This River Awakens

  ‘All right,’ I said.

  We headed into the brush. I found myself in the lead, taking the trail that angled towards the river. The way was harder this time. Bushes and weeds snagged the path. I clawed strands of spider’s web from my face. The midday light broke through when we neared the river.

  The current matched our pace. Individual swirls spun with us, bits of wood, puffs of seeds from flowers. Watching it made me dizzy, as if the forest were doing the marching, away, away from the place we sought.

  The clay underfoot was cracked, geometric, the fissures sprouting bright green blades of grass.

  ‘Owen.’

  I stopped, turned.

  Roland slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans, looked inland. For a moment he reminded me of Carl.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know. What do you think we’ll find?’

  ‘Bones.’

  ‘Just bones,’ he nodded, taking a deep breath, puffing his cheeks as he let the air out. ‘Big ones, I guess, eh?’

  ‘Maybe. I guess. Do you think we should’ve brought Carl, at least?’

  He gave me an odd look. ‘Couldn’t find him.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said.

  We came to the thicket, now impenetrable with leaves, vines and thorns. Just beyond it was the lodge. I angled us inland, around the barrier. There was no wind, just the lap of water, the whine of insects. Mosquitoes spun around me, slow in the heat. I slapped one on my arm.

  Something crashed through the bushes on the other side of the beaver lodge.

  I stopped.

  ‘What was that?’ Roland’s voice was harsh and close.

  I shook my head. ‘Don’t know. A deer, maybe.’ I listened. ‘Anyway, it’s gone.’

  I’d thought there’d be darkness in the air, magic and ghostly. The sound of something running away should have filled me with terror – the giant’s spirit, haunting, heavy-footed with remembered weight. But even this image triggered nothing. It was as if the world’s wonder had died.

  We came to the beaver lodge.

  ‘Shit,’ Roland said.

  There was nothing. The body was gone.

  ‘Lynk,’ I said.

  ‘He was lying. He’s never come back here. No way, Owen.’ He took a couple of steps closer, bent down and studied the tangle of gnawed sticks where the body had been. ‘But maybe somebody else found it.’

  ‘We’d have heard,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t we?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess. It might have fallen back into the river.’

  I laughed. ‘Maybe it never existed at all. Just a trick of the light. A dead beaver, all its fur gone. A deer, a bear.’

  ‘Well,’ Roland said, straightening, ‘a skinned bear looks a lot like a person, except for the head and the paws, but if you cut those off … it’s close.’ He paused, squinting, then shook his head. ‘No, it was a body. A man.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  He sat down on a log. I sat as well, leaning against a stump.

  ‘It feels all wrong,’ Roland said.

  ‘What does?’

  He shrugged. ‘The whole thing. It’s been in my brain, you know. Always there, and I go around and around it, all the time. It’s like…’ He shook his head, eyes on the ground, falling silent.

  ‘It’s like he’s in a phone booth,’ I said. ‘Taking up all the space, but you’re in there with him, moving around between him and the sides, looking for the door only there isn’t one.’

  ‘Shit, yeah. That’s it. My head’s a phone booth—’

  ‘With a dead man inside it.’

  He paled, looked out over the river.

  ‘You’re thinking we should’ve called the cops,’ I said.

  ‘No. Well, only when I, uh…’

  ‘Get scared.’

  ‘Yeah. But it’s ours. Or it was, anyway.’

  ‘Still is,’ I said. ‘We saw it. He’s still there, like you said, in our heads. You, me, and Lynk.’

  ‘Carl.’

  ‘Yeah, Carl, too.’ I picked up a stick, flung it into the river, watched it twist away. ‘So, in a way, he’s not dead any more.’

  Roland’s head snapped around, his eyes wide.

  I met his gaze for a long moment, then found another stick.

  ‘So which one is he?’ Roland asked.

  Which? ‘All of us, maybe. In different ways.’ I thought about what I’d said, wondered where the idea had come from. I thought about Lynk – he was going wild, like I always knew he would, only more than I’d ever imagined. As if the dead man was in him, fighting to get out, fighting to be anything but dead. A man drowning, endlessly drowning. Something cold touched me, the thought of eternal panic.

