The Riverman (The Riverman Trilogy) (19 page)

“The same,” I said, even though I rarely drank iced tea, and never without sugar. The waitress took a mental note and was gone as quickly as she’d arrived.

“This is nice,” Fiona said. “Nice and normal.”

“It’s just the Skylark.”

“I know that, sweetie. Believe me. That’s what makes it so nice.”

Sweetie?
Fiona had never called me that before. Was she feeling what I was feeling? Did she want what I wanted? I tested the waters. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot.”

“Oh, Alistair, that’s so … nice. But let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about you. What did you dress up as on Halloween?”

Again, I was caught off guard. “I … I … It wasn’t a costume, really … Trevor Weeks and Mike—”

“You went as a ninja,” Fiona said confidently. “How could you go as anything else?”

There was a bruise on my thigh, a cloud of purple and black that had risen a few hours after my fight with Trevor. It was tender, and I pressed on it to remind myself of everything that had happened the night before. “I didn’t go as anything. I was only out there defending you.”

“Alistair, Alistair, Alistair…” Fiona’s voice trailed off with a sigh. Why did she keep saying my name?

The iced tea appeared in front of us, green straws sticking out like bamboo in a muddy pond, lemon slices sipping from the rim. “You kids know what you’d like yet?” the waitress asked.

“You bet,” Fiona said. “I’ll have a cheeseburger. Medium. And instead of salt potatoes, can I get onion rings?”

“Sure can. And you, hon?”

“Turkey club. A regular turkey club,” I said as I squeezed my lemon slice over my drink and took a sip. It was unbearably bitter. I started to reach for the sugar dispenser, but resisted the temptation. If this was what Fiona was drinking, then I was drinking it too.

“Medium cheeseburger and a regular old club. Coming right up.” Mental note taken, the waitress abandoned us again.

I took another sip to see if the second time was better. It was worse, and I must have winced. Fiona pushed the sugar toward me. She nodded her consent.

“How’s Charlie doing?” she asked.

I sent a stream of sugar into my tea. “I don’t care about Charlie.”

“Really? I thought you guys were best buds.”

“Not anymore.”

“What happened?”

I sipped again—much better—and I shrugged. “He’s Charlie. He’ll always be Charlie.”

She swirled her drink with her straw and said, “People can change.”

I wasn’t sure if this was small talk or if she was hinting at something. “Ain’t that the truth,” I replied.

“Soooo … any big tests coming up?”

It was the kind of thing that my mom asked at stoplights, the sort of question that deserved no better an answer than
I have no idea, lay off
. For Fiona to ask it was, at best, an insult. I couldn’t take this anymore.

“Who gives a crap about tests?” I said. “Why are we talking like this? Why aren’t we talking about the Riverman? A few days ago you said we can’t stop him, but I know for sure that if I—”

Fiona put up a hand. “Not here. While we’re here, let’s be a couple of friends. Having a meal. Talking about things friends talk about. I want you to tell me about what’s going on in your life. I want you to tell me stories about Thessaly. Things I might not know about it.”

“I … I … don’t wanna tell you—”

“Then I
need
you to tell me. Don’t ask me why.
Please
 … just talk.”

And there it was, and it was back, the Fiona I knew so well, the Fiona that flipped my switch and turned me into a sucker. It was in her eyes, of course, and in her voice. It was an aura around us that made me feel like I was the only person in her life who mattered.

“That’s what you need?” I sighed.

“Right now, that’s all I need,” she said.

So I talked.

I told her about Charlie. I told her about his plagiarism. I told her about Keri and how she could be the worst sister and the best sister wrapped into one. I told her about what classes I was taking, what homework was giving me fits. I told her about memories my mom had of Thessaly from her days as a kid, about when the Oriskanny flooded and she and her cousin rowed to town on an inflatable raft. I even told her that sometimes I ate carrots dipped in ketchup and watched soap operas because I liked it when characters got amnesia. It was meaningful stuff and mundane stuff and any stuff that came to my mind. Fiona listened to it all like it was some brilliant and epic novel. She kept her responses to “Really?” and “Go on” and “Tell that one again.” She laughed at the right moments and never stopped looking at me, even when she was eating her burger, the juices running down her wrist.

