In the River Darkness

by Marlene Röder

  “What are you doing up here?” I said cautiously, not wanting to scare him.

  “I’m trying to remember,” Alex replied, then took a swig from his beer.

  “What?”

  But he didn’t answer.

  Somehow, I finally managed to convince Alex that he’d be a whole lot more comfortable in his bed than up there on the diving platform. Together with Jay, I steered him toward home.

  “You’re my angel, Mia,” Alex mumbled as I helped him to his feet when he stumbled. In gratitude, he tried to plant a big kiss on my cheek. He stank of alcohol. Disgusted, I turned my head. Jay giggled.

  I came within an inch of leaving the two brothers stranded in the middle of nowhere—the two of them could figure out how to make their way home without me. But just an hour earlier I had drunk their blood, and I felt obligated, somehow.

  That, however, was before Alex started singing sentimental songs about lonesome sailors. I was starting to understand how he had come by the nickname Skip! On top of everything, Jay joined in with a rousing “What should we do with a drunken sailor!”

  “Ssshhhhhh,” I warned as we navigated the narrow steps inside their house. “Or do you want to wake up your grandmother?”

  That got their attention. Jay disappeared into his room, and I thought what a relief it would be to slip away and go home.

  But instead, Alex grabbed my hand and pulled me into his dark room. “Wait—I want to show you something.”

  Carefully, as if it could disintegrate into dust any moment, he placed something cool and smooth in the palm of my hand. It was a large shell. The mother-of-pearl lining the inside caught the moonlight, and it glistened like a hidden treasure.

  I had a sneaking suspicion that he was sharing something very special with me. “Hold it up to your ear!” Alex whispered. I did.

  Caught in the spirals of the shell was the echo of a sound. “Do you hear that?” Alex asked excitedly. I nodded, and the happiest smile slowly spread across his face. And then, I recognized that in spite of all their differences, they were similar after all, he and Jay. Although I had always found Alex much more practical and down to earth than his younger brother, he had the same enchanted smile, not quite of this world.

  Waves crashing on a faraway beach . . .

  “That’s the ocean, Mia!”

  And I almost believed it! I shook myself to shake off the illusion. “That isn’t the ocean. It’s the sound of your own blood in your ears, Alex!”

  “You mean the ocean is inside me?” His smile became a notch dimmer, slipped.

  I suddenly felt mean, as if I had stolen something from him, destroyed something on purpose.

  Alex took the shell from my hand. “Nonsense!” he declared in a surly tone, and fell backward on his bed. “Of course it’s the ocean!”

  I didn’t contradict him anymore. If he really wanted to believe that, he could go right ahead! What right did I have to interfere? Feeling uncomfortable, I chewed on my fingernails. Suddenly, I wanted to get out of this room, where the sloped walls were plastered with layers and layers of photographs, like the walls of a shrine.

  Alex had changed the décor since I had last been here. Instead of all the pictures of South America with their warm jungle colors, the walls were covered with photos of Greenland: icebergs shimmering glacier blue and cold. Endless vistas of snow.

  I shivered. All at once, I could feel Alex observing me with bloodshot eyes.

  “She just left us,” he said suddenly, without any transition. “Without a word, without an explanation.”

  It was hard to follow his train of thought, but then I understood that he was talking about his mother. He had never told me anything about her, and I had never had the courage to ask him about her. “We don’t mean anything to her. Not Jay, not me. And now she’s forgotten us entirely.”

  “How would you know that?” I contradicted, but the words sounded forced even to me.

  “No one leaves people they love. Not like that.”

  There was no arguing with the bare truth of that. I didn’t say anything. Lying on the bed, Alex looked up at me. “You’re going to leave me, too,” he said calmly. There was no accusation in his voice, nothing other than this bare statement. “I saw it in your eyes, they gave you away. You always run away from me.”

  “What are you saying?” I stuttered. “That’s . . . that’s not true. I . . .” But deep, deep inside me, in that protected place no one was allowed to see, I knew that Alex was right.

