and stood up. "We have to get out of here. We can go somewhere else, just there's too many people here."
"All right, we can go somewhere else." She descended the stairs quietly and quickly, her arms limply tossing at her side. Isaac followed suit, worried.
Everyone's thinking about me. They got to me. They know I'm leaving because of them. They're going to kill me when I get home. They're going to take me and stab me and shoot me then kill my family�my mom, my dad, my sisters. They're going to kill me. I don�t want to die� Gracie put her hand over her mouth in a cold fear, shivering, and began to walk faster.
They walked out of the movie theater and into the mall. They'd got into a late show, and were in there nearly a half an hour before she let the voices and the incoherent stares get to her. The mall was virtually deserted now. It had closed. Gracie took a seat and put her hands over her face. Isaac knelt in front of her.
"What's wrong?"
"It was all of them. There were too many people in there and they were all thinking about me and looking at me."
"Gracie," he said, taking her hands away from her face, "they weren't thinking about you. They weren't looking at you. You're just thinking that they were."
"Well how do you know?" she snapped. He was unaffected by it; he just rubbed her hands in his. "You were probably doing the same thing."
"Of course I was," he said. "I can't get you out of my mind. You're so beautiful." She smirked. It wasn't helping her situation any to know he was thinking of her, but it didn't hurt.
"Keep going."
"I don't know anymore about you. I guess we'll have to do this again."
"I guess, you know, if we have to," she said. She bit her lip and looked around. "Where should we go now? There's nothing to do here."
"We can sit and talk."
"And that's always fun," Gracie said, rolling her eyes. "I'm usually a hyperactive person. I always had to be doing something."
"Had?" he asked.
"I don't know, lately everything's changed. I didn't do anything today. I have been acting weird lately. I guess I'm just being disoriented. If I don't get back to my usual ways, I'll start getting worried."
"What's your normal ways?"
"Hyperactive. Peppy psycho cheerleader chick."
"Oh my God," he said, making a face.
"Mixed in with innocent Catholic school girl, of course."
"Innocent?" he asked. "I'm not exactly sure about that." He let his eyes looked over her trashy clothing.
"I'm not usually like this. I told you, I just felt like dressing like this tonight." He shrugged, standing up. Her eyes followed his as he went up.
"Well that's probably why you thought everyone was looking at you tonight. You're very exposed and you're not used to the attention you're getting because of it."
"Maybe."
"Maybe."
Monday morning Gracie walked into the cathedral church, a large choir above her as she headed down the main aisle. A teacher stood and pulled her down onto a bench. "Your skirt is much too short, missy," she whispered.
"I'm sorry. I'll have it fixed," Gracie whispered back. She stood again and moved back into the aisle. She followed her class to the front of the church. A large organ played a familiar religious tune, the incredibly large choir sang over their heads. Gracie walked in silent awe of the marvelous structure, even though she'd been in here millions of times before.
"Ave Maria�." the choir strongly sung over her, setting the tone for the upcoming mass.
"Oh shut the fuck up," the voice in her head muttered. "Why are we here?"
"I go to a Catholic school."
"You need to transfer. Quick. What is this? Is it like mass or something?"
"Yes it is," Gracie quietly answered, looking around to make sure no one heard her. No one was paying attention to her anyway.
"Dammit! Turn around and leave. Run home as fast as you can."
"It'll take me hours to get home," she whispered.
"You can still run," the voice said. "I'm not sitting thought an entire mass, Gracie. Leave now."
"I have to stay." Now people were beginning to glance over at her.
"Leave." She stopped, the person behind her nearly running into her. She looked around, then ran out of the church. No one dared scream after her, but a teacher did follow.
"Young lady! Young lady get back here!" Gracie ran, ignoring the shouts of the teacher who didn't know her name and didn't have the ability to run after her.
"Where are you going now? You've run out of the church, you can't run home."
"You told me to get out of there. It's your fault."
