The Riverman (The Riverman Trilogy) (22 page)

By mile seven the venom had caused her foot to swell so much that she had to remove her boot. One-legged is no way to walk the desert, so she took off her shirt and ripped it into pieces, which she wrapped around her hands and knees. She continued on all fours. The sun beat down on her back. Fatigue and nausea colonized her body. It was becoming obvious. She probably wasn’t going to make it.

She had crawled just over the border and into the U.S. when a patrolman approached her. Big hat, mirrored shades, Stars and Stripes on his lapel—he was an imposing but distinctly American man. Dark-haired and sunburned, Peggy, on the other hand, was of ambiguous ethnicity. The patrolman had no reason to believe he wasn’t coming upon an illegal alien.

“So where are we scooting off to?” he asked.

Peggy’s throat was so parched that she couldn’t speak, so she reached into her jeans for her passport. She chose the wrong pocket, and a small vial of white powder fell on the ground. The patrolman picked the vial up and held it to the sun. “What do we have here?” He twisted the cap off, dipped a pinkie in the powder, and took a taste.

If she had the strength and the voice, Peggy would have said,
It’s not what you think it is!
and
I’m a scientist and I use that to measure the pH of soil!

If she knew sign language, Peggy would have done the sign for
poison!

The patrolman collapsed.

That was it. Peggy threw in the towel. As the patrolman sputtered and coughed on the ground, she set her head on his chest. She looked up, expecting to see vultures. She saw only the brilliant and cloudless desert sky. She faded off to sleep.

When she woke, her body was running hotter than ever. She could feel something coiled up on her stomach.
No,
she thought.
Not again.
She couldn’t bear to look.

It was a breathing tube. And as the ambulance barreled down the dusty road, carrying Peggy and the patrolman to the nearest hospital, a paramedic used a towel to pat the sweat off the unlucky woman’s brow and made a quip that has become something of a catchphrase for Peggy and her family.

“Bet you weren’t expecting this when you woke up today.”

S
ATURDAY
, N
OVEMBER
4

P
ART
II

I woke up to find Fiona in my room. Cold air rolled through the open window. The clock read 2:06. Her whisper sought out the warmth of my body.

“Alistair … It happened … Alistair.”

Whenever my dad told the story about Peggy, he said that it had two morals.

Moral number one: It’s always the second snake that gets you.

Moral number two: Don’t ever assume you know what’s in the vial.

In the story of that early November morning when Fiona snuck into my room, I was like Peggy, but I was also like the patrolman. And Fiona’s whisper was like the first snake, but it was also like the vial. The morals, however, didn’t come into play until a little later.

Fiona sat in my beanbag chair. Her hair wasn’t out of place. Her clothes—that neon jacket, those faded jeans—weren’t ruffled or dirty or wet. Her skin was the same pale it always was. Yet she looked defeated.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as I sat up.

“It happened,” she said again.

I pushed the covers away and kicked my legs over the edge of the bed. The floorboards creaked as I stood. “You can’t be here,” I whispered. “I’m already in enough trouble with my parents.”

“Then come outside with me,” she said as she struggled to rise.
Beanbag chairs.

I reached out and pulled her up. The cold air bounced off her and into me. My fleece pajamas were cheap and did little to stop the chill, and I didn’t like that standing so close to Fiona could feel so cold. “Give me a minute to get dressed,” I said.

My room was on the ground floor, and the window was big enough that sneaking in wasn’t much harder than climbing a tree. She nodded and eased herself through the window.

“You scared the crap out of me,” I whispered a few minutes later when I joined her outside, now sufficiently clothed for the weather. Tiny snowflakes fought to stay afloat in the air, dipping and rising and swirling around us.

“I knocked on the window. I opened it and called for you. I made lots of noise. You were dead to the world, my friend.”

That may have been true, but I needed her to keep quiet now. I put a finger to my lips and ushered her away from the house and my parents, two notoriously light sleepers. As we reached the edge of the yard and I turned left, Fiona told me to go the other way.

We walked amid the flurries, side by side in the middle of the road. The snow wasn’t piling up yet, but the streetlights showcased the gloss it left on everything. To me it looked like the neighborhood was being encased in a thin, clear candy shell.

