Dead River

Chapter Eight



First there are the whispers.

I did …

What the …

That’s the …

I keep still, listening, but the words never come together to make sense. They’re just words, as if read from a dictionary, phrases that never mean anything. The morning’s biting cold stings my cheeks. I’m still wearing that impossibly uncomfortable wet suit, but instead of being near-frozen, I’m sweating underneath the layers of wool clothes. I open my eyes, and all I see is the gray, sad sky and black, bare branches above me. A large crow glides overhead, cawing ominously.

I’m alive. Amazingly. I must be. If I were dead, my head wouldn’t hurt as much, would it?

I sit up. As I do, my head throbs, begging me to rest, but I push against gravity and straighten. When I’m erect, my hair whips over my eyes. I pull it back, but it’s slimy in places, gritty in others, and knotted like seaweed. Where is my helmet?

The whispering continues, which is odd because I’m alone. But then it changes somehow—was it not whispering but the sound of rushing water? I look around. Water moving everywhere, all around me. No, no, not more water! I want to retch at the sight of it. When I swallow, there’s something thick and gritty in the back of my throat. The water laps at my toes, almost as if it’s trying to touch them, to grab me and pull me back toward it. I’m sitting on a small island right in the middle of the river.

I scan the horizon for cheerful yellow rafts. When we set off, there were dozens. Now I can’t see a one. I search the riverbanks to either side of me, but the only witnesses to my peril are tall pines, bowing to me in the stiff wind. I curl my knees up to my chest and hug them. Where the hell is everyone?

I crane my neck to scan the island, but it’s just brambles, moist sand, pieces of driftwood that have found their way here on the waves. One lone, bare tree with sprawling branches and a trunk the size of a small car sits behind me. It takes up most of the real estate on the island. Other than that, nothing. My backpack is gone. There’s a draft on my back now and I tenderly bring my fingers there, running them over the neoprene. Great. There are slashes all down my wet suit, almost as if I’ve been mauled by a bear. I probe around with my finger and find blood. My hand is covered in blood. I turn around and there’s a small puddle of it under my backside. Suddenly I’m aware of the sting.

Frantic, I search the river again. Nothing. No one. I’m alone, in the middle of the rapids, bleeding. No. This is not good. My heart begins to pound so hard, I can almost hear it.

“Well, look who’s wandering among the living.”

I jump at the voice. Not that it’s scary—it’s just that two minutes ago, when I surveyed my surroundings, I was alone. Or at least I thought I was. The tree, though, has a large trunk, so maybe he was behind it. Yes, of course. Plus, my head hurts, so maybe I have a concussion and am not seeing things clearly. I turn, and a boy is loping toward me, easy, like he hasn’t a care in the world. His light brown hair is falling in his face and he has this sheepish grin, like he’s up to no good.

He sits down beside me and begins to pick at the line of white pebbles left by the tide. Those pearly little pebbles, the damp sand, our feet side by side at the water’s edge—something about this scene gives me an instant shot of déjà vu that almost sends me reeling, like I’m falling through time and space. I catch myself, and by then he’s studying me, that quirky smile melting into amused curiosity. “You talk?”

The voice. It’s unsettling. Something is not quite right about it. It’s an easy drawl, nothing like Justin’s or Hugo’s or that of any of the guys I know, and yet it sounds familiar. Anyone in this predicament, stuck in the middle of a river, would speak with a little bit of urgency. But then again, he’s not the one who’s bleeding.

My lips are so cold they tingle to life when I open them to speak. “I’m … hurt.”

He nods and inspects the wound on my back. “Sure are.”

He reaches out to touch it and I squirm a little when he comes in contact with the wound. “Ouch.”

He doesn’t apologize. “Tore up that little monkey suit of yours, too, huh?”

“It’s a wet suit,” I say miserably. “And a rental. I’ll probably owe them an arm and a leg for it.”

