The Riverman (The Riverman Trilogy) (20 page)

“Why don’t I come over to your house and we can talk about Aquaville?” he asked. Fiona thought it was cute how he called it Aquaville, and she was charmed that he seemed genuinely sorry and that he wanted to help. Fiona’s grandmother, who she called Nana, had taken ill, so she decided it was best if they spoke somewhere other than her house. She suggested the place where they had made their pact, the rock shaped like a frog.

Over the course of a few days, she told Alistair her story. She told him about the missing children. She offered evidence to convince him she wasn’t crazy. She asked him to help stop the Riverman.

Alistair was a good listener, and that was perhaps all she wanted at first. Yet the more she spoke to him, the more she realized he cared. He was as invested in this as she was. And by sharing her story, she was discovering things she wasn’t able to discover on her own.

For instance, the Riverman’s ability to find the children had puzzled Fiona. Somehow he always knew exactly what each kid needed. With Alistair’s help, she came to realize that perhaps the Riverman’s pen held not only the souls of the children, but also their thoughts. And in that collection of thoughts were the needs and wants and friends and memories of every child he’d ever stolen. Which meant he knew about Fiona. Fiona assumed the only reason he hadn’t come for her yet was because there was one thing he didn’t know, one thing she hoped that no one knew.

What she needed.

Nana died on the night of Thursday, October 26. She died in her sleep, and that was a relief for everyone. She had lived a long and full life, and it was time. Fiona’s dad arranged a wake for Sunday, and her mom rented a cabin in the mountains for two nights. The family was supposed to gather there and reflect on Nana’s life.

But like always, the Loomises kept to themselves. Fiona’s dad and uncle went deer hunting. Fiona’s mom bought produce from a market and passed time by jarring pickles and jam while listening to old records. Derek and Maria drove to a nearby town both mornings, to shop and eat and call friends from a broken pay phone they had discovered that made free long-distance calls.

Fiona spent the days alone on the screened-in porch, where she made a list of what was good about her life in the Solid World and what was good about her life in Aquavania. She also made a list of her regrets, of things she would do over if she ever had the chance. At the top of that list of regrets was:
I wish I never knew about the Riverman.

She suspected that many kids in Aquavania shared the same regret. If she was to believe the legends, then she knew the Riverman had been around for ages. So why hadn’t someone stopped him yet? Surely kids more powerful and smarter than Fiona had tried. Chua and Rodrigo—even Boaz—were perfect examples.

It became clear to Fiona. Maybe the Riverman couldn’t be stopped. Nana’s death was inevitable. So maybe the loss of all these kids was inevitable too, and the Riverman was some sort of a balancing force, some kind of necessary evil. Maybe Aquavania couldn’t exist without him.

When she returned home, she invited Alistair to the wake. They took a walk in the graveyard that was to be Nana’s final resting place. They sat on the steps of a mausoleum and Fiona laid bare her guilt, about how she was to blame for Boaz and Rodrigo’s disappearance, about how she had no idea how to find the Riverman, about how she was grasping at straws.

And Alistair asked, “What if I told you I know who the Riverman is?”

And Fiona thought about this. And she decided that it didn’t matter. For the first time … she didn’t care.

She was called to Aquavania that night.

She stayed in Aquavania for twelve years.

“How is that possible?” I asked. “What could you do for twelve years?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Fiona said. “It’s too private. But I grew up. I became a better person. A smarter person. I learned there are things you can control and things you can’t.”

Fiona climbed onto her bike. It still had the ragged ribbons on the handgrips and slivers of duct tape on the handlebars.

“You matter,” I said. “I need you to know that you matter.”

“I know that,” she said. “And you matter too. I’m going to handle this, on my own, in my own way.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying thank you. For being you. But that’s all you need to be. I don’t need your help anymore. Good night, Alistair.”

She kissed the tips of her fingers and pressed them to my forehead. And that was that. She started pedaling, and by the time I had gotten on my bike and caught up, she was turning into her driveway and heading for the darkness of her garage.

T
HURSDAY
, N
OVEMBER
2

School was slipping away from me. My grades were proving that. The next morning in math class, I received my latest pop quiz back. I got a 43 percent. A solid F. I had never scored so low.