Dinner led to dessert, sundaes with all the toppings. The more I rambled on, the more I forgot what had led us to that restaurant in the first place. I had never talked to anyone about myself for so long, and I had never known anyone to listen so intently. As our spoons scraped the last bits from our ice cream dishes, it felt like we were coming to the end of something huge. Maybe we were.

The bike ride home was only a couple of miles, but we took it slow, detouring on less trafficked roads and utilizing the wind to minimize our pedaling. We rode side by side and didn’t say much. The crickets had packed it in for the year. The only sound was the whir of our wheels.

On a dark stretch of road a few hundred yards from home, Fiona’s chain fell off. We pulled over next to a pile of leaves to fix it. Kneeling by the bike, I found myself as close to Fiona as I had ever been. I handed her the chain, and she hooked it to a tooth of the sprocket. When she turned her head back, I closed my eyes and leaned in.

Images of us rolling in the leaves splashed across my eyelids, and I led with my lips.

“Hey now,” she said, pushing me away.

“I thought…”

“Oh, buddy.” She sighed. “I know what you thought. And maybe when I was your age.”

“Why do you say things like that? You
are
my age. We’ve been the same age forever, and we’ll be the same age forever. You don’t have to hide things anymore. I’m here for you and I can protect you. And whatever you’ve experienced, however old that makes you feel, well, I can make sure you feel young again.”

Fiona stood up and brushed off her knees. She grabbed the banana seat and lifted her back tire off the ground. She stepped on the pedal and eased the crank around to remount the chain.

“I’m twenty-six years old,” she said plainly. “I’m more than twice as old as you.”

“What?”

“We’re not the same anymore, sweetie,” she said. “We never will be. And I haven’t told you my entire story. You should really hear the rest.”

THE LEGEND OF FIONA LOOMIS, PART V

Fiona wanted to tell Alistair Cleary about Aquavania immediately, but she also wanted to be sure he was the right person to tell. After burying the map at the edge of his yard, Fiona watched him for a few weeks. Almost every afternoon she rode her bike around their neighborhood, passing his house three or four times. She had a small cassette recorder taped to her handlebars and she played music dubbed from her uncle’s collection, a bunch of loud songs that told the world to stay far away.

She would see Alistair in his yard, sometimes in his garage. She would see him through windows, eating meals and watching television. She would see him on his walk home, arguing and roughhousing with his sister. Whenever Alistair looked at her, Fiona looked up at the trees. She knew this must have appeared strange, but she figured being strange was better than being a spy. Because that’s what she was, a spy.

She wasn’t sure what she was hoping to uncover, though. Something to prove Alistair was clever? Or villainous? Maybe something to prove he was brave?

She didn’t see anything other than a kid being a kid.

The next time she was called to Aquavania, she invited Toby to join her on a swing made of vines, where they munched on star fruit and let the breeze tussle their hair.

“I don’t know if I picked the right person,” she told him.

With his mouth full, Toby responded, “How … ya know he’s … right person … mm-less you … give ’im a chance?”

“I want to be sure he has secrets,” Fiona said. “That he keeps secrets.”

Toby swallowed and replied, “Everyone keeps some secrets. Nobody tells everything.”

“Apart from you,” Fiona said.

“Exception to the rule.”

Fiona had followed Jenny’s advice. She had shut herself off from the other worlds in Aquavania. She kept her wishes to material items, sent no signals, went nowhere near the folds. But the isolation was getting to her. She wasn’t enjoying being in Aquavania anymore. To know the Riverman was still out there, draining the souls of others while she hid, caused her too much guilt to carry.

She decided to take a chance on Alistair. Her spying had at least taught her that he was still the quiet guy she remembered, and that he didn’t have many friends. To hook him, she appealed to his storytelling instincts. She recorded an invitation to write her biography and delivered it as a present.

Alistair bit.

Within a few days, Fiona was in his room, sitting on his bed, starting from the beginning, dictating her earliest memories. He seemed genuinely interested, but when she reached the part with the talking radiators, he got spooked. He asked her to leave.

It could have, and maybe should have, ended there. But a few days later, Alistair dug up the map and Fiona knew there was no turning back.

