After Obsession

by Jones, Carrie; Wedel, Steven E

  I pull my head away from my father’s T-shirt and open my eyes. I swallow air that tastes like gasoline from the boat, not like my river. Where has my river gone?

  The Coast Guard man stares at me. I know him. He’s married to the lady at Finn’s, the nice waitress, the one everyone calls Cookie, who winks at everyone and gives you chocolate chip cookies when no one in charge is looking.

  His mouth moves, but I don’t really hear him because everything seems muffled somehow, like my ears are full of water. His mouth moves again. I think what he says is, “Aimee … please?”

  His eyes are sad, too—another man with sad seal eyes. Water collects in them, but it hasn’t moved past the borders and down the cheeks.

  “Okay,” I say.

  The boy’s name was Chris Paquette.

  His shirt is gone. Maybe the river ripped it away and took it out to the ocean with the tide. His skin is pale, pale like all Maine boys’ skin is until August, when the sun finally gets through to them. His lips are blue. The ends of his left-hand fingers are blue. Tiny hairs spread across the middle of his chest like eel grass. His blond hair is darkened by the water. A yellow thermal emergency blanket covers his bottom half. But it’s the large gashes—five of them around the remaining wrist—that kill me. The gashes are so deep.

  I swallow again and try to speak, but I don’t have to.

  “That’s Chris Paquette,” says a voice, and I realize it’s my dad. “He’s a junior at the high school. He lives on Pioneer Farm Way. His mother works for me at the hospital. She’s a nurse. This will kill her. That boy was her world.”

  “It’s a hard thing,” Coast Guard Man says.

  My dad straightens up because he’s finished with this. “I’m taking my daughter home now.”

  Coast Guard Man nods. “The reporters might be calling. The police definitely will. Your daughter’s a hero, Mr. Avery. We could’ve lost two boys today.”

  My father nods back, and for a second I imagine they are both bobblehead dolls on a car’s dashboard, nodding, nodding, nodding away.

  “She’s a good girl,” Dad says.

  He does not say I’m a wimp, but it would be truer. A good girl, but a little cowardly, is what he should have said. She has dreams, you know; sometimes they come true. People think she might be crazy like her mother.

  My dad and I paddle home together past the shores of the Union River, where there are still more trees than houses.

  “Are you mad at Mom?” I ask.

  “Sometimes,” he says. We move across the water. “Mostly I just miss her.”

  “Me, too.” I stop paddling for a second to get some hair out of my face. “Do you think you could hang out at home a little more? We kind of need you.”

  “I promise I will, Aimee, and I am sorry that work keeps me so busy … I … I love you all so much, and this … this craziness that’s going on … it reminds me of what happened just before your mother left us, and it scares me. I hate to say it, but it scares me, and denial and false blame isn’t going to make it go away. I am sorry I did that to you,” he says, his paddle slicing the water. I start to tell him it’s okay, but he raises a hand to stop me and instead says, “The boys will be waiting for us.”

  We paddle some more; we’re almost home, but I’m really slowing down. I’m so tired, and my head is so full, and my stomach feels like it’s full of river water—murky, salty. Every time I take a breath I think of Chris Paquette’s body. Every time I stop listening to my heartbeat, I hear Noah Chandler shouting, “My buddy! My buddy!”

  “Do you think they were drunk?” I ask my dad.

  “Maybe. Maybe drugs.” He turns his kayak into a current that carries him faster than me. I follow. “It’s such a calm river this afternoon. I don’t see why they’d capsize.”

  We have a floating dock. When you walk on it, it sways with your weight. Sometimes when a big boat powers by, it makes a wake that bumps the dock all around. You have to try hard to stay balanced. It would be easy to wind up in the water; one misstep, that’s all it takes. There are a lot of things swimming under the water, but that’s not where I look right now. I look up, toward the eagle, toward the sky. I don’t know why the eagle reminds me of my mother. Usually it’s the seals that make me think of her.

  My mother used to write little notes in my lunch box. She’d draw pictures of cats and dogs, cartoon mice and birds on scrap pieces of watercolor paper. She’d color them in with watercolor pencils and write things like: Have a happy Tuesday! I can’t wait to pick you up from school and give my good girl a great big hug. XXXOOO Love, Mommy.

