He wipes his eyes with his palm. “I still don’t know how that’s going to keep me from messing up now.”
“She loved you because of your heart. That’s what called her to you in the first place. Go and play with the band. Make a mistake or two, but as long as that heart comes through in the music, Holly will come. I know it.”
He nods and hugs me. No half-hug either. Tyler squeezes me tight, almost lifting me off my feet.
Ultimate yells, “Come on, guys. We’re ready.”
Turning, Tyler steps into the circle. LeighAnn hands him his guitar, and Stratofortress is ready for a very strange gig. Except beyond the lights, there’s just the choppy water. The audience hasn’t shown up yet.
I look over my shoulder at Tyler. “How about ‘Down by the Riverside’? That seems right.”
Tyler nods and starts to play, skipping staccato notes across the water like stones. Stratofortress comes in, backing Tyler up with a wall of rhythm and bass. I stand there holding the Dreadnought.
The Dread Not.
I sing along with the band. “I’m gonna lay down my heavy load, down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the riverside … ”
Fish start breaking the surface of the water, flashing silver. One lands on the bank, flops and gasps, stranded among the Queen Anne’s lace blooming between the stones. Shadows of birds jerk through the headlight beams.
The waves grow rough, a hundred foamy lips smacking against the rocks. The stink grows too. It’s death, but it’s not cold and not silent. It’s fertile black death as warm as flesh, hungry to feed new green shoots. It’s the last truth, isn’t it, Holly? As absolute as life ending in death, every death brings new life.
“I’m gonna put on my long white robe, down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the riverside. I’m gonna put on my … Holly … hey … ”
“Jane?”
The music scatters to silence behind us. “It’s me, Holly. And Tyler. He’s here too.”
“Why do you keep leaving? I need help.”
“I’m sorry. I’m here now. I won’t leave this time.” But before you cross the circle, I yell, “Wait! Holly, look. I brought your pa-paw’s Dreadnought. Remember? Dread Not? Don’t you remember?”
“It’s broken. I tried to play … it’s broken, broken.”
“No, my friend just had to re-string it. Listen.” I play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” through steady, certain fingers.
The gash of your mouth bends into something like a smile. “When’d you learn that?”
“This week. I’ve learned a lot of … a lot.”
Twisting your fingers around each other, you stare around. “I got lost. We were at the bluff, but I got lost in the forest. I need to go home.”
“It’ll be okay. Here, you remember how to play, don’t you?” Stepping across the white line, I meet you on the border between water and land, between life and death. I push Johnny Cash’s guitar into your hands.
Fingers travel across the frets. They trace the faded logo on the headstock, just like I know they did that first time you played, years ago. You strum a loose, buzzing chord, and hope swells in my chest. Another chord. Then, “I need to go home. Let’s go home, Jane.”
“You have to remember how to play, Holly. Just remember.”
“No!”
The swallows cry out as you throw the guitar away. The clay bank crumbles underneath us, and we both tumble to the water. My knee smashes against algae-slick rocks. A wave crashes down on my back, then washes back out. Sputtering, I feel the river thirsty to slurp us down.
I scuttle back toward land, dragging my leg. My knee bleeds freely, hot blood spilling across goose-pimpled flesh. You grab my arm with fingers worn down to driftwood spurs, keeping me from reaching the dry bank. We kneel together in the shallow water, on the tip of the river’s tongue. The waves have washed your face smooth.
“I have to get home, please,” you say. “Pa-paw’s going to be worried.”
“You can’t.” The black water swirls around our ankles. Pale flowers push up from my scratches, but I ignore the feeling of their roots probing beneath my skin. “Holly, you can’t go home anymore. I’m sorry, but you got lost in the drowned forest, and nobody can get back from there.”
“Stop! I have to go home!” Another waist-high wave smashes into us as you scream.
“You can’t, Holly. But you can go through. You have to go through the drowned forest to the other side.”
“But you have to go alone.” Tyler is beside us, and he has the Dreadnought. “You have to let go of Jane, sweetheart. Please, please.”
“No … not alone. Please, I can’t go alone.”
“Sure you can.” Tyler offers her the guitar. “Dread not, remember? Fear not.”
“Tyler … ”
“Your pa-paw’s waiting for you. Your mom and dad, your me-maw, they’re all waiting for you on the other side. Just let go of Jane, okay? Please?”
You take the guitar. Tyler takes my arm. The rest of Stratofortress all grab ahold and haul me onto the grass. We watch and listen as you pluck out “Down by the Riverside” on the lonely guitar.
Then the swallows begin singing in harmony. Crickets chirp out a distortion-thick rhythm, following your lead in perfect cut time. The rough waves strike the rocks in a slap-crash bass line. The song fills the darkness. The strings rust and snap under your fingers. You strum like they’re still there, playing all of deafening creation.
I’m gonna lay down my heavy load, down by the riverside,
down by the riverside, down by the riverside.
I’m gonna lay down my heavy load, down by the riverside.
I’m gonna study war no more.
Then you look up, at something just over our heads, speaking to somebody we can’t see. Your smile on that rough face—I’d almost forgotten how beautiful it was. When you slump sideways, folding down to the rocks, I gasp and try to stand. Tyler holds me. “It’s okay, Jane. Let her go.”
The birds and crickets keep singing. The waves crash down, snatching you—no, just the lump of clay you left behind—back down to the drowned forest.
“The guitar!” Ultimate splashes after the Dreadnought as it tumbles, black against black, toward the center of the lake.
Nature’s song goes on a little longer, and then the swallows start flying off—one, three, then the great rustling storm of them all at once. The cricket-rhythm tumbles back to the ordinary drone of insects again.
When I fell, a rock tore open the skin below my knee. As I try to stand, icy bolts shoot up into my stomach and make me want to puke. Flopping back to the ground, I start plucking the flowers from the scratches in my arm, sucking my breath as I pull out the roots. Now that you’re finally gone, the pain and panic I kept squashed down in my chest overtakes me all at once. I have to keep wiping tears away to see the flowers. My hands shake so bad, I can’t pull them out anyway.
“It’s okay, don’t cry.” Crouching beside me, Tyler helps pluck the flowers. “We’ll get them all out. Don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying for that. It’s because—ow!” I grit my teeth as he yanks the last flower. “It’s because Holly’s gone to Heaven. She’s not lost anymore.”
He grins and nods. “We did it.”
And suddenly I’m laughing. As the pain and panic rush out, the only thing left in my chest is a trilling joy. While Tyler and a sopping wet Ultimate—Dreadnought in one hand—help me to the van, I’m crying and laughing and wincing with every step. I’m a bloody, muddy mess, and I can’t stop singing.
“I’m gonna put on my long white robe, down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the riverside … ” I sit on the floor of the van, emptying water out of the Dreadnought’s sound hole. While Stratofortress tosses equipment and cables in all around me, they sing along.