The Drowned Forest (5 page)

“That’s disgusting,” I’d said.

“Don’t be like that. This is going to be fun.” Under the street lamps, your eyes shimmered. Your cheeks glowed pink from the cold. Fingers around my wrist, you pulled me up the sidewalk into the bowling alley.

They were some of your school friends. I only knew Tyler, who’d come to youth group with you the week before. I didn’t like him. Two years older than us, big and loud, already a rock star in his own mind. He was—he is—the kind of guy who’d think a band name like that was hilarious.

You didn’t tell me their show was a rock opera, Holly. Or that one of their buddies would run up wearing a rubber dragon mask—but somehow representing their gym coach—and put Jeb White in a chicken-wing armlock. Or that, defeated and stripped to his underwear, Jeb would sing a song rhyming “loneliness and fear” with “Buzz Lightyear.” Or that finally he would battle with the dragon again, this time wielding the unstoppable power of rock ’n’ roll.

I stood in the bowling alley snack bar, in an audience of nine people (including Steve’s mom), thinking this was what drugs must feel like. But you bounced around and pumped your fist. Bending your mouth to my ear, you yelled, “They’re pretty awesome, huh?”

They were ridiculous, Holly. You could have played better with your feet. Your cheeks still glowed pink, though, even out of the cold. When you looked at Tyler, your eyes still shimmered.

I asked, “You like him?”

“No. But kinda.” You buried your face against my shoulder. “But really I just wanted to support him. He quit the marching band this year so he could focus on his real music.”

“I was just gonna say he plays guitar like a guy who’s spent years practicing the tuba.”

“Jane, don’t be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you always are.”

Jeb decided not to slay the dragon—that’s not what the power of rock ’n’ roll was for. Instead they shared Pixy Stix and closed the show with a duet of “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

“So does he like you?” I asked, as they sang against the thunder of bowling balls.

“I don’t know. I mean, yeah, but there’s this other girl he really likes. Amber.”

“But what? She didn’t come tonight?”

“She’s not into music like this.”

“Forget Amber, then.” And what else could I do but jump up into one of the booth seats? “Whoo! Banana Hammocks! Yeah!”

The band looked over, a little startled. Steve’s mom looked over.

“Encore! Banana Hammocks! Hit me again!” Then you joined in. “Tyler! Banana Hammocks! Yay, Tyler!”

The band grabbed their instruments again. They started into something sharp, fast, and just barely holding itself together—the musical equivalent of getting shoved down the stairs. You loved it. You jumped around and hugged my neck.

I yelled into your ear, “If he’s still thinking about Amber after this, we’ll kidnap him and you can have your way with him, yeah?”

“Cool! Can I keep him tied up in your garage?”

“Sure!”

Now, without you, Tyler and me chuckle together, even though I’m mad at him.

“No, you were so into us,” he says. “You were more into us than Holly.”

“What? Whatever. I only made a total fool of myself hoping you’d get up the guts to ask Holly out. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Don’t lie. We had you revved up.”

“Whatever. I just knew if Holly paid seven dollars to wear ugly bowling shoes and listen to that, she really loved you.”

The word sucks all the air out of the car. Death rots the sweetest memories first, Holly. It hides inside them like a razor blade in an apple.

But you did love him, didn’t you? Even though he was loud-mouthed and filthy-minded, you loved him, and God used your love to draw Tyler to the church. We saw the bigger-than-life rock star choke up and tremble the night he was saved.

I judge people too quickly, Holly, I know. I’m prickly, I don’t give them a chance, Jesus doesn’t want me for a sunbeam, I know, I know. But you know what? Happy little sunbeams don’t rescue their friends’ trapped souls from rivers. The sunbeams—Hanna Marie, Brooke, all of them—they cried for a few days, then moved on. They’re out goofing off and making out with boys. I’m all you’ve got left.

They could move on because they don’t still need you, Holly. But who’s going to keep me from being prickly and judgmental all the time now? Did you even think about that before you went and drowned?

