Dead River (16 page)

I stare at her. Everything about her is familiar. It’s Lannie. My imaginary best friend from long ago. She holds up a lantern between us to look into my eyes. Hers are pretty and round, like pearls, with concern. She’s not imaginary. She’s real.

“Lannie?” I ask, struggling to rise. “What are you—”

She pushes me down and gently relaxes me on a bed of pine needles. “Shhh. You should rest.”

“Well, who do we have here?” a male voice calls from a distance. I strain in the darkness and see him sauntering toward me. Jack. Immediately I catch my breath, and despite the pain everywhere in my body, I feel warm. Despite all the warnings Trey gave me, I know I am blushing. Why does Jack do this to me?

He gives me a seductive half smile, like he knows what I’m thinking. I look away, at Lannie, in time to see her glare at him. Jack, all six-feet-and-change of him, seems to fold in under the stare of the barely five-foot girl. He lowers his head and silently steps back.

I begin to sit up. “I need to go home. I need to—” Suddenly I remember dancing with Justin under the disco lights at the Outfitters. The expression on his face. His confession reverberates in my ears.
I kissed Angela
. I can’t go back to him. I don’t want to see him now, and maybe not ever. I slump back to the ground.

Jack steps closer to me. This near, his eyes threaten to set me afire, so I look away, to his knees. He whispers, “Can I get you anything?”

My heart skips at his words, as if he has offered me the world. I think about what Trey said. About Jack being the enemy. About how nothing Jack tells me is true. And so a small part of me wants to push him away, say no thank you, and be on my way. But the larger part of me is screaming,
Get closer!
It’s not that I’ve forgotten how to say no. It’s just that with Jack, the word has ceased to exist in my vocabulary. I find myself nodding in agreement, whispering, “Anything.”

He laughs, breaking me out of my trance.
Whoa. I’m a total goofball. What is happening to me?

“Something to eat?” He holds out a granola bar, the kind they sell at the Outfitters. “Now you cannot accuse me of ignoring the unique needs of the living.”

I take the bar from him. It’s crushed like a pancake but I hold it like it’s a precious gem. Lannie watches us intently, her expression lost between amusement and questioning. She sweeps her dark, pretty hair over her shoulder and scratches her neck. For the first time I see there are horrible bruises there, as if someone choked her. I recall how we used to play hide-and-seek on the river in New Jersey, and how I’d run in and out among the trees, lost and confused, only to find her hanging from a tree by her neck. She always did things like that, shocking things. She said it was only in fun, because everything else was so boring. I start to say something, but she notices me looking and brings her hair forward quickly and anxiously, concealing the bruises once more.

A little girl steps out from among the trees, smoothing the skirt of her pink party dress, despite the fact that it’s covered in mud. As is her entire chin. Mud is oozing from her mouth. She’s staring at me curiously. When she is only an arm’s length away, she stoops, reaches out, and tugs on a lock of my hair. She pulls again and again, like she’s ringing
a bell, her head tilted in question. Her expression, inquisitive yet forlorn, does not change.

“Um, hi,” I say to her.

Jack looks at her and rolls his eyes. He explains, “Vi doesn’t talk. She’s Lannie’s sister.”

Lannie puts a protective arm around her sister and begins to massage her small shoulder as the three of them beam at me like I’m a long-lost relative, here for a visit. “It’s so nice to have you here,” Lannie says. “I’ve missed you, Kiandra. I’ve missed our talks. Where have you been all this time?”

I nod. I’ve missed her, too. Even though I only saw her in the visions I had during those two years I lived on the river, I feel close to her, like she grew up with me. Actually, no, she was always older, always more mature, and she never changed. Her hair was always long, and chestnut brown, and she was never in anything other than that white dress. From what I remember, the last time we’d talked, it was about normal seven-year-old things. She liked tubing, fishing, and hopscotch, and all the things I liked, yet she always looked older. “My mother died, and we moved away,” I say.

She makes a
tsk-tsk
noise. “Shame. But you know your mother is here, yes?”

I nod. “So I’ve heard.”

“You were very fond of her?”

I shrug. “I was seven. Seven-year-old girls are always fond of their mothers, aren’t they?”