He’s still inspecting it. There isn’t a look of disgust on his face, or horror, so maybe it isn’t that bad? I can feel his fingers stroking the fabric, which is really awkward, so I flinch away just as he says, “For that thing? Wouldn’t trade you a piece of steamin’ horse manure for it.”

I stare at him. Who the hell talks like that? And weirder yet, why does it seem like I’ve heard this all before? “Wait. Do I know you?” I ask, but I already know that’s impossible. He couldn’t have been on the rafting excursion with us. All of the other people were older, and he’s probably no more than twenty. He has a cologne-ad-pretty face with perfect features, just the right amount of stubble, and long eyelashes—a face that’s hard to stop looking at, and even harder to forget. And he’s not wearing a wet suit. In fact, he’s not wearing much at all. Faded, ripped jeans and a worn plaid shirt, open, untucked, and with sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He’s not wearing shoes. No shoes. It can’t be more than forty degrees out today. Even Justin would have a hard time with that. “Aren’t you freezing?”

He laughs. “No on both counts, kid.”

At first I’m like, Yeah, he’s right, I’d remember a dude like him, but the second he calls me “kid,” the feeling hits me stronger than ever. I try to find the connection but my head is throbbing, making thinking impossible. And anyway, it doesn’t matter. We’re in the middle of a river, I’m gushing blood all over the place, and maybe the tide is changing and this little island won’t be here an hour from now. “Look. I’m a little freaked out. I don’t know where I am or where my friends are. You wouldn’t happen to have a boat, would you?” I ask.

He grins at me, a slow grin. Why does he do everything slowly? And of course he doesn’t have a boat. He doesn’t even have shoes.

All right. Think think think. “How did you even get here, if you don’t have a boat?” But I already know the answer. I echo him as he says, “I’m a powerful good swimmer.”

He grins, and that’s my cue to freak out. How did I know that?

“So, wait. I do know you?”

He shakes his head. “Listen, kid, you’re wound up tighter than an eight-day clock. Relax for a minute.”

“Relax!” I start, but then I stop. No, I don’t know him, of course; I just hit my head or something and I’m not thinking straight.

He leans back, digging his palms in the dirt behind him. He’s tall, like Justin; he stretches out with his legs crossed at the ankles in front of him, and his feet touch the water. Unlike me, he doesn’t recoil from the cold of the river. I notice that his toes are a rather pleasing shade of brown. He has a tan. How can a guy in Maine in May have a tan? He doesn’t look like the type to frequent tanning salons; he looks more like Justin in that regard. The manly-man type. But even the manliest of men can end up utterly screwed by nature. Rule number one: Nature always kicks ass.

“Um, look. I can’t relax. You may be a powerful good swimmer, but I’m not. I’m hurt, and freezing, and I’m sure my friends are looking for me, so I need to get back to them. Can you help me?”

“Sure thing.” Then he grimaces. I look down and for the first time I notice he’s holding his arm, limp in front of him.

The blood is all over his hand. My blood? I lean forward. No, there’s a massive gash on the top of his forearm, stretching almost from his elbow to his wrist bone. It’s deep, too; the blood is a dark, thick purple. I gasp. “Oh my God.”

He laughs at me. “It’s nothing. Old war wound.”

He’s off his rocker. It’s fresh. And it’s bleeding everywhere. “No, you need …” I look around but there’s no spare fabric anywhere, and I can’t very well ask him to remove his worn shirt, since it’s probably as thin as paper. Grimacing, I reach down and pull off my water shoes, then remove the outer layer of socks. They’re damp, but they’ll have to do. I wrap the first sock around his arm as a tourniquet. It’s tough to tie because he happens to be kind of muscular there. Then I clamp the other one over the cut. It’s instantly saturated. “We’ve got to get you help.”

He looks at my handiwork. “Thanks, kid. But it’s just fine.”

It’s really not just fine. We’re both bleeding. We’ll probably die here in a puddle of our own blood. “How did you do that, anyway?”

He shrugs. “Don’t remember. Jumping in the water, I guess.”