  I saved every single one of those notes in the first Harry Potter book. If you open the book, they flutter out of the pages like wishes falling all over the floor.

  The first thing I do when we get back is head up to my bedroom. I find that Harry Potter book in my bookcase, tucked between Buried and Looking for Alaska. I open it up. All the lunch box notes are on the same type of paper, a lightweight watercolor paper. But there’s one note in there that’s on yellow lined paper, like from a legal pad. It’s always been in there; I just never got it out before. I always thought it was some of her insane ramblings. I never understood what it meant. Now I think I might.

  It flutters out. I unfold it.

  Aimee, I am trying to stop him. It might not work. But I have to try, honey. I have to make him stop haunting us all. Your father can barely sleep anymore because of my dreams, and I know … I know you have them, too. Know I love you, that I’ll always love you, no matter what. XOXOX to infinity and forever. Love, Mommy.

  My lips fold up and in. I say out loud, like she’s here sitting on the braided rug right next to me, “An ax was an incredibly stupid idea. You cannot kill a ghost thing with an ax. And he dismembers people. What were you thinking?”

  I can almost hear her soft whispery voice say, “I don’t know.”

  I shake it off, stand up, and look out my window. A Coast Guard cutter is chugging up the river, going slow but leaving a monster wake.

  Benji bursts into my room. His eyes are wide. “Aimee, are you okay? I heard you found a dead guy.” He throws himself across the room and into my arms, toppling me back into the bookcase. “You better not do anything stupid.”

  “What are you talking about, Benji?”

  He shrugs.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” I repeat. “Sometimes you sound just like Gramps.”

  I muck up his hair.

  “Gramps is right sometimes,” he says.

  “True,” I admit, tucking the yellow paper into the pocket of my fleece.

  He puts his hands on his hips and eyes me like he’s some eighty-seven-year-old man. “So, you aren’t going to do something stupid, are you?”

  “Why do you think that, Benji?”

  He squints. “Because I’m brilliant, that’s why.”

  • 20 •

  ALAN

  The smell of sage fills my room. It’s just the incense. I’m saving the bundles I bought at Craft Barn for the actual ceremony. Now I’m sitting cross-legged on a rug on my floor, a smoking incense burner on either side of me, and my face is painted with black and red Halloween makeup. I’m wearing only a pair of shorts and my medicine bag.

  The rug, about four feet square, is an off-white color with a black medicine wheel on it. It is the wheel of life, outlined simply in black—a circle divided into quarters with thick lines indicating the four directions. I sit in the center, facing North. The North quarter of the wheel is white; East is yellow; West is black; South is red. I do not fully understand the wheel, but I know that each direction represents a different phase of life. Since my vision quest, I have begun facing North during meditation. This is the direction of adulthood.

  On a shelf above my bed, a small stereo plays a Yeibichei song. It’s on repeat so the song will not stop. The chant, recorded in the 1930s, rises and falls, rises and falls, playing a repetitive, melodic sound.

  I’ve painted my face with an arrow
pointing up from my chin, around my nose, and between my eyes, its tip aimed toward the sky. It symbolizes my conscious thought rising up from my body. Small cougar tracks—not drawn very well—mark Onawa’s path from my hairline down my left cheek and neck to my chest, ending over my heart.

  I hope Onawa will come to me.

  Rolled in a sock in the back of a dresser drawer is a plastic bag with a few dried pieces of peyote. I was tempted to use it, just a tiny piece under my tongue, but even a small piece can produce a psychoactive response for several hours. I’m already suspended from school. No way I can let Mom come home and find me “stoned” on my “Indian drugs.” The incense, music, and symbols will be enough.

  Hands folded in my lap, I close my eyes and try very hard to clear my mind. It isn’t an easy thing to do. Aimee keeps creeping in. Her smile, her red hair, her emerald-green eyes. Then I think of the scratches on her perfect skin, the dirt caked under her eyes, and the horror she must have felt as the dust storm chased her.

