Dead River

Chapter Twelve



I squeeze my eyes shut. I push hard against my eyeballs with my thumb and forefinger. I chant, “You’re not real. You’re not real. You’re not real.”

I’m going to continue on. I’m going to push past him and get back to my boyfriend, then never leave Justin’s side again. I try to move, but it’s not fast enough.

All the while, Jack is very near. He doesn’t float; his footsteps are soft, but they’re there. I can feel his breath on my neck. I can feel his smooth fingertips prying my hand from my face, lacing his fingers with my own. Something touches my cheek; it is cold as ice, yet it sends a white-hot shock down to my toes. The icy-hot sensation trails toward my mouth. His lips. He presses them against mine, not really delivering the kiss, just … lingering, until I have this overwhelming urge to finish it, to pull him hard to me, to beg him to feed his tongue into me. But suddenly the force is gone, and the cold breeze that slips between us, warm compared to his lips, is like a slap on my face.

I open my eyes. He is still there. It’s just me and him, on the path. From here I can see the Outfitters, and the cabin, and yet I am helplessly alone with him. Whatever he is.

“Do you believe I’m real now?” he says, a small smile tugging at his lips.

I nod, shivering. “Are you a ghost?”

“You’re not like the others. You’re much more in tune with the river than they are. They don’t see or hear the things you do.”

“But why?”

“Ah, Mistress. You mean no one has explained it to you?”

Mistress? Is that a term of endearment? “No,” I mutter.

“All right. Then I will.”

I take a deep breath, which calms me a little. Just a little. Not so much that my entire body isn’t shaking, but enough so that my voice comes out even. “So, explain.”

He holds up a finger, scolding me as if I were a child. “You need patience.”

“Maybe you need to be a little less mysterious,” I counter.

He raises his eyebrows. “All right. I’ll give you that. What are your questions?”

“The river,” I say. “It always sounds like it’s whispering.”

“They have something to say to you.”

“They? Who are they?”

“Let them tell you. They want to tell you. Just listen.”

“I’ve tried,” I say. “Most of the time it’s just pieces, fragments. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“They’re all trying to speak to you at once. The longer and closer you listen, the more you’ll be able to make out the individual voices.”

“But who are they?”

He doesn’t say anything, but I already know. I don’t know if I could stand to hear the answer. And there’s something strange about the way he’s staring at me so intently, as if he’s waited all his life to have this conversation with me. Which is crazy, because I’ve only just met him. “Who are you?”

“I heard your friends telling the story. The story of my life and, it seems, my untimely death.” He laughs. “Don’t look so shocked. I said I was real. But I never said I was still alive.”

My heart shudders in my chest. “So you are a … ghost?”

“Well, I wouldn’t use that term. I prefer to say that I’m traveling on a different plane. But I suppose ‘ghost’ is what humans would call me, yes.”

“Then why can I see you?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you can see and hear all of us, can you not? That’s why all the voices are in your head, and you’re having a hard time sorting them out.”

“All of who?”

“All of those who met their fate on the water,” he answers. “Because we need you. She needs you.”

My breath hitches. “She?”

“The whispers you’ve heard,” he says. “Surely one of the voices you’ve heard has sounded familiar?”

I shake my head. That the river is whispering at all is so much to wrap my brain around, I haven’t had time to think that a voice might be familiar to me. “I don’t … I don’t think so.” I murmur, but all at once I know what he is going to say. And as sure as I’m standing there, I know it’s the truth.

“It’s your mother,” he says. “And she has been waiting for you.”

“My mother?” I repeat, the word sounding strange coming off my tongue since I haven’t uttered it in nearly a decade. “But she died in New Jersey.”

“All waterways are connected. And her body was never found, yes? So she is one of us. She is here.”

“Here? You’re crazy.” My voice quavers. So much for the idea of keeping the Nia Levesque legend five hundred miles away. I can only think back to her funeral. The coffin was empty. In it, we placed her favorite necklace and a scarf she always wore, and a picture of all of us together. My father never said as much, and we never discussed it, but obviously the body hadn’t been found. She wasn’t the first person lost on the river whose body was never recovered. “Then where is she?”

“I’ve come to take you to her,” he says, extending his hand to me.

Instinctively I reach out to grab it, but a breeze picks up, skittering old leaves down the path and digging under my hairline, sending a chill down my back. When I touch them, his fingers are so icy they sting. I try to pull my hand away, but he clamps his fingers tight on mine, squeezing like a vise. Then he begins to pull me toward the river. The river that I hate, that nearly killed me. I try to dig my heels into the gravel, but he’s too strong. I try to steady the hot coffee I’m still holding, but it’s splashing up over the sides of the cup, scalding my hand. I look down the path, but even though the place is normally so busy early in the morning, there is no one around. “Hey! What are you—”

“You want to see her, don’t you?” He continues to pull me.

Panic rises in my voice as I squeak out, “Where are we going?” But I know the answer. Not twenty yards separates us from the river, and there is nothing else in between but a rocky embankment.

He means to take me into the river. He means to drown me.

The cup flies out of my grasp, splattering hot liquid over his forearm, but he doesn’t flinch, even as steam rises from the black droplets on his skin. I’m fighting now, trying to pry his fingers off mine with my other hand, but it’s useless. Soon I’m begging, pleading with him to stop, but he doesn’t listen. Finally, I gather all the strength I can into my arms and yank myself away. I’m free, but when I take a step back my foot lands awkwardly on a fallen branch, twisting. Pain tears through my ankle. I yelp and fall to the ground.

I massage the ankle, but the pain intensifies with my touch. He bends over me and slides my sock down over my heel. I don’t want him to touch my ankle. I don’t want to feel those icy fingers of his, stroking my skin. It will only confuse me. Because he feels so real. But he can’t be. This is all in my mind. When I pull my sock up and scoot away from him, the pain shoots up to my knee. “Don’t touch it.”

His face is rueful; it almost makes me regret not letting him help me. “You want to see your mother, don’t you?” he asks, his voice gentle. “She’s just across the river.”

I think of Spiffy’s words. I know what lies on the other side of the river. He said people lived on the east side, but they buried their dead on the other side. “I don’t … no. She’s dead. The dead are there. I’m not dead. And you’re not real.”

“I thought we went over this.” He studies me, a look of disappointment on his face. “I assure you, I am very real. And she is waiting for you, just over there. There is nothing for you to be afraid of.”

As he reaches for my hand again, another wind picks up. “I can’t—I can’t cross the river.”

A look of amusement dawns on his face. “You are afraid of the water?”

“No,” I answer curtly. “But I can’t cross the river without a boat.”

He scans the shoreline, scratching his chin. “Ah. The unique problems of the living.” He gives me a warm smile. “Forgive me, Kiandra. It has been quite some time since I’ve been on your plane.”

As he laughs, a thick trickle of blood starts to ooze over his forehead. I watch it trail over the tip of his nose, but he seems oblivious to it until I point it out with my quivering hand.

He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabs at it. “Oh, how embarrassing.”

“It was your father who did that?” I ask softly. “I remember it from the story.”

He studies the new blood on the handkerchief, but now more is pouring past his hairline, falling between his eyes. “No. That story your companions told is a little, shall we say, inaccurate. I suppose it served its purpose. But sometimes a lie is better.”

“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.