“To save me? You pulled me out?”

He stares at his arm. “That I did, but … I don’t …” He looks confused, sad. “I don’t remember lots of things.”

“Well, thank you,” I say. My sock is now dripping with blood. Little crimson drops begin to puddle on the sand. “Oh God. That’s really bad. Are you sure you’re okay?”

He laughs. “Unwind, girl. You want to see bad, you should have seen your back.”

“What?” I shriek. Is it possible my wound is as bad? Um, worse? All this time I’ve been sitting here, I’d almost forgotten about it. It didn’t even hurt much. I crane to see my injury, but I can’t make out anything. In fact, I can’t even feel it anymore.

He’s still laughing.

I glare at him. “It’s not that horrible, is it? You were joking? Don’t. Do. That. You freaked me out. I thought I was dying.”

“Unwind, girl. You need to—”

Suddenly thunder begins to rumble in the distance, and I realize that the clouds are black and heavy with rain. Across the river, a thin mist has crawled in, sliding between the trees. My eyes are drawn toward the right bank, where a figure stands, half hidden by the pines. I squint to see, but my head throbs as my eyes struggle to focus in the thickening fog. It’s a large guy, like Justin, but I already know it’s not him. Justin would be trying to find a way to help me. This person is standing still, and it would almost be like a fragment of a photograph if his eyes weren’t trained right on us.

I feel a hand slide into mine, fingers lacing with my own. Next to me, the boy swallows. He’s lost some of his tan. Since he obviously enjoys cold weather, I’d expected his hands to be warm, like Justin’s. But they’re cold, like stone. Unlike stone, though, his fingers quiver slightly. There’s something wrong.

“Who is that?” I whisper.

He sits up, then pulls me to my feet so fast that I gasp in surprise. I’m stunned because it’s the first thing he’s done quickly. That easy smile is gone. I open my mouth to say “Well, now who’s wound up?” but he speaks first, his words clipped and emotionless. “Nobody. Let’s get you out of here. And, Kiandra—”

He grabs hold of my wrist and looks at me with intent, dark eyes. I want to ask him to let me go, I want to ask him how he knows my name, I want to ask him so many things, but the force of his eyes on me has rendered me speechless. Instead, I just nod, under this strange, dizzying spell.

“You have to go home. And don’t you ever come back. It’s too dangerous.”


Whispers again. Just fragments of speech. This time I know they’re senseless, so I don’t bother to listen.

My eyelids sting as I push my eyes open. The sky again, gray and somber. Pine branches above, dulled in the fog. The mist is thicker now, borderline drizzle. My eyelashes are wet.

I feel for my limbs, wiggling my fingers and toes. My fingers ache from the cold, and my feet, in scratchy wool socks, ache, too. My face burns as if from a thousand needle pricks. I sit up, the same familiar pain slamming against my forehead, expecting to see the river on both sides of me. But I’m on the bank.

I turn around, but I’m alone. The boy who saved me is gone, but his voice is ringing in my ears: Don’t you ever come back. It’s too dangerous. What the … Who the heck was he? Hot as hell, but reminding me so eerily of my dad. Great combination.

I struggle to my numb feet and climb the bank, looking for him, for some sign of him, but there is nothing. It was a dream. It has to have been a dream. But all the while, I feel the pressure of his fingers on my back, and I can still hear his voice in my head—it makes me shiver.

No, it was just a dream. Normal people can have very realistic dreams, and that’s all it was.

I climb a little farther, and just as I begin to wonder how I’m going to get back to camp, which must be miles downriver, I see a sign in the brush. I stumble over to it on my useless legs and read: NORTHEAST OUTFITTERS. There’s an arrow pointing down a path, and the familiar rich wood of the cabin peeks from among the pines.