"You can roam around until classes start up again." Gracie stopped in front of one of the buildings. She opened the door and walked inside. She looked over the dark halls, her hand tracing the walls. She let the darkness engulf her completely. She dropped her hand over every knob, checking to see if she could be let in. A sudden light penetrated the darkness ahead in a steady stream, creating a shape of a star on the floor.
Gracie looked to the room. The window was covered completely except for the lone, hollow star towards the center. Gracie peered in. The light was on, but there was no one inside. "It's open," the voice pressured. "Go in."
Quietly, Gracie turned the knob and went inside. The classroom looked so different when it was empty. The brewing storm outside created an eerie incandescence about the room. The freshly cleaned whiteboard stared back at her, just screaming "Write on me!"
She walked to the whiteboard and grabbed the black expo marker. The voice inside her head said nothing to her, but it was telling her what to do. She took off the cap, stood on a chair so she could reach the top of the board, and began to write. Every so often she would move the chair over so she could reach. Eventually she lost the chair and was able to write clearly without it.
The lights flickered. Gracie barely acknowledged it, but she knew it happened. After a while, Gracie took a step back to look over her work. She smiled, capped the marker, and threw it away. She walked to the black seal over the window and ripped it off, throwing it away before walking out of the room.
She sat down in front of her homeroom, waiting for everyone to come back from mass. If she had more time, she'd take her permanent marker and write all over the waxed wooden floor, give a message to her peers and her teachers, maybe tell them how she really felt about the school. Well, she could just draw on the wall until they came back.
She took her marker and drew a flower on the wall. She spent five minutes trying to perfect it. She kept adding leaves and designs until she had extended it to a field of beautiful roses. She wished for a red marker, so maybe she could color them in, instead of the boring black and white.
She stood, having taken up a three by three foot square already. She extended her field until she'd taken up pretty much the entire wall between the door and the bulletin board.
"Gracie!" Gracie didn't stop and look over at the person there. She just kept drawing. They were going to catch her anyway. "Gracie, get to office right now."
"Hold on, I'm almost done."
"You're done." The teacher grabbed her and yanked her away, creating a black line, ruining that area of work.
"Look what you did! You fucking ruined it, you bitch," Gracie yelled at her, her eyes narrow slits.
"That's a Saturday detention right there, missy." Gracie rolled her eyes.
"Like I'm going to show up anyway. You know I have the power to get out of them. All I have to do is shed a few tears, put on a cute face and you're no more than shit," Gracie said, huffing.
"I'll see it to myself."
"Maybe you should check your room out first," Gracie sneered. "I'll be here if you need me." She shrugged off the woman's arm and went back to drawing her roses. The teacher noticed no light on in her room. She walked over and turned on the light to see what Gracie left her on the board.
"Gracie! What the hell did you do to my board?" Gracie smiled. Her smile didn't last, because the teacher ran out and yanked her to the office. Gracie was swearing under her breath as she was dragged to the office. She found herself sitting in front of principal, who was clueless on what was going on.
"Gracie here has vandalized the hall out there and my whiteboard in a language I don't understand. When I talked to her and brought her here, she was uttering phrases young ladies shouldn�t even know."
"Oh, fuck you," Gracie said, grabbing the attention of the principal.
"Do you see what I mean?"
"I'll have to see this." The principal stood and walked out of the office. "You stay here," she said to Gracie. The principal and the teacher left the room and walked down to the teacher's room. Gracie looked over the desk. A marker was in the principal's cup of pens, and since she didn't have hers, she just had to steal this one.
She took it out and doodled smaller roses on the principal's desk, waiting for them to come back. "Those roses were actually very pretty, Gracie," the voice in her head said.
"Thank you. I never knew I could draw."
"Oh, you can�t. But I can. Since I'm technically a part of you, I just told you how to do it. See, I'm telling you how to do it right now," it said. She looked down at her hand, drawing absently on the desk. It was right. It was telling her what to do.
She heard the teacher returning and recapped the marker, not minding if she got caught or not. "Miss Cole," the teacher said. Gracie looked up and sweetly smiled. "Come with me." Gracie found herself being dragged to the teacher's room, much against her will. "Miss Cole," the teacher said again, "please read this to us." Gracie looked at the board.
