Into This River I Drown

by TJ Klune

does, I go into my room and slam the door behind me.

  Memory.

  My earliest memory is from when I was three years old. My father had taken me to the park, affectionately named the Blue Park, given the color of all the equipment. It sat on the edge of the Umpqua about ten miles upriver from where he would drown thirteen years later. I don’t remember going there. I don’t remember getting out of the car or walking to the park. I don’t remember what happened after we left. I can’t even be sure what my next real memory is. What I can be sure of is my father sat me on his lap on the merry-go-round, kicking his feet in the sand, causing us to spin slowly. In his other hand, he held a paper cup that was orange and white, containing a vanilla milkshake. He put the straw to my lips as we spun in a lazy circle and I took a deep drink. Cold flooded my mouth and a sharp pain pierced my head, a brain freeze from the ice cream. I cried out. My father whispered soft words that I can no longer remember, then pressed a large hand against the top of my head and rubbed the pain away.

  We kept on spinning.

  For some reason, it’s this memory I think about as I lie in my bed, still fully

  clothed, unable to sleep six hours after I’ve slammed my bedroom door. Nothing about that day pertains to anything that’s happening now, but it’s the only thing I can focus on that makes sense. That flash of pain I felt that day has never slipped from my mind and even now I can remember what it felt like, blinding and cold. It let me know I was alive, that I was real. It tethered me to my father in such a way that only death could break. Maybe not even then.

  I don’t know why I thought the touch on my shoulder that I knew wasn’t there was my father. I don’t know why I assumed the breath on the back of my neck that wasn’t real was his. I don’t know why I hoped it would be, even though I knew it couldn’t be real. For someone who spent a lot of time actively denying what he hoped to be true, the disappointment I feel is a surprisingly palpable thing. Some part of me had to have believed that Big Eddie still roamed this house in one way or another.

  I’ve strained to listen for any movement coming from the house, but I hear none. I don’t know if Cal’s gone or if he’s still in the house. The truck hasn’t started up again, so I know at the very least he hasn’t stolen that. I immediately feel guilty for thinking such thoughts, ignoring the little voice that wants to know why I feel guilty about anything. But Little House is quiet aside from its usual creaks and groans.

  For all I know, he could still be making faces at himself in the mirror , I think, squashing the smile that quirks the corner of my lips.

  It’s almost five o’clock in the morning. I’ve been up since six the previous day. I should be dead to the world right now. But I’m not. I’m trapped in a memory while struggling to hear the telltale signs of a man who claims to be a guardian angel. Finally, I can’t take it anymore and walk to the door. I press my ear against it and wait. Aside from the subtle creaks of the house, nothing. No footsteps, no voices. No sounds of Cal smooshing up his face in the mirror, no light switches being flicked on and off. Images in my head of him finding the gas stove and flicking that on and off dance through my head, and I open the door to try and find him before he burns the house down.

  The hallway is empty. “Hey,” I call out, my voice carrying a slight waver.

  Nothing.

  I move down the hall. The spare room is empty, as is the bathroom. The kitchen is not on fire, but it too is empty. As is the living room. I call out again, louder, but receive no response. I ignore the twinge that sparks in my chest, because it means nothing. It does nothing for me. It’s not pain like memory; if I focus on it too much, it could become memory, therefore making it real because I’d felt it.

  He’s not in the house. He’s nowhere. He’s gone, and now I can go back to my room and climb back into bed and pull the covers up over me and lie there in the dark and drift away. I’ll sleep in for the first time in forever and wake up, already forgetting the night before. I’ll go into the station at some point in the afternoon, ignoring the way my mom or one of the Trio threatens me, telling me to leave, that I’m supposed to have a day off. I’ll shrug their concern off and take over for the rest of the day and then come back to Little House and start my life over again. I’ll start the routine of work and obsessing over my father and the suspicions about his death I can’t prove, and it’ll go on until the day I can no longer get out of bed. From there, the river will cover my head and I’ll drown. I’ll drown because that is what I’m meant to do.