I want to cry from the beauty of it. I want to fall to my knees and thank the heavens. But I also want to be warm, and my legs must want that, too, because before I know what I’m doing, I’ve broken into a run. I racewalk, limping slightly because I can’t feel much of my feet, toward the log building, throw open the doors, and burst into the Outfitters, gasping in relief as the heat rushes to my face. It stings my skin, but it’s a welcome sting. The only thing better would be a nice, hot shower.

Angela and Hugo are sitting on the big leather sofa, nursing mugs of coffee. A fire roars in the fireplace, and I can already feel its heat. She jumps up when she sees me. “Oh my God, sweetie! Are you okay?”

I nod. “I’m just—”

She’s not paying attention. She’s already shoved Hugo off the couch and is propping up the pillows for me to lie down. She quickly kneels in front of me and commences with Operation Flo Nightingale. “Is there frostbite? Can you feel your toes?”

Before I can answer, she orders one of the men standing idle nearby to get her some blankets and a tub of warm water. Soon she’s got pretty much everyone nearby helping out. She’s truly in her element. Hugo’s just standing there, and I half expect him to whip out his camera and start photographing my feet, which are a peculiar blue color, so I’m relieved when Angela orders him to go find Justin.

“Where is he?” I ask as Hugo runs outside.

“Looking for you, of course. He’s out of his mind with worry. We have fifty people out there, all looking for you,” Angela says. She stops rubbing my feet and studies me, then breaks into a sob. “Oh my gosh,” she wails, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. “I was so worried about you! I really thought you were gone. You’re not just my cousin, you’re one of my best friends. If anything happened to you, I would never forgive myself.”

“It’s not your fault,” I say, leaning over to pat her back.

“Uh-huh it is! We practically dragged you here.” She wiggles my pinkie toe and I laugh, which I guess is a good sign, because she sighs with relief and moves on to the other foot. “We looked everywhere, but you just went under and you never surfaced. I’ve never seen anything like it. What happened to you?”

I shrug. I want to say something about that guy who saved me, but that must have been a hallucination. Everything about it seems tinged with gray, like an old dream. Like one of those visions I used to have long ago, when I lived in New Jersey. I think about that dark figure looming in the distance, across the river, and shudder. “I guess I blacked out. And when I woke up, I was on the riverbank, right by the Outfitters.”

She wrinkles her nose. “That’s, like, impossible.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s fifteen miles! You floated downriver in the cold for fifteen miles and your feet look like this? And somehow the river just deposited you right on the shore in front of the Outfitters?”

I stare at her. “What, you don’t believe me?”

“No, I do. It’s just a miracle,” she says. “I’ve heard of people blacking out during times of extreme stress. Maybe you … I don’t know. It’s a miracle.”

The door bursts open, sending a swirl of cold air into the cabin. Justin rushes in, with Hugo at his heels. “Is she okay?” Then he sees me. “Kiandra, are you okay?”

I’m about to speak, but Justin looks at Angela for confirmation. “Yeah,” she says. “She seems okay.”

“The paramedics will check you out,” he says, his eyes wider than I’ve ever seen them. It looks like he’s the one who needs medical help.

Suddenly I remember the blood oozing from my back. I’d been so comfortable on the sofa I’d forgotten about it. “Oh, I—I think I hurt my back.” I lean forward and they both inspect it, moving me back and forth to see what I’m talking about.

Angela helps me pull off the wet suit. My limbs are kind of sore, but moving them feels good. The pain is a confirmation I’m alive. I sit there for a while in my long underwear, waiting for them to say something about how big the wound is or how it’ll need stitches, but I wait, and wait. Finally, I look up at their faces. Angela is squinting, not in horror, but as if she’s trying to see something on the point of a needle. Justin says, “Where?” and massages my shoulder. His hands are already warm, even though he’d just been out in the cold.

I hurt all over—but back there? No, it doesn’t ache anymore. Could that have been a dream, too? “There’s no blood?”

Someone comes with a couple of blankets. Angela throws one over me and says, “You should rest. You might have hit your head.”