"I don�t know what that says."
"I'm not asking you to translate it, I'm asking for you to read it."
"I don't know how to read it."
"You wrote it, did you not?" the teacher asked. Gracie shook her head.
"No, I did not write that. I don't speak Icelandic. I only speak English."
"Well you seem to know what language it is," the principal said, "while Miss Corinne and I have not been able to figure it out." Gracie snapped her fingers.
"Dammit," she muttered.
"That is enough of your cursing. You're already due to have your mouth washed out, don't make me do it twice."
"You can't do that," Gracie said, giving the principal a dirty look.
"I can and I will."
"I'm not going to school here anymore."
"You'll stay here and read this to us." Gracie sighed and sat down. She looked at her writing on the board and read it quickly to the teachers, who were surprised at her seemingly perfect accent and how she knew exactly what she was talking about. When she was finished, she looked up at them.
"Now you're going to make me translate it, right? Well I can't do that."
"Fine. Go back to class."
"It's about damn time."
"You can go back after you wash your artwork off the wall." Gracie grumbled some more and went back outside. She found the bucket and the cleaner. She filled the bucket with water and put the cleaner in it.
"You're not going to clean that, are you?" the voice asked.
"Yes I am," she whispered, glancing around, seeing if anyone else was around. She was alone, but she still kept her voice low.
"It's a masterpiece, Gracie! You can't just clean it up and go back to that sick conformity. You need to add more!"
"No. I don't need to any more. They'll yell at me more. I've never done anything wrong before and now that you come along, all that's happening is trouble."
"Gracie�just do what I say or I'll throw you off a cliff."
"You can't do that, you're just a voice." She suddenly slammed herself into the wall. "Okay, I'll add more."
"You're so easy." Gracie looked at the wall. She wiped only the line away then put the bucket to the side and began to draw again with the marker she stole from the principal.
"I'll keep a lookout; I'll let you know when they're coming."
"Okay."
"Here comes someone!" Gracie immediately dropped her marker and picked up the sponge. The voice started laughing. "Gotcha!!"
"Don�t do that again."
"I won't. I promise." Gracie picked up her pen again, drawing another petal on her blooming flower. "She's coming!" She dropped her pen, more out of shock from the sudden loud voice than the words. The voice started laughing again. "I lied. I'm sorry."
"No you're not," Gracie said, rolling her eyes.
"You're right, I'm not." Gracie groaned and saw the principal walk out of the classroom. "Okay, now she's coming."
"Well I could have told you that, stupid."
"Miss Cole, who are you talking to?"
"Why? Does it really mater anyway? No matter what I do, you'll get mad at me. I might as well just switch schools so you can get me out of your nappy hair."
"Miss Cole�"
"Stop calling me that!"
"Miss Cole you are being very disrespectful."
"Bite me!" The principal gave her a piercing look. It scared Gracie, to the point where she wondered if the principal could read her thoughts. Maybe she could! "Stop it! Stop it!" Gracie yelled.
"Stop what?"
"Leave me alone!" Gracie yelled, then ran out of the building.
"Miss Cole, come back here!" Gracie was too out of it to hear. The principal was not about to run after her, so she let her go. She'd get punished later.
Gracie ran down the street and all the way home, not stopping once. She left her car at the high school, completely forgetting that she had her license now and could drive instead of walk. She wasn't as far away as she thought she was from home, so it only took her about an hour to get there. She ran into her house, making sure to put her shirt over the doorknob before opening it.
"Gracie, what are you doing here? How'd you get here?" Mrs. Cole asked, watching her daughter walk raggedly to the stairs. "Gracie, answer me when I talk to you." Gracie made her way up the stairs to her room. "Grace!"
"They're all against you, Gracie," one of the new voices in her head told her. "Everyone one of them, including your mother." Gracie went into her bed and pulled her covers over her head.
"Are they really?" she whispered. She peeked out from under the covers, to the room. No one was there, just like she had thought.
"Yes they are." She shivered. It was getting cold in here. "Everyone is. Even that boy."
"No he's not."
