The Drowned Forest (6 page)

Nine

Tyler scans the shoreline through his Aviators. Sitting on the deck, I try to pray for protection and guidance, but it’s hopeless. I close my eyes, but all I feel is the river’s long centuries, stretching back to the start of the world.

The bluff comes into view, a fist of striated limestone. I haven’t been here since you died, Holly. Suddenly, I can’t feel the lake anymore, only the hot, hard sadness swelling in my throat.

It was the height of summer. You were out of school, and Tyler just got his license. We went mud-riding across his cousin’s land, bouncing up and down hills, spraying dirt. He let me drive some, and I fishtailed the truck just to feel the delicious whip-crack momentum bounce us against the doors.

We should have stayed out there, or just gone home. I’m sorry, Holly. But it felt like the start of everything. It was so much fun to go fast and be loud, we didn’t want to stop. Tyler suggested we drive out to the bluff.

The water below us was pea-green and restless. We’d swing and jump, dangling in the air for a moment before gravity grabbed us by our stomachs and yanked us down. Flung hard to the water, the sting and cold-shock of it, making every nerve yowl at once, reminding us how alive we were.

Remember how excited you were about the Halogen concert? Since Tyler could drive now, you could go to shows in Huntsville, Birmingham, anywhere. Stretched out on the stone ledge, soaking in the sun, I decided to ask my parents if I could go to the concert with you.

While we talked, Tyler walked to the truck, then came back. “Hey, I got you something,” he muttered, nervously pressing the ring box into your hands. When you opened it, your grin grew huge. “Oh, it’s gorgeous!” you said, slipping the ring onto your finger. “Thank you, thank you!”

Tyler was grinning too. “Well, I didn’t want you forgetting about me since we aren’t seeing each other in class every day.”

“Awww … I will never forget about you. Ever, ever.” Wrapping your arms around his neck, you kissed him twice, quick little pecks. “Come on, let’s jump together.” Both of you holding the tire swing, you backed up and ran for the edge, planting a foot in the tire just as it sailed out over the lake. Holly, when you jumped, your ring winked in the sun. You hit the water with a massive double splash, then popped back up laughing. The swallows swooped down from their mud nests clumped across the bluff’s stone face, crying and wheeling above your head.

Now, Tyler cuts the motor and we coast toward the bluff. Your pa-paw drops the anchor from the aft deck. The anchor chain rattles down through the hawsehole for a long, long time, dropping all the way to the drowned forest. The swallows dive at the boat, scolding us, slicing the air a few feet above our heads. At the crucifixion, swallows screamed at the Roman soldiers, trying to warn them of the terrible crime they were committing, trying to stop them. That long, hot afternoon, they kept trying to warn us too, didn’t they, Holly? I know that now.

But you and Tyler treaded water together, holding each other, giggling and kissing in the shade of overhanging pines. Swinging lazily on the tire swing, watching the two of you below, it struck me that my cousin had been about my age when she forgot about Swallow’s Nest Bluff. We might not remember it either by next summer. I would have to bring Tim and his friends out here soon, before we lost the way.

But that day, with the cool breeze rolling off the lake, it was still our secret place. I called down, “Hey, Holly! Can you still do a backflip?”

You laughed. “Haven’t done one in years.”

“So? You still got it in you.” I stuck a foot out and caught the earth again to stop the tire from swinging. “Come on, don’t be a scaredy-cat. I’ll do it with you.”

Tyler joined in. “Come on, I want to see.”

“Fine, okay. And just one, then we go home. The water’s already getting too cold.”

The bluff is steep. The only place to climb out of the water is a natural staircase of algae-slick stone. You climbed carefully, with Tyler close behind. The swallows cried and wheeled, but we ignored them. We stood inside the old rubber tire as Tyler dug his heels into the dirt and pulled it back. I remember the great branch overhead groaning, he pulled us so far. Then he let go. We whooped as emptiness rose up around us like a whale, swallowing us whole. We plunged down its throat, jumping high and fearless, scattering the shrieking birds. Our feet kicked the blue out of the sky.