Mr. Baker left a note at the top of the paper:
See me after the bell.

I did, and he asked, “What’s going on?”

I told him, “Nothing. Maybe I’m not trying hard enough.”

“There are tutors.”

“I know.”

“You look tired, Alistair.”

“I know.”

“What are we supposed to do here?”

“Try harder, I guess.”

Between classes, I scampered through the halls, constantly on the lookout for Trevor, and Mike, and Charlie, and Fiona. I made eye contact with no one. Instead of going to lunch, I smuggled my brown bag into the room near the gym lockers where they kept the wrestling mats. I built a little fort out of some of the smaller mats and ate my PB&J in the dark and soft silence.

I understood the appeal of being alone. I liked it most when I was lying in my bed, door closed, lights off. Sometimes with music playing, sometimes not. Sometimes the wind was enough. But a year alone? In the middle of nowhere? Doing nothing but writing? That didn’t seem possible. No one, not even the greatest of hermits, could live like that.

And what about the twelve years? And what about those twelve … freaking … years!

Back when Fiona was telling me about monsters and missing kids, I could apply it to her uncle, but the latest installment of her tale was indecipherable, and her indifferent attitude toward everything was beyond confusing. Was she truly losing touch with reality? Had she really given up completely? Did that mean I should give up too? I was beginning to feel like I was on Fiona’s blank slate. No view of the future. No one to count on but myself. And why even count on myself when Fiona didn’t count on me anymore?

We had a test in Social Studies on Reconstruction in the South. I answered maybe nineteen out of the forty questions. Mostly I watched my classmates. I wasn’t copying off their papers. It was more about observing them in deep thought. Some of them chewed their pencils or closed their eyes and bit their lips. Kelly Dubois was downing cough drops at what seemed like an alarming rate until I realized she was using the wrappers as crib sheets. The insides were covered in tiny boxy words—an innovative, if strange, cheating technique. I considered snitching on her in order to complete my transformation into the school’s pariah, but I didn’t have the energy.

I handed my test in unfinished, grabbed a hall pass, and headed to the bathroom. My favorite stall was unoccupied, and I went in without even thinking about the message I’d posted:

In the story of Aquavania there is a Riverman and a girl. Who is the Riverman? Is the girl in danger?

There was a new response, written with the sloppy penmanship of a kid who must have given teachers fits. The identity of the Riverman wasn’t revealed, but that didn’t matter. A more important question was answered.

The place where stories are born? Who claims to have been there? She is in danger.

I analyzed every word.

The place where stories are born
: that was what Fiona called Aquavania.

Who claims to have been there
:
claims
was the important word. Liars claim.

She is in danger
: she is in danger.

I pulled out my Sharpie and wrote:
Fiona Loomis. What did she tell you? Please let me know ASAP: 798-5291.

I didn’t consider that I might be inundated with prank calls. I needed to hear from someone immediately.

I made it through the rest of the day without saying a word to another person. Even on the walk home with Keri, I kept a few paces ahead as she yammered on about some tiff she was having with Mandy. At home, I took the cordless phone to my room and I got in bed and set it on my chest and waited.

It rang. Not right away, but a few minutes before dinner, sending vibrations through my ribs and into my blood.

“Hello.”

“Is this Alistair?”

“It is.”

“I got it.”

“Kyle?”

“The thing. It’s here.”

F
RIDAY
, N
OVEMBER
3

Kyle’s van was waiting at the end of our driveway when Keri and I left for school the next morning. The engine was purring, and the passenger side door was open. Kyle’s hair was wet and combed back. He didn’t have to say a word. I climbed in.

“You and Dally have fun at the rumble,” Keri teased. “Say hi to Ponyboy for me.”

A couple of weeks earlier, I might have responded to such a comment, but what did Keri know? I sneered, and the kid walked west toward school. We men drove east.

“Are we on our way to get it?” I asked.

“No,” Kyle said. “I got it already. We’re on our way to take care of your problem.”