  Instead, I open the front door and turn on the porch light. It’s cold and I shiver. The yard seems to be empty other than the Ford and a faint flicker of light in the distance that is Big House. I open the screen door and step out onto the porch and then down the steps. The truck is still unlocked, and when I open the door, for a moment I can smell him, that deep earth smell that reminds me of walking in the forest after it rains. The feather sits on the seat where I left it, slightly bent and twisted from all it’s been through. It warms in my hand.

  Fuck. He’s really gone. I can imagine him wandering around, telling people their names and when they were born and who their parents were and getting himself arrested and ridiculed. Crap, what if he gets hurt? What if I see him on the news one day as the cops are trying to identify the homeless man they found frozen to death? A dozen scenarios play through my head, each more damning and melodramatic than the last, and I curse myself for losing my temper so easily.

  I’ve turned back toward the house, determined to get my keys and drive until I find the bastard when he says, “That’s such a cherry ride, Benji. You think I’ll still be able to drive it even though you’re mad at me? I really like that truck.”

  I look up.

  It takes a moment for me to find him, but then the moon pokes through the clouds that remain from the spring thunderstorm and I see him. Cal is sitting on the roof of Little House in my father’s coat, a big imposing figure perched near the edge above the porch like an oversized gargoyle. He’s watching me with a curious expression on his face.

  “What are you doing up there?” I sigh.

  “You told me to get out of the house. You didn’t say anything about being on it.”

  “Of course,” I mutter. “And why would you need to be on it? Or in it, for that matter?”

  He shakes his head. “Can’t leave you here.”

  “Why? What are you doing?”

  He looks at me like I’m stupid. “I’m a guardian angel. I’m guarding.”

  “Guarding what?”

  “You.”

  “Why?”

  “You sure ask a lot of questions for someone who doesn’t believe me.”

  “I never said I don’t….” I trail off. “How’d you get up on the roof?”

  “I climbed.”

  “No shit, Cal. Where’d you climb up at?”

  “Or maybe I flew up here.”

  I snort, unable to stop myself. “Bullshit,” I tell him. “You don’t have your wings.”

  He grins. “True, though I can still feel them there. They itch. I don’t know how to get them back, but I’ll figure it out.” He points to an old wooden ladder propped up against the side of the house, hidden in the shadows.

  I nod, unsure if I should go up after him. I lean against the hood of the truck instead, waiting until I either decide to join him or he comes down.

  Now that I know where he is, I’m starting to get pissed off at myself for being worried about him. Why the fuck should I care what he does or where he goes? Why should I be worried about who he talks to or if he ends up in a goddamn ditch? I shake my head, trying to clear my mind before it overwhelms me.

  “So,” I say.

  He waits.

  Say it! “You’re an angel.” Still sounds ridiculous.

  He nods once.

  “And you fell from outer space.”

  He chuckles. “If you say so.”

  “And you crashed in Roseland.”

  “I didn’t crash,” he
growls, sounding offended. “I was pulled.”

  I wave him off. “Right, my bad. You fell because I called you, right?” “Yes.”

  “How? How did I call you?”

  “You prayed,” Cal says. “Your prayers were getting louder and louder, and at the

  river, you almost split the sky. I had no choice but to come.” Immediate guilt. “I forced you here?” I say in a small voice, even as my mind shrieks that this whole conversation is ludicrous.

  “No,” he says immediately, standing like he’s going to jump off the roof and come toward me. I shake my head again and cross my arms against the cold. He looks unsure, but he crouches back down, the shadows from the trees covering most of him. “You didn’t force anything, Benji. You might have hurried up the timetable, but I chose to come.”

  “What do you mean ‘hurried’?”

  “You went to the river,” he says with a frown. “I told you to stay away, but you went anyway.”

  Sharp pain, behind my eyes, like a brain freeze. It’s cold. “But… that was just a dream.”

  He shakes his head. “Nothing about that place is a dream, Benji. The river can hurt you.”

  I could so easily drown, I had thought.

