Right now, I’m there for her. To listen. To comfort. To make stupid jokes. To laugh. To watch movies. To bake cookies. To tell her it’s okay that her dad moved out, that dads move out all the time.
Things have changed at her house. I don’t press her for the gory details. I let her talk about what she wants to talk about, and she rarely mentions her family. I know her sister, Maria, moved back home and her mom has stopped drinking and is doing support groups and things like that. Life appears to be headed in the right direction, and while I realize things aren’t always what they appear, sometimes they are. Often they are.
There have been others like Fiona. Kids who were missing and came home with faulty memories. Sunita, of course. But more since her. In other countries mostly, so we don’t hear about them much, and I doubt anyone has connected the dots to what happened here in Thessaly.
Except for me. I spend a lot of time at the library now. Ms. Linqvist, the librarian, helps me do research. I tell her I’m going to write a book on missing children someday. She understands why the subject interests me and she queries other libraries, computer databases, and so on to find newspaper stories about disappearances. It helps that I have a few leads, names that Alistair once said.
Werner. Chua. Rodrigo. Boaz. Jenny Colvin.
According to the articles we’ve located, they’re all home again. Confused. Slightly broken. But home.
“I only hope that someday we’ll be reading a story about Charlie Dwyer,” Ms. Linqvist said to me last week.
“Me too,” I told her.
Still no Charlie. Kyle has done his time for illegal gun possession, returned home this June after a month in a minimum-security prison. I still see him and his parents going for walks. Well, they’re walking. He’s sitting, being pushed. I guess that’s how it’ll always be.
I could ask Alistair about Charlie, about what happened to him and if he’ll ever be back. But I’ve already done that. So many people have done that, far too many times. The answer is always the same: a stone-faced “I don’t know.”
I’m not entirely sure what happened out there by the river on New Year’s Day. That fishbowl floating away was the end of something. Or the start of something. Same thing, I guess.
Alistair doesn’t talk about Aquavania anymore. Not to me, anyhow. His silence could mean at least a couple of things.
Option One: He still visits Aquavania and goes about his work as the Riverman, silently, diligently putting back together the ones who were lost. Only he’s not telling me because he’s humble like that.
Option Two: He’s forgotten all about it. Maybe in that split second before I grabbed the fishbowl from him, he went to Aquavania and did exactly what I’d begged him not to do. Maybe he threw himself into that waterfall and risked everything. And maybe the risk was worth it. Maybe in the blink of an eye he was back and all those kids were on their way home. Maybe Charlie’s not far behind them.
Is there an Option Three? One where there is no Aquavania, where there never was an Aquavania? Anything is possible, I suppose, but it doesn’t seem likely, does it, Stella?
Stuff isn’t exactly back to how it used to be, of course. Alistair seems happier, calmer, more satisfied. He acts goofy and sweet like a kid is supposed to. But Mom and Dad aren’t about to forget that day along the side of the road and all the strangeness that led up to it. They refer to that time as Alistair’s breakdown, even though it appeared, at least to me, to be the opposite. To me it was the moment that Alistair built up all of his courage.
My opinion didn’t matter, though, because I didn’t have much of a say in things. Not surprisingly, Mom and Dad did the Mom and Dad thing and decided not to send Alistair back to school in the new year. Instead they hired a tutor to keep him on top of his studies. Dr. Hollister agreed it was a wise move, and Alistair didn’t object.
Recently, they took it a step further. Come fall, I’ll be starting high school. But last week, Alistair already started boarding school. It was another mutually agreed upon decision. While I get a continuation of my life in an old place, he gets a fresh start in a new place.
The school isn’t like most boarding schools. They have psychiatrists on staff. Group meetings to discuss emotions and so on. Apparently, my parents had proposed the option to Alistair as far back as December, and eventually he warmed to the idea. I guess Thessaly was getting to him, as it seems to get to a lot of people. So they waited until the time seemed right—or the financials went through, I don’t know for sure. All I know is that we drove out to Vermont eight days ago and dropped Alistair off at a place that looked like a college, all brick, stone, and ivy.
I hugged my brother next to a willow tree and I told him, “I will always love you.”
He said, “I will always love you too.”
