“Eating unites us. David said that once, during our wedding dinner at Mom’s place. She asked him to say grace, and he said that Pennsylvania would always be home for him now that our families were united, and we would celebrate that bond every time we broke bread, wherever we were in the world, even when we were apart. Because eating unites us. He made Mom cry, and I think she kind of fell in love with him, too, at that moment, because she never cries. It must have skipped a generation: I cry all the time. Lola never does.” Joni looked heavy, bloated, as though she were swollen by emotions held, for once, on the inside. She stamped over to the food tent but turned before she ducked inside. “Maybe if we give this boy back properly, the universe will give us Lola in return. Do the vigil, Marlene.”
I saw more logic in being out there, searching the lanes, but it was her daughter.
I got myself a cup of tea and walked over to my tent. The entrance curved like a cave. The inside eked out what was left of the tree-filtered sun. There was something unnatural about being inside a tent during the day. However generous the proportions, it was cramped and awkward, like being forced underground. I picked my way across to the lumpy blue bag and stood over it. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the breath entering my body, but all I could feel was the space between my feet and the sleeping bag, as if the air had grown tendrils that were reaching out toward my legs. Its strands fused me and the boy so that we were forever linked by this inverse umbilical cord, death replacing birth.
In my mind, I saw the boy’s narrowed eyes as he turned his head to watch me bearing down on him. His foot slipping from the pedal, the leg still pumping the air. His sandy hair whipping in the wind. The same hair clogged and sticky as I turned his face from the road. His legs pumping out blood as I lifted him up. His eyes narrowing to a close.
I stepped away from the sleeping bag, out of the tent, past Billy, and into the trees to the latrine. I kicked aside the log seat and sunk to my knees over the deep hole in the earth, and let my mouth fill with bile. There was little to come up—I hadn’t eaten properly for days—but I let myself retch and retch until my stomach muscles burnt with the effort. When it finished, I took two fingers and pushed them deep down my throat, stirring my guts to buck beneath me again. Sure enough, there was more, more bile that I spat down the hole. Again and again I forced it out until there was nothing left but rude air. I kicked dirt into the latrine to bury it and pushed the log back into place.
As I came through the trees to the camp, I heard Maggie’s spindly voice rise into a slow song, which was soon accompanied by Billy’s: Ring-a-ring o’ roses, pocket full of posies.
They were standing under the awning of my tent, holding hands in a circle with the Lost Boy, who joined them to silently mouth the words. The three of them shuffled round in the dirt singing in flat tones: A-tishoo. A-tishoo. We all fall down.
Joni appeared in the doorway of the food tent, her hand over her mouth. The kids didn’t fall down, but kept on turning and singing: a vigil for the dead boy.
The cows are in the meadow, eating buttercups.
A-tishoo. A-tishoo. We all jump up.
My keys were in the car, ready to go. I couldn’t sit and wait for the universe to intervene. We had to find Lola and move somewhere safer—somewhere with windows and doors—before this man or the Wild Things came back for more. I turned into the trees and down the short slope. The kids’ voices followed me as I slid behind the steering wheel and, even after I slammed the door, they seeped through the shattered quarter light.
Ashes on the water, Ashes on the sea. We all jump in, with a one-two-three.
Chapter Twelve
Ashes on the water. Ashes on the sea. The tune played through my head as though it came from a tinny pair of speakers. The cool river harried my feet, and I spread my toes to let it through. We all jump in with a one-two-three. An iridescent dragonfly rested for a moment before skimming away over a foamy swirl on the surface. Joni would probably know what kind it was, but I had no clue.
How strange, I thought, if these names die out. If this knowledge is lost by people like me who don’t speak the language, and then the library books crumble and the contents of the Internet evaporate into the ether. Someone else will get to name the animals and plants all over again. Maybe in Chinese: surely the Chinese are still alive, some of them at least? But their exotic words would be all wrong for our plain English creatures. All wrong! A few drops of water fell into the river beside my pale feet. How ridiculous, crying over words. I bent down and splashed water over my face. How ridiculous. I’d have to put the kids onto it. It was the sort of thing Lola and Maggie would be good at. I could imagine Maggie saying the dragonfly looked stuck-up, and Lola would call it an ice queen. “Let’s name it a Haughty Ice Queen,” they’d squeal. And so it would be.
If Lola were here.
A sharp rustle from downstream startled me. A heron on a branch over the water. Its poise was mesmerizing: taut muscles, actively still, unblinking eyes, its tiny little brain free of the encumbrance of intellect. The bird would get a fish because that was all it ever did. I stripped off my filthy jeans and shirt and knelt in the shallow water to wash myself with a cloth. When I was finished, the heron had gone.
I gathered the dirty jeans into one hand, ready to throw them away over the hedge, when I felt something hard inside the pockets. I pulled out the fabric jewelry pouch. Inside, my mother’s jade brooch, smooth as a river stone. It came to me after she died in the crash, taken from her body in the wreckage of the light aircraft piloted by my father. A sunset joyride. Her will stipulated that I “mind it for the next generation” as though I were just a stepping stone to her genetic immortality. And I’d very nearly thrown it away. That was a habit of mine: not paying attention to the things entrusted to my care.
I put on a less dirty pair of jeans. They smelled of Horatio, but were an improvement on the blood-soaked pair. The fabric jewelry bag slipped into my pocket again. As I pulled down the Beast’s rear door, I spotted Billy’s toy gun stuffed behind the seat. It was surprisingly heavy. Quite convincing. I slipped it inside my waistband. Of course, a real weapon would be gold dust. Maybe in one of these farmhouses, if I can brave the buzz?
I sat on a rock to get my socks on. The water bustled past. I noticed again the foam that made a galaxy around the rocks. It didn’t look natural. It wasn’t like the scum you get on the sea. If someone were to wash themselves in the river, like I just did, the soap would come this way. Someone must be upstream.