  “I crossed it to get to you,” I blurt out without meaning to, noticing how he flinches at my words.

  “I know,” he says quietly. “I know what happened when you reached the middle. I could hear your thoughts then. They were the last thing I heard before everything went black. You thought about drowning. It was a test. One I never would have agreed to had I known it would happen. I would rather have watched you from far away for the rest of your life than see you cross the river.” By the end of his declaration, his mouth has curled up in a snarl, his shoulders tensing, and though his voice never rises, I can still hear the anger behind his words.

  A billion questions float across my mind, and I can’t seem to pick out the ones that should be asked first, the ones that are the most important. There’s too many ideas, too many grandiose thoughts, and they jumble together into an incoherent mess. “What’s Heaven like?” I finally ask, not sure why that question comes the easiest.

  He looks at me funny. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve never been.” “What? But… you’re an angel.”

  “Yes, but Heaven is for mortals, for humans. I am not one.”

  “Oh.” What do you say to that? I’m sorry? “What’s God like?”

  “Never met him, though word is he’s a control freak.”

  I narrow my eyes. “Are you making fun of me?” He chuckles. “Kind of. Only the upper echelons get an audience with him. I’m pretty far down on the totem pole.”

  “Why?”

  Calliel looks embarrassed. “I’m still sort of new at this,” he mutters, averting his eyes.

  “New at what?”

  He waves his hands from his crouched position. “You know… this whole thing.”

  I’m confused. “Falling from the sky? Not having wings?”

  He sighs and glares at me for a moment, as if my incomprehension is somehow causing him pain. “I’m new to being a guardian angel,” he grumps at me.

  “You’re what?”

  He scowls at me. “Why’re you laughing at me?”

  “I’m not,” I say, even though I am. I can’t help but think it would be just my luck that my guardian angel would be brand new to the job. Wait…. “What do you mean you’re new? You said you’ve been around since construction on Little House started and that was years ago. How long have you been the guardian to Roseland?”

  “Since it was founded. New guardians are always assigned to the small towns first before they can work their way up to the larger cites.”

  I feel the blood drain from my face. A buzzing picks up in my ears. “That,” I hear myself say, “was almost two hundred years ago.”

  He laughs, a low gruff sound. “I told you I’m new.”

  “That’s new to you?” I ask, starting to wheeze again. “How old are you?”

  Cal looks worried again, as if my mental breakdown is splayed clearly across my face. “We don’t keep track of years like you do, Benji. But if I had to put a number on it, it would be 186 years, 247 days, nineteen hours, six minutes, and fifty-five seconds. Fifty-six seconds. Fifty-sev—”

  “I get it,” I interrupt. “That’s when you were born?” He moves closer to the edge of the roof, peering down at me. “We’re not born like you. I don’t have parents. He had need of me and I simply came into being.”

  “What? Who?”

  “God. Who do you think?”

  I feel dizzy. “So God just thinks of an angel and they pop into existence?” “I’m pretty sure you’re oversimplifying, but okay.”

  “And then you’re assigned to a town to watch over them?”

  “Yes.”

  “For how long?”

  Calliel looks away, toward the brightening horizon. “As long as it takes,” he says softly.

  “Takes for what? Is it like some sort of test?”

  His shoulders slump. “Yes. We’re all tested. Every one of us.” His voice grows slightly menacing.

  “When is your test?”

  “I don’t ever remember you asking this many questions. That’s all this is with you. Questions, questions, questions.”

  “It’s not every day you meet someone who is an angel,” I say honestly.

  The grin is back, though smaller than it was before. I’m almost scared to ask. “What?”

  “You believe me,” Calliel says.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” I assure him. “What about—”

  “Hush, Benji. It’s starting. Come up here and look.”

  —my father? What about my father, Calliel? If you are supposed to be a guardian, if you are supposed to watch over and protect the people of Roseland, what about my father?

