Dead River (12 page)

“I don’t understand how all these stories we told around the campfire the other night are haunting me,” I say. “They’re
stories
.”

“They were legends. They
did
happen, long ago. And legends get twisted over time. And you don’t just know our stories. You know
all
the stories of the people who’ve died in the waters. That is part of your gift. You just need something to awaken the memory, I suppose. But it’s all inside you, waiting to be released.” He taps on the side of my head, sending droplets of blood scattering onto his shirt. I gasp and step back.

Suddenly he stops, looks around. I hear it, too:
Sleesh … sleesh … sleesh
.

He sighs. “I must go. I have something to attend to. I will see you again.”

I nod, but it’s not like I ever want to see him again. Seeing him again means I’m crazy.

He starts to walk down the path toward the river, and it’s only then that I realize he’s carrying the ax. The blade is brown with dried blood. “Oh, and Kiandra. Next time, I will prove your mother is waiting for you. And you will come.”

You will come
. I shiver when I think of it. He seems so confident. Much more confident than I am.

But the thing is, I was perfectly happy knowing my mother is gone forever.

And I don’t want a next time.

Chapter Thirteen

A
cross the river, something gleams yellow, like gold.

It makes me think of my mother, of my bedroom, of the setting sun sparkling gold on the river outside. She grew up on the river. She’d moved away for a time, before college, but she’d found her way back. “I love the river,” she told me. “I love it to my bones. I never want to be anywhere but here.”

My father didn’t like the river. We moved there when I was five, and in the two years we lived there, the basement of our old house flooded about a hundred times. It was so permanently moldy and dank that we never went down there. The foundation of our house was crumbling because of the water damage. He kept telling her we should “sell the damn thing before it collapses on us.” My mother and father rarely argued, since my mom, being prone to headaches, tried hard to keep the peace. But when they did fight, it was about the house. “A river symbolizes purity,” she’d tell me. “To a river, every day is a new day, a chance to start over. Isn’t that a comforting thought?”

“Mom,” I’d ask. “Why do you want to start over?”

She’d laugh. “I don’t want to. But sometimes things end. And it’s comforting to be able to begin again.”

At the time, that made no sense to me.
Sometimes things end
. Afterward, I always thought about it bitterly. I mean, did she think that she could somehow just undo drowning herself in the river? But now Jack, a ghost or a vision or whatever he is, is telling me she’s here. That she is waiting for me. And though I know it’s simply crazy, it’s all I can think about.

Sometime later, and I really don’t know how much later, I hear Justin shuffling down the path. I’m sitting at a picnic bench, nursing a nearly empty container of coffee and staring across the river.

My mother can’t be there. And I can’t see her again. She’s dead, and people aren’t supposed to see the dead.

But I saw Jack. It wasn’t like he was a vapor, a ghost. He was beside me.
Traveling on another plane
, and yet real. I could feel his breath, his cold, cold skin.

Is my mother that real? Could I possibly—

“Hey, you.” Justin’s voice startles me. “I see you were up bright and early.”

I stare at him for a good long time, still lost in thought. The smile on his face is just beginning to break down into concern when I blink twice and come alive. “Oh. Um, yeah.”

“Angela made pancakes, if you want some.” He points to the cup on the picnic table. “Does that taste like yesterday’s sewage? I made a pot back at the ranch that’s pretty good.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks.” I spill what’s left of my coffee on the
ground, throw the cup in a nearby trash can, then follow him toward the cabin.

“What do you say to a hike today?” he asks. “You feeling up to it?”

I stretch my back. For the first time I realize it’s not just my ankle that aches. I’m sore from head to toe. I feel every bit as if I’ve been tossed down a raging river with a bunch of logs and debris using me as a Ping-Pong ball. I totally don’t want to be a wet blanket, though. I’m the one who insisted we stay, because I wanted to spend time with Justin. And here, all I’ve been doing is spending time alone, with my imaginary “friends.” “Yeah. Of course.”

I’m dragging behind him, so he turns and watches me walk a few steps. “Why are you limping?”

“I’m just a little sore,” I say. “No big deal.”

He points down at my foot. “You weren’t limping yesterday. The paramedics—”

At first I’m not really sure how it happened. Then I remember trying to escape Jack, and him nearly putting his hand on my ankle. I shiver. “Um, I twisted my ankle a little this morning,” I say. “But I’ll just put an ice pack on it for a few minutes. It’ll be okay.”