We speared the water, and I lost sight of you. Momentum drove me down, down, until the black branches of the drowned forest licked at my heels. I started kicking back to the light, breaking the surface with a gasp that turned into a laugh. Tyler stood high on the bluff cheering. The water
was
getting cold, so I climbed out quick. By the time I reached the top of the bluff, though, Tyler had turned quiet and nervous. He was shielding his eyes from the glare of the setting sun.

“Holly? Holll-yyy!”

There was just the bull’s-eye of ripples spreading out from where you’d vanished. Soon, they vanished too. The ancient water forgot you’d ever been there. That was when the knowing—even before I dared say it out loud—felt like gravity grabbing me by the stomach. The swallows never stopped screaming at us.

Your pa-paw steps onto the deck, startling me back to today. “Well, guys?”

“Guess we just play,” Tyler says.

Nodding, your pa-paw swings his Dreadnought around. He picks out “Shave and a Haircut,” then says, “I know. This one, Holly always liked,” and teases a buttery-smooth melody from the strings.

Your pa-paw plays for the swallows and the bass boats slicing along the channel. An hour passes in drowsy stillness, in sweltering heat and the damp stink of river muck. Tyler climbs to the roof of the boat’s cabin to see what he can see from there.

Dear Lord in Heaven, please help Holly. Please give us the strength to face whatever we must face.

Kneeling—the hard rubber deck hurts my knees—I try to pray. But every time I glance over the side, the milfoil has gotten a little thicker around us. I go back to the aft. Plant stalks wrap around the anchor chain and are tangled in the propellers.

“Stupid seaweed has us snagged again,” I call out.

On the roof, Tyler nods. “Good. Means Holly is listening.”

“But we need more than this. We need to know what to do.”

“Give her time, Jane. We have to give her time.”

I glance over the side again, trying to peer past the swaying weeds and murk. You dove down and got tangled in something on the bottom. The trees down there made it too dangerous for rescue divers, so we all just left you there. We had a funeral and said the prayers and buried a box full of letters and photos, but we left you down there, all alone inside the drowned forest. Is that why you can’t rest, Holly?

“Come on, Holly,” I whisper into the lapping, muttering water. “We’re here. We’re waiting. Tell us how to help you. Just tell us.”

The last ember of sun burns down. It’s dark but still sticky hot. Needing a break, your pa-paw calls Tyler down to take over playing. I duck into the cabin to get sweet tea for everybody. Tyler starts playing “The Drowned Forest,” since that one already called you once. Bo must have talked to his parents by now. Tyler must be worried but doesn’t let on.

Crunching an ice cube between my teeth—it tastes like pure, delicious cold—I sit with your pa-paw and listen to Tyler play. “You really think Holly’ll know it’s us?” I ask. “I mean, it’s just music. It could be just a radio somebody left on.”

Your pa-paw shakes his head. “Two people can’t play a song the same way, even if they wanted to. Everybody puts their own style into it. I’d know Holly’s style anywhere. She knows mine.” Moths mob the deck light, creating a fluttering lace of shadows across his face. He adds, “My momma’s been dead twenty years. Sometimes I hear songs in my dreams, and I’ll know it’s her playing them just from the way she played.”

“Your mom played guitar?”

“Oh, goodness. She played fast and hot like a string of firecrackers.”

I chuckle. In my mind’s eye, I see the old woman from
American Gothic
rocking out, doing huge windmill strums.

“What’s so funny? Everybody knew how to play a little down in the holler, or at least dance some. There wasn’t any other way to knock the dirt off your boots. And Momma, she played like you thought the house was burning … down.” He turns.

A soft splashing comes from the stern. We all turn, but the deck lights blind us, turning the darkness beyond them construction-paper black. Something rattles up the anchor chain. It’s climbing out of the water and over the railing.