  ‘That’s what happened to it,’ Roland said in a strange, tight voice.

  I looked at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Why the body’s gone. It came with us, Owen.’

  I broke the stick in my hands. ‘That’s impossible, Roland.’

  ‘I know.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘Your folks got money? You rich?’

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  ‘You poor? We’re poor, even with the farm. We’ve always been poor.’

  I nodded. ‘Us, too.’

  ‘It’s like there’s something wrong with us.’

  I kept nodding.

  ‘Is there? Owen?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘What? What’s wrong with us?’

  ‘What’s outside,’ I said, ‘doesn’t match what’s inside. That’s what’s wrong with us. We’re always acting like everything’s all right. Like everything’s going to be fine, but it never happens. We never get there, to where everything’s fine. But we keep pretending. What else can we do?’ I threw both sticks into the river. ‘It’s all around us, all those people who’ve got money. They don’t seem so different, but they are – you can see it when they look at you.’

  Roland sighed. ‘It makes me tired all the time.’

  ‘It makes everyone tired all the time,’ I said. ‘My parents – they’re always tired, because they’re always trying so hard to make things seem normal. Now that Jennifer’s there…’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s almost desperate, how everything’s focused on her. You see, she’s got it worse, back home, I mean—’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘She told you? What did she tell you? When?’

  ‘I just know.’

  ‘She doesn’t tell me anything!’

  ‘You just said—’

  ‘I was guessing,’ I snapped.

  ‘What should we tell Lynk?’ Roland asked.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The body, Owen. If we tell him it’s gone, like he said—’

  ‘What’ll he do?’

  ‘I don’t know, really. He’ll think he’s won, I guess.’

  ‘Won what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, he’s your friend, Roland.’

  He scowled. ‘I can’t help it. We grew up together. I got used to explaining. For him, for the stuff he did. I held him back, too. Used to be we were always together, and I could talk him out of things. We broke into the school once, then he wanted to burn it down. I talked him out of it.’

  ‘Burn it down? It’s his favourite place!’

  ‘He’s always been like that. He’s good at pretending. People don’t like believing he’s done stuff, and I used to lie for him, too, so he always got away with it. He’s good at doing stuff then getting away. And Rhide’s stupider than most—’

  ‘She’s not stupid. She wants to believe Lynk. There’s a difference.’

  ‘Maybe. Anyway, you got to watch out for him. He gets people.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because that’s what he does.’

  ‘But not to you.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Roland said, stretching a leg out and plucking at the threads around a hole in his jeans. ‘It’s changed. He doesn’t need me any more. Not to explain, or lie, or any
thing.’

  Roland sounded sad. He’d lost a friend, I realised. ‘He was using you,’ I said.

  He nodded.

  I stood. ‘I wonder where the beavers went?’

  Roland climbed to his feet. ‘Hiding, maybe, or out on the river.’

  ‘It looks bigger.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Let’s go. We don’t tell Lynk. Not anything.’

  ‘Yeah. Okay.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I

  The rains finally came, in sheets the colour of lead, in torrents that made the earth run blind. The rains came, making the world sightless for a time, and Gribbs no longer felt alone.

  ‘Pour the water on to the tea,’ Owen recited. ‘Right?’

  ‘That’s culture you’re learning, my boy,’ Gribbs said. The chair creaked under him as he settled back, his eyes closing. ‘There’s ways to do things. Ignorance is no excuse.’

  ‘That’s what my teacher keeps saying. Of course, she doesn’t know anything.’

  Gribbs laughed quietly. ‘You’re too damn sharp for me. But you’ve got an appreciative audience here.’

  Owen brought him his tea, then sat down on the wooden crate.

  Water leaked through the roof in a dozen places, splashing lightly into the pots and pans Owen had placed. Like the buzz of a million wasps, the rain surrounded the shack with an insistent, overwhelming noise. The air had cooled, but not enough. There was thunder and lightning on the way, a monstrous front raised up in the middle of the continent, on the prairie that had once been a sea. Above it, the sky swelled, swirled and rumbled with the memory of those ancient waves. She was on her way.