The wet suit is a puddle on the ground. I lean over and pick it up, turning it over in my hands. No holes. It was a dream. Just like the ones I had in Jersey. Those used to feel so real, I’d known some of the characters in them by name. I used to miss them when they weren’t with me. I find myself flashing back to the girl in the white dress, walking along the river. Lannie.

I look up. They’re all staring at me expectantly. “Um, what?”

Angela says, “I asked if you wanted something to eat.” She looks between Justin and me. “You know what? I’ll just get her a bagel. You guys talk,” she says, and speeds off.

Justin kneels down on the braided rug beside me. “You scared me to death,” he whispers, rubbing his face tiredly.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“It’s not your fault. It’s ours. I just— You’re so light. I could carry three of you, if I wanted to. Why couldn’t I pull you in?”

I shrug. “Maybe my foot was caught in the branches of a tree or something.”

He nods, but the look on his face is doubtful. “And then how did you end up here?”

I explain to him what I told Angela. “She says it’s a miracle that I made it after that long in the water.”

He lets out a short laugh. “I’ll say.”

“So I should be dead?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had it happen before. The few times we lost people we were able to get them back in the boat within a couple of minutes. That water was, like, forty degrees. How did you … Oh, right. You blacked out.” He exhales and runs his fingers through his hair. “Yeah. I thought you were probably dead.”

He gives me the most pathetic look I’ve ever seen. For the first time, his eyes glisten a little, maybe from tears, but then I think I must be going crazy because Manly Justin does not cry.

“But I’m not,” I say brightly, trying to take the edge off his misery.

“But you should be. You were gone for three hours, Ki. That’s how long it takes to get down here from put-in. And you got dumped fifteen minutes into the ride. You don’t float down the Dead River in May on nothing but your good looks and end up back home alive.” He reaches under the wool blankets and wiggles one of my toes, like he’s playing This Little Piggy. “And with all your cute parts still intact.”

I shrug. “Just call me Miracle Girl.”

He smiles. “Hell yeah, Miracle Girl. I’m so freaking relieved. How would I have explained this to your dad?”

Angela returns with a bagel with cream cheese and a mug of coffee. “You eat this and rest,” she says. “I’m going to go back to our cabin and pack, and you guys come over after the paramedics have checked everything out.”

I look at her. “Pack?”

Justin nods. “I think we’d better call it a weekend, don’t you? You can’t really want to …”

“No, it’s okay,” I say, wondering how I’d explain to my father why we came home from Baxter Park early. Besides, prom is tomorrow and it’s too late to even think about going now. The words Don’t you ever come back. It’s too dangerous play somewhere in the back of my head, but that’s no problem. It’s not like I was planning to go rafting again. And besides, that was just a dream. “We were going to hike and stuff. I still want to do that. I don’t want to ruin your weekend. You’ve planned it for so long.”

“But—” Angela starts, and then looks at Justin.

“But really, I’m fine,” I say. Plus, the idea of hanging out with Justin tonight, alone, sounds really good. I’m fine. And I’m not going to let a swim in the river and some stupid hallucination tell me where I can and can’t go.

“All right,” they say in unison, then look at each other and laugh.

I knew it wouldn’t take much to convince them. After Ange leaves, I take a bite of my bagel, and then another, and before I know it, it’s totally gone. I’m ravenous. I could eat another one. Maybe two. I also could probably sleep for fourteen hours, because my head feels heavy, almost like there’s water in my ears. I try to stand up to get to the kitchen but Justin puts a firm hand on my shoulder. “I’ll get you another, as long as you chew the next one before you swallow. The last thing I need is you almost dying again.” He rolls his eyes like I’m a toddler in danger of ruining another perfectly good onesie.

I smile, thinking I have the best boyfriend in the world, then lean over to pick up my socks. I’m just stretching them out on the rug to let them dry when I realize something. I was wearing two pairs of heavy wool socks earlier. Now there is only one.

The other pair, I gave to that boy on the river. The boy who warned me to go away. The one I’d just convinced myself didn’t exist.