  I felt like I had been caught red-handed. Exposed. My throat burned with shame, or maybe it was tears, I don’t know. I swallowed the burn as I helplessly searched for comforting words.

  “But think of our oath!” I whispered, because nothing else occurred to me. “We took a blood oath . . . that each of us will always be there for the others. I won’t leave you. Do you hear me? I’m not going to leave you.”

  I lay down next to Alex on the bed and held his hand, whispering these words over and over again like a mantra meant to soothe both of us. I kept it up until I heard his breathing becoming deeper and steady and only got up when I was sure he had fallen asleep. Carefully, I tried to free my hand from his grip, but his fingers were clutching mine so tightly I had to pry them open one at a time.

  In his sleep, Alex looked younger. The sight of his hand lying on the pillow empty and relaxed led to a sudden pang of sadness.

  With his other hand, he still held the shell to his ear, as if he were listening to something.

  Chapter 11

  Alexander

  “I’ll never touch alcohol again!” I vowed when I woke up the morning after the party with a wicked hangover. My head pounded as if a sadistic elf with a jackhammer were boring through my brain.

  While I fumbled around in the drawer of my nightstand for an aspirin, the memory of what had transpired the night before began to surface. No letter, no letter, no letter . . .

  I had tried to drink myself unconscious at my party. Apparently, it hadn’t worked, because a few cells of gray matter were still working. Unfortunately, I still had fragmented memories of what had happened the previous night. Mia had brought me home—tucked me into bed, to be more precise, while I talked endlessly about some embarrassing nonsense. With a groan, I fell back onto the pillows. Spend the night with Alex Stonebrook and you can really experience something, ha ha!

  My gaze landed on the travel atlas that Mia had given me, lying on the desk. Idiot that I am, I hadn’t even properly thanked her for it. I groaned even louder.

  But I would make it up to her. I swore it. I even had an idea how I could do it.

  Although it was late, there were still lights on at the Reinholds’ house. But not in Mia’s room. Had she forgotten that we had a date?

  Only after I had thrown the third handful of gravel against the glass did she finally open her window. “Cut that out, Alex! I’m coming already!” she hissed down to me. I grinned and blended in with the nighttime shadows of the cherry tree again.

  Suddenly, I stopped short. Something was dangling from one of the upper branches. It was hanging right in front of Mia’s window, but I could only vaguely see its outline. Curious, I climbed up the tree until I reached it.

  It was a doll, a small doll made of faded rags. It was hanging by a string that was wound around its neck like a noose. I carefully freed it.

  Once I had reached firm ground again, I examined my find more closely. The eyes were pieces of shell, and the rest of the face was roughly drawn with charcoal. But I recognized immediately who the doll was supposed to represent by the clump of reddish-brown hair that someone had attached to its head.

  Then I had to think of the story about the dead pike that Mia had told me a while ago. “That stench everywhere! My whole room was infested with it, Alex. It might sound silly, but I knew someone had been in there, and had been touching my things. My cello, the CDs, even my hairbrush.”

  Her hairbrush—with a few strands of Mia’s hair still entwined i
n it?

  At the time I had shrugged off the whole episode as a prank pulled by some idiots who couldn’t stand Mia. But a voodoo doll—because that’s obviously what this was—was no joking matter anymore. Sharp pins were stuck into her body. Cautiously, I pulled them all out, one at a time.

  Someone hated my girlfriend.

  At that moment, I heard footsteps. Quickly I slipped the doll into my pants pocket and stepped out from the shadow of the tree.

  “Is something wrong? You look so serious,” Mia asked.

  If she ever saw that wretched thing, it would give her an enormous scare. Just like it had me.

  “Nah, everything’s fine.” I pulled her into my arms and held her tight. I would never let anyone hurt her!

  “What’s gotten into you?” Mia laughed, smothered, and dug her chin into my shoulder. “It wasn’t so easy to sneak out of the house,” she whispered breathlessly. “My parents have been fighting again. Sounds like Mom imagined our life out here differently, somehow.”