A frost had settled in, dusting the weedy fields and the patches of woods on the outskirts of the neighborhood. We weren’t going into town. We were heading the other way, into the infinite hilly stretches of pig and dairy farms, of state forests and Indian reservations.

Kyle wasn’t talking, so I assumed it meant he had nothing to say. The radio was tuned to a morning show, and they were playing a parody song about East Germans climbing the Berlin Wall. I didn’t really get it, but I laughed anyway, trying to lighten the mood. Kyle’s face was stone serious.

“You know what’s funny?” he asked.

“No, what?”

“I think I knew from the beginning who you were talking about. From day one. When you were asking questions about how you can tell if a girl is lying or not. It’s the Loomis kid, right? I’ve seen her riding her bike by your house before.”

We were going close to eighty down a road with no center stripe. Anything in the van that could rattle did rattle.

“Yeah,” I said. “Fiona. But it’s not that I wanted to keep her name from you.”

“No sweat,” Kyle replied. “It’s cool. True studs don’t kiss and tell. Her older sister, Maria? She’s a fox. And your girl is too. Or will be someday. You can see that already.”

“Thank you.”

This coaxed a grin out of him. “You’re welcome.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

He pointed through the buggy windshield. “About five miles down there’s a dirt road. Leads to a field where someone cut a runway. Guess you could land a Cessna on it if you had to, but that ain’t what the runway is used for. It’s for these guys. Grown men, like our parents’ age. They go out there with these radio-controlled airplanes and launch ’em and fly ’em all around, up over the fields and the trees and all that. Ain’t something normal guys do, but it’s Disneyland for these creeps, and I’m guessing they just love to bring little boys and little girls out here too. Show them the loopty-loops and whatnot. Makes me sick.”

“And we’re going there?”

“Yes sirree, Bob.”

The frost was melting and leaving dew on the dying cornstalks that lined the dirt road. At the end of the road was a muddy patch that served as the parking lot. There was only one other vehicle there: Dorian Loomis’s truck. We pulled up behind it.

From the lot you could see the runway. It was probably fifty yards long and twenty yards wide, with manicured grass like you’d find on any suburban lawn. Dorian stood in the middle of it, holding a large remote control with multiple levers. A tiny red biplane flew overhead.

“Freakin’ Charlie in twenty-five years.” Kyle sighed.

“How’d you know he’d be here?”

“After our chat at Gina’s, I put two and two together and figured you were talking about this chump. So I followed him yesterday. Plus there’s that sticker.” Kyle raised his chin to Dorian’s truck, and I saw an emblem on the rear window that featured a propeller plane, a golden crest, and the words
The Mini Airmen of Thessaly
.

“What are we doing?” I asked.

“No
we
. Me.
I’m
handling this.”

I looked into the back of the van, where it was a landscape of clothes and burger wrappers. And I checked Kyle’s coat, a ratty brown canvas thing with red flannel lining at the collar. I was searching for a gleam or a lump. “You’re not gonna…?”

“I’m gonna have a chat with the man. I can be persuasive.”

“He was in the Army. He was—”

“He’s fat and he’s old and plays with toys,” Kyle said as he opened his door and jumped out over a puddle. Before shutting it, he pointed at me. “Stay, boy.”

I did, and Kyle moved down the path toward the runway, his swagger exaggerated, one arm in front and one in back, swaying to some unheard beat. It was half street corner hustler, half cowboy. Yet it went unnoticed, at least to Dorian, who kept his face to the sky. The sky was a weak blue, a watercolor sky. The acres of fallow land that surrounded the runway were watercolor too—blurred and flat. The only real punch of life was that brilliant red plane.

When Kyle reached the runway, Dorian finally paid attention. He shot Kyle a sharp wave, the exact same wave as the one he’d given me on Halloween night. The van windows were tinted, and I doubt Dorian could have recognized me, but I still didn’t want him to know that someone was in there watching. I slumped down as far as I could while still maintaining a view through the driver’s side window.

The two talked for a bit, but didn’t look at each other. They were both watching the plane. It dipped and twirled, and I was amazed that such a thing could exist. I owned a few remote control cars, but they moved slower than a jog and could barely make it to the end of the driveway and back before their batteries ran out.