by Gaby Triana
“That’s my favorite ride,” I laugh-cry at the same time.
“Is it?” he says, half like he’s asking and half like he already knew.
“What else can you tell me?”
He sighs and leans back against a counter. “I knew you were going to fall out of the darkness, like you appeared out of nowhere thirty-some years ago. The first week of July. So I’ve been out here this whole week, waiting for you.”
“Are you the one who was following me when I broke into River Country?”
“Yep.”
Suddenly I remember the other kids. God, what were their names? “These kids . . . that I was with before I slipped in time . . . they said there’s a troll in River Country. Was that you?”
He laughs, his shoulders shuddering when he does. “Yeah, that’s what I tell my daughter and the kids here when they stay for the summer. To keep them out of the back. It’s illegal, you know. Troll,” he says again and chuckles. “Wait, you met my daughter?”
“Um, I think. What’s your daughter’s name again?”
“Dina. You remember Marsha, right?” His face lights up and he checks back at the door, I guess to make sure my dad can’t hear our conversation. How could I forget? I just saw her yesterday, Jake. “Well, that’s us. Dina’s our daughter.”
“I am just . . . oh, God. This is all just amazing. It’s distressing but amazing. But what about Jason? Why isn’t he here? If he knew when I was coming back, why didn’t he come?”
At this, he presses his lips together and just blinks a couple of times. “It’s better this way, Haley. Don’t you think so? I mean, he’s an old guy now. You wouldn’t want to see him that way.” He’s not asking how I’d feel about it. He’s telling me, reminding, warning . . . that this is the way to go.
I guess he’s right. Maybe. I mean, just a few minutes ago I was with him. A fog is clearing away now, and the memory of his arms, his kiss, slowly creeps back into my mind. I don’t answer, just look down at my hands.
Now is when I notice that I’m on a couch in an office. Outside the window, I see the boats that take passengers to the Magic Kingdom. “What day is it?”
“July fourth, 2014.”
“So it’s the day after I seized?” I ask. It was July 4 when I left 1982. I guess I lose days when I travel backward but stay on the same day when I move forward. I wonder if this will ever happen again. If it does, I’ll figure the logistics out.
Jake nods. “Yup. It’s been a little less than twenty-four hours. I found you, looked up the only Petersen staying here, and found it was your dad. We’ve been waiting for you to wake up all day. Just in time for fireworks.” He crosses his arms and leans back against the table. “Life is weird, Haley. Really weird.”
“You’re not kidding.” I rub my forehead.
“Hey. I want to tell you something.” He takes a deep breath, clasps his hands between his knees. “You told me I didn’t have to be a jerk once. I’ll never forget that. I don’t know why, but that really stung me. Because of you, I didn’t lose Marsha. She should have left me.” He laughs, shaking his shoulders again. He looks back up at me. “But she didn’t.”
“I thought she liked Jason better.”
“She did, but I fought for her.”
“Wow.” I smile. “Then I’m glad for you.”
“Me too. So listen, two things . . . I’m going to go out there now and tell your dad that he needs to go to the main registration building and sign some papers while you rest here for a bit.”
“Okay.” This sounds like a plan in action—a secret plan. I like it.
“And after he leaves, I’m going to take you somewhere for a minute. You have to promise . . . swear, Haley . . . that you won’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“Good, ’cause I could get into serious trouble for it.” The Boy Scout is back. Same Jake as always. Way older, a little thicker, still handsome, and still afraid of getting in trouble. Some things never change.
“I said I promise.”
“All right then, let’s go.” He gets up and stretches, talking over his shoulder. His hand pauses on the doorknob. “Lie down, like you were before.”
“Right, okay.” I lie down.
He opens the door and goes outside, leaving the door ajar, and I can hear him telling my dad and Erica everything he said he would. My dad sounds a bit hesitant and peers into the room to look at me, but I wave at him, and he seems relieved.
Willy pokes his head into the room. “Hi, Tataaaa!”
“Hi!” I wave at him and fight back tears of gratitude that I did not change the course of his existence. He’s my brother, and he’s too cute not to live, so I’m okay—so okay—with the way things turned out. I’m fine with it, really.
“Thanks, man. Okay. Be back in a bit,” my dad says outside the door. “Sorry for all the trouble.”
“No trouble at all, not at all!” Jake smiles. Once my dad takes off in the golf cart, the one I drove on the night I fell into River Country, which technically was last night, but to me was eons ago, Jake calls me over to the door. I stand and wait a moment to make sure I can walk. “You feel okay?”
“Yeah, I’m better.”
“Good.” Jake opens a cabinet and pulls out a pair of lost-and-found flip-flops, tossing them on the floor under my feet. I guess I left mine in 1982. He clasps me on the shoulder and leads me onto the side porch of Pioneer Hall, where his office is. I remember now Dina telling me her dad was the manager here. Four kids are sitting outside, and they all stand up when they see us emerge.
One of them is Dina. She’s wearing exactly what she was wearing when I last saw her, whereas I’m in my shorts and one of Jason’s mom’s shirts. She looks relieved and, wow, just like her mom! I want to tell her that her mother is beautiful and so very sweet.