“Pa-paw?”

Dashing, crowding the gangway, we yell over one another. “Holly, we’re here!” “It’s okay!” “Holly, Holly!”

Crawling into the light, you’re thin, thinner than I could imagine. Your skin is dusky red like a newborn’s. It’s the color of dried blood. “Pa-paw? Help.”

Dropping to his knees, he holds you. “I’m here, Little Bit.”

“Pa-paw, I’m cold.” Arms hug his neck. You cling to him like ivy.

Your skin is … clay. It’s damp red Alabama clay. It splits when you move, and pale spikes of milfoil grow between the cracks.

But your pa-paw is crying and doesn’t notice. He sobs, “It’s okay, Holly. We’re here. Tyler, get a towel or something.”

Tyler doesn’t move. His mouth opens, but he can’t speak. Where your fingers clutch your pa-paw’s shoulder, gnarled bark breaks through his skin. The cloth of his shirt rots and blackens with blood.

“Mr. Alton, you need to get—”

“A towel, Tyler! Get a towel!” As he twists around, your fingers dig deeper. Hickory twigs tremble up from his back, the leaves already yellow and orange.

“Mr. Alton, get back! Get away!”

He fights to break free, dead leaves rattling. More branches sprout along the curve of his collar bone. His eyes bulge and veins in his neck turn purple as he suffocates, but then the creature cries, “Pa-paw!” and he stops trying to get away. Still struggling to breathe, he reaches for the thing that has your voice.

“Pa-paw, I don’t know where we are.”

He holds the creature until roots split his elbows and wrists and between his fingers, swallowing his arms in squirming white clumps. His face and chest are mostly gone, but the creature still whimpers and hugs the stunted hickory tree that’s sinking its taproot into the boat deck. Nut husks break open and spill their dry brown fruit.

We run away. Moving is hard. It’s like running through mud. It’s like in my nightmares. Duck through the hatch, down into the cabin. I trip and fall, twisting my wrist. It doesn’t hurt even though I know it should.

“Tyler?”

He slams the hatch and locks it.

“Tyler, what is that thing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did it kill Mr. Alton?”

“I don’t know!”

“Tyler?” the monster croaks from outside. “Tyler, let me in.”

It starts scratching at the hatch. Black-eyed Susans and wedding-white hydrangeas sprout through the varnish. I yank the curtains shut so it can’t see us. “We have to go. Get to shore, then we can run.”

“The anchor is down, Jane. The milfoil has tangled the propeller. We’re stuck.”

I turn the key anyway, listening to the engine groaning
rarr … rarr … rarr …
as it struggles to turn the propeller. We’re trapped. The thing lured us here, trapped us, and then killed Mr. Alton.

The wooden hatch rots away, and a breeze carries the pungent smell of river muck into the cabin. The mud-thing, coughed up from the drowned forest, moans as it pushes through. “Jane?”

I crumple to the floor, crushing myself between the captain’s chair and the steering console. It finds me, though, and the crooked gash of a mouth opens into a smile. It reaches for me. I scream, and it pulls back.

“Jane? Wh—what’s the matter?” It’s your voice. Wet and weak, but it’s your voice.

“Holly?”

“Jane.” Sunny yellow dandelions blink open. “I got lost. We—we were diving off the bluff, but then I got lost somehow. I’ve been wandering around for … Pa-paw was here, but then he … ” You search the cabin, confused, then look back at me. The horrible smile widens, displacing your jaw. “I knew you’d come. Just like the time with the church flower gardens, remember? Remember?”

This monster is you, Holly. Dead and come back to life—back to some ramshackle version of life—clumps of mud and weeds matted together—but it’s you. I shut my eyes and whimper. Fingers clutch my shirt, scratch my skin. The reek of your sludgy skin chokes me. “Stop, Jane. Please, I can’t find my way—”

Tyler puts his full force into the kick, knocking you off me, knocking off half your face. He grabs me by the arm, yanks me up, screaming, “The aft hatch. C’mon!”

