“I do just fine,” I said, even though I hadn’t caught anything with it yet. My fishing spot had always been good to me, but not lately. I’d been thinking that maybe it was a cursed pole, since I’d gotten a paper cut on the wrapping when I opened it. “I may be a girl, but I know plenty about fishing.”
He shrugged again. “You underestimate them fish,” he said with a snicker. “Fish’re suspicious creatures, kid.”
Know-it-all. And that was stupid. Fish, suspicious? Fish are dumb. About as dumb as he sounded.
His line bobbed again. I wanted to punch him. Instead, I just wrinkled my nose at him. Then I got my pole, stuffed it in my dinghy, and grabbed my oars. “You could give whatever you catch to my family. We eat fish. Which is what you’re supposed to do with them.”
“Maybe so, maybe so. You going, girl?”
“Yeah. You’re in my spot.” I sighed heavily, hoping he wouldn’t decide he liked my spot enough to frequent it. Then I pointed at my house on the bank. “I live in that white house over there. Where do you live?”
He didn’t seem interested, didn’t even bother looking toward where my finger pointed. “Other side of the river.”
“In Pennsylvania?”
He nodded at the tree-lined bank as if it had just been introduced to him. “That where that is?” Then he smiled. In all my days on this earth I would never forget that smile. The hot summer sun paled in comparison. “Yeah. Pennsylvania.”
“Wait. How’d you get here, without a boat?”
He laughed. “Swam.”
“No way. The current?”
“I’m a powerful good swimmer, kid. Current’s no match for a powerful good swimmer like me.”
I raised my eyebrows. My parents would never let me out in the middle of the river like that. The island was as far as I was allowed to venture, because even when it was rough, the water was barely up to my waist. “Oh. Well. You ever catch any fish you want to give me, I’m right over there,” I said slowly, pointing the way to my house again. But he didn’t bother to turn. He just stared at the ripples in the water. His line began to bob again. I couldn’t stand it.
“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “Can’t.”
I fought back the urge to shove him as he pulled another big beauty in. “Why not? Are you some kind of fish-loving wacko or something?”
“ ’Cause I don’t go over there.” He looked at me, the corners of his mouth hanging low. That was another thing I’d always remember. That look. Not frightening. Sad. More than sad. Regretful. “Not unless I have to.”
Turned out I didn’t have to worry about him taking up permanent residence on my fishing spot. I suppose he found who he was waiting for and moved on, just like the river, never settling in one place for too long.
Chapter One
Row row row your boat
and please please please take me
gently down the stream
to where I can’t be hurt. We’ll go
merrily merrily merrily merrily
and I won’t fight
for life is but a dream
and death I think is the awakening
.
Have you ever heard of suicide by river? You just wade out deeper and deeper, and before long the current carries you away. And by then there is nothing you can do about it.
A lot of people wonder what goes through a person’s mind during the moments they’re pulled away. Do they regret those steps into the churning waves? Do their lungs burn as they gulp for air and get nothing but earthy, thick liquid instead?
I don’t wonder, though. Because wondering means I’d have to start thinking of her. And I won’t spend a second thinking of someone who didn’t think of me.
“You’re zoning,” a voice calls me back. Justin. One of his arms is draped over the steering wheel, and for the first time I realize his other arm is around me. He drums his thick fingers on my shoulder.
I give him a smile. “No, I’m not.”
“Then what was the last thing I said?”
“The river is going to be outrageous,” I answer.
That’s only a guess, but a safe one, since all winter he’s been talking about this trip and how the river is going to be outrageous. He keeps fidgeting the foot that’s not on the gas pedal. Justin likes outdoorsy things, like climbing mountains and sleeping under the stars in subzero temperatures. He’s been going to dam releases on the Dead since he was eleven. He’s wearing a red-and-black-check lumberjack shirt, for God’s sake. How did we ever get together? I much prefer sleeping in a warm bed. Hot cocoa. Icy water not dripping off the end of my nose. I’m, like Jack says in Titanic, more of an “indoor girl.” Nothing wrong with that.
Though I should probably not be thinking about freezing waves and peril in the water right now.
“You write a good poem?” he asks me as I close the cover of the little leather-bound book I carry everywhere.
I wrinkle my nose. I’m never sure anything I write is good. I’m the editor of the yearbook and literary magazine only because nobody else wanted those jobs. Wayview High is big into hockey, and that’s about it. My school puts out only one issue of its literary magazine, The Comet, a year, mostly because we get no submissions, and so half of the poems in this year’s issue were from me. I’d even written a few haiku about hockey, hoping it would get someone’s, anyone’s, interest. Little good it did. I’m not sure anyone read them, other than my English teacher. Oh, and Justin. At least he said he did. But looking down at my most recent effort, I’m not sure if I want anyone to see it. “Please take me gently down the stream to where I can’t be hurt”? Somehow I can’t escape the thought of icy cold water and death, even in my writing.
“Are you scared?” Justin asks me.
“No,” I say quickly, resolute. “Of course not.” At least, I try to sound resolute, but it’s hard, especially since the thought that’s now center stage in my brain is that of a thousand human icicles bobbing in a black, endless sea.
“Of course you are, Ki. This is the Dead River we’re talking about,” Hugo Holbrook says from the back of the truck. I dig my fingers into the vinyl armrest. Of all the people my cousin Angela could have invited on this trip, I can’t believe it’s Hugo I’ll be sleeping in a cramped cabin with for four nights. It’s bad enough that I have to spend hours after school in the closet-sized yearbook office with him when we’re on deadline. How does she find him even remotely attractive? He has nostrils like black holes and eyes so close together that the space between them is a rickety footbridge. And I’m convinced that his laugh is why earplugs were invented. Wahah wahah wahah. “Look at her. She’s shaking.”
“It’s freaking cold,” I mutter, grimacing at Angela, Miss He’s-Kind-of-Cute-and-Really-Likes-Me, in the rearview mirror. She’s the same cousin who nursed a frighteningly ugly and smelly three-legged lizard back to health in her bedroom when we were eight, after my aunt and uncle ran it over with their Cadillac SUV. Most people wouldn’t have touched it with the back of a shovel, but Angela let it sleep on her pillow.
But Angela doesn’t notice my scowl. Her eyes are focused on the river. It’s black and churning because they released the dam yesterday, something they do about ten times a year so that the rapids will be intense for rafting. Not exactly as inviting as, say, a dance floor. And lucky me, I’ll be in the middle of it tomorrow.