I chew my thumbnail, peeling it away from the stinging quick. Fine, fine, I’ll try to be nicer. I’ll try to be more open. For you.

Along the highway, the sun flashes through the tops of the pines like a school of fish. Then there’s the sign:
Bay Hill Marina & Resort
. Tyler turns in, steering past the fuel dock and floating restaurant.

“That’s his truck! There.” He jabs me in the shoulder. “You were right. You figured it out.”

“We don’t know if he knows anything about Holly. We haven’t figured anything out yet.” Still, I clasp my hands together for a quick prayer of thanks.

Tyler pulls into the spot beside your pa-paw’s pickup. Down the steep slope, the marina fans out across the water. Boats idle in and out, sending brown diesel clouds scudding across the water. Shirtless, lobster-skinned men yell back and forth, cluttering the docks with coolers, tackle boxes, coiled hoses, radios. Everything is covered in spiderwebs and bird poop.

And there’s that smell, the fetid stink of lake-bottom mud. It’s the smell of afternoons on Dad’s boat. Of swimming lessons. Of thrashing, glittering bass pulled from the water. It’s the smell the monster catfish carried up with it too. It’s the smell of Swallow’s Nest Bluff and the day you drowned. And it’s really the smell of death, isn’t it? It’s fish and plants rotting to black slime down in the drowned forest.

“There he is,” Tyler says, making me whirl around. “Mr. Alton! Hey!”

He’s lying on the dock, skinny butt in the air, beside a houseboat that needs a paint job. Seeing us, he climbs to his feet, pulling a fistful of weeds out of the water in one hand, a steak knife in the other. “Well, hey, Tyler. How are you? And Jane too.” He shoves the dripping mass of plants into a Taco Bell bag already fat with hacked-up stalks. Starting to hug me, he stops because his arms are wet. I hug him instead.

“How’ve you been, Little Bit?” he whispers.

I don’t know how to answer, so I squeeze him tighter. He’s thin, Holly. I can feel his ribs.

“What’s all that?” Tyler asks, pointing to the bag.

“Oh, this milfoil is terrible.” He drops the bag on the houseboat’s deck. Boats on this side of the marina move through thousands of feathery stalks poking out of the water. In some spots, the milfoil has turned the marina into a lawn so lush my dad would kill for it. “It gets tangled in the propellers, gets everywhere. But anyway, can you guys stay? Come aboard, come aboard.”

He offers a hand to help me onto the boat. I ask, “So, when’d you buy a boat?”

“Oh, it belongs to a friend. I’m just borrowing it for a while. Staying at the house was just … hard. I just needed to get away for a while.”

I nod. I can’t imagine what it would be like living there, alone with the silence.

We duck into the cabin, which smells like fast food grease. The houseboat’s furniture is scratched and patched, and there’s a gap under the counter where the mini-fridge used to be. The only things your pa-paw took from the house are one suitcase, his guitar case, and a bulging photo album. The album is open to some snapshots of your dad and mom and you when you were a toddler, pushing a toy lawn mower.

Tyler pulls himself into the swivel-mounted chair overlooking the piloting console. “So you doing any fishing while you’re out here?” he asks.

“Oh, sure. Caught a two-pound crappie yesterday, just off the dock there.” Your pa-paw clears the table, grabbing beer bottles, Taco Bell wrappers, and a plastic fork, balancing them on the teetering stack of garbage rising above the trash can’s rim. I slide into the booth. There’s more photos, all of your me-maw, lined up along the edge of the table so your pa-paw can stare at them while he’s eating. Still talking about the fish he caught, he scoops them up and slips them into the photo album.

He flips to another part of the album, one filled with publicity shots and newspaper clippings. Taking out a picture, he hands it to Tyler. “All right, young man, tell me who that is.”

“Duane Allman,” Tyler says without hesitation.

Your pa-paw laughs. “You know it.”

“But this was before the Allman Brothers, right? Back when he was just a studio musician, right?”

“
Just
a studio musician?”