The floor buckles underneath us. The hull has already rotted where you were crouched. Cold water swirls in around our ankles.

“No, don’t go! Jane!”

“Holly … I’m … ” But there aren’t any words. I turn and run. The boat is listing to one side, but we get past the sleeping berths and through the aft hatch, jumping for the shiny black water.

Ten

The river swallows me. It slurps me down a throat of bubbles and swirling noise, down, down into water as silent and dark as a womb.

I kick at the blackness, kicking back up toward the air and Tyler’s wail. “—aaaane! Jaaaane!”

“Over here!” I wave until he sees me.

“You okay?”

I don’t know how to answer that. “Where’s Holly?”

“Still onboard, I think. You hurt? Can you swim?”

I’m not hurt, so we start to swim. The houseboat—and you—squat between us and the bluff, so we make for the north shore. I focus on the downtown lights crowding along the embankment. Cars speed across the dam. From a concert in the Veterans Park amphitheater, brassy notes carry out across the lake. Behind us, the houseboat slips lower and lower, then vanishes with a great sploosh and waves that ripple out beneath me. For a few seconds, cabin lights shimmer under the water. I turn and watch it sinking down. Then the generator shorts and the hull goes dark.

Treading water, I look for you, but nothing moves.

“Jane! Come on!”

I start swimming again, muscles burning. Where are you? Under the water? Trapped in the houseboat or chasing after us? Can the thing you’ve become swim? Do you have to come up for air? I keep going, waiting for you to grab my ankle and pull me down. As we cross above the drowned forest, I can feel it below us, barren branches reaching up like hands, waiting to embrace me.

But it doesn’t happen. We make it to the park, down from the shining amphitheater. Years of lapping waves have licked a hollow below the walking trail. Tyler tries climbing up but doesn’t have the strength. He slumps back to the soft red clay, catching his breath, holding on to an exposed root. “Okay. Okay. We’re okay,” he pants.

I’ve lost my flip-flops. I rub the scratches you left on my arm and hand. They’re swollen and angry red, and there’s a weird sort of pressure from under my skin, like it wants to pucker open.

“My truck’s still at the marina. We have to—”

“Tyler? J-Jane?”

We whip around, but there’s nobody—no body. Just your thin voice in the dark.

“Where … are?” A crack widens in the clay bank. No lips, no teeth, but a slug-like tongue moves inside.

“Tyler … need help.”

I can’t take this. Please, please don’t do this, Holly.

The clay shifts. Something like a shoulder pushes upward. An eye opens.

“Jane?”

Tyler grabs the waistband of my shorts, heaving me up onto the grass, then scrambles after me. We run past the dark picnic shelter. Tyler checks his cell phone, but it’s wet and ruined. He cusses and smashes it to the gravel path.

Reaching the road, he sticks close to the low wall, stopping to think. “Stratofortress! They live close by. Come on.”

Crusting mud cakes my legs and hands. Tyler’s sneakers squelch with water. The sidewalk is fever-hot under my bare feet, but I can still feel the cold of the drowned forest below.

No, the cold isn’t under me anymore. It’s inside. It’s termite-tunneling through skin and muscle. Delicate flowers emerge from the scratches on my arm, my hand—sticky, hairy stalks and tight buds already unfolding. “Ty-Tyler?”

He looks over. And because he still has shoes, he heaves me onto his back and starts jogging. “Hang on, just … hang on … please.”

I wrap my arms around his neck and cling to him. When you scratched me, you left some essence of the drowned forest under my skin. I can feel roots probing, teasing skin away from muscle, soul from bone. They’re reaching for my heart, but it doesn’t hurt. Their coolness feels nice on such a hot, humid night.