  ‘The river’s gonna flood, do you think?’

  Gribbs shrugged. ‘Might. Depends on how fast and how much. Mind you, it was awfully low.’

  ‘I was wondering about that beaver lodge. We were out there a few days ago. It’s huge, bigger than ever. But we didn’t see any beavers or muskrats.’ He paused. ‘We didn’t see anything at all.’

  ‘Wouldn’t worry. It’s not going to float away or anything.’

  ‘They’ll be hibernating soon, I guess.’

  ‘Beavers don’t hibernate,’ Gribbs said, sipping his tea.

  ‘Really? Oh. Then they just swim under the ice and stuff?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Owen didn’t speak for a time. The pouring rain continued to hammer on the roof, the sound filling the void of words. Gribbs massaged his left arm, kneading the muscles to work out the dull ache that had settled there over the past month or so. ‘You’re a bit down, aren’t you?’ he finally said. ‘School’s that bad, is it?’

  ‘Nothing I can make out, but something about it, something about my teacher, I guess.’

  ‘Don’t get along, huh?’

  ‘No. I don’t know why. She’s nice enough, I suppose. It’s only been a month. Maybe I just haven’t got used to things there. Maybe that’s it.’

  ‘What are you reading these days?’

  ‘Not much. Rhide wants us to write instead. After Christmas we’ll be reading a book called The Steven Truscott Story – I think that’s what it’s called.’

  ‘How can you write when you don’t read?’ Gribbs demanded. ‘Bloody ass backwards, if you ask me. What about the stuff you read on your own?’

  ‘Not much. I’ve got all this homework every night. Maths. I don’t get maths at all. It’s pretty frustrating.’

  ‘Can’t help you there,’ Gribbs laughed, trying hard to dismiss the unease that answered Owen’s words. Something was wrong; something was happening.

  ‘Jennifer helps,’ Owen said. ‘It’s easy for her.’

  ‘She sounds like quite a girl. I’d like to meet her some time.’

  ‘Sure. She doesn’t get along with most grown-ups, except for my mom. But I know she’d like you, and you’d like her.’

  ‘I do already, from what you’ve told me. You’ve fallen hard, eh?’

  ‘Well, Rhide hates her, picks on her all the time. She gets detention for the littlest things, but never the same days as me. We don’t get to see much of each other after school. Except for weekends, of course. What do you know about her parents? Anything?’

  Gribbs leaned his head back, his eyes still closed. ‘A story there,’ he said. ‘A sad, sad story. Sometimes Sig Fraser comes by – or used to, been a couple years since I last saw him. Sig told me what he’d heard about Sten—’

  ‘Sig, that’s Roland’s dad.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well, what’s the story?’

  Gribbs hesitated. ‘Jennifer’s said nothing?’

  ‘No. I haven’t even met them. I’ve never even been in the house. Rhide acts like she knows something – she uses it, too.’

  ‘Christ,’ Gribbs said. ‘Well, I’ve got to respect Jennifer’s desire for privacy, Owen. Though she really should talk. She may think she knows everything, but she probably doesn’t.’

  ‘Wait,’ Owen said. ‘I changed my mind. I don’t want to know anything more.’

  ‘Good choice. Knowing’s not always the same as understanding, anyway. And understanding doesn’t always come easy, and even when you come to it, it doesn’t always mean you can just excuse things. We each have to take responsibility sooner or later.’

  ‘Rhide says she’s responsible for how we behave. She says we share that. Not just her, but everyone – all the grown-ups in all the world. That’s why it’s not good to misbehave, because it hurts the grown-ups.’

  ‘You believe her?’ Gribbs asked softly.

  ‘It’s not an opinion. It’s just the way it is. That’s what we’ve got to learn, so things will be better when we’re all grown up. It’ll be our job to make things better.’

  ‘Any tea left, Owen?’

  ‘Sure. Hold your cup out.’