  For a moment, I almost refuse. Too much has been laid at my feet and I need time to process it, away from him. I need to figure out what the fuck I’m going to do. In my heart, pounding with a ferocious ache, I know I believe him. My rational mind is telling me, No. It’s saying, No, how could it be? How could something like this actually be? But my heart is winning the war and I am beginning to believe. Still, I need to think. I need to focus.

  I’m at the ladder before I realize I’m even walking. I’m on the first two rungs when he peers over the edge of the roof down at me. He waits for me to climb up another rung or two before he extends his hand, watching me. He must see the hesitation in my eyes. He must see the conflict in my soul, the way the battle wages. So he waits, hand extended but unmoving. I hesitate, but not for long. I reach up and put my hand in his and I’m pulled up in one fluid motion onto the roof. He lets me go as soon as my feet are set. He turns from me and sits back down on the roof, facing east.

  I am slow to follow, unsure what he’s asking of me. I don’t know if he’s dangerous. I don’t know what his purpose is, his point in being here. I don’t know anything, it would seem.

  But all that goes away when the golden flash appears over the Cascades, the sun rising on a new day. It’s not something I’ve taken the time to watch in a long time. I sigh and move to sit next to Cal, not touching, but close enough that I am aware of him. He seems to be in an almost religious rapture as the sunlight touches his skin. He closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, and I want to know what his thoughts are right now, right at this moment, this second.

  I shiver, because it’s still cold. He hears me and opens his eyes again before he takes off Big Eddie’s coat and drapes it over my shoulders even as I protest. The vest he wears still leaves part of his chest exposed and his right nipple pebbles against the cool air. The sun hits the deep red curls on his chest and looks like fire.

  I have to ask. I have to. “Cal?” I say quietly.

  He smiles. “Yes, Benji.”

  “Couldn’t you… could you not guard my dad?”

  He bows his head, the sun dancing off his hair. I feel him shudder
next to me, and when I look over, a single tear slides from his eye and catches the sunlight, refracting it until it’s almost too bright to look at. It takes forever to fall and there’s a sharp pain in my head like a cold explosion, but then, like all things, the moment passes. I want to take my words back but I don’t know how. No one has cared about my words in a long time. I’ve forgotten how to use them correctly.

  “Even I can’t stop death,” the angel Calliel says hoarsely. “No matter how much I wish it so.”

  The sun continues to rise on a new day so very different from the ones that have come before.

  part ii: black

  The man at the end of his life did not want to cross the river. Others had come to the shore and crossed with smiles on their faces. The River Crosser came back each time and held out his hand to the man, but the man always took a step back because the hand scared him. Once, while the River Crosser was on the opposite side of the river, the man at the end of his life went to the edge to look at his reflection in the water. He kneeled on the bank and leaned over as far as he dared, careful not to fall in. He saw that he did not have a reflection. Everything was black.

  the woven design

  By the time the sun is completely over the mountains, I can barely keep my

  eyes open. Cal has been quiet ever since I asked him about guarding my father, but the sunrise seems to soothe him, at least partially. He smiles at me as I yawn big, my jaw cracking. My eyes droop and my chin falls to my chest before I jerk awake.

  “I gotta get some sleep,” I mumble at him. He nods and pulls me up. He makes me wait while he goes down the ladder first and then holds it as I step down each rung, staring up at me intently. He’s guarding, I tell myself sleepily, ignoring that twinge in my chest. We are in the house and down the hall before a thought occurs to me. “Are you tired?” Do you even sleep?

  He shrugs. “I may need to rest my eyes,” he says.

  I resist the urge to have him explain further. I don’t think my brain can handle anything more than what I’ve already been told. Part of me is still convinced this is the world’s longest dream and that I’m going to wake up in my bed in an empty house, Cal already fading from my mind, forgotten in a week’s time. I show him the spare room across from mine, which has a large bed with clean sheets. I tell him to check the drawers because I’m pretty sure there are some of my dad’s old clothes in there. I tell him it’s probably a good idea for him to change out of his skirt/tunic thing until we can figure out something more appropriate. He nods, but doesn’t go into the room.