“Hey, you. I was really worried,” she says smiling a big, bright smile.
“Thanks. Sorry I scared you. I should’ve told you that these things sometimes happen to me.” I smile, reaching out and touching her on the shoulder. I must’ve really freaked her out when I left her alone and swam into River Country like a Navy SEAL.
“It’s okay. I’m sorry you’re in trouble. Dad, this is totally my fault. We were playing scavenger hunt, and I told her to go in there and take photos of River Country. It was stupid of me. Please don’t report her.”
Jake takes on a new-to-me fatherly and managerial tone. “I’ll see, Dina. But this is a serious offense.”
“Dad, please.”
“So you already met my intrepid daughter.” Jake sighs at his daughter, ignoring her, like he’ll think about it. It’s nice to be on the inside of a joke for once. “And these guys are Rudy and Marcus, who stay here every summer—”
“Whom I also met,” I interrupt. “Hey, guys.” It feels like forever, forever, since I saw all them. But there’s one more, and I don’t know who it is.
Until he steps in closer, and my heart stops beating. Like literally stops, and I think I’m going to either have a heart attack or a seizure one more time. Jason? But that’s impossible. How can it be? Jason is like fifty years old right now and in California.
“And, Haley . . .” Jake gets behind the Jason look-alike, who has to be my same age, around seventeen, eighteen, and holds him by the shoulders. He gives me a special look in the dimness of the porch, almost like he’s given this premeditated thought and understands how seeing this guy might affect me. “This is my son, Ethan.”
twenty-three
Not Jason.
But Jason’s nephew.
I don’t know why, but I’m so disheartened, I want to cry again. I know he couldn’t have followed me into the future, but still—I wish I could see him again. I also wonder if Jason has any kids of his own. I guess it would a
ll hurt less if I just don’t ask.
Ethan smiles at me, and my heart splinters into a million pieces inside my chest. His smile is crooked, his eyebrows drawn together, his eyes—sparkling deep blue, just like his uncle’s. “Hey,” he says with a wave.
“Hey.” Breathe, Haley, breeeeathe. Do not cry.
Jake knows how much his son looks like his brother. He knows what it’s doing to me. I see it in his sympathetic look. Luckily, he cuts the awkward moment short. “Guys, we’ll see you all later. I have to take Haley to the main gate.”
“Does she have to leave?” Dina asks, keeping up the pace with her father. I finally tear my gaze away from the Jason look-alike. It hurts me that I will never get to see Jason that young ever again. And here’s what I think—no, know—maybe meeting Ethan was the universe’s way of giving me one last look at him.
“I won’t report it. If she leaves, that’s up to her father.” Jake turns to me. “Let’s go, young lady.”
“Bye, guys. Maybe I’ll see you later,” I tell them, because I’ll probably get my original wish now and go home to Jupiter, even though I don’t want to leave anymore. I love this place. I want to come every year, maybe even stay the whole summer.
As Dina, Rudy, and Marcus walk away, I can hear the boys talking. “So who won the scavenger hunt?”
“I guess it was us,” Marcus says. “Ha-ha, suckers.”
“Shut up,” Dina blurts, and I could kill myself. Kill myself! I have—had—the River Country photos on my phone, but I lost them. That was item number two! Well, I should consider myself lucky that I even landed back in the same time and place in one piece. Forget the phone.
Jake and I climb into his mac-daddy golf cart, an official Disney one with nice leather seats and room for like eight people. He pulls out his phone and fires off random texts. “I’m waiting for them to leave.”
“Ah. Got it.”
“By the way, thanks for the tip. We all bought stock in these babies.” He lifts his iPhone slightly and smiles a slick smile without looking up.
“Oh, wow,” I say. “That is just . . . awesome. I lost mine, you know.” I stare down the driveway. The driveway facing River Country. The same place I stopped and stared into the darkness and that great iron wall blocking it from view.
“I know,” Jake mumbles.
It’s there. River Country is there. I see it clearly in my mind, both as a shining, active hubbub under the blazing Florida sun and as an overgrown, reclaimed patch of swamp. It was a great water park. I’ll give my dad that. And I saw it with my own eyes.
Suddenly we’re zooming past Pioneer Hall, but our drive is short. He parks in a small lot right next to the marina. I hung out here with Jason just a couple of days ago and talked about Christopher Atkins, when he brought me food. “This is where we had what I guess you could call our first date. Right here,” I tell Jake, and he smiles quietly and watches my face.
Then he sighs heavily, like it was so long ago. But for me, it’s fresh. Too fresh. He leads me down the marina, talks to a cast member in the rental office, and takes a key from him. “Thanks, Quin. Come on, Haley.”
“Where are we going?” I ask, but right away I think I know. The only other time Jake took me on a small boat ride from the Fort Wilderness Marina, it was to that little island out in the darkness, the one that’s going to hold a lot of bittersweet memories for me from now until the day I die.
“You know where.”
I do. And I let him take me. Only this time the island is shrouded in darkness. I’m not sure I want to go there and stir anything up. What lives there now is beyond me. We get into a small boat, bigger than a speedboat, and I sit and watch Jake expertly engage the engine and maneuver his way out of the marina.