“It looks so real out here,” Fiona said. She held her hand out so that flakes would land on her skin. She examined them with the eye of a scientist.

“What happened?” I asked her. “You said something happened.”

“They’re not all unique in Aquavania,” she explained, still looking at her hand. “The snowflakes. There are only so many designs there. Ten. Maybe twenty. But here in the Solid World, the possibilities are infinite. It’s funny. There was a time when I thought it would be the other way around.”

“What happened?” I repeated.

Fiona shook the snow off herself—steeled herself—and said it. “I saw the Riverman.”

“You saw the Riverman?”

“Yes.”

“You
saw
the Riverman?”

“Yes.”

“Of course you did,” I snapped. There was plenty of anger behind my words, but frustration was pushing them harder. I had held this in for far too long.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Fiona asked.

“You live with him! You see him every day!”

“Huh?”

“Your uncle? Dorian? He’s the Riverman. That’s what you’ve been trying to say, right? He murdered all those kids … and maybe your grandma … and I don’t know what he’s done to you, but … but Aquavania … it’s like your … I don’t know … the place you make up to deal with it all. We both know that. We’ve both known that since the beginning.”

I’m not sure I could have said anything worse. She exhaled as she kept walking. Clouds of breath rose and spread in the air, and there was so much of it that I was surprised she had enough left in her lungs to speak. Her voice was both wistful and worried. “Alistair. Kid. Don’t you dare treat me like this.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like a stupid little schoolgirl.” Was she disgusted or was she ashamed? Was she livid? Whatever the case, she didn’t look at me.

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m not.”

“You are,” she replied. “And I’m not naïve. Haven’t been in forever. I didn’t expect you to believe me. Not about everything. What I expected you to do was listen. Obviously you weren’t even doing that. Because here you are talking about Dorian like he’s some … well, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I thought about Kyle hitting that remote control to the ground and the plane crashing into the windshield. I thought about the rage and the red and Dorian’s unreadable face.

“Did he get to you?” I asked. “Was Dorian angry because of Kyle? I was worried he might take it out on you.” I placed my hand on her shoulder. She brushed it away with a flick of her fingertips.

“Uncle Dorian is a nice man. He’s a sweet man. He has nothing to do with any of this. I don’t know why you would think he does.”

“Because,” I explained.

“Because what? Because I have a portal in my basement that leads to a magical world full of candy and teddy bears and unicorns?”

She had never mentioned any unicorns, but I wasn’t about to point out that inconsistency. I kept my mouth shut and kept walking.

“That’s fine,” she went on. “Go ahead and see this as pure craziness. What do I care? But please also see that this is something I believe in. I believe in it more than anything else.”

I took a step in front of her and turned to face her. She stopped. The spot where her nose had been broken all those years ago—that knobby bit of cartilage right below her eyes—made me imagine that a tiny asteroid had crashed into her face and had determined the orbit of her life. She probably hated that asteroid, but to me it was essential. She wouldn’t be Fiona without it. Her hair fluttered a bit, and the snow tried so hard, but failed, to make her hair less black. Fiona was right. Everything looked so real out here. She looked so real.

“Why?” I asked. “Why do you believe?”

Fiona drew three breaths, full and thick, and then she said, “In the beginning, when I was really little, I was only called to Aquavania once every year or so. Then it was every few months. Then sometimes weeks or days. But there was never any pattern to it. The radiators spoke, and I followed, and I was happy to go. I figured it was random.

“I was called an hour ago, and I went in thinking I might stay forever. Or as long as I could. I mean, it’s what I’ve been doing for most of my life. I know it so much better than
this
.”

She put her hands out as wide as possible.
The Solid World.

“On that first night back in Aquavania, I had a thought when I was fading off to sleep,” she continued on. “I let my guard down and made a wish that Aquavania couldn’t deliver, and that wish … that need … well, it invited something across the folds. Because I woke up and there was a figure standing across from my bed, watching me sleep. ‘Fancy meeting you here,’ it whispered.

