my hand away, but he clamps his fingers tight on mine, squeezing like a vise. Then he begins to pull me toward the river. The river that I hate, that nearly killed me. I try to dig my heels into the gravel, but he’s too strong. I try to steady the hot coffee I’m still holding, but it’s splashing up over the sides of the cup, scalding my hand. I look down the path, but even though the place is normally so busy early in the morning, there is no one around. “Hey! What are you—”
“You want to see her, don’t you?” He continues to pull me.
Panic rises in my voice as I squeak out, “Where are we going?” But I know the answer. Not twenty yards separates us from the river, and there is nothing else in between but a rocky embankment.
He means to take me into the river. He means to drown me.
The cup flies out of my grasp, splattering hot liquid over his forearm, but he doesn’t flinch, even as steam rises from the black droplets on his skin. I’m fighting now, trying to pry his fingers off mine with my other hand, but it’s useless. Soon I’m begging, pleading with him to stop, but he doesn’t listen. Finally, I gather all the strength I can into my arms and yank myself away. I’m free, but when I take a step back my foot lands awkwardly on a fallen branch, twisting. Pain tears through my ankle. I yelp and fall to the ground.
I massage the ankle, but the pain intensifies with my touch. He bends over me and slides my sock down over my heel. I don’t want him to touch my ankle. I don’t want to feel those icy fingers of his, stroking my skin. It will only confuse me. Because he feels so real. But he can’t be. This is all in my mind. When I pull my sock up and scoot away from him, the pain shoots up to my knee. “Don’t touch it.”
His face is rueful; it almost makes me regret not letting him help me. “You want to see your mother, don’t you?” he asks, his voice gentle. “She’s just across the river.”
I think of Spiffy’s words. I know what lies on the other side of the river. He said people lived on the east side, but they buried their dead on the other side. “I don’t … no. She’s dead. The dead are there. I’m not dead. And you’re not real.”
“I thought we went over this.” He studies me, a look of disappointment on his face. “I assure you, I am very real. And she is waiting for you, just over there. There is nothing for you to be afraid of.”
As he reaches for my hand again, another wind picks up. “I can’t—I can’t cross the river.”
A look of amusement dawns on his face. “You are afraid of the water?”
“No,” I answer curtly. “But I can’t cross the river without a boat.”
He scans the shoreline, scratching his chin. “Ah. The unique problems of the living.” He gives me a warm smile. “Forgive me, Kiandra. It has been quite some time since I’ve been on your plane.”
As he laughs, a thick trickle of blood starts to ooze over his forehead. I watch it trail over the tip of his nose, but he seems oblivious to it until I point it out with my quivering hand.
He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabs at it. “Oh, how embarrassing.”
“It was your father who did that?” I ask softly. “I remember it from the story.”
He studies the new blood on the handkerchief, but now more is pouring past his hairline, falling between his eyes. “No. That story your companions told is a little, shall we say, inaccurate. I suppose it served its purpose. But sometimes a lie is better.”
“I don’t understand how all these stories we told around the campfire the other night are haunting me,” I say. “They’re stories.”
“They were legends. They did happen, long ago. And legends get twisted over time. And you don’t just know our stories. You know all the stories of the people who’ve died in the waters. That is part of your gift. You just need something to awaken the memory, I suppose. But it’s all inside you, waiting to be released.” He taps on the side of my head, sending droplets of blood scattering onto his shirt. I gasp and step back.
Suddenly he stops, looks around.