There’s a good-size crowd on the beach, but there’re no bonfires. Everyone is waiting for the fireworks to begin. I know the beauty of the night over Bay Lake. I lived it firsthand. And it saddens me that these people are not seeing it with a water parade after the Marshmallow Marsh canoe ride like I did.
Jake and I are silent. We reach Discovery Island, and for a minute we sit there in the pure darkness of the lake, staring at it. It’s black in there and awfully quiet. There’s no dock anymore. The waves around us lap quietly against the side of the boat. He urges the boat on suddenly so that it circles the island from the north over to the west side, and there he runs it aground on the shore.
Jake gets out of the craft, pulls it forward as much as he can using the rope tied to the front, reaches into the boat, and pulls out a strong Maglite. He holds out his hand for me. I take it and carefully step out onto the sand. “Why are we here?”
I follow him down the beach. This is it. This is the same place I was earlier today. It is the weirdest feeling to see a huge passage of time on a beautiful place, to see it deteriorating out in the middle of the lake, abandoned and forlorn, when it was magical only hours before. “He told me to bring you here.”
Jason.
Jason told his brother to bring me here if he ever found me. “Why?” In the beam of his flashlight, I see there’s no Walrus anymore, no shed. From here I can still see the concrete structures, the cages and pens that held the animals of this reserve thirty-two years ago when I was there today, but nothing now. Oddly enough, I now see one lamp light on in the middle of the island.
“How come that light still works?”
“Oh, this whole place still has full electricity. So does River Country. It’s all networked with Pioneer Hall. When they built this whole part of the campground, they never imagined some sections of it would close in the future.” So even abandoned River Country still has power? No wonder I heard creepy music when I wandered in there.
“Why did River Country close?” I ask.
“Don’t know for sure.” He stops in the sand, one hand on his hip, the other lighting up the ground around us. “River Country used the natural lake. They always used bromine to keep it clean. But I think there was a movement to only have municipal water at water parks,” he says. “Or maybe it’s just that they couldn’t compete with all the newer water parks.”
And suddenly I know where we are going.
We trudge through the sand that is dirty and overgrown with tall grasses to a spot, and I almost don’t want to go inside, but he points his flashlight into a break in the rocks, and even from here I can hear the water running.
I cover my face with my hands and shake my head. “I can’t.”
“Haley.” He pulls my hand away and makes me look at him. “I’ve waited thirty-two years to bring you here, so you are most definitely going in there.” He smiles. “Come on, I’ll go with you.”
He goes in first, then reaches back to take me by the hand. This is where we hid away from the world, where we could forget that anyone was chasing us and just be ourselves. I wonder if Jason thinks about that day (today!) like I always will. I would imagine that for him it’s faded by now. Lucky him. I have to live with the memory brand-spanking-new on my mind until it leaves me, too.
If it ever does.
Haley Falls is still beautiful. Hidden and beautiful, and I wonder if anyone ever spent time in here after we did. Jake comes over to a rock and kicks it with the side of his shoe. “See this?”
“It’s a rock.”
“It’s a fake rock, taken from River Country. Lift it.”
“Okay.” For real? His flashlight shines on it, and I bend down to move it. It’s a little heavy, but not as heavy as a real rock that size would be. It feels stuck at first, but then it pulls away from the ground when I lift it, leaving its oblong imprint on the sand. It’s hollow. Completely hollow. The perfect place to hide something, like those fake garden rocks for hiding your front door keys.
Inside, there’s a bag.
A big plastic bag with a piece of yellowish paper inside and HALEY-HALEY written on it. A small muffled noise
comes out of me. My head drops into my hands. I can’t. I can’t do this.
I feel Jake’s hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay.”
“How long has this been here?” I whisper.
“A long time. But I come out here every so often, just to make sure it’s still here. I also added something you’re gonna need.”
“What do you mean?” I pinch my nose and sniffle.
“Just open it. Here, take the flashlight. I’ll wait outside.” He hands me the Maglite, and it feels so heavy, or maybe I’m so weak. I take it and let its weight pull me down to the ground. I sit there for a minute, taking it all in.
Where I am.
What I’m doing.
How much everything has changed in such a short time.
I’ll always be grateful for this hideaway. But I don’t think I could ever come here again after this. Haley Falls will live on only in my memory. So I close my eyes and try to enjoy it one last time. I take a deep breath and take the bag from inside the rock.
Here goes nothing.
I set the flashlight at an angle so it keeps the bag illuminated, then I unzip the top. The first thing I take out is the note. I unfold it and bring it into the light. I let out a ginormous breath of air. It reads:
Dear Haley-Haley,
Don’t know if you’ll ever come back and find this, but hey, I have nothing to lose by trying, right? You said that in the future, almost no one writes letters anymore. Well, it’s not really the future for me yet, so here I am, writing a letter to you six years after I last saw you, because I want you to know something-I haven’t forgotten you and never will. I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again, but you need to know that I owe everything I have to you. Everything. And you have to know that even if we never see each other again, that’s OKAY. What’s meant to happen will happen. And if it doesn’t, it wasn’t meant to be.
