The Year of the Storm (21 page)

T
here are parts of the journey that are so indelibly etched in my mind that I can go there in an instant, turn back the clock to the moment as if experiencing it again for the first time.

Going into the cellar with Sykes was one of those moments. Losing the dusk, the half-light of the cabin, my grip—however tenuous—on reality and disappearing into the full dark of the cellar. Slipping, actually. Slipping right into darkness.

The darkness was first. Second was the inability to breathe. He was squeezing my midsection, his two fists tight under my rib cage like some terrible version of the Heimlich. I smelled him. That was the third thing. His body reeked of the swamp, and all the dead, decomposing things—mildewed leaves, fish, the rotten corpses of a thousand dead animals.

I flailed my hands around in desperation, trying to beat at his shoulders and arms, but since he was under me and he held me so tight, there was little damage I could do to him. I reached for his face, only to have him bite my hand savagely. I felt the sickening crunch of his tooth grinding against my knuckle.

I still couldn't breathe.

My lungs squeezed shut. I had to cough. There was a moment when I became Seth drowning in quicksand, Jake reaching out to shove him under, except now it was Sykes, his iron grip around my midsection. I flailed and sputtered and felt like I was being burned slowly, from the inside out, like a bomb that was ticking toward detonation.

Then—and this is the part that is most clear—I heard a voice, calm and soothing. It was a voice that loosened the knot that I had frantically been cinching ever tighter in my desperation.

“Reach out for my hand.”

The voice belonged to Pike. I had no doubt of it then or now. With my free hand, I reached blindly. I grazed his fingers and strained my back trying to touch them again. Finally, his hand enveloped mine. His grip was strong and firm, and I felt him pulling me away from Sykes. I flew through the air. My eyes were still shut, but images flashed before them like one of those time-lapse movies when the director speeds everything up really fast to show the passing of time. I saw a glimpse of Pike sitting in his cabin, the oxygen tubes in his nostrils; I saw him in the dark woods standing on the edge of a bright clearing, taking in the view; I saw him leaning over the counter, Cap's shirt bunched inside his fist; I saw this and more until they became a fluttering of images so fast that I couldn't make out a single one except the last: Pike smiling at me on a cloudy day in the woods—the real woods I'd grown up playing in—a fresh rain covering everything with a shiny polish. I didn't know it then, but this last image was one I would see again, and one I would always remember.

After the images stopped, I hit the cellar ground hard enough to force the breath out of me. I lay there for a second, trying to breathe normally. I couldn't see anything other than the top of the ladder above me but decided that would work both ways. Sykes wouldn't be able to see anything either.

I scrambled to my feet and lunged toward the ladder. I grabbed it and started going up. I was a rung from the top when I felt his hand on my ankle. He yanked hard, and both feet lost contact with the steps. Somehow, I managed to keep my hands on the ladder. I kicked backward with the foot he wasn't holding and landed a blow to what must have been his face. He gasped and let go of my ankle. I made it to the top and tried to pull my way out onto the plank floor.

Mom was there, staring at me, her mouth gaping.

I got my elbows up. And then my midsection. “Go,” I gasped at Mom. “Go back to the room.”

She shook her head and ran to me, kneeling beside the cellar opening, reaching for my arms, pulling me up.

Without her help, I probably wouldn't have made it because Sykes grabbed me again, this time around the thighs. Both of her arms wrapped around me and for a moment I was stretched between the darkness below and my mother. She pulled on me hard, but her hands were slipping, she was losing her grip on me.

When I realized she wasn't going to overpower him, I met her eyes.
Let go
, I mouthed.

She stared at me.

I nodded at her, and I hoped she could see my confidence in my face. She shook her head.

Trust me
, I mouthed.

She let go.

I knew what would happen—or at least I thought I did. Turns out, I was right. Sykes had been pulling hard. When Mom let go, he pulled us both back in. This time, though, I landed on top of him as he hit his head on the dirt floor. His arms flailed up and I was free. I scrambled toward the ladder and made it up in seconds. Once clear of the hole, I slammed down the lid and leaned back against the hallway wall, trying to catch my breath.

Mom came over to me and hugged me hard. I buried my face against her shoulder and hugged her back.