  She mimicked her mother’s voice: “I had hoped that we would have more time for us! For our daughter! But instead, I hardly ever see you anymore, Mark!” Mia let her head hang. I stroked her arm. She continued: “Papa couldn’t understand that at all. ‘Who am I busting my butt for, then?’ he yelled back. ‘I’m doing this for you two, for you and Mia! So you two don’t have to do without anything! Or don’t you want your house in the country anymore?’”

  “And what did your mother say?”

  “That she’d sell the house in a minute if it would make things any better.” Mia made a sound that was probably supposed to be a laugh. But instead it sounded more like a sob.

  We were quiet. Only the leaves of the cherry tree rustled in the night breeze.

  “Let’s talk about something else, okay?” Mia finally said in a determinedly cheerful voice. “Why don’t you explain why you rustled me out of my comfortable bed for a date in the middle of the night?”

  I patted the backpack I was wearing and replied mysteriously, “Wait and see! It’s supposed to be a surprise . . . to make up for the other night, you know.”

  “You don’t have to apologize because you were miserable,” Mia replied, almost angrily. “Everyone has tough times. You don’t need to play that ‘I’m a super perfect superhero’ number for me, okay?”

  I swallowed and nodded. Mia shoved her hand into mine and said softly, “Come on, show me your surprise.”

  We walked past my house and followed a narrow footpath that led us toward the river. After hiking for ten minutes, we entered the shadows of a small patch of woods right next to the water. Climbing plants grew all over the trees, smothering them with their vines. Only a little of the moon’s light was able to penetrate the tangle of branches, and in spite of the flashlight I had with me, we stumbled over roots several times. The night was filled with strange noises. More than once I thought I heard rustling and crackling behind us, as if someone were following us through the underbrush.

  “Are you scared?” I asked Mia, who held my hand in a tight grip.

  “No. You’re here to protect me.” It was so dark I couldn’t even see whether she meant that ironically.

  There! That rustling sound again! “Do you hear that, too?” I pointed the beam of the flashlight in the direction the sound seemed to come from. Between the vines, a pointed snout appeared and a pair of cunning yellow eyes blinked in the light.

  I had to laugh. “It’s just that shaggy mutt that’s always following you around!”

  Mia laughed, too. “Come here, dog!” she called, and it trotted toward us, wagging its tail.

  “Is it much farther?” Mia groaned five minutes and dozens of mosquito bites later. She waved her arms around wildly to defend herself from the swarms of mosquitoes that were attacking us with enthusiasm. “I’m about to bleed to death here!”

  “It’s right around that curve,” I said, hoping that was really the case.

  And then, finally, we were there: we stepped out of a blackberry bramble onto a tiny, hidden, sandy beach.

  Although I hadn’t been here for years, nothing seemed to have changed. The narrow strip of shore sloped gently down to the river, which wound its way around a wide curve here. About thirty feet away from the bank, the black outline of the island rose above us like the prow of a large ship. Jay and I had played there when we were little kids. There had been a tree house, high up in the branches of a willow . . . my mother, her laugh like a silver bell . . . the three of us letting the sun dry us after we’d been swimming.

  I hadn’t been here a single time since.

  Sometimes I wasn’t sure what I genuinely remembered and what I had only dreamed or made up. Everything was mixed up, all jumbled and confused. Memory was like a treacherous body of water. Maybe I only remembered things I wished had happened just that way. Maybe I turned things around, distorted them without knowing it, and made them my own reality.

  But no matter what had happened over there on the island, now we were in the present. This particular night everything was still and lightly touched with the silver shimmer of the full moon.

  According to Wolf and his numerous female companions, this was the most romantic spot for miles around—maybe precisely because there was something disreputable about it. About a hundred years ago, the body of a drowned woman had been dragged to shore here. The old people in town claimed that occasionally you could still hear her voice wafting over the water. In spite of myself, I listened for it, and a chill ran up my spine. The sleepy rushing of the river did sound like the quiet humming of a woman.