I think it’s the first time he’s ever said that. Actually, I’m sure of it.
My memory is good; stellar, in fact. Still, I like to write things down. I sometimes wonder if maybe that’s all Princess Sigrid needed to do in the first place. To write things down. To have a look at her ideas and feelings. To experiment with characters and other worlds. To create. Maybe it would’ve helped her empathize with other people without actually having to live their lives. Maybe she never needed to sell her soul in the first place. At the very least, by writing things down, she would’ve always had a tool to remember.
As for me, stories help me feel complete. Even though I haven’t written in you in months, Stella, I’ve never stopped writing stories. My latest story is longer, however. It’s called The Whisper. It’s basically a sketch right now, jotted into the diary my parents got me for Christmas. I’m not sure I have it in me to write an entire novel yet, but that’s what it will become someday. Because it’s epic.
It’s the tale of Alistair’s adventures in Aquavania, of Una and Banar, of the Riverman in his—or her!—various forms. Even if I finish it, I don’t know if I’ll ever let anyone read it. Maybe it will be something exclusively for me, to remind myself that believing in ridiculous things isn’t always so bad.
Why isn’t it so bad? Because my brother is getting better. Because we have Fiona back. Because some of those lost children are home.
I don’t know how they are home. I honestly don’t care.
I went over to Fiona’s house for lunch today. Her mom made a cake, and Maria and I sang at the tops of our lungs, which made Fiona plug her ears, but also smile. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, and she said something a little strange.
“Meet me out by Frog Rock, tonight after sunset,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Years ago, your brother and I made promises to each other,” she said, “that if one of us ever left Thessaly, then we’d bury something out by Frog Rock. I have to see if Alistair kept his promise.”
So that’s what we did. We dug a hole beneath the stars together, me and my best friend. Did we find anything? Does my brother keep promises?
Well, he kept this one. Because buried next to Frog Rock was an old ammo can—Dorian Loomis’s ammo can, of all things. In that ammo can, there were cassette tapes. PLAY ME was written on them in Alistair’s distinctive scrawl. I mean, come on, little brother, like someone needs to be told what to do with a mysterious cassette tape!
It was getting late and Fiona couldn’t spend the night, so she took the tapes home with her. She’s playing them now, I suppose, though I can’t presume to know what’s on them other than a message meant for her. If she wants to tell me what that message is, I’m here to listen.
I will speculate, obviously. And I will write more of my stories. Maybe not ones with happy endings, maybe not ones with endings at all. I’m simply going to see where inspiration takes me. Because inspiration is still out there somewhere, and it’s assuring me that it’s okay if everything doesn’t work out perfectly and every question isn’t answered. It’s okay if the oceans are deeper than we suspect and the stars go farther than we could ever imagine. Because there’s some
thing absurdly comforting about the notion that we live in a universe of infinite possibilities.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This novel is dedicated to Michael Bourret and Joy Peskin for obvious reasons. At least the reasons are obvious to me. They have supported the story—the trilogy!—from the very beginning. Back in 2012, when I approached Michael with fifty strange pages, he believed that I could deliver another thousand or so even stranger ones. Or at least he pretended to believe. That’s all I needed to keep writing. And I will always thank him for that.
Joy edited those thousand or so pages, helping me ditch a few hundred along the way. Good riddance to those ditched pages. The story didn’t need them, but the story definitely needed Joy’s guidance, her wisdom, and her encouragement. She was tireless in finding holes in the plot, in the characters, in the world. Then she patched those holes up and made it look like they were never even there.
There were others who have been with this trilogy since the beginning. Beth Clark designed the books and they are lovely things indeed. Yelena Bryksenkova illustrated the covers and I couldn’t have asked for more beautiful representations of Alistair, Fiona, Charlie, Keri, and their furry friends. Angie Chen saved the day many times throughout the process, keeping the books on schedule and looking their best. Kate Hurley and Karla Reganold copyedited and proofread all three volumes and humored my grammatical eccentricities. Mary Van Akin sang the trilogy’s praises and people listened because she can really sing. The rest of the gang at Macmillan and the folks at Recorded Books, including Claudia Howard and Graham Halstead, have helped share my tales far and wide. Lauren Abramo and the other agents at Dystel & Goderich have been kind and supportive since the day I decided to join Michael’s roster of authors.
