The River and the Roses (Veronica Barry Book 1)

by Sophia Martin

  As she scanned for a place to sit, she noticed a tall boy with dark hair making his way along a far wall, and her heart fluttered in her chest. Veronica didn’t know this boy, and she certainly wasn’t attracted to teenagers—what in the world? But without her consent her feet led her toward him, cutting through some tables full of teenagers, until she came up beside him.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m Angie. You must be Grant, right? You’re new.”

  As a slow grin spread across his face, she looked into his eyes—so blue! What could she compare to such blue? They were darker than the aquamarine earrings her dad had sent her for Christmas. They were turquoise—but translucent, not like turquoise rocks. So liquid—so blue!

  “Grant! Grant! Over here!” came the voices of some girls. Angie looked around and spotted them. Two girls waved at Grant. They wore the same uniform as she did—green cardigans, white blouses, green and blue plaid skirts—but one had her dark brown hair up in a cascade of curls that framed her face, and the other’s blonde hair hung perfectly straight. Both wore enough make-up to get them an interview with the principal, but Angie knew they would somehow skate by unnoticed. She’d seen those girls before—she had a class with them. They always sat close together and giggled, looking at some unfortunate and making little secret jokes. They were “cool”—the kind of girls that made the masses part for them in the hallway. And now they sat there waving at Grant.

  Angie turned back to him. He looked over at them, then back at her.