I don't know how long I would have stood there with her if I hadn't heard the
thunk
of his feet and hands on the metal ladder below us.

“The couch,” I said.

“What?” Mom let go of me.

“We've got to get the couch.”

His fingers were on the underside of the door now. I could hear them, touching, probing, looking for the latch.

“Come on!” I sprinted down the hallway and jumped over the couch. Mom was right behind me, but I had to wait for her to get out of the way before I could slide it to the top of the door. She got on one side and together we pushed. As we pushed the couch closer, I saw the handle turn and the door begin to lift . . .

We shoved harder, forcing the couch over the door, and the weight of the couch made the door slam shut.

I heard a moan and then a
thunk
as he hit the bottom again.

Out of breath, I plopped down on top of the couch and felt the absurd desire to say that line from
The Wizard of Oz
. So I did.

“Ding dong,” I whispered. “The witch is dead.”

E
xcept he wasn't. As far as I knew, he couldn't die. He could be hurt, maybe trapped (as I hoped I had done), but something told me he couldn't be killed. Pike had already done that once, and as far as killing went, I suspected once was enough.

He needs to move on
, I thought.
Just like the girls. Just like us.

No, not just like us. We would all be going different places. Or so I hoped.

“What now?” Mom said.

I pulled myself up. “Now, we need to go for a walk. Through the swamp. But we have to hurry.”

Mom glanced at the couch and nodded. “He's not dead, is he?”

“No way.”

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“I can't go. This place . . . it's a dream. I—I need to just go back to sleep.”

I waved her off. “We can talk about that stuff later. Just trust me for now.”

She did say one more thing, though. One more thing that I still think about a lot these days. “Okay,” she said. “It's a deal. We'll talk about it when we get home.”

She never lived up to her promise. We didn't ever talk about it again. Still, those words stay forever on my mind because she said them at all.

Listen:

We'll talk about it when we get home.

When we get home.
It meant that somehow, she'd found it within her to believe again, to trust, to accept that things were pretty much rotten—no, worse than rotten; they were shitty—but she'd also accepted that she didn't have to just deal with them either. Because it's so easy to get complacent, isn't it? It's so easy to fear improvements, because improvements equal change and change equals believing in a world that you can't quite see yet.

When we get home.

—

W
e heard him stirring in the cellar before we left, a rat trapped in a cage. When Mom raised an eyebrow at the sound, I shrugged it off. Our choices were limited now. We had to move quickly and hope we could find our way out of this place before Sykes found his way out of the cellar.

I wished Tina were here to guide us, and I briefly wondered if showing her the cellar had been a mistake. She'd disappeared after without a word. Maybe it was too sudden to be faced with all that. Sometimes you need time.

It didn't matter, though. Tina wasn't here, and I'd have to find it on my own. I started off through the dense trees, trying my best to go in the direction of the quicksand.

We made pretty good time through the swamp. Mom and Anna were silent, and I was thankful for that. So far, both followed me without complaint, despite the sometimes knee-deep water we were slogging through.

After a while, I began to wonder if I was going the right way. Back home, in the woods, we would have been there by now. Things were different here, I reminded myself. Time for sure. Distance probably too. I kept forging on, scrambling up to a relatively dry bank lined with water lilies. It was beautiful, the kind of thing Mom would have wanted to take a picture of in better times. I squeezed between two ancient, kudzu-covered trees when I heard her.

“No.”

That was what Anna did when she didn't want to go somewhere. She'd say no and just sit down. I turned—disappointed, but not surprised—to see her sitting right in the swamp water, her dress billowing out like a lily pad, soaked brown all the way up to her shoulders.

I splashed back into the water and went over to her. “Anna,” I said, “I'm going to pick you up and carry you. I know you don't like it, but I have to do it. I'm sorry.” I reached for her, and she immediately began to wail, beating her fists against my back. I put my mouth next to her ear and said, “Brady. Brady
Bun-ch
.”

She didn't even seem to hear. She was tossing her head wildly. I had to hold her off me to keep her head from colliding with mine.

I struggled forward, back toward the bank, her writhing in my arms. I marveled at her strength. It took all I had to hold on to her to drag her up the bank, and still she screamed and beat on me. One of her fists hit my face, but I ignored it. I wasn't letting go.

