This River Awakens (34 page)

On and on. Hours. Her father’s arrival capped the whole thing. Perfect timing. Exquisite effect. Bandaged face. Sober and smooth and calm from the painkillers. Humbled, looking suitably pathetic in a homey, teddy-bear way. Harmless. He couldn’t talk either. No wires, just cotton. A temporary condition.

Jennifer pictured supper-time, her and two Frankensteins at the table. She’d almost laughed aloud and went quickly to the bathroom to work the grin off her face.

A virtuoso performance. The encore in a week’s time with Annie’s follow-up visit. A week to keep everything in place – no problem. Her father understood. Her mother understood. Everything was understood.

A wasp buzzed in front of her face. She smiled at it. It hovered, then whirred off. There was no wind here inside this ring of trees. No movement at all. The air waited to unfold like a flower in front of their eyes – her and Owen, once they were on their way.

‘You look dead,’ Owen said, his shadow falling over her.

Jennifer smiled up at him. ‘You look horny as hell. Undo your pants. I want your cock in my hands.’

‘Why don’t we just sit and talk this time?’ He sat down beside her.

‘What for? We both know what we want. C’mon, feel how wet I am. Go on, reach in.’

‘Later. I haven’t seen you in over a week. Are we still going together?’

Jennifer sighed. She sat up, resting her back against the foundation wall. ‘You didn’t hear?’

‘What? No.’

‘Y’know Old Man Fisk? He showed up a couple nights ago. He beat the shit out of my dad. The neighbours called the cops. They arrested him, took him away. Dad got forty-eight stitches. Or forty-seven. Something like that. All in the face.’

‘Holy fuck. What – why did Fisk do that?’

‘You’d better ask him. I haven’t got a clue. Even the cops couldn’t figure it out. Fisk had a deal with Dad, for dog food or something. Maybe they argued over the price.’

‘Dog food? You mean, he feeds his mink dog food?’

‘Probably. Buys it wholesale, I guess.’

‘Holy fuck.’

Jennifer lit a cigarette, felt Owen’s eyes on her. ‘You like watching, don’t you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re always watching me when I smoke.’

‘I watch you other times, too.’

‘Oh yeah? Well, I only notice it when I smoke. Ready to try it?’

‘No.’

‘You’re like a robot with that word. What exactly are you watching?’

‘When it’s between your lips. The way your cheeks … bunch – the muscles – when you take a drag. And the muscles under your chin, too, when you pull the drag inside. Then I watch the smoke. You know, I’ve been noticing. People who smoke got bigger muscles around their mouths. You have to look carefully to see them.’

Jennifer laughed. ‘I can picture you doing it. Looking, I mean. Studying. I can see the way your eyes narrow, like you’re taking pictures in your head and you keep adjusting the focus. What do you do with all those pictures, Owen?’

He shrugged. ‘Nothing. I just notice things. It’s neat. It’s like learning to look at things different from the way you normally look at things.’

‘What for?’

He hesitated. ‘You’ll laugh.’

‘No. Promise.’

‘Okay. Well, when I look at something differently, and closely, I see how beautiful it is. It doesn’t seem to matter what. Like the muscles around your mouth, and your lips wrapping around that filter. Or the way one of your tits has rolled down one side and it’s pulled the t-shirt with it. Or even on the road out there. The tar makes bubbles that shine when you rub the dust off them. Or this place, the old walls. There was once a floor under us, and the ones who walked on it lived right here, and the mother probably put flowers in the kitchen window, and the father could step outside and look at the trees his own father had planted, and there’d be tears in his eyes, or something.’

‘They’re gone now,’ Jennifer said, her eyes on the cigarette between the fingers of her right hand.

‘Well, nothing lasts for ever.’

‘And nothing changes.’

‘I know.’

‘I’ve got a couple of caramel candies.’ She pulled them out, handed him one, and watched as he unwrapped the plastic covering and popped it into his mouth. ‘They might be a little stale.’

Owen shrugged. He chewed, then swallowed. ‘A little? Yuck.’

‘Well,’ Jennifer said, grinning, ‘I’m no coward.’ She put hers into her mouth, tasted first the sweet caramel, then something bitter, tacky. She quickly swallowed. ‘Boy, did that leave a bad taste, eh?’

He nodded.

Jennifer took a drag, exhaled slowly. ‘Come and kiss me. I’ll give you a taste you like. And a whole lot more, maybe.’

He leaned over her. She reached up and pulled him down, kissing him hard and deep. He responded as if it made him thirsty, as if he wanted to drink her. His hand slid along her body and found the tit he’d talked about, pulling it back up and around. She slid her free hand into his pants and found him ready. She pulled her mouth away for another drag from the cigarette, barely getting it done in time before he closed in again.

She held the back of his head and pushed the smoke into his lungs. He reared back, his eyes wide.

‘I feel sick.’

She laughed. ‘It’s just the smoke—’

‘No. Before that. I’m feeling sick. In my stomach. Really sick. That caramel was bad, I think—’

Abruptly he rolled to one side, leaned over the foundation wall, and threw up.

Jennifer sat up and felt a dizzying wave roll through her. Then she gagged, her stomach spasming, and found herself on her hands and knees, everything down inside coming back out of her mouth. With each helpless retch, she felt pee squirt into her underwear. The ground in front of her, fouled with fluids and bits of food, contorted wildly, spun until she lost her balance and rolled to one side, coming up against the foundation wall.

Owen had stopped vomiting. His eyes were wide as he stared at her. ‘What’s happening? What was in that?’

Jennifer shook her head. This wasn’t the same as acid. It wasn’t the same at all. It wasn’t in the head, it felt in the bones, in every cell of her body, spreading out from her stomach like long curling fingers. The head struggled to catch up.

‘I don’t think Fisk buys dog food,’ Owen said, still leaning on the wall. ‘I think he uses mink. Dead, chopped-up mink. He’s rotting from the inside out, a bonfire in his gut, cold as ice at the tips of his fingers. You don’t understand, do you? I’m the same as him. I’m inside, too, burning my way out, and the birds hang in the sky like crosses.’

‘Fuck me,’ Jennifer pleaded. ‘Please. Up the ass. Your cock. Get rid of the way his still feels. Get rid of it, please.’

‘Fuck you? I can’t even find you.’

Then Owen was gone, and the ruins had changed around her. The foundation stones were wet, slimy under her hands. Water streamed down through the branches, poured from black leaves, rushed down the boles of the trees, but there was no rain. It was dark, impossibly dark.

‘Owen?’

She jumped as a massive, snarling shape lunged at her. Chains pulled tight, spraying water against her face. A huge dog crouched in front of her, straining on the chain, which was attached to a steel collar on its neck, the other end running down into the earth. Jennifer stared, gasping. The dog’s eyes burned into her. Its bared teeth, slick with blood, were huge and less than a yard away.

It wanted her, promising pain and death.

Max? Back from the dead, transformed by the journey – the unmapped forests, the depthless chasms and fissures between the worlds. Max. He’s come back.

Jennifer couldn’t move. She wanted to run, but there were chains beneath her flesh, wrapped around her bones and holding her to the earth. Down they went, unlit silver sunk through mud and clay and gravel, down into the ancient, stained bedrock. There’d be no escape.

Max lunged again. She saw how his flesh had rotted. Shreds of green garbage bag remained, twisted around his legs. Blood streamed from his mouth. The car’s bumper had shattered ribs, pushing them into his lungs. The tyre had crushed his hips, parted his spine. But Max lived, returning huge, hungry, filled with madness.

I want wings. I need wings. I need to get away. Dying’s driven him insane. He doesn’t recognise me. I know who he wants, but the man isn’t here. No one’s here but me.

She heard music now, hard-tipped fingers on a piano. Desperate music, a Pied Piper call coming from the dark wood. Slowly, the music drifted into her body, calming and cool as raindrops. Max stopped his snapping and growling, settled back, his brown eyes softening, half closing. He knew her now. He wasn’t afraid any more.

Jennifer stood. The chains rose up through the earth between her and Max, and she saw that it was the same chain. The imprisoning bedrock that she’d seen in her mind and had believed to be real, wasn’t – a truth only in her mind, proved a lie by what she now saw.

Max rose as well. The music beckoned. Side by side, they entered the wood.

*   *   *

The trees marched away, leaving me alone in an open place. Jennifer’s kiss had sent me on my way. I remained on my knees in the dirt, and yet I moved. The oaks and ash trees had stepped back, drifted away. The foundation and cellar depression settled into the dry earth. I felt thirsty, the need for water becoming a savage thing, burning like fire in my throat.

She’d sent me away. I’d have to go there before I could come back. The crows that had become crosses swung wide, silent arcs across the grey sky. I jumped as a rabbit darted past.
Jack-rabbit, look at him go.
An owl followed ghostly in its wake.

Prairie spread out on all sides. Rolling dun hills, black rock outcroppings, a wide river valley. I didn’t belong here yet, but it was where I’d come from. There was no sense in that thought, but I knew it was true. The scene before me resided in my future, years away. Years and years.

I climbed to my feet, staggered a step before finding my balance. It was cold now. Snow dusted the hills. On my left a highway tracked the slopes of the valley, glistening with frost and blacker streaks where cars had passed. Not a soul on that highway, though. I was alone. I looked to my right, where the valley stepped down, hill by hill, to its floor. A creek or river belonged there, but it had dried up long ago.

The flat top of a nearby hill had rings of boulders on it, each rock in a nest of wiry yellow grass. My gaze travelled over them, then beyond, to a larger humped hill. There, a rock outcropping ran a twisted, serrated line along the summit.
That’s mine. My place. I need to do something there, so that it’s ready for me when I come here again. Something. What?

The stubble, moss and lichen crunched underfoot as I walked towards the hill. My muscles felt tired, as if I’d already walked miles and miles. There were hundreds of crows in the sky now.
I’m at the place where the bird-souls pause in their journey. The Sunday school teacher forgot to mention this place, because it wasn’t heaven. It was too old, this island in a dried-up sea, between the worlds and beneath notice. Angels have forgotten this place, and if I can, I’ll make sure it stays forgotten for ever. That teacher, heron-gaunt and ancient, she’d known. She’d known and forgotten on purpose.

I came to the hill’s base. The ground rose in front of me, steep and studded with cacti. The hill was massive, oblong. Tucked low into the side was a wooden door. A single iron handle hung in its middle, encrusted with lichen.

This door wouldn’t be here next time. I would be living in a grown-up world, then. Frightened of magic, steeped in a predictable, ordered existence, and the voices calling me up into the sky would be heard only in my dreams. The invitation was doomed to fade on my awakening, the joy an illusion. I needed to do something. This was my chance, my reason for being here.

A voice spoke beside me. ‘He’s in there, you know.’

I didn’t turn, but the voice continued.

‘One day you’ll stand here, and I’ll stand beside you and we’ll be talking hockey, then we’ll go quiet. And I’ll make a sound, because all of a sudden this hill shows me what’s inside, this hill tells me it’s for you. Your totem, Owen.’

I wanted to turn, to see this man with his dark, prairie voice, but my power to move had vanished.

‘A dragon. Things like that don’t happen, not even to a shaman. Especially not to some white boy. A dragon, Owen, do you believe me? Will you, when the day comes? Will you run? What will you do?’

Silence returned, and I knew I was alone again.

The door was never meant to be opened. Not from the outside. I pressed myself against its frosty surface and closed my eyes.

*   *   *

Trees, so thick and tightly packed, there was barely room to move. Dark and wet, the air close and clammy. The music filtered through, coming in from all sides. Jennifer had a hand on Max’s shoulder, clutching his fur – a shoulder that brushed against her ribcage. The fur was cold, and not once did Max pant, not a single gust of white breath escaping him.

He’s come back. To protect me.

Jennifer gasped. The music had stopped. Now only silence. The trees closed in on themselves, became figures, spectral, robed. Women, all facing her, motionless, their eyes hooded, veiled in shadow.

All at once she stood in a kitchen. Max was gone. Pickling jars lined the shelves, filled the open cupboards. In each jar, stuffed inside, entombed in liquid, a baby. Eyes open, staring, following Jennifer as she took a step back. The ghostly women brought more jars, moving around her to the counter where they began stacking them. The stream was unending.

Mothers and mothers and mothers and mothers and mothers and mothers … these are the days ahead, the years to come, for ever and ever. No point in screaming. No point in anger. Suffer silently, be the grey cloth covering everything, muting every struggle, every wrung-out cry. Learn to be … not yourself, but others. Always others.

Through the kitchen window she saw churches, one on every hill, the hills marching on for ever. Churches, and bonfires. Latin words on vellum unscrolled across the sky. And bridges and bars and flats and sharps rose like rainbows. From beyond the rumpled horizon came a faint howl.
Max.