  I focus on my breathing. In … out … in … Thoughts dissolve and crumble away. The sound of the music and the smell of the burning sage become muted and vague. Out … in …

  “Onawa.” I whisper it into the darkness behind my eyelids.

  In … Eyes in the darkness of my mind. Green eyes. Out … Aimee? No. Feline eyes. Feral, but not malicious.

  In …

  “Onawa.”

  She’s there. Her golden face looks back at me, illuminated by the light coming from her green eyes. Around me I feel space closing in, pressing against me as Onawa looks at me impassively. There is a message in her eyes, but I can’t read it, not with the very air squeezing me.

  Then I get it. Danger. There is danger all around me.

  The pressure lessens a little. Onawa’s way of letting me know I’m right.

  I continue to breathe. Out … in …

  “What can I do?” I ask without words. It is just a thought I send outward, toward the eyes.

  Onawa looks away from me at the same moment that I feel a gentle heat in my chest. I follow the cougar’s gaze and see a vague line of people standing nearby. The line fades in the distance. I feel a kinship with these people I do not recognize. The warm feeling in my chest grows as I look at them. One by one, they turn to look at me, and I see that they all have my face.

  “Are they … my ancestors?”

  Onawa turns her attention back to me and the line of people retreats into the darkness.

  “Aimee?” I ask.

  A fire appears above Onawa’s head. The fire is Aimee’s hair, though. I know this. There is a woman tending the fire. The woman looks like Aimee.

  “Her mom?”

  Onawa doesn’t answer.

  “Who is the River Man?” I ask.

  The fire and woman break apart and fade away. The air presses around me again, but now it is cold and smells like a stagnant river. There is a feeling, something that can only be evil—ancient, nameless evil. I feel panicked, suffocated, and suddenly afraid. Then the feeling is gone.

  I tell myself to breathe.

  In … out … in …

  The smell of incense comes to me. There’s a sound. Not music. Something else. Onawa’s glowing green eyes dim. I grope for focus.

  “Don’t leave me.”

  Out … in …

  “Alan Whitedeer Parson! Listen to me!”

  Onawa’s eyes blink once, twice, and are gone. There is only the smell of sage and the sound of silence. I open my eyes. The room is filled with electric light. My windows are squares of darkness behind my angry mother.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she demands.

  “Meditating. Did you turn off the music?”

  “That chanting? Yes, I turned it off. What is all over your face and chest?”

  “Paint.”

  “Wipe it off. There is a cop downstairs. He wants to talk to you.” The anger flickers for a second. “What’s going on, Alan?”

  “A cop?”

  “Put some clothes on and come downstairs.” She has wood shavings in her hair and she smells like oil and sawdust. Her face is pale, and her eyes show more fear than anger now.

  “Okay.” She starts to walk away, around me and toward the door. “Mom?” She turns back. “I don’t know why the cop is here. I promise … Unless it’s about my fight at school …”

  She nods her head once and leaves the room, closing the door.

  I get up, and the movement is anything but graceful. My knees are stiff and my legs want to cramp. I put my hands on the edge of my bed and stretch my legs behind me. My cell phone is on the bedspread. The red light is blinking; I have messages. I pick it up and check. Six messages, all from Aimee. I check the most recent one.

  PLEASE CALL ASAP!!!

  I have missed calls, too. From Aimee. Something is wrong.

  Mom is downstairs with a police officer who wants to see me.

  I pull on some sweatpants and a black Rob Zombie shirt. It isn’t until I walk past the mirror on my dresser that I remember the facepaint. I step into the bathroom to scrub off the paint that can be seen on my face and neck, then go downstairs. Mom and the cop, a pot-bellied blond guy with a pair of chins and a buzz cut, sit at the dining room table. Aunt Lisa isn’t around.

  “There he is,” Mom says. “I’m sorry he made you wait.”

  “That’s okay,” the cop says as he gets to his feet. He’s a few inches shorter than me but outweighs me by at least a hundred pounds. He extends a meaty, sweaty hand, and I shake it as he says, “I’m Deputy McKinney, Alan. Can I ask you a few questions?”