  The pot’s neck clinked on Gribbs’s cup. He listened to Owen’s soft breathing as the tea was poured, reached out and found Owen’s other arm. He stared up at the blur of the boy’s face. ‘Please, son,’ he whispered, his voice ragged. ‘There’s something inside you – it’s what you look at when you look inside yourself. I know – it’s drowning, I can hear it in your voice. But please, don’t let it die. Please, Owen, don’t.’ He released his grip, fell back, exhausted, ignoring the sudden welling of tears. ‘Everything’s opinion,’ he said, ‘when it comes to how you should live. Everything. For God’s sake, make up your own mind – why won’t they let you do that? Why?’

  Owen’s voice was gentle – all the more painful to hear. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Um, I’ll try. What you said. I’ll try, Walter.’

  Was it just his own private darkening world, or was the boy in front of him fading away? Too old, too tired. What can I do? How can I get him out of here, out of that school? What am I trying to do anyway? I can’t fight his battles. I shouldn’t try, either. But there must be something.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Owen said, ‘if I upset you.’

  ‘No, no.’ Gribbs shook his head, wincing at the worsening pain in his arm. ‘It’s me, Owen. Don’t worry about it. Go and sit yourself down, or you can go if you like, if I’ve frightened you.’

  The wooden crate creaked. ‘I’ll stay a while longer, if you want me to.’

  Gribbs wiped at his cheeks. ‘I’d like that. I guess nobody else knows just how generous you can be.’

  ‘Jennifer,’ Owen said.

  Gribbs felt his humour return. He smiled. ‘Most men find that the hardest thing to be generous with, son. Don’t ever get cold. Stay warm. Always.’

  ‘I’ve got no choice. She’s in charge.’

  He couldn’t help but laugh. The pain in his arm fell away. ‘Son, you’ve just discovered the secret of the world. Of course they’re in charge. They all are.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Owen said. ‘It’s fun.’

  ‘Hah! Well, that’s the other secret, isn’t it?’

  They were silent for a long while, while the rain whispered down outside. Walter felt his thoughts sp
iralling inward, was unable to stop their dark plummet. I can see the ship. Coming closer. Fear. Is this the boy? Will he be there, at the door, at the damned prow? Oh God, not him, not this one.

  He’ll see my face – that boy burning bright. It’ll break him, send him over an edge. Whatever secret he’s keeping behind his eyes – it’ll come out. He’ll see my face, I’ll see his. No, please, not this boy.

  ‘You’ve got a secret,’ Walter said. ‘Holding it a long time, since we met, I’d say.’ He suddenly felt very tired. ‘I wish you’d tell me, Owen. It might make it … easier.’

  Owen said nothing for a half-dozen breaths; when he spoke there was a shrug in his tone. ‘You said you were going to tell me, too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Ship of Nails.’

  Walter looked away, squinted at the wall – a greyish blur. ‘Now, that wouldn’t be fair of me. I thought about it, Owen. But … it’s a story you’d better discover yourself. On your own. It’ll come when it’s time for it to come.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Owen said. ‘I promised.’

  ‘But you’re regretting that promise. Some secrets aren’t safe to keep, aren’t healthy, I mean. Is it that kind of secret?’ A shaft of pain lanced through his arm, faded, left him trembling.

  ‘I promised.’

  Walter sighed. ‘Fair enough.’

  II

  Jennifer was caught after lunch. Owen had been with her – not smoking too, just with her. They’d both looked flushed, as if there’d been more going on.

  My God, he’s only twelve! Joanne felt the smallness of his arm in her grip as she marched him to the conference room. She’d deal with Jennifer afterwards. Owen was far more important. I’m effecting a change in him. He’s coming around. Damn that girl!

  They strode into the room. Joanne shut the door, still holding Owen’s arm. She regretted the roughness of her actions, but it was necessary to show him just how disappointed she was. She sat him down in a chair then positioned herself on the table edge, close to him, close enough that he couldn’t raise his walls. She looked down at him. He had his eyes on the opposite wall. He scratched his nose.

  ‘Look at me,’ Joanne commanded.

  He did, a nervous flitter in his eyes. No longer the icy regard. No, he’s learning. About consequences. About behaviour that will not be tolerated.