A few more steps and I saw it. It looked exactly the same as it looked back in the real world, just as it had the day Dad and I stood nearby thinking of happier times. The creek that ran behind it was similar. It was close, but not exact. The quicksand, as far as I could tell, was identical down to the gritty moistness that looked just solid enough for someone to step on who didn't know any better.

“Why have you brought us here?” Mom said.

I took a deep breath and put Anna down. “Remember when I talked about trusting me?”

Mom just stared. “You don't expect me to . . .” She trailed off, shaking her head.

“It's the way out. I know it sounds crazy, but it's the only way out of here. It's how Seth left.” As I spoke, I was acutely aware of the time we were wasting. Sykes would eventually work his way out of the cellar, and when he did, he would come here first.

“Who is Seth?” Mom said. “And why do we care what he did? Oh, Jesus, I knew this was a mistake. Sometimes, Danny, sometimes you just can't go back home again.”

I grabbed her. “It doesn't matter how far you've fallen, Mom. You can always come back home.”

I tried to drag her toward the quicksand, but she stiffened her body and dug in. I couldn't move her.

“No. I'm sorry, Danny. I'm sorry, I can't be the mother you want me to be.”

A wave of something hit me then. It was big and loud and it crashed down all over my head, knocking me off balance. Understanding. I couldn't help Mom any more than I already had. The rest was up to her. And once I accepted this, I felt a sadness, but I also felt a peace. Mom had vanished because she wanted to. I didn't know where she'd gone or with whom, but she had done it of her own will, and if she was going to come back home, she'd have to do that of her own will too. I'd found a way to reach her, to shake her hard, but she'd have to do the rest.

I dropped to my knees, sobbing. My mother had left us. Had she left Anna too? She'd certainly tried. But Anna was otherworldly when she wanted her way. She possessed some kind of cosmic power that would not be denied, not even by her own mother.

—

S
ometimes life is all about timing because if I am honest with myself, I'd come to the realization that we can only save ourselves. I was ready to believe that when it happened.

Sykes showed up.

From behind us, at the edge of the deepest trees, there was a clatter that sounded like a water buffalo trying to find its way out of a deadfall. Splashing and sticks breaking and moaning. Yeah, the moaning, it's still with me to this day.

He came out of the trees, shuffling sideways, and I saw that the last fall must have broken his back or neck or something central because he wasn't quite put together right anymore. From the waist up, he was turned crooked. His legs went one way and the rest of him faced to the right, and if I hadn't been so damned angry and scared, it would have been funny, a piece of physical comedy worthy of the Monty Python skits Cliff and I used to laugh at. But instead of laughing, I reacted.

The quicksand seemed to vibrate in front of me. A snake was near the edge, as if deciding whether to slip in. I watched it, hoping it would go and give me that little extra boost I needed, but it was taking its sweet time, and there was no way to be certain if it was going there or not. And even if it was, what did that prove? That I had about as much sense as a snake? No, this wasn't about sense or reason or thinking. This was about belief. Climbing out of the slip had always been about belief.

I went for the quicksand. I'm not sure if I thought about it at all. It was instinct. I went because in the end, when push finally came to shove, I had faith—enough anyway—after all.

Three steps was all it took and about three seconds to regret it.

I expected Anna, at least, to follow me. This was a mistake. The look of abject terror on Anna's face told me that.

Sykes was still coming, and Mom and Anna could do nothing but run from him. The problem was only one of them was running: Mom. Anna was standing, her fingers in her ears, as Sykes ambled within arm's reach of her.

Mom and I both screamed for her, but it was too late. He had her in his grasp, his leering face inches above her own, and I could see the look of fear wash over her like one of the thunderstorms she dreaded so much. She began to convulse in his arms.

All this while I was sinking. The quicksand was up to my knees. I lunged forward, but I was so firmly entrenched, I couldn't even make myself fall forward. Somehow, the effort seemed to accelerate the quicksand, and it pulled me harder. I was up to my waist in an instant.

“Mom,” I said. “Please . . . only you can decide. If you do, take my hand. Please, Mom.”

The look on Mom's face was utter anguish.

Anna screamed again, and I heard Sykes laughing.