My family has been there all along too, of course. Mom, Dad, Tim, Toril, Dave, Jake, Will, Jim, Gwenn, Pete, and all the other members of the Starmer, Van Scotter, Amundsen, Finney, Glitman, Evans, and Wells clans (as well as their respective dogs): I love you. Cate and Hannah: I love you the most (sorry, everyone else) and, really, all my books are basically dedicated to you, because you dedicate so much to me.
Finally, a storyteller doesn’t exist without someone who’s willing to listen. You, the reader, have been willing to listen and have stuck around to the end. That’s quite incredible of you, and I am forever in your debt. Thank you, thank you, thank you …
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aaron Starmer was born in northern California, raised in the suburbs of Syracuse, New York, and educated at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. His novels for young readers include The Riverman, The Whisper, Dweeb, and The Only Ones, and his travel writing has appeared in numerous guidebooks. He lives with his family in Hoboken, New Jersey. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
THE CHRONICLES OF KERRIGAN CLEARY
THE ENDING
Wednesday, 11/22/1989
Thursday, 11/23/1989 (Thanksgiving)
THE FINE ART OF FORGETTING
Friday, 11/24/1989
Saturday, 11/25/1989
THE CANDY CANE GIRL
Saturday, 11/25/1989 … Continued
Sunday, 11/26/1989
Monday, 11/27/1989
TONY THE GUN
Tuesday, 11/28/1989
Wednesday, 11/29/1989
THE PHOSPHORESCENT WOMBAT
Thursday, 11/30/1989
THE STATEMENT OF KYLE DWYER
Friday, 12/8/1989
Saturday, 12/9/1989
THE KNOCK-KNOCK JOKE
Sunday 12/10/1989
Monday, 12/11/1989
THE TUBES
Tuesday, 12/12/1989
Wednesday, 12/13/1989
THE PHOSPHORESCENT WOMBAT, PART II
Wednesday, 12/13/1989 … Continued
Thursday, 12/14/1989
THE McCLOUDS
Friday, 12/15/1989
Saturday, 12/16/1989
Sunday, 12/17/1989
OPPOSITE DAY
Monday12/18/1989
Tuesday, 12/19/1989
THE PHOSPHORESCENT WOMBAT, PART III
Wednesday, 12/20/1989
THE RECOLLECTIONS OF DORIAN LOOMIS
Sunday, 12/24/1989
THE KID WHO BELIEVED
Monday, 12/25/1989 (Christmas)
Tuesday, 12/26/1989
WORLDS COLLIDE
Wednesday, 12/27/1989
Thursday, 12/28/1989
THE PHOSPHORESCENT WOMBAT, PART IV
Friday, 12/29/1989
THE MEMORY OF FIONA LOOMIS
Saturday, 12/30/1989
THE BEGINNING
Sunday, 12/31/1989
THE PHOSPHORESCENT WOMBAT, PART V
Monday, 1/1/1990
THE CHRONICLES OF KERRIGAN CLEARY
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers
175 Fifth Avenue, New York 10010
Text copyright © 2016 Aaron Starmer
All rights reserved
First hardcover edition, 2016
eBook edition, March 2016
mackids.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Starmer, Aaron, 1976–
The storyteller / Aaron Starmer. — First edition.
pages cm. — (The Riverman trilogy; 3)
Summary: Along with stories, Keri Cleary records in her diary the strange and terrifying events surrounding the disappearance of Fiona Loomis and Alistair Cleary’s efforts to find her in Aquavania, a world where wishes can nearly come true, as well as the repercussions of the shooting of Kyle Dwyer.
ISBN 978-0-374-36313-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-374-36314-7 (e-book)
[1. Missing children—Fiction. 2. Storytelling—Fiction. 3. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 4. Family life—Fiction. 5. Diaries—Fiction. 6. Friendship—Fiction. 7. Fantasy.] I. Title.
PZ7.S7972Sto 2016
[Fic]—dc23
2015004696
eISBN 9780374363147
Our eBooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945 ext. 5442 or by e-mail at [email protected].
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