“I mean—”

“Yeah, Aretha Franklin came in the one week, and Duane
just
wrote her an R&B hit. Then the Osmonds came in the next week, and we
just
knocked out a bubblegum hit for them. Then Jimmy Hughes—”

“How about I
just
keep my mouth shut from now on?” Tyler asks.

Your pa-paw laughs again, handing him another picture. “You don’t know this one. You should, but you don’t.”

“Uh … ”

“Give you a hint. Bruce Springsteen and Pins and Needles both did covers of one of his songs.”

I know he’ll go on forever about FAME Studios and who he wrote songs for and who he went on tour with. And Tyler will lap up every word.

“Okay, I’ll give you another hint,” he says.

I cough loudly. “Actually, Mr. Alton, we need to ask you some stuff. About Holly.”

He smiles and sighs at the same time. “Should have known you didn’t come down just to keep an old fart company.”

Was that a joke, or bitterness? Or one disguised as the other? I cringe, staring up at him, not sure if I should laugh or apologize.

“What do you want to know, Little Bit?”

“We wanted to know if any … strange stuff … has happened. Since the accident.”

“Strange stuff?”

I look at Tyler, still in the pilot’s chair. He gives me a tiny shrug, then tries to help. “Just, y’know, anything strange,” he says.

“Okay, Mr. Alton, you know we’re not crazy, right? I mean, if we tell you something … ”

Your pa-paw’s hands are shaking so bad he can’t hold the album. Setting it down, he presses them flat against the tabletop. “Her ghost is in the river, isn’t it?”

For a moment, there’s only the water lapping against the hull. Me and Tyler stare at him, then turn to stare at each other. I say, “Show him the ring.”

He presses your ring into your pa-paw’s hand. Tyler says, “It’s Holly’s ring. I gave it to her the day she died.”

Turning it between his fingers, your pa-paw sees the word
HELP
. His eyes darken with pain. Tyler tells him about Rivercall and the catfish, about Pastor Wesley saying he wanted to help and Bo showing up at my house.

Your pa-paw closes long, calloused fingers—musician’s fingers—around the promise ring. He looks stunned. I don’t think he hears half of Tyler’s story. Finally, he asks, “But what’s happening?”

“We don’t know,” I say. “That’s why we came here. We thought maybe you’d know.”

He just shakes his head, and hope evaporates.

“Well, why did you ask if Holly was in the river?”

He bends down and opens his guitar case. Tyler whispers, “The Dreadnought,” in a worshipful tone that makes your pa-paw grin weakly.

“Yeah,” he mutters, slipping the guitar strap over his head. “Can’t go anywhere without her. Only family I’ve got left.”

I cringe again, the joke inch-worming too close to the truth to be funny. But your pa-paw doesn’t notice. Carrying the guitar, he leads us up onto the deck.

The old guitar is a C. F. Martin Dreadnought, its glossy black paint scuffed and scratched. It’s a veteran of a thousand days in sweltering studios, a thousand nights onstage. He told us he won it from Johnny Cash in a poker game. Of course, he also used to tell us he once had a pet saber-toothed tiger named Gut-Ripper Sam, so who knows.

“Couple nights after I came here, I was playing, and … ” He plucks a few notes, stops and tunes one of the strings. “It might not happen this time. I don’t know.”

“What might not happen?” I ask nervously.

“Just keep your eye on the plants.”

He starts playing. Long fingers jump like grease in a hot skillet. The guitar is plain, but it’s plain and true. Notes rise from its rosewood chest. A breeze off the river whirls them out across the marina like dandelion seeds.

Under the tea-colored water, streamers of milfoil wave with the currents. I watch them, wiping sweat from my face without looking away.

Hearing the Dreadnought’s voice again makes me remember those afternoons when you’d ignore me. I’d try on your clothes or bounce a rubber ball against your floor and closet door, getting so mad that you wouldn’t do anything except practice guitar. Sitting on your bed, you’d spend hours curling your fingers at unfamiliar angles across the strings, teaching them to move the way your mind wanted them to.