“At first I thought it was Toby and I told him to buzz off. When it didn’t move, I turned on a lamp. The room didn’t brighten much. Most of the light came out of the lamp in wisps and threads and swirled through the air until the body of the creature absorbed it.

“The creature was my size. A bit heavier, a bit stouter, but no taller. And he was shaped like a human, but he didn’t have the color of a human. He was the color of nothing and everything, of everywhere and nowhere, of the spaces between the stars in the night sky.

“He held a glass pen full of sparkling ink. ‘Do you know why I’ve spared your soul?’ he asked me. His voice was not deep or draped in evil. It was young. Precocious.

“I had been waiting years for this moment. I had been
fearing
it, but I had practiced countless times. Before he could say another word, I had an icicle in my hand and I was plunging it into his chest. The nothingness of his body swallowed it whole. ‘Riverman, Riverman, blood to ice,’ I chanted.

“I was so close to him. Our cheeks were practically touching. His mouth was next to my ear, and I waited for him to wail or cry or whimper. Instead, he wrapped an arm around me, holding me tight, and he spoke.

“‘Such a cute little phrase, but it doesn’t work, darlin’. People will believe anything they read. They rarely ask who wrote it.’ I felt the tip of the pen brushing along the tiny hairs on my earlobe. ‘This is when I win,’ the creature said.

“I winced. I assumed it was all over. But he pushed me away and I fell back onto my bed. Frantic, I assaulted him with questions. ‘Who are you? How did you find me? Why are you doing this?’

“He laughed a little, fanned out a hand, and said, ‘Let’s start with the first question. Who am I? I have many names. Some, like you, call me the Riverman. I call myself the Whisper. For my voice is the voice in the water that calls out and asks you to come play.’

“Now that I’ve thought about it, the voice from the radiators did sound a bit like his, but I couldn’t actually believe they were the same.

“‘Question two: How did I find you? A stroke of luck and a stroke of intuition. Fiona Loomis, there are many people in Aquavania, including many Fionas, in fact, and you shouldn’t be counted as more special than any of them. And yet you are. But not because of the person you may be. It’s because of the person you know.’

“I thought this might be a reference to Chua, Boaz, or Rodrigo. But the fact that the Riverman used my last name puzzled me. I had never told my last name to anyone in Aquavania.

“‘And your final question. Why am I doing this? Simple. For fun.’

“The whole time he was talking, he was gesturing wildly, and while I couldn’t make out a face, I could see the shape of his hands from the little bit of light that was still swirling in the air unabsorbed.”

Fiona crouched down. There was a thin layer of snow on the road now, enough for her to dip her finger in and draw. She outlined what looked like two hands, misshapen and incomplete. Three fingers on one hand, two on the other.

She looked up at me and continued with her story.

“‘What if I wished myself back to the Solid World right now?’ I asked the Riverman.

“He chuckled. ‘So you can come and get me?’

“‘Maybe.’

“‘How will you accomplish that?’ he asked. ‘I’ll know you’re coming. And what will the Solid World think of Fiona Loomis the vigilante? How will that work out for you, and your family … and the ones you love? No. We deal with this right here. Right now. I have spared you and I will leave you in peace, so long as you give me one thing.’

“‘And what’s that?’

“‘Him.’

“‘Who?’

“‘Alistair.’”

Fiona stood up and looked me in the eyes as she ran her foot over the drawing in the snow, whiting it out. There was a reason she had led us this way. We were standing on the road next to Charlie’s house.

The second snake in the story. The contents of the vial.

“No,” I said.

“Charlie is the Riverman,” Fiona said. “I know it. I feel it. It seems impossible, but it’s the truth.”

The Dwyer house was dark, every window. Kyle’s van and the family cars were in the driveway, collecting the snow. I had known these people my entire life.

“I was ready to do anything for you!” I cried. “I was going to give everything for you! This is not the story! This is not how it goes!”

Fiona tilted her head. Her eyes were sympathetic, but not sympathetic enough. “You’re so much better here,” she said.

“I don’t know what that means!”

“I’m going back,” she went on, “as soon as I’m called. And I’m finishing this. But I needed to tell you. If things turn out differently, at least now you know. Charlie is not the kid you think he is. He’s something else.”