  “See you,” he said with a shrug, and left her behind.

  ~~~

  Veronica’s neck let out a series of pops as she woke up in one of the armchairs out in the fourth floor waiting room. For a moment she couldn’t figure out where she was—even who she was. And the relief of knowing she was herself, Veronica, hit in a wave.

  That dream… best to just forget it. Just a silly dream. Easy enough to understand why she’d had it—finding Angie, hearing Melanie talk about this boy, Grant. It would have been strange to dream of anything else.

  But…

  Veronica sighed.

  She’d never seen Saint Patrick’s cafeteria.

  So what? Couldn’t her subconscious create something as simple as a cafeteria for her to dream about?

  Melanie’s voice came back to her. “You found my daughter, Veronica. You. By yourself. We had nothing.”

  Okay, okay, she found Angie at the river. She heard the river somehow—she’d followed it. Because she had—had some sort of talent… some sort of insight.

  Maybe she’d somehow picked something up before. Angie might have told her Grant was from Placerville. They had talked about him once or twice, although Veronica wasn’t sure Angie had used Grant’s name. But she might have said that the boy she liked was from Placerville. So maybe, when Melanie told Veronica that Angie snuck out—well, it was only logical that she must be with Grant. And if Angie had said that he was from Placerville…

  What, Veronica? she asked herself. Rather than remember that conversation and use the information like a rational person, your mind turned it into the sound of a river?

  Veronica whimpered and covered her face with her hands.

  Face it, for pity’s sake. How long has this thing been here, and you never face it?

  And now this dream… was it a memory of Angie’s?

  Veronica wanted to go home. She wanted to curl up in bed and go to sleep without dreams and forget any of this ever happened.

  But you can’t, her mind argued with her. You can’t keep avoiding this—not now. Not when you know they’ve arrested the wrong guy for what happened in the park.

  Veronica shook her head, careless of who might notice. “I can’t think about that,” she whispered. “I can’t. I already tried to talk to that cop. I did all I could.”

  No more worrying about it, she decided. After the night she’d had, she was in no shape to try to figure anything out, anyway.

  The nurses had found a cot for Melanie, so she had probably slept a bit better, and Veronica didn’t begrudge her that. The last she’d heard, the doctors planned to release Angie later that day. Veronica would just have to take a nap at home that afternoon.

  For now, she’d go and let Harry out of the car for a few minutes, then check on Melanie and Angie. Maybe if they still both slept, she could ask a nurse about how long it would take to release Angie. As far as she knew, the doctors didn’t think anything was seriously wrong with her. After they’d hooked her up to rewarming fluids, one told her and Melanie that they had done it largely to address any dehydration as well as to treat the hypothermia, and that in a few hours they would stop the treatment. Veronica wondered if they had done so by now.

  Taking a moment to stretch first, Veronica headed down the hall to the elevators. When she passed a cart with trays of food, she asked the orderly if she could take a small plastic cup. The orderly agreed. On her way out of the front doors, she filled the cup with water at a drinking fountain. Harry slept in the back seat of Melanie’s tan Outback, but he woke up when Veronica hit the unlock button on the key ring and the car beeped. As she let him jump out, he shook himself and panted up at her. She gave his head a stroke and held the cup for him as he lapped the water, spilling more than half of it. Afterwards, she walked him around the small parking lot.

  “Poor Harry,” she said, “stuck in a car for hours. But we were so glad to have you with us last night, buddy.”

  It didn’t take too much coaxing to get him back in the Outback, but only because he was such a good dog. Veronica could see the desire to leave in his eyes. She hoped it wouldn’t be too much longer.

  Striding back into the hospital, she took the elevator to the fourth floor, going to room 418. She let herself in, easing the door closed behind her. She heard a shuffle and as she turned around, she saw Melanie sit up in her cot, which protested with a grinding squeak. Melanie’s eyes darted to Angie, but the girl lay motionless on the hospital bed, curled on her side. Veronica gave Melanie a hand rising from the cot, and it only made two additional softer squeaks, neither of which disturbed Angie.

  “Hey,” Melanie breathed. She rubbed her eyes with one hand.

  “Hey,” Veronica said.

  “Coffee?”

  “I think there’s a machine.”

  Veronica led the way back out of the room with Melanie in tow. As they entered the hall, Veronica watched Melanie’s shoulders relax.

  “Did you sleep at all?” Melanie asked, almost at normal volume.

  “Some,” Veronica said. She considered the dream, but dismissed any thought of mentioning it.

  “Yeah. I’ll be glad to get home. That cot had way more springs than it needed.”

  “Sure sounded like it,” Veronica agreed. “Did Angie wake up at all?”

  “A couple of times. You know, she thinks that those little bastards called us for help. I mean, I guess it’s the most logical thing. I tried to tell her they didn’t, but I couldn’t get it out. And then I realized something.” She gave Veronica a nod and raised her eyebrows. They came to a stop in front of the instant latte and cappuccino machine.

  “What?”

  “Maybe if I play along, she’ll give me their names.”

  “Play along?”

  “You know what I mean,” Melanie said, digging in her purse. “If I pretend one of them called me, I can be all, ‘Ange, I didn’t catch her name—I was so crazy worried,’ right? And then I’ll say something like, ‘I just want to know which of your friends to thank.’ And then she’ll list all their names for me!” Melanie found her coin purse and unzipped it, counting out quarters.

  “Mel, I think it’s maybe more important for Angie to understand that these kids really ditched her. Don’t you think?”

  Melanie frowned. “I don’t know, V. It’s so awful. Isn’t it enough that they pulled this prank on her in the first place?” She plugged quarters into the machine. “I mean, when she’s not sleeping, she’s crying, poor baby. I don’t think I c
an tell her that they just left her there like that.”

  Veronica chewed on her bottom lip.

  “Besides,” Melanie continued with a quick glance at Veronica. “I don’t really know what else to tell her. If I say you heard the river—I mean, it’s kind of hard to explain.”

  Veronica’s stomach flipped and she wrapped her arms around herself. Maybe Melanie was right. Angie didn’t need to know that her friends abandoned her. She was already distraught enough—she’d never trust them again. Maybe it was better to just spare her the rest of it.

  ~~~

  When they finally got through the paperwork and Angie’s last examination and started for home, no one spoke much in the car. Angie, wrapped in a hospital blanket, slept most of the way anyway, lying on the back seat and using Harry as a pillow. Melanie drove.

  The trouble with that was it left Veronica with plenty of time to think. And what she kept coming back to was the nightmare and the things she saw when she held that poor woman’s body. Let’s face it, Veronica, she told herself. You were asleep, and you had this dream, and what you dreamt really happened. And chances are, the dream you had of Angie in the cafeteria really happened, too.