  Suddenly, I started to doubt whether it had been such a good idea to come here.

  Mia, on the other hand, was completely enthusiastic. “Wow, this place is so beautiful, Alex!”

  “What would you think of a little picnic?” I asked. “I brought something to eat. Bread, fruit salad . . . even a few pancakes left over from brunch this morning.”

  “Fabulous!” Mia’s shell earrings swung back and forth jauntily. “But could we go swimming first? Or is the water not clean enough here?”

  I should have told her something about dangerous salmonella and other bacteria. Unfortunately, lying has never been one of my strengths. “Uh, no, it’s okay,” I muttered hesitantly.

  “Oh, crap!” Mia slapped her forehead. “We didn’t bring bathing suits with us!” Her expression was so disappointed that I said without thinking, “It doesn’t matter. No one will see us here anyway, right?”

  Thin ice. Mia and I had never seen each other naked, much less slept together. For a while, Mia seemed to struggle with her modesty, but in the end she said, “Okay, but you’re not allowed to look, promise?” With those words she disappeared behind a bush. Shortly thereafter, I heard the tapping of bare feet—and then a splash as Mia threw herself into the water.

  When I had undressed, too, and stepped to the edge of the water, I saw her already happily paddling around. The dog sat perfectly still on the shore and didn’t take its eyes off her.

  “Come on in, the water’s perfect!” Mia called impatiently, sending a splash in our direction. I threw the dog a resigned glance and then started to wade into the river.

  Unlike my brother, who moved so gracefully in the water that he seemed to be more at home there than on land, I didn’t like to swim—at least not in the river. That murky soup was kind of creepy. But I didn’t want Mia to know about that.

  By now, the water was up to my chest. With every step deeper, I felt the muck on the river bottom welling up between my toes. The smell of the river rose to my nose: the scent of stagnant water, fish and slightly sweet, like dead, decomposing plants . . . the smell of decay.

  Something brushed against my leg, and I jumped. Reflexively, my hand felt for the small silver chain with a cross that hung around my neck. Jay had one just like it. Our grandmother insisted that we wear them all the time, for protection. Grandma’s scolding voice echoed in my thoughts: “It’s dangerous . . . dangerous.”


  It’s dangerous to swim by a full moon!

  Were those really the words she had said? I didn’t know for sure anymore.

  But then Mia came swimming over to me, and I forgot everything else. Her lips were warm and soft as she kissed me. She was so light in my arms, like a child. But her eyes were those of a woman.

  I felt her naked body, her breasts against my chest, and suddenly noticed how aroused I was. I pulled her even closer to me. Her earrings tinkled quietly.

  “You know those times when you feel like a piece of driftwood?” Mia asked quietly, leaning her wet forehead against mine. “I feel like that a lot. It’s awful. But now, with you . . . it’s better.” She smiled, but as always, I sensed that vague sadness that was caught up in her smile.

  Then I had an idea. “I want to show you something,” I said spontaneously. “Jay and I used to do this all the time, it’s a kind of game. Lie on your back.”

  Mia glanced at me suspiciously, but then did what I had asked. I supported her lightly at the small of her back. She was as stiff as a board, totally cramped up.

  “And, what do you feel?” I asked.

  “The river. The current is so strong!” Mia shuddered, and as she did, swallowed a gush of water. She quickly tried to right herself again; it was clear that she found this game strange.

  “Wait! You have to breathe very calmly, that’s the whole trick. Like that. . . . Now, can you feel that I’m holding on to you? Do you feel that you’re not driftwood?”

  “Yes,” Mia whispered. Her entire body slackened in my arms as she finally relaxed. I don’t know how long we floated like that in the river; I just know that I gradually started to freeze. The places where our skin touched were the only sparks of warmth in the currents of cold and darkness.

  Mia’s body was a hazy, milk-white silhouette. Her breasts shimmered in the water. I quickly averted my glance, but she had already noticed it. She flashed me a nervous smile, then escaped from my grip and flowed through my hands as if she were made of mercury.