  “What about?” I ask.

  “Sit down, Alan,” Mom insists. The cop settles back into his chair, and I think of a turkey squatting on a nest. I sit across from Mom, facing the deputy.

  “You were in a fight today at school, weren’t you?” he asks.

  “Yeah, I guess. It wasn’t much of a fight. Three guys jumped me in a bathroom. I only got one hit in before the teachers broke it up.”

  “It looks like they worked you over pretty good.”

  “It looks worse than it feels,” I tell him.

  “You know the boys who did it?”

  “Sort of. I mean, we’ve only been in Maine since Saturday. I know two of them from classes, and Blake is in cross-country with me. He’s my girlfriend’s ex.”

  “That’s Blake Stanley?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The other two boys? Do you know their names?”

  “Chris and Noah, I think. I don’t know their last names.”

  “Have you seen them since you left school today?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You were suspended for the fight?”

  “If you know about the fight, you know I was.”

  “Alan,” Mom warns. “Answer him.”

  “Yes, I was suspended. Three days.” I look at Mom while I say it.

  “What about the other boys?”

  “I don’t know. Everson said three days was the required suspension for fighting. I assume that’s what they got.”

  “Did you come right home after you were suspended?”

  I swallow and can’t look at Mom. I focus on a small mole on McKinney’s temple instead. “No. I went to Craft Barn and Bergerman’s Lumber and to the hospital first.”

  Mom gives a frustrated sigh. “I told you to come straight home.”

  “I had things to do.”

  “Alan, can you prove your whereabouts between about one PM and four PM?” the deputy asks.

  “Why?”

  He ignores my question and repeats his own. “Can you prove you were at Craft Barn and the lumberyard and the hospital?”

  “I don’t know. I guess. I have receipts.”

  “I’d like to see them.”

  “They’re upstairs. You want me to get them?”

  “Please.”

  I try to act calm and uncaring and cool, but my heart
pounds harder than my feet as I throw myself up the stairs and into my room. I grab my jeans off the floor and fish out the two receipts from a hip pocket, then go back downstairs. I hand them to the cop as I sit down and watch him study them.

  “Sage, and what’s this?” he asks. Sweetgrass shows up as “Sweetgss” on the receipt.

  “Sweetgrass.”

  “The weed? Why’d you buy that?”

  “An Indian thing,” Mom says. “His father was an Indian and Alan tries to be.”

  “I am half Navajo,” I say, and don’t care that I sound defiant. “I burn the sage and sweetgrass like incense.”

  “I see,” Deputy McKinney says, but it’s obvious he doesn’t. He looks at the lumber receipt. “Tarps and … granite?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are those for?”

  Damn. I do not want to go here. Mom will blow a gasket. Maybe not now, not in front of the cop, but later.

  “More Indian stuff ?” he asks.

  “Yeah. For a sweat lodge.”

  “Sweat lodge?”

  “It’s like a sauna in a tent,” I say.

  “Oh.” He looks at the two receipts for another minute, then puts them aside. “The receipts put you at the stores at about one thirty and a quarter after two this afternoon. You say you went to the hospital?”

  “My cousin’s there. She’s a patient.”

  The deputy looks to Mom, who nods confirmation. “Courtney Tucker, my niece.”

  The cop nods. “She’s okay?”

  I wait for Mom to answer, wondering if they’ve gotten word about Courtney’s recovery. “She seems much better, from what I heard just before you got here,” she says.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” McKinney says. “Your cousin can confirm that you were there?” I nod. “Anyone else?”

  “Aimee.”

  “Aimee Avery?”

  “Yeah. I met her there. She was already in the room with Courtney.”

  “Anyone else? Did you talk to any nurses or doctors, maybe a receptionist?”

  “Nope. Well, actually there was a nurse standing there when I got off the elevator. What’s this all about?”

  The deputy takes a deep breath and looks at his thick index finger as he draws circles on the white tablecloth. “We pulled Chris Paquette out of the Union River late this afternoon. He’s dead. Noah Chandler was there, too. He’s in the hospital now. Hypothermia and shock. He can’t talk to us yet.”