  But it made no sense. The first dream happened in real time—she saw violence in the roses and then when she ran there, she found the body. Sylvia Gomez, she reminded herself. The woman had a name.

  But then the dream of Angie must have taken place weeks before.

  Does it work like that too? she wondered. I see the present, and sometimes the past? And what about the future?

  Well, there was that time in college. Veronica suppressed a moan and turned her face to the passenger window. Yes, there was that time in college.

  Chapter 7

  Veronica remembered that night—the second night of Rush Week. She thought the excitement of knowing she would probably be awakened—and the anxiety of fearing she might not— would prevent her from going to sleep when she finally returned to her dorm room a little after midnight. Instead she dropped right off and had a dream.

  She stood on top of a roof. The night was very dark, but still warm. A little backpack pressed against her back, its straps digging into her bare shoulders. As the beam of a flashlight traveled over her, she glanced down at herself and saw that she wore brown silk shorts and a matching silk camisole. She frowned at her arms and down at her legs—they seemed too long, and too slim, and her skin looked far too dark, even for nighttime. The light moved across the roof ahead of her—someone illuminated it for her.

  She crouched down and placed her legs under her so she straddled the roof and rested on her shins. She felt steady. Leaning forward, she looked down at the front of the house.

  Upside down she could read the Greek letters of Delta Phi Epsilon on the banner they had hung from large nails hammered into the outer wall under the eaves. Her job was to unhook the banner and hang the joke one she had in the backpack.

  When she leaned forward the backpack shifted, throwing off her balance. Pressing her legs into the shingles, ignoring their scratchiness, she reached down, the backpack hanging in front of her. Still too far to reach the nail. She sucked in her breath and inched closer to the edge. Her belly cleared it completely. Resting on her pelvis, she tried to dig her knees into the roof. She reached, and caught the rope that tied the banner to the nail. With a yank, it came free. Her body teetered. She released the rope, her hand slamming against the wall. It sounded like thunder. She pushed herself back up and onto the roof. Her hand stung. Her heart pounded and her breath came in shudders. That was close. Not too close, she told herself. Not so bad. She was okay.