"Yes he is, Gracie." Gracie bit her lip. The voice hadn't been wrong so far. It hadn't lied to her yet. Everything it'd said was true. It didn't do anything to hurt her�except for the whole leg cutting, burning up the sheets thing. Gracie peered at the healing cut along her leg. She made a face.
"It's healing," the original voice said. "Due time for another one."
"Not right now," Gracie said. She got out of the bed and went to the radio. She turned it on. Instead of the music she wanted to hear, she heard herself. An eyebrow rose. "What's this?"
"It's your thoughts."
"My thoughts? My thoughts are on the radio? Who would do something like this?" Gracie ran to the window and peered out. "I bet it's that bitch across the street. She's always telling people she can read minds. She must be putting mine on the radio. I don't know how."
"I'm sure people can find a way," the voice said, agreeing with her. Gracie scanned the room.
"She's probably got some kind of radio transmitter over there, pointing at me wherever I go. There's probably a bug in here somewhere." Gracie looked around the room again, and her eyes landed on the mirror. "The mirror! I've seen this in movies before. They're controlling me through the mirror!"
"Get rid of it."
Gracie ran over to the mirror and smashed it with her hand. "Ow!" she said, looking at her bloody hand. The mirror was cracked, but not broken enough to see behind it. "That really hurt."
"Try it again."
She hit the mirror again and the glass fell neatly over her dresser and on the floor. She rubbed her hurting hand and looked up. She saw the transmitter over her wall. "Hey, I was right," she said, smiling. "I need something to get rid of this."
"There's a sledgehammer in the garage, you know."
"I was thinking more along the lines of clippers to dismantle the wires," Gracie said.
"That's not as fun as the sledgehammer. Sledgehammers can do a lot more damage than clippers."
"I'm still using the clippers." She ran out of the room to the garage and grabbed the clippers, then ran back to her room. She went to the mirror and held the clippers to the wire to cut it. Her clippers passed right through the image of the transmitter. "What?" she whispered. Suddenly the image disappeared and she saw her clean wall. "Hey! There was no transmitter there!"
"I know. I put it there to make it seem like there was. Sorry," said the voice inside her head.
"It must be somewhere else then. I'll keep looking." She glanced around the room. Where was a good place to put a radio transmitter bug? "Maybe she has one of those good ones that work from her house."
"Nah," the voice said. "It's in this room. I know it. Bugs are actually small, they can hide in the walls and stuff. Maybe you should check the walls. Knock them over with a sledgehammer."
"Enough with the sledgehammer!"
"All right, all right. We can check for the bug later. Until then the world will continue to know exactly what you are thinking. All the time."
"We'll think about that later. I have stuff to do."
"Just look for the damn bug!" Gracie started searching, overturning objects put putting them back in place when she was finished. Mrs. Cole walked in just as Gracie threw her mattress off her bed.
"Gracie! What are you going?"
"Looking for a bug," Gracie simply started, and lifted up her box springs for a hidden bug.
"Where'd it go? Don't tell me you had a bug in your bed. What have you been eating in here?"
"No! A bug that hears what people are saying and thinking, an electronic one. I know there's one in here somewhere."
"Gracie, if there is a bug in here, it can't know what you're thinking. And I highly doubt there is one in here anyway."
"Yes it can know what I'm thinking. The lady across the street is reading my thoughts through the bug and she's reading them over the radio in my voice. I don't know how she's doing it, but she is."
"Gracie, that's silly!"
"It's true!" Gracie yelled, turning to her mother. "And if you don't believe it then you can go away. I can't have you interrupting me anyway."
"Where are your sheets?" Mrs. Cole asked, looking on the floor for them.
"What the fuck do you care?"
"Gracie if you say that work one more time you will never leave this room again." Gracie got up and walked over to her mother.
"Fuck!" she screamed, then went back to her bed.
"That's enough! You will stay in here until I tell you that you can leave."
"Whatever," Gracie said, picking up her mattress and putting it back on her bed. Mrs. Cole walked out of the room. Gracie made a face and went back to searching for the radio transmitter.