I sank more, now trying to tilt my head back to avoid the muck creeping over my chin. So much for Cliff's science about only going halfway down. Thinking that gave me some hope too, because it was clear that science didn't apply here, at least the science that Cliff knew.

With a great effort, I was able to turn my head toward Anna, where Sykes held her aloft like a rag doll.

I turned just in time. Otherwise, I might have missed it.

It
was a thing of beauty. Like shards of light sliced in long, thick sheets, the girls came.

At first, I didn't even recognize the lights as emanating from the girls. But when they knocked Sykes back, they materialized—girls from pure, white-hot energy. They were like wild cats that had been caged for too long and had forgotten their power. Imagine two tigers that had run wild for much their lives in the jungle, only to be subdued by cruel men and brought into captivity. Any fool could see the power they possessed, but the poor things, driven to apathy from their time inside a cage, had no idea of their own power. These girls were like that. They were bound by nothing, not even gravity, but they didn't know it. One day, they realize the cage has never even been locked, and with the slightest push, they could be free, and opening that cage door is like opening a valve. All the pressure is released. They are free to explode and become who they are. For the girls, the cage had been their own fear, and the release set loose a blast of righteous anger, pent-up fury that literally swooped, blazing, across the sky.

This was what I saw in the moments before sinking under the quicksand. The girls flew at Sykes with a rage so pure, I swore they left streaks in the evening sky that might never fade. All that animosity, aimed squarely at Sykes. I couldn't help but wonder at the justice in that moment. Their very essences seemed to scream through the dusk that he would not hurt Anna like he'd hurt them. It's one of the images I come back to again and again: the raw power, the burning truth. Witnessing something like that changes you in a way that a therapist can never understand. A moment like that transcends reality, memory, rational thought. It felt primal, like God's own justice falling from the sky.

When they came at him, Sykes dropped Anna and fell back, stunned, untouched, at least physically, but I realized as the quicksand took my mouth that power,
real
power, wasn't physical anyway. Real power was all about confidence and faith. And somehow, the girls had found theirs at last. Tina's visit to the cellar, her remembering . . . I'm sure it helped her, but I am equally sure she and Rachel also acted out of a kind of loyalty to Anna. She'd come here because they called, much as they had come here because of Seth.

I watched as Mom hugged Anna close, and the girls swarmed over Sykes, keeping him on the ground through force of will, apparently. I tried to call out, to tell Mom it was going to be okay, that she just needed to take the next step. I wanted to tell her to follow me back home, but the words died in the thick mud.

My nose was next; I felt the grit tickling my upper lip, and then coating it. It felt odd—cool and sticky and calming somehow. My eyes remained riveted on the scene that was playing out in front of me. Rachel and Tina were laughing now, and it sounded like carnival music, full of peculiar angles and absurd joy. They were also floating higher than I'd ever seen them float, surrounded by shimmering lights, two loose conglomerations of fireflies, twinkling in the dusk. The hems of their dresses caught fire and fell like flaming rain.

And then their bones dropped like brittle sticks into the quicksand.

My ears were filling up with mud and the sound of hundreds of souls talking all at once somewhere far away, heard through a wall. The last image I saw before the gritty wetness closed my eyes was of the girls, shouting at Mom and Anna, telling them something. Then they were gone and all that remained were the trees and all the secrets they hold among their clustered branches.

And then they were gone too.

—

T
here is a between place. The trees know it. It happens at dusk at that perfect moment between light and dark, when the air is festooned with shadows and the atmosphere is heavy with possibility. Here things are in balance, the world is a slate, without even the slightest traces of the scarred markings you used to believe dictated the way of things. Here, memory is like a stylus that you can use to roam wherever you please.

This is what I found in the quicksand. A place free of the laws of physics, bound by nothing except the limits of memory, hope, and imagination. Imagination most of all. There is a temptation to stay, to live out an infinite life poised on the brink of infinite possibilities. Who knows how long I might have savored the power if I had not felt a hand grasp mine.

Instantly, I knew I wanted to go back home because that hand belonged to Mom, and even though I couldn't see her, I knew she and Anna had decided to join me. Maybe the girls had talked her into it, but I doubt that. More likely, she had decided for herself, decided to give her life one more chance.