“I suppose. But now you’re not?”

“I don’t know her anymore,” I sigh. “She left me. To come here, I guess. I guess this place was more important to her than her family.”

“I understand. So you don’t want to see her, then?”

“I do,” I say immediately. “But the one guy who’s supposed to take me there is under orders not to.”

“You mean Trey Vance?” she asks, pursing her lips. “That’s shortsighted of your mother. Her powers are fading, but she denies it.”

“They are?”

She laughs so unexpectedly and loudly that I throw back my head, banging it hard against the tree trunk behind me. She looks at Jack, who has been leaning against a tree trunk, examining his fingernails, but suddenly springs to attention when her eyes fall on him. Then she touches my hand. Her hand is so cold, clammy. Instantly I think of my mother. “Kiandra, we need you.” She motions behind her. “Jack will explain things to you.”

“Wait,” I say as I realize what she is about to do. “Don’t leave me with—”

I stop because, at the same time, I
want
to be left alone with him. She flings her hair over her shoulder and walks away until all I can see is her white dress, glowing in the pale blue light of the moon.

Jack comes toward me, and my heart starts thrumming as he does. He grins like he knows what he’s doing to me. Like he relishes me going crazy for him. He touches my chin. His finger is surprisingly warm, and with that simple touch he
sends electric shocks through my body. I know I’m quivering from head to toe. I know it’s visible. My cheeks redden even more.

He sits down on the grass, cross-legged. “You’re afraid of me?”

When my mouth opens, my teeth are chattering. I’m not afraid of him, but I know I should be. And
that’s
what I’m afraid of. “Trey,” I whisper. “He says you’ll hurt me.”

He leans forward. “I won’t hurt you. Unless you want me to.”

I stare at him.

He grins. “I’m joking. I am not out to hurt you.”

“Why were you practically dragging me across the river this morning, then?”

“I was only helping. You’re being lured to the water. You wanted to go across, but you’re afraid. And you needn’t be. Once you’re over there, you’ll see.”

I eye him suspiciously. “You didn’t have to drag me. Anyway, I thought it’s Trey’s job to take me across. Not yours.”

He laughs. “And I’m not allowed to help the kingdom out?”

“You almost killed me,” I mutter.

His face is grave, regretful. “Do not say that. I am not some kind of monster. Trey has good reason to hate me, though, I suppose. He’s thinking of something that happened a long time ago.”

“What happened a long time ago?”

“You’ve heard how he died, yes?” he asks. “Your friends told those horribly inaccurate ghost stories around the campfire a few nights ago. Were you listening?”

“How could I not? And I
saw
it, as it was happening. I saw him fall into the water. I saw him drown.”

“Ah. Your powers allow you to see those things.” He presses his lips together. “You didn’t see who killed him, though.”

“No, I couldn’t see that. Two boys killed him, I think.”

“Or so the story goes,” he says with a shrug. “But the truth is, Trey was killed by only one person. And you’re looking at him.”

Chapter Eighteen

M
y mind whirls with all the visions I’ve seen and fragments of the story Justin told. The blade slashing at Trey’s arm. The cold water bubbling over his head. The desperate attempt to break the surface, to breathe.
That’s the one. Get him
. “No. No,” I say, “There were two. Someone told someone … to get—”

“I don’t know what your visions are, but I assure you, I was there. I was the
only one
there.”

I pull my knees to my chest and press myself against the tree trunk, as far away from him as I can get without leaving my position. “Trey was killed because he turned in a murderer. He saw a murder. Who else did you—”

He grabs my hand, immediately sending a chill up to my elbow. Only when my hand is in his do I realize how violently it has been shaking. He looks into my eyes and I feel dizzy and breathless from the weight of his stare. “I am not a monster. I do not like to talk about my time among the
living. I squandered it. I made mistakes. Mistakes I wish I could undo. But I can’t.”

For some reason, I think of Justin. He’d said kissing Angela was a mistake, too. Back then, I didn’t want to,
couldn’t
believe that mistakes were possible. But though Jack’s sin is so much more damnable, looking into his eyes, I am surprised at how easily I’d be willing to believe he has changed. “But you’ve changed?” I whisper, hoping that the answer is yes.