Fiona was called to Aquavania, and she invited Toby to join her on the swing again. “I’ve been careless,” she said. “Alistair’s sister saw me bury the ammo can. What if the Riverman is in the Solid World too? If some girl knows what I’m doing, then surely the Riverman could figure it out. So I burned the map. I won’t let him get his grubby paws on it.”

Toby kicked his legs, giving the swing some juice. “Here’s a thought,” he said. “Why do you have to stop the Riverman?”

It was a question she had never once considered. “Because he’s hurting people.”

“He’s not hurting you.”

“Should that matter?”

“Maybe that’s all that should matter,” Toby said, kicking again and piling on the momentum. “Don’t go back to the Solid World. Stay here and don’t invite anyone in, and you’ll be fine. Is this world not good enough for you?”

Even if she didn’t always like what he said, Fiona had always loved Toby. But she didn’t love him now. Why was he talking like this?

“Of course this world is good enough for me,” she said. “But what about the other worlds? You told me that Aquavania is the place where stories are born. The Riverman is stealing all of those other stories.”

“Maybe your story is the only one worth saving,” Toby said.

The vines that held the swing were so long that they carried Fiona and Toby high enough to look down on the animals and the waterfalls and so many of the things Fiona had brought to life. All at once, she was ashamed of it. This world was a cliché, a little girl’s fantasy, a silly tropical paradise that wasn’t worth squat.

“Who are you?” Fiona asked Toby.

“I’m Toby.”

“No,” she said. “Who are you really?”

“I think you know.”

“Maybe, but tell me anyway. Say it out loud.”

“I’m you,” Toby said. “Everything in your world is you.”

Fiona did know this, but not in a conscious way. She knew it in the way that she knew the hair and the fingernails that grew and she cut off were her, and the tears that fell from her eyes and soaked into her clothes were her, and the words that she set loose on the world were her.

“And if I were to wish you away?” Fiona asked.

Toby clasped his hands together and said, “You’ll wish me back eventually, in one form or another.”

Fiona nodded. “Goodbye, Toby. Be safe,” she said. And she jumped off the swing and landed in a pile of dandelion fluff, where she made her most revolutionary wish.

It seemed at first as if Fiona were growing, but she knew that wasn’t possible. Toby and the animals and the island and the ocean were getting smaller, contracting around her until it all looked like the insides of a snow globe. An ammo can appeared in Fiona’s arms, and she was able to pick up the shrunken world and place it inside.

Fiona was now standing on a flat black plane. The only horizon was the haze of the folds. There was nothing in every direction. She wished a shovel into her hands and she used it to dig a hole. She dropped the ammo can in the hole and buried it. She smoothed out the ground until there was no evidence that it had ever been disturbed.

For the next few weeks she walked, in no particular direction. And she thought about what she might do next. When she wished something into existence—like food, or a bed—she shrank it down and buried whatever she was finished with, whatever she didn’t use or need. It was lonely at first, but she viewed her loneliness as punishment. For losing Chua, and Boaz, and Rodrigo.

When she finally decided to stop walking, she wished for a comfortable chair and desk and a notebook and pen. She sat and wrote her story down, starting from the moment that she arrived in Aquavania, up until the moment she was sitting in that chair. And when she finished writing it, she buried that story too.

Then she wrote Chua’s story. She wrote every detail about Chua’s world she could remember. And she wrote about the things that Chua said. And she wrote about Werner. And Boaz. And Rodrigo. And Jenny. And all the kids she’d ever heard about who had come to Aquavania.

It took her a year to write all their stories. Whenever she finished one, she buried it and moved on to the next.

Finally, she decided to write the story of the Riverman. She knew nothing about him other than the destruction he had wrought. She figured that after writing about all the kids, she’d have some insight into what drew the Riverman to them.

But it was no use. She started and stopped countless times. She had no idea what made the Riverman who he was. She had no idea what she would have to do to stop him. She had done everything she could. What else was there?

She decided to go back to the Solid World.

The next day, Alistair approached her in the school cafeteria with an apology. Only a week had gone by in the Solid World since she had first given Alistair that cassette tape, but she had spent over a year in Aquavania during that time. She was fourteen now, and he was still twelve.