  A peek back over the edge revealed that the old banner now hung from the only remaining nail. The house was still totally quiet. She sucked in some air and started inching over toward the second nail. She could hear people rustling in the grass below her. She pushed herself out and reached down, fingers straining. Too far. She inched a little farther forward, her belly clearing the edge again. The backpack rocked and one strap slid down her arm. She grunted as she reached for the nail. Then a light came on in a window under her and the front door swung open, slamming against the wall of the house. She gasped and jerked, and her body slipped. A cry escaped her and she heard the others calling her name. She tried to dig her feet into the roof to stop her fall, but then she was in the air, flipping, everything spinning around her, and then it felt like something crashed into her.

  ~~~

  Veronica jerked awake just as the door to her dorm room opened. She blinked as the light came on. Women wearing yellow and black bandanas over their faces like cowboy outlaws dragged her from her bed. She had time to glance in the full-length mirror on her door before they put a bandana over her eyes. She was not wearing silk pjs. She wore her usual tank and boxer combo. She’s chosen a newer set for the occasion, but they certainly weren’t somehow magically transformed into silk. But it had felt so real. The warmth of the night air—just like the warmth she felt as they exited the building.

  Just a dream. Just a really stressful dream.

  When they removed the bandana she stood in a group with many familiar faces from the party earlier that night—and wearing brown silk shorts with a matching camisole was dark-skinned, athletic DeeAnn, another potential pledge she’d befriended. Veronica’s throat tightened. It couldn’t mean anything. It was just a dream. DeeAnn was fine. She was going to be fine. Whatever the KATs had planned probably had nothing to do with climbing roofs and switching banners.

  Not until she watched the second KAT hopeful step like a cat along the roof of a house did Veronica admit to herself that the dream had been real. Above her the lithe young woman squatted and then sat on the edge, her legs both on one side of the slope. When her hands flailed as she lost her balance, Veronica thought she would fall, and the dream had been about her, even though her pajamas were blue. But no, she completed the task, moving much more carefully after that. Veronica didn’t stop sweating for her until both her feet touched the ground, and as everyone started to move off to the next house, she grabbed DeeAnn by the forearm to stop her from following.

  “DeeAnn,” she said. DeeAnn stopped and looked first at her, then at the hand on her arm.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You can’t do this,” Veronica said.

  “Oh, I can, don’t worry,” DeeAnn said. “I’m in good shape.”

  “I know,” Veronica said, feeling miserable and ashamed. She could feel her dream of becoming sisters with DeeAnn cracking under the strain of her bizarre behavior. “You’re on a sports scholarship, right?”

  “Basketball,” DeeAnn nodded. She started to head after the other girls, and Veronica tightened her grip on her arm, stopping her short. DeeAnn gave Veronica’s hand a pointed look. “We have to go,” she said.

  “DeeAnn,” Veronica said again. “I have this really bad feeling about it. I’m afraid you’ll fall. If you get hurt you might lose your scholarship.”

  DeeAnn frowned. “I’ll be fine,” she said. She tried to pull Veronica’s hand off her arm. Veronica thought, for just a second, about letting go. In just that short moment, she wondered if she could stand under the edge of the roof and catch DeeAnn as she fell. Maybe she could do something to wake the house before DeeAnn got to the edge. Maybe she could lean against the door and keep it from slamming open. But it all seemed hopeless, and so she clung tighter to DeeAnn’s arm.

  “You’re hurting me!” DeeAnn exclaimed. Her voice cut through the night air, clear and sharp as breaking glass.

  “I’m sorry,” Veronica said, her voice pleading. “Please don’t climb up that roof. You’ll fall!”

  “Veronica!”

  “Tell me you won’t do it!” she cried, grabbing at DeeAnn with her free hand.

  “Let me go!”

  Lights came on in the Kappa Kappa Gamma house, and the door swung open as DeeAnn struggled to rid herself of Veronica’s grip.

  “Hey!” someone shouted, and DeeAnn pushed Veronica,
who finally let go. DeeAnn started to run, and then people appeared everywhere, all shouting.

  Because the prank got interrupted, DeeAnn didn’t fall and wasn’t hurt. But for the next four years she ignored Veronica with an icy hostility that made Veronica feel sick to her stomach. There was no way to confirm that Veronica’s dream would have come true, and she put the whole nasty affair out of her mind.

  ~~~

  Veronica considered the ramifications of the memory of DeeAnn and Rush Week as they neared Melanie’s neighborhood. If she gave in to the idea that the dream she’d had of someone falling off of the roof had been real, then she had to conclude that she could dream the future. And apparently, she could prevent the future she saw from happening. But if so, why hadn’t she dreamt of Sylvia Gomez’s attack the day before it happened? Hell, why not the week before?

  Melanie parked the car in her driveway. Veronica took Harry out on his leash and Melanie offered Angie a hand as she got out of the car. Veronica noticed with concern that rather than wave her mother away, Angie took it. She must be feeling very shaken.

  Melanie took Angie up stairs to her room. In the kitchen, Veronica found a can of tuna and opened it, scooping it into a bowl, which she set on the floor. Harry gobbled it up. He wasn’t due for dinner but he’d had an exhausting night—certainly enough to work up an appetite. She filled another bowl with water and watched him slake his thirst.

  Her mind wandered back to the dreams. She’d never had a nightmare like the one that led her to Sylvia Gomez’s body before. And the instances of her “insight” had been spread out—not all the time, like lately. She wondered if in fact the murder had triggered something for her—pushed her mind past its usual defenses, so she was experiencing the second sight to a much more extreme degree. But there had been other incidences. Now that she was facing it, she had to acknowledge them.

  If she was going to be honest with herself, she’d have to admit she knew all along that she was different. In fact, if she thought about it, many times stood out. How had she managed to ignore the pattern they formed before? She had denied what she knew and suffered for ignoring the warnings.