Staring up past the streetlamps, I can’t see the stars anymore, Holly. Can’t you remember our nights down here? Burning to rush around and be loud and be alive, and who cared that the stars were all gone? I miss you so much. I don’t want to grow up without you. I can’t, Holly. The drowned forest is in my head now. Its voice is a lullaby, hypnotic like gentle waves lapping the shore. It promises death will be easy, like relaxing a clenched fist. Dying will be less painful than living.

No, no, I don’t care. I want to live. I press myself against Tyler’s back, and I want to live. That’s all I know—one greedy breath after another.

There’s the shabby house, overflowing ashtrays still on the porch. The gate is padlocked. Tyler tips me over the fence like a sack of potatoes. He lands hard in the dirt beside me. “Come on, come on.” He grabs my hand, pulling me up. Banging on the front door, calling out. Finally LeighAnn appears.

“Hey. What’s … holy hell, what’s going on?”

Tyler pushes past her without answering, dragging me along too.

Max is wearing shorts and no shirt. “She’s got … are those flowers?”

“We need to pull them out.” Tyler leads me to the living room couch. Somebody kicks the drum kit. The thump bounces off carpeted walls.

Max turns on a lamp and runs careful fingers across the leaves and petals. “How … ? How is that even happening?”

Tyler shakes his head. “Later. First, we just get them out.”

Max holds my arm while Tyler plucks one of the flowers. Root torn from muscle—I scream, body bowing up.

“We should get her to a hospital, man. If we—”

“No.” I shake my head. The roots have reached past my elbow. They’re part of me. I feel the blossoms open with a sugary sort of fizzing. “They’ll kill me before we get there. Pull them out. Please, please.”

Tyler pulls one. I grit my teeth against the pain but can’t keep from screaming again. LeighAnn cradles my head, wiping sweat away with the hem of her T-shirt. She murmurs, “Doing good. Almost through. Doing good.”

I’m too tired to scream anymore, so I just whimper. Tyler plucks the last one. “Jane? That was it, Jane. You okay?”

My skin looks scraped raw. Blood trickles down, turning gummy in the creases of my palm.

“Okay, what … what the hell?” LeighAnn asks.

Tyler’s face is fish-belly white and slick with sweat. “Something attacked us out on the lake. It pretended to be Holly and lured us out there, then—”

“No.” I sit up. “That was Holly. I mean, her body was mud and weeds, but I talked to her. It’s Holly’s soul inside.”

“No. Holly would never kill her pa-paw.”

“Whoa. Somebody was killed?” LeighAnn asks.

“She didn’t do it on purpose, Tyler. I don’t think she knows she’s dead.”

“Um, how about we figure all this out on the way to the ER?” Max asks.

“No.” I half sit up. “I can’t go to the hospital.”

“There were plants growing through your skin!” He pushes his glasses up, leaving a red smear on the lens.

“They’re gone. I can feel it.” Standing makes my head spin, but I force myself not to puke. “I just need to wash the cuts real good. You have any antibiotic ointment?”

I follow Max down the hall to the bathroom. The hallway wall is covered in dozens of concert flyers, some of them wrinkled from rain. In the green-tiled bathroom, Max gets ointment and gauze from under the sink, then steps out. I pull my phone out of my pocket. It won’t turn on anymore. My dad once dropped his phone in a puddle, then stuck it in a bowl of rice to draw out the moisture. But I went swimming with my phone, so I doubt that would work. The only other thing in my pocket is the twenty-dollar bill. I unfold it carefully and lay it on the counter to dry.

Next, I peel off my shirt and wash my arm under the tub faucet. The water turns pink as I scrub away blood and mud. The pain makes my hands shake. Muscles tighten into ropes. My face twists shut like the top of a plastic bag.

You killed your pa-paw, Holly. We were coming to save you, and you killed him, and you don’t even know what you’ve done or what you’ve become. What happened to you down in the drowned forest?