Tyler lifts his Aviators up, then shakes his head. “What are we—”

I sink fingernails into his arm. “Shhh! Quiet.”

I never take my eyes off the weeds. If I don’t blink, I can see new spirals of leaves unfolding. Stalks stretch upward, slow as the afternoon shadows, reaching toward the music.

People walk by without noticing, but down in the murk, the milfoil winds around dock bumpers and slack mooring ropes. Tiny snowflake flowers blossom, then fall to the water. The longest stalk reaches under the railing, making me jump back. “Stop! Mr. Alton, stop!”

The song breaks off. The clatter of the marina pours back in on us.

I grip the railing and peer down. “Holly? Holly, where are you?”

There’s no sound, no bubbles, no motion in the water except for the plants continuing to grow for several minutes. They keep climbing up the railing, working with the patience of a girl learning her instrument, teaching her fingers to move the way her mind wants them to.

Eight

Your pa-paw stares across the water as he talks. “When I was ten, me and some friends played hooky from school, went swimming in the river. Next day, I got a fever. Bad one, kept me in bed past the end of the school year. Then it got into my liver. After a while my skin turned yellow. My eyes, the whites of them, turned yellow with the jaundice.

“Doctor couldn’t help. Everybody thought my liver would shut down completely, and when that happens, that’s it. That’s the end.” He snaps off a stalk of milfoil curled around the railing post. Raking the spiny leaves across his palm, he squints at them, trying to understand.

“I never told my folks I’d skipped school that day, didn’t think it mattered. But both my folks grew up down in the holler, the river valley back before they built the dam and flooded it all. Finally, they called a root-worker named Mr. Buckley.

“Root-workers had been pretty common in the holler, back before there were any doctors. Mostly they mixed up medicines, helped lay out the dead, and such. But they knew others things too, charms, curses, and things like that. Mr. Buckley was a little grouchy old man, one of those turtle-faced old men, y’know? He came into my room holding the Bible, looks me up and down, then says, ‘What were you up to ’fore you got sick?’

“I told him like I’d told my folks, that I’d just been at school and hadn’t been up to nothing. But Mr. Buckley, he holds that Bible out and says, ‘You ready to swear to it? Swear to it there on your deathbed?’ The word ‘deathbed’ really scared me, so I told him all about playing hooky. Besides, I figured Dad couldn’t whoop me if I was dying.” He chuckles.

“So I told them I’d been swimming, and Mr. Buckley nodded, and scratched his chin, and looked around my room, and finally he tells my folks, ‘The fever must have followed him home. We gotta find it quick, or it’ll do him in.’ So they started searching everywhere, under my bed, in the attic. I thought they’d all gone bananas, y’know? Momma even told Dad to pull up the floorboards. He was about to do just that when he noticed the grille over an air duct had been worked loose. He got down and reached in there, started shouting, and pulled out a frog, piss-yellow and this big.” He holds up his fist to show us its size. “That was it. That was the fever.”

“That
was
the fever?” I ask. “Or, like, the frog gave you germs?”

He shakes his head. “That was the fever. In disguise. Mr. Buckley killed it with a shovel, and I started getting better that night.”

Any other day, I would have laughed. Today I ask,
“How’d Mr. Buckley know what to look for?”

Your pa-paw shakes his head again, drops the milfoil in the water and watches it bob away. “He learned it growing up down in the holler. Lots of my friends’ folks had come up from there after they flooded it. They’d tell stories about witches throwing curses and root-workers breaking them. Carry a lucky charm made from a buckeye or a stone with a hole in it, but thought you were crazy to walk around with two silver dollars in your pocket. That was tempting death, since when you died they put silver dollars on your eyes. They said you could heal bleeding by reading chapter sixteen of Ezekiel. And that you should never transplant a cedar tree from where it was growing. It was a different way of living down there, a whole different world.”

“What about something like this? Somebody’s soul getting trapped in the river?”

“No, I don’t think so … they talked about plenty of spooks, sure, but never anything like this. This river’s so old, though. It’s got so many secrets. Even someone like Mr. Buckley probably didn’t know half of them.”