He doesn’t have to say a thing.
I’m his servant
. As this thought flickers in my mind, it brings a moment of clarity.
Servant! What am I doing? What is wrong with
— But by then he is so near that I can feel the curve of his body pressing against mine, so cold that even though we are separated by clothing, his skin sears my flesh. He holds up my hand and presses his palm flat against mine, and all I can do is marvel at how perfectly and seamlessly they seem to go together. His face is so near to me that his breathing tickles my chin. “Sometimes we get caught in a whirlpool. No matter what we do to escape, we can’t avoid being pulled under. Kiandra, I’m still in the whirlpool.”

“You don’t have to be. There’s always a way out.”

“Perhaps I haven’t found it yet,” he whispers, as though he’s already dismissed the idea. His eyes are on my lips, which are waiting for him, trembling.

The thought of Justin flickers dimly in the back of my mind, a dying light among a thousand brilliant stars. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more than this, now. The anticipation is painful. “Kiss me,” I murmur, and fully surrendering
to my role as his own, I manage a “please” with the last of my breath.

He moves forward an almost imperceptible distance; then, in insult to my waiting mouth, his lips spread into a smile. He pulls away and stands. “If you don’t want to help us, why don’t you go back to the living? Why are you wasting our time?”

I open my eyes, momentarily bewildered and shamed. My mouth opens but words will not come out.

“If you want to help us, you need to go across,” he snaps. “Now.”

“I want …,” I begin, but I don’t know what I want. Ten minutes ago, what I would have wanted was to be anywhere but with him. He frightened me. And yet something has changed, and now I want to help him. I want it more than anything. Now, having him here, so near, I realize that what’s right for me and what simply
feels
right are two different things, and I can’t trust myself to know the difference. Maybe I am in the whirlpool, too. He leans over me until his lips are once again right before mine. And then he does it, he kisses me. It’s not like kissing Justin, not at all, because the taste of Jack is something foul, sour, like mold and rotten things, and still I push against him, my mouth moving against his, wanting more. I wrap my arms around him, pulling myself to him, lacing my fingers in his hair, every inch of me burning until I realize that my fingers are kneading through something wet and spongy, and that pieces of it are coming off in my hands.

I open my eyes and there is nothing there, only the quiet
outlines of the trees, still in the bright moonlight. I’m crouched on my hands and knees on the ground, in a puddle of mud. My hands and most of my arms are painted black with muddy leaves.

I’m not sure how I manage to get up and stumble through the woods, toward the cabin. I don’t hear the sound of my feet hitting the ground. My breath billows in a cloud in front of me, and I blow through it. My hands feel sticky and wet and yet most of my body is numb, as if it has fallen into a deep sleep. Everything in the world seems asleep; there are no people, no sounds, not even the rush of the water I’ve come to expect. I stop for a moment and hold my hands in front of me. Yes, blood. So much blood. By now I can see the lights of the cabin. I rush across the highway, not bothering to stop. I must get home. I must get help.

I somehow get inside, and the heat is so intense my face feels like it’s on fire. Justin is standing under the giant moose antlers, clutching his head in both hands like he’s trying to lift it from his body. Angela is on the couch, chewing on her thumbnail, something she always does when she’s nervous. I expect them to both react when they see me coming, but they don’t. Justin continues to squeeze his head like his hands are a vise, and Angela stares off at the fireplace, even though there isn’t a fire there. I’m about to shout for help when Justin throws down his arms.

“I am such an idiot. I screwed everything up,” he says miserably.

“Oh, stop,” Angela says.

“It’s my fault she ran away. And now who knows what could happen to her? She’s not thinking clear. I really screwed it up,” he mumbles.

I stop for a moment, glad to hear him admit his guilt, then rush forward. “I’m here,” I say, holding out my hands.

I expect them to turn toward me. I expect to see their faces contort in horror. I expect Angela to launch into Florence Nightingale mode, ushering me to the couch, and Justin to whip out his cell and call an ambulance. None of these things happens. Well, not at first. After a long pause, Justin reaches into the pocket of his cargo shorts and pulls out his phone. “I need to call,” he says. But he’s not looking at me.