Chapter 19: The River Rises

19. The River Rises

There is something hollow in the aftermath of such magnificent love-making, a sense of separation that had been forced upon us too early. I think of couples in romantic novels who spend the night in each other’s arms and rise to coffee together on a balcony just outside the bedroom door. Perhaps with a Tuscan countryside undulating below the rising sun. Love-making followed by more and more until there was the sense of purpose to the whole thing, a sense of permanence about the relationship. But living as minors in a prison, disguised as it might be, does not afford such luxuries.

Instead there is an emptiness in the room, that what we had shared only a few hours before has slipped away. And I even found myself questioning the whole reality of the ears and what she had told me about her being an elf, about us having had some kind of past together. The hollowness was physical, and I wished that Allison would have been, could have been, more present inside that big empty space.

Outside the rain, which had continued hard through the afternoon had given way to a golden grey twilight. Far away there was a single rumble of distant thunder, the storm departing to other places. Lying on my bed I longed to hear water trickling, but instead there was a quiet roar of water rushing somewhere, blinded some by the swoosh of the air-conditioning from somewhere deep inside the building.

This felt more like a relationship than anything I had ever known before in my life, certainly nothing like whatever it was I tried to share with Davy. That memory seemed a million miles away, and if I had really had been harboring those kind of feelings about for Brianna they were certainly unanswered.

With Phyla it was just that I wanted more, and I wanted that more right now. At dinner she had waved me off, not wanting others to know that we were carrying on this affair. Or at least that was what I assumed. Perhaps she was worried that I would plunge into her arms in a giant embrace because I was so desperate to feel more of her. Now, laying on my bed in the dark, part of me wanted to walk up to our window/mirror, take off my shirt and touch my own nipples, to tease her, and also to try to recreate that peaceful sedation that Phyla had given me when she had done it. But then I remembered that standing at a window, with my light skin would allow anyone outside to see me, even with the lights out.

Instead I laid on my bed and tried to think about what little Phyla had told me in the time we ere together. There was the whole business of her having elf ears and being a magical creature, all of which would seem totally unbelievable until I reminded myself that I had not to long ago been a spider who lived under the microwave. And if she could do elven magic why the hell was she allowing herself to be locked up in this place? For that matter what had she done to get herself locked up? We weren’t supposed to share our pasts. The crimes that each of us had committed to arrive at Holshue House were supposed to be left behind, so I didn’t know anything about what any of the others in the house had done. But it seemed that with Phyla it should be different. We were in a relationship, and I knew nothing about her, except that she was an elf with very limited magic.

Which left me wondering about this shared past that she kept referring to, the thing that I was supposed to be remembering. Did I have magic? And if so what was what it? The closest I had ever come to doing anything magical was the night that I repelled the darkness in James’s bedroom. There had to be something about that, but I didn’t remember anything about how I had done it. And I didn’t remember any other past, anything before the life of a spider under the microwave who was now inhabited the body of a dysfunctional teenage lesbian. To think about remembering something you don’t remember was kind of like trying to not think about a yellow dog. Just knowing that you couldn’t remember seemed like the biggest obstacle to remembering anything.

I undressed down to my underpants and then pulled on my light blue flowered pajamas with the pants that came down to just below the knees and the top that  was held closed with three flower-shaped buttons. For a moment, after I lay down I wondered what Phyla wore to bed, what she was wearing right then, but the thought didn’t last because sleep came upon me quickly. I really believed that I would be able to simply dream of making love to Phyla and I couldn’t think of anything that would be any better than that.

But of course it didn’t work out that way. Soon I was dreaming I was in that car, the Formula, airborne, flipping over and over again, the river looming below me. Only this time it was me who had been thrown out the window and was plunging down towards the river. But before I could make impact there was the face of that man, the ghost from the basement, contorted in pain already and frightened by the additional pain I was about to inflict when I landed on top of him after falling for what seemed like a hundred feet in the air.

I woke up sweating, once again smelling myself. Of course I wanted to run next door and climb into bed with Phyla, but I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to do the trick with the cameras and even if I had I would have needed a watch. But I had to get out of the room, and going to Phyla would just get both of us in trouble, would just tell those who controlled everything about our love, our unacceptable behavior. Instead I would risk a simple walk through the dark halls by myself. I slipped out the door.

Of course the halls, while empty and quiet, were not dark. Lighting, dimmed from full daytime strength, still made them bright enough to burn my eyes. Out here I could feel the house slowly breathing. I headed for the stairwell, but knew I didn’t have the courage to go all the way to the basement. At night did the ghosts come up? Or were they intimidated by a cafeteria in what had once been a ballroom, the common room which had probably once been a parlor?

I would take my chances, just because of restlessness. At the bottom of the first two flights of stairs, I slipped out the steel door and onto the first floor, where the cafeteria was darkened, where I could hear the sound of water outside. On bare feet I padded on into the common room to see that the door that I had nearly gone out, the one where Phyla had first touched my hand, now stood open. The little alarm box which she told me could only be deactivated with the proximity of a staff ID badge, now sat dark and silent. The world, the rules, had somehow changed. And it felt like the darkness was loitering nearby, breathing in rhythm with the ghosts.

I stepped outside onto the stone floor of the veranda. Here, in the cool rain-washed air, the roar of rushing water was deafening. It had to be the river we had seen when we were out here for our official exercise time. Now the breeze kicked up cool and edgy and snaked its way into my pajama top, feeling strange after so many weeks of being inside. The moon was breaking though the remnant clouds, creating patches of silvered grey in the wet grass.

A quick scream cut through the roar of the water and then stopped. Then, softer, a voice struggling to call out, “Help. Help. Please help me. Someone.” It was a girl’s voice, with a sob buried in the plea. Could it be the ghosts? Could it be a trick to lure me off the veranda? I knew that I had already broken a rule in coming out the door, in coming out of my room at night. Going out away from the building would be even worse.

But then I knew that it was really my fear trying to win out. With carelessness I had killed someone. Maybe this time I could help someone by simply being brave. Maybe this would even out the scales of my life. I set out at a quick walk, the wet grass slippery below my bare feet. I could see the sycamore, and the river grew louder as I got close.

The moon darkened behind a cloud and then returned flooding the field with white light, and I could see the river. I could see someone small pressed against the fence, clinging to the chain link, fighting to not be washed down and under by the current. White shirt, dark skin. It was Michele. She saw me, or at least realized that someone was there on the bank. “Help me, please. I can’t swim, and it’s too strong. Do something.” There was genuine fear in her voice, none of that cocky hard-ass edge that I had heard from her earlier in the day