“It has something to do with music,” Tyler says. He rolls your tarnished ring between his fingers. “The catfish came right after I played, too.”

“Rivercall! You’re right!” I gasp as it hits me. “You played, then Holly sent the catfish to us. She can still hear the music somehow. She knows it’s us somehow.”

“But why can’t she do more?” your pa-paw asks. “The first time I noticed the weeds doing that was days ago. I ain’t budged from this spot since.” He plucks another stalk of milfoil and tears it to bits. You musicians can’t think without fiddling with something. Your brains are directly connected to your hands.

“Well … what if we’re too far away?” I say. “Maybe we need to go to Swallow’s Nest Bluff and play there.”

Tyler’s mouth goes slack. His eyes beg for mercy. “Jane, I—”

“It’s where she drowned. Maybe she can’t send us a clear message because she’s too far away. We have to get as close to her as possible and pray she can tell us what’s happening.”

Tyler stares at his quivering reflection in the water. He wipes his eyes quickly. “I don’t know if I can.”

“You can. We have to.”

“Jane, I—”

“What did that ring mean? Why did you give it to Holly?”

Tyler runs the tip of his pinky along the inside of the ring—silver, tarnished bruise-brown—but he stays mute. He moves it back and forth, letting sunlight shaped by the cut-out cross play across his fingertips.

“It was more than just some pretty little present, wasn’t it?” I ask. “You wanted her to wear it and think of you, to remember you were always going to be there for her, always stand by her. Well, she remembers, Tyler. You think it was chance she used it to send her message? She remembers, and she needs you to remember.”

Tyler nods. “You’re right. You’re right.” All his goofiness is gone. The words fall heavy and certain like a lead weight in the palm.

Show me a sunbeam that can do that, Holly.

Your pa-paw gets the engine running while me and Tyler chop the houseboat loose from the milfoil. Tyler unwinds the docking ropes, then jumps back onboard as the boat eases out of its slip. The green and gray land passes in a shimmering heat-haze like a daydream. As the marina drifts away, Tyler takes the wheel from your pa-paw. Grown-ups can’t find Swallow’s Nest Bluff.

This river is so old. When the Nephilim walked the land and men were like grasshoppers at their feet, it was flashing as thin and quick as a minnow. The Mississippians came and built cities along its banks. They raised earthwork pyramids into the cool air and let the spring floods fertilize their fields with rich black silt. They carved images of eagle-beaked bird men and a monster called the underwater panther into clay. They believed animals able to move between the land, water, and sky—salamanders, turtles, ducks—and maybe catfish too?—acted as messengers of the gods, moving between our world and the spirit worlds above and below us.

The Mississippians lived and worshiped here for five hundred years, then disappeared. Nobody knows why. They vanished before Columbus came, leaving their warriors decaying within great burial mounds, surrounded by crumbling symbols of strength and wealth.

Hernando de Soto came through Muscle Shoals, exploring the New World. He forded the shoals heading into Tennessee and never came back down again. The Indians thought he was an immortal sun god. After he died of fever, his men were afraid of what the Indians might do if they discovered he’d just been a man. They weighted his body down with stones and tipped it over the side of a boat, letting the river swallow one more secret.

English and Irish settlers came and built a port on top of the Mississippians’ great burial mounds, grown lush with wildflowers by then. During the Civil War, soldiers came. They’re still here, too. From the highway, people have seen their ghosts marching, deaf and blind to the roaring cars.

It’s all still here, Holly. People built the dam, tried to tame the river, let the lake cover up the Indian mounds, but it’s all still down there. I can feel them all underneath us—curses of the Nephilim, the underwater panther, Hernando de Soto’s bones clanking around in rusted-out armor, fevers disguised as frogs—one layer of mysteries on top of another on top of another. And you’ve sunk down, down to the lightless bottom and can’t escape.

Thinking about it makes my stomach tighten; it makes breathing hard. But I won’t be afraid, Holly. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear.