The Drowned Forest (13 page)

Eighteen

I sit on a toolbox in the back of the van, craning around Max’s headrest. Tyler’s in the front seat, giving directions. “Turn here. Foster Mill Road.”

When Max turns, Ultimate looks at me. “You know this is breaking and entering, right? If you get arrested, saying you thought your dead friend might have gone home isn’t going to help much.”

“Who’ll call the police? Who worries if there’s a utility van parked in front of an empty house? Just act like you’re fixing the power or whatever, and nobody’ll notice us. Turn left up here.”

Catching my eye in the rearview mirror, Max says, “You’re giving off a real sneaky, criminal-mastermindy vibe. You know that?”

He means it as a sly compliment, I know. But I can’t summon a laugh or even a smile. “This house here. With the blue trim.”

Your house, without love, the porch steps lost in a fog of Queen Anne’s lace. Your house with a living room window broken. Your house surrounded by swallows. The birds that left their nests on the bluff—they’re all here, slashing between the orange sky and shadowed tree branches.

Max steers into the driveway. “So what do we do now?”

“Go look.”

LeighAnn says, “Jane, you shouldn’t rush … ”

I hop out as soon as the van stops. The driveway of white pebbles has melted like a snowbank, green grass nibbling at its edges. The swallows have built mud nests under the porch eaves. They build their homes from the same mud and sticks you build your body from. They saw you drown, saw you reshape yourself, and somehow they consider you kin. They love you and followed you here.

Ultimate, carrying his toolbox, pretends to check the meter. The others follow me up to the porch. Birds wheel up and out, dive straight down screaming at us. They saw you drown. Maybe, if they love you, they hate me and Tyler for not saving you. I hunch forward, ignoring them, and climb the steps.

The door handle has rusted away. I can see where you tugged on it until it finally crumbled in your hand. The pieces still lie on the porch. You cried for somebody to let you in, banged and scratched on the door until the panel rotted, knots in the painted pine sprouting stubby new branches.

I nudge the door open. “Holly?”

Tyler follows close behind, holding the bag of chalk and lime. He clicks on a flashlight and swings it around, into the corners.

“Holly? It’s Jane.”

The air inside is humid and still, heavy with the fecund stink of the lake bottom. Stalks of goldenseal grow from the carpet, hairy-stemmed and scarlet-berried. Even this far from the river, you carry its powers of rot and wild growth.

Max and LeighAnn watch from just inside the doorway. “Jane … this isn’t a great—”

I wave at LeighAnn to shut up, then call down the hall, “Holly? It’s Jane. Don’t be scared, okay? Okay?”

No answer. A few wrinkled snapshots lie at the mouth of the hall. I kneel down, flip one over. Water damage has blurred the colors and figures, but it’s a picture of some band onstage. It’s one of the photos from your pa-paw’s houseboat. I remember the photo we found of your me-maw. The wind didn’t blow it onto the shore; you dropped it.

Tyler yells, “Oh, God!”

I rush over and shoulder past him, pushing into the kitchen while he backpedals out. “Holly, it’s me! It’s Jane! I’ve been look—”

“Jane. Look at it, Jane.” Tyler takes my elbow. I blink and look again, seeing what’s in front of me. Shaped from mud and flotsam, the miserable copy of you lies stiff, dried out, and crumbling on the tile. Whatever scrap of your soul held it together has unraveled. Another copy crouches near the pantry, knees pulled up, face buried in earthen arms. As it dried out, one shoulder split away from the body. Ants crawl out of the wound.

“So … how are there two of them? Two of her, or whatever?” LeighAnn asks.

“She can reshape herself over and over.” Tyler glances from one body to the other. “She came once, but that body broke apart. So she formed a second body and came again. The heat. She must have come at night when it’s cool, but during the day, when it gets hot, the mud dries out and falls apart.”

“Why’d she come back at all?” Max asks. “There’s nothing here. What’s she looking for?”

“She’s looking for her grandparents,” I say.

Wings flutter inside the house. I look down the hall to see the cobalt bird dart into your bedroom. I follow it, knowing I don’t want to see.

One body is curled up on the bed, the sheets growing mossy beneath it and kudzu vines twisting around the rust-brown bed frame. Other husks crouch in the corners or have just dropped to their knees. One has gray teeth made from pieces of mussel shell. I try counting the bodies, but they’ve crumbled together—hands broken off spindly arms, chests crushed underfoot. There’s more trash carried up from the houseboat, too—a clock radio is plugged in but not working, more ruined pictures are propped carefully against the baseboards. Moldering clothes have been folded and stacked. They’ve started sprouting mushrooms from your touch. You even carried up your pa-paw’s guitar. You lie with fingers still encrusted around the Dreadnought’s neck.

I cover my mouth and try to look away, but there’s nowhere to look where you aren’t. Swooping to the jagged lip of the broken window, the swallow chitters, laughing at me for coming here, then vanishes outside.

LeighAnn says, “Listen, if Holly comes at night, we need to get out of here.”

How many times have you made your way home, Holly? Do you even remember, from one night to the next? Or do you walk all the way here, think you’ve finally made it, then find a room full of your crumbling selves?

“Jane? We need to go, Jane.”

I shake my head. “I can’t let her just keep coming here and coming here. I have to stay and say Auntie Peake’s prayer over her.”

“Last time you tried to help her, she almost killed you,” LeighAnn says.

“If you want to go, go.” I shake my head. “I’m not asking anybody to stay.”

“If anyone stays, it’ll be safer for everybody to stay,” Max says.

“Safer for who?” LeighAnn snaps. “You just want to see her for yourself.”

“Well, sorta, but come on, Lee-Lee. We can’t just leave them here.”

“I can’t believe this. This is crazy. I can’t believe this.” LeighAnn cradles her stomach like she’s ready to puke. Then she sighs. “So what do we do until she shows up?”

Nineteen

Your neighbors call their kids in from playing. TVs flicker
blue inside living rooms for a while, then windows go dark one by one. The Bradford pear tree in your back
yard
blooms pale white in the moonlight. Can’t you remember
building
bed-sheet tents against the tree’s trunk, Holly? Pressed
together in the tight secret space, we told stories and imagined what we would do when we grew up. The shadows below the branches were jeweled with sunlight.

I turn away and watch the street. Stratofortress watches too, LeighAnn blowing whorls of cigarette smoke against the grimy rear window of the van. Every noise makes them whip around, but nobody’s said a word in an hour.

After a while, the silence seems to press down on us. Tyler clear his throat and mumbles, “Hey, guys? I just … you know … sorry. About the other night.”

Max nods. “It’s okay. I mean, we know you have a lot to worry about right now. It’s just that the UNA students, they’re our main audience right now. Those guys who saw the show are going to talk, and, well, you kind of screwed us.”

Tyler tugs at his hair. “Yeah. I get that. I’m sorry.”

I glance at Ultimate—Tyler’s biggest supporter in the band—hoping he’ll say something. Instead, he just claps Tyler on the back.

“So, have you thought about a permanent replacement?” Tyler asks, trying to put on a brave face.

“Uh, let’s not worry about that right now.” Max shakes his head. “I mean—”

“Guys, quiet,” LeighAnn hisses. “Listen to the birds.”

The swallows have started crying in the dark, all at once. While the crescendo rises, Max asks, “What? What’s happening?”

“I don’t know. Quiet. Just keep—”

Only a silhouette, pushing through the bushes, but I recognize the way you walk and your slender, winter-tree shape. You’re a beanpole, Holly. You take after your pa-paw. Somehow, when you were alive, I never noticed how delicate you were. When you disappear into the house, I slip out of the van. There’s a horrible feeling in my stomach, like my intestines are being teased out through my belly button. This will kill you all over again. I’ll have to watch all over again. But I keep creeping forward.

Behind me, Stratofortress squawks worse than the swallows, but this is just you and me, wrapped inside the night as warm as those years-ago bed-sheet tents. Can’t you remember musty sleeping bags and flashlight beams playing against the fabric walls? Remember talking, talking, talking for hours until we fell asleep—your hand in mine? Didn’t you know then that I’d never, ever abandon you?

In the living room, curtained windows leave blades of pale light on the carpet. From the kitchen archway, I see spiky growths sprouting along your spine like potato eyes. I’m glad it’s so dark in here.

“Pa-paw? Pa-paw, where are you?” You notice one of the husks on the floor—one of your old selves. Standing motionless and staring, arms dangling at your sides, you try to understand. My urge is to reach out and comfort you. Luckily, Tyler takes my elbow and silently pulls me away from the archway. He punctures the bag of chalk and lime with his thumb, drawing a circle around us in ghost-white powder. I watch, trying not to hear you whimpering as you see the other bodies, too.

A swallow lands on the windowsill. Another drops, chittering, into my hair. I wave it away, then from the kitchen I hear, “Jane? Jane, is that you?”

The bird flutters around me, then joins its friend on the sill. They talk in their excited language. They’re telling you I’m here.

You come around the corner, voice oozing. “Pa-paw’s gone, Jane. I think something bad has happened.”

“Get back! Don’t!” I yell.

But the magic circle works. Your whine sharpens to an iron-nail shriek when you try to cross.

“Wha … ? Jane! Tyler?”

“It’s going to be okay, Holly. We’re going—no, don’t come—”

Your scream pierces my chest. When you drop to hands and knees, my arms ache to reach out. Auntie Peake’s magic hurts me as much as it does you.

“
It’s okay, Holly. We’re going to help, okay? But we have to pray. Lord, guide this troubled soul—Holly, pray with me—soul to rest. Carry her from darkness—”

“Jane, I need help.”

“—from darkness and cold evermore, for those washed clean in Your—”

“Jane!” Wildflowers boil up from the carpet around your knees. They curve around the circle but can’t enter.

“—washed clean in Your blood shall fear not. Amen.”

“Everybody’s gone. Help me find Pa-paw, okay? Please?”

Why won’t you die? Please, just die.

I clasp my hands so tightly they shake. “Lord, guide this troubled soul to rest. Carry her from darkness and cold evermore, for those washed clean in Your blood shall fear not. Amen.” But the prayer is worthless babble. Our Lord has cast us out and shown us His back. I don’t know why. I’m so sorry, Holly.

“Holly, stop!”

You stretch your arm out toward me, then yank it back, screaming. You can’t reach past the circle. The chalk and lime burns you somehow. Still, you reach for me again. The circle holds. Your mouth widens in a miserable howl, widens so much your cheek splits open. The beetles wiggling out look like fat black teardrops.

“It’s okay, Holly. I’m here. I—” I reach past the line of chalk and lime. Somewhere beyond you and me, Tyler shouts, but I can’t stop myself.

Joining with mine, your fingers are slick but strong. Tissues of clay and dead weeds tighten, drawing the heat from my skin.

“I’d never leave you, Holly. You know.”

“Help … help, please.”

I want to tell you I will, but the words catch in my throat as the coldness of the river seeps up my arm. Fingers dig into my wrist. Roots sprout from my palm, tangling my flesh to yours.

I can feel the river’s mojo, Holly. I can feel its deep, cool anger. You drowned but refused to die. You wouldn’t let the river break you down into raw life-stuff. So it breaks down whatever you touch—the tighter you hold on, the faster it slips away. The river keeps the living world always just out of your reach.

I don’t want to die, Holly. Gasp, pull, kick; the tendrils creep toward my heart.

“No, Jane! Jane, we have to find Pa—”

Thuck!
The blur of motion twists your head around. Max brings the wrench down again.
Thuck!

Tyler pulls me back. Pain burns sparkler-hot down my arm and hand and fingers—the roots ripping free. He drags me toward the door. I try to get free, but he won’t let me go. Craning my head around, I see Max grab you, shove you into the magic circle.

“Jane … ” You crawl forward, then cringe back from the line of chalk and lime, now trapped inside the circle. “Jane?” Max’s work boot stomps a deep hole in your side.

I look away. I’m sorry, Holly. Tyler rushes me back out under the starless sky.

In the van, the city lights sweep through the windows and across LeighAnn’s expression. My rotting shirt tears like paper in her hands as she checks me all over. The tendrils and roots disgust her. While plucking them from my skin, her face turns as pale as the moon. “Why didn’t you stay in the circle?” she asks, almost pleading. “You were—”

“LeighAnn? Lee-Lee?” Max sits among loose tools and spools of wire. He pants hard, trying to keep panic down. White blisters on the palms of his hands burst open with bloody dandelion heads.

She scrambles to him. He grits he teeth when she pulls one out, and I remember him grabbing you, Holly, pushing you away from me.

“Why did you reach out of the circle?” LeighAnn shrieks at me. “You were safe. We were all—how was that too damn hard for you?” Steam spent, she turns, cradles Max’s head, and teases the flowers out as quickly as she can with trembling fingers.

I tear plants from my skin, accepting the pain that makes my hands shake, letting the blood drip off my elbows. Bile splashes the back of my throat, but I refuse to make a sound.