I flex my fingers. My arm still burns, deep in the muscle, when I do. I want to go to the ER. They could zap my arm with about a million x-rays to make sure every last root tip was dead. I want to go home. Even if Mom and Dad are furious, I’d just hug them tight. Even if they sent me to Dr. Haq or grounded me for a year or gave me a lobotomy, I wouldn’t care.

I want to give up, Holly.

I want to run back home and never talk about this night. Resting my forehead on the tub’s cool lip, I beg God to let this cup pass from me. But God has forsaken us, left us both blowing in the wind.

And you had to talk about the church flower gardens.

I open the cabinet under the sink and find some Windex. Unscrewing the spray top, I pour it across my arm. The ammonia and detergents seep down into the tiny cuts, killing off any root tips still buried under my skin. It burns like the edge of a hot pan. I bite down on a hand towel and empty the bottle.

I won’t forsake you, Holly, no matter what.

I smear ointment on my arm and bandage it. I fix my ponytail in the mirror and shove my fear down into a tight knot inside my chest. I can still feel it, but I can also walk and talk and force a smile. For once, I’m glad I can’t cry.

Tyler and the others are still in the living room.

“ … I don’t know,” Max says. “A catfish and ring, some ghost made from mud. It’s just pretty hard to believe.”

“Well, you pulled flowers out of my skin,” I say from the archway. “You saw that yourself, right? You believe your own eyes, right?”

Tyler looks over his shoulder. “Hey. You okay?”

I step past him, continuing to talk to Max and LeighAnn. “I know it’s nuts. I’ve spent the last day trying to figure out how everything I’m seeing must not be what’s actually happening. I’d be a lot happier if somebody could convince me I’m crazy. But Tyler sees the same things I do. And now you guys have seen it. What’s happening is what’s happening, and what I’m seeing is what I’m seeing. Here.” I offer my wounded, scabbing arm to them. “Feel the cuts if you want, but really, what’s happening is what’s happening.”

Neither of them take me up on my offer. Max says,
“Okay, what’s happening is what’s happening, but, I mean, what
is
happening?”

I shake my head. “Don’t know yet. But I need a big favor. I need somewhere to stay until we figure that out, and figure out how to help Holly.”

“Jane … ” Tyler shakes his head. “Are you sure that’s really Holly?”

“Yes. She talked about stuff only she’d know about. She’s scared and confused, but that’s Holly.”

Tyler doesn’t argue. I look at the others again. “My parents won’t believe any of this. They haven’t seen it, so they can’t believe it. And if I keep talking about it, they’ll probably have me committed or something. My friends from church won’t believe it, our pastor, he … I just need to stay somewhere until we figure out what to do. I … I can’t really pay right now—”

“Nah, don’t worry about that. You know how many freeloaders have crashed here?” Max slaps the worn couch cushion. “You’ll be sleeping in the buttprints of giants.”

“Except none of them had some sort of river ghost after them,” LeighAnn says. “What if it comes here and attacks us?”

“Lee-Lee, we can’t just kick her out.”

LeighAnn snorts. “Some people, a few nights on the street might be good for them.” She walks off without another word.

Max agrees to drive Tyler back over to the marina to get his truck. First, he finds me a sleeping bag and pillow. I wish he’d offer me some dry clothes to sleep in, but he doesn’t. And I don’t want to ask these people for any more than I have to.

I wish Tyler could stay, but he has his own parents to worry about. Hopefully he can keep them from freaking. Hugging me tight, he says, “We’ll figure something out, okay? It’s going be okay.”

I smile and answer, “I hope so,” even though I know he’s wrong. Maybe we’ll figure out how to save you, Holly, but I know in my soul that it’s not going to be okay. It’s going to be hard and dangerous, and I don’t think anything will ever really be okay again.

Tyler and Max head off. LeighAnn stomps around the kitchen. I lie on the sagging couch and pretend to be asleep. The house is sweltering. There’s no air conditioning, just some open windows letting in a weak breeze and cricket song.