“Well, Pleasant Pond Mountain isn’t too tough of a hike. It’s only eight miles.” He reaches down and touches it. “That hurt?”

“Ouch!”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says. “You are staying home. I’ll stay with you.”

“Give me a break. Go hiking.”

“I can’t leave you here alone. What if you need something?”

“I’m not a quadriplegic.” I give him a teasing look. “Look me in the eye and tell me you’d rather spend today nursing your clumsy oaf of a girlfriend.”

He laughs. “Well, okay. But the good news is, you have a big-screen TV to keep you company, and I hear that tonight the Outfitters will be playing
The River Wild
out on the terrace. That’s fun, right?”

“Totally,” I say, forcing myself to smile.

Angela is standing in the cabin’s foyer, in jeans and hiking boots, stuffing granola bars into her backpack. “I was just coming— Oh!” she gasps when she sees me. “Honey Bunches, you okay?”

I collapse into the nearest chair. “It’s just a little sprain. It should be fine tomorrow.”

“But, honey, we should go home, then, right?” She looks at Justin, then back at me. “I mean, this can’t be any fun for you, can it?”

“No,” I say. “All you’ve done for months is talk about this trip. And I am having a good time. Really. When you guys get back, we’ll all watch the movie together. It’ll be fun.” They’re both staring at me like I have bugs crawling out of my nose, so I say, “Where’s Hugo?”

Angela motions to the bathroom. “Remember that liter of Absolut Justin brought?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, now it’s a quarter of a liter. He’s been puking all
morning. And there’s no water in that bathroom. He’ll be cleaning it up, not me.” She groans, then raises her voice: “Did you hear me, Hugo? You. Are. Cleaning. It. Up!”

“Oh.” For the first time, I hear noises coming from the downstairs bathroom. I’m kind of glad he took the Absolut off our hands, because I’m not in the mood to celebrate, and anyway, I do not need the help of anything that might further loosen my grasp on reality. “So I guess it’s just you two?”

Justin nods. “You sure you’re going to be—”

“Just go,” I command, waving them away. “Have fun.”

He gives me a peck on the top of the head, and they gather up their backpacks and head out. I smile after them until the guilt dims the brightness in my face. I sit there for a moment, massaging my ankle. It honestly doesn’t feel as bad as I might have made it out to be. And that’s a good thing. Because I have a feeling that for what I’m planning, I’m going to need it.

Chapter Fourteen

T
en minutes later, Hugo saunters out of the downstairs bathroom, scratching his backside. He looks pretty okay for someone who just spent hours worshipping at the porcelain shrine. He has a rolled-up
Sports Illustrated
and is whistling.

I expect to smell something disgusting coming from the open door, but I can’t make anything out. “Did you clean in there?” I ask.

He jumps sky high, like a cartoon character that has stuck its finger in an electric socket. “What the hell are you doing here?”

I don’t answer. “You can open a window, at least. And there’s some 409 under the kitchen sink.” I march over to the bathroom to inspect it, knowing it’ll be gross. I can already tell from the way Hugo threw his McDonald’s hamburger wrappers all over Monster that he isn’t the cleanest person on earth. Holding my breath, I stand in the doorway and take the quickest of peeks. Then I open my eyes wide.

It’s spotless.

I turn to him. He’s still fanning himself with the rolled-up magazine from the shock of seeing me. “What?” he says.

“You weren’t sick?”

“Yeah, I was. Of course I was. Why would I lie about that?”

“I don’t know. All I know is, this bathroom is sparkly clean, and you don’t strike me as the domestic type. Plus, you didn’t have any cleaning supplies, dirty paper towels—”

“Okay, Sherlock, you got me,” he sneers. “I just didn’t want to go on a crummy hike today. What about you? Why are you here?”

“I twisted my ankle,” I say, reaching down to massage it, though it really doesn’t hurt anymore.

“You didn’t want to go, either,” he says, collapsing on a leather couch. “Face it. You see it, too.”

I stare at him. Is it possible that Hugo, stupid, idiotic Hugo, could see some of the things I see? “See what?”

“Angela and Justin. Justin and Angela.” When my face is just as blank as before, he says,
“In lurve.”

“What?” I start to laugh. Of course this wasn’t about the ghosts. But still, I know what he’s talking about. My laughter quickly dissolves. “What would make you think that?”

“You never noticed? They’re always giving each other looks.”

“Yeah, but they’re best friends. She’s not his type. Believe me,” I say, as much to convince myself as to convince him. “I mean, I can see where you would think that, because I’ve thought it, too. But really. It’s nothing.”

He shrugs.

“Really. They’ve known each other since they were three,” I say, thinking back to the time three years ago when we’d been making out in the yearbook office for the first time and Justin said, “Angela has nothing to do with this.” How many times have I repeated that to myself over the years? She’s his best friend, and that’s it.

Angela is my closest friend. She was happy when she found out Justin and I were a couple. Happy. She bounced around and giggled like she was on bath salts. “I always thought you’d make a great couple,” she said.

“Angela has nothing to do with this,” I find myself saying.

“Huh?” Hugo’s staring at me.

I grab my backpack and step over his legs, which are sprawled out on the coffee table. “I’ve got something to do.”

“Your poor, throbbing ankle all better?” he asks with a crafty grin. When I don’t reply, he gets down on his knees and raises his hands toward the heavens. “Praise God. It’s a miracle.”

I think about kicking him in the ribs, but in the end I just ignore him and walk to the door.

“Wait. Where are you go—” he begins, but by then I’ve slammed the door.

I walk on the right side of 201 until I’m directly across from the Outfitters, then cut across the highway quickly. That way, I avoid the sound of the river. If I hear those voices, I might get cold feet. And I need to do this. I need to put an end to the questions.

I know it’s completely ridiculous. I know I’m going crazy and seeing people who aren’t real. But they
feel
real, as real
as Justin or Angela or anyone. And even though she can’t be over there, even though it’s impossible, I need to see. I need to prove to myself that all of this—Jack, Trey, my mother—is all in my head.

In the Outfitters, it’s quiet because the buses have already departed for the day. There’s a rather large older man there in red flannel and an L.L.Bean cap, reading a hunting magazine. I clear my throat. He looks up, startled. “Hi!” I say brightly. “I, um, saw an interesting graveyard on the other bank and I was wondering if there was a way I could get across to see it?”

He says yes with the first Down East Maine accent I’ve heard in a long time: “Ayuh.” Most people in southern Maine now are from away and don’t talk like that, which is a shame because I kind of like it. “You looking to rent a kayak?”

I bite my lip. “Well … if there’s any way to stay out of the water, I’d prefer that.”

All the while, his eyes are narrowed to tiny creases. Then he says, “Yeh the Ice Guhl!”

“Um, well …”

“Imagine that, the Ice Guhl wants to stay out of the riveh. What, the riveh got yeh good?” He’s all animated, suddenly. “Well, theh a footbridge ’bout sixteen miles upstream. At put-in. Yeh have to get down the logging roads. Gets hahd cause theh not mocked.”

I think for a second before I realize he’s saying “marked.” The roads are not marked. Great.

“Oh,” I sigh. Justin and Angela have taken Monster to get
to the trailhead. Not that I would have taken it without asking him. He wouldn’t have minded, but with my luck, since it’s mud season, I probably would end up stuck on a remote logging road, never to be found again.

“That kayak soundin’ betta and betta each minute, eh?” he asks. “I’d take yeh, but I’m right out straight heh.”

I don’t know what that means, but it sounds painful.

“Yeh can still rent on a thuty,” he says.

I just stare. He writes something on a piece of paper and pushes it over the counter to me. It says $30.

“Cash only,” he says. “Dough know howah wahk those credit cah thingies.”

“Is it rough? Is it hard to get across from here?” I ask, my voice rising an octave.

“Nah. Buh yeh gah to make shaw yeh get theh befuh yeh reach the Kennebec. Gets a little hahd thah.”

I dig into my pockets for the money but stop. The feeling of dread—being on the water—washes over me. I can’t do it. As much as I want to see what’s over there, I can’t. “Isn’t there anyone else who could take me?” I ask.

He shakes his head, just as a voice calls out behind me, “I can.” I whirl around and Hugo is standing there, already holding a kayak paddle and grinning. He looks at the old man behind the counter and, in this most atrocious combination of Down East Maine and British Cockney, says, “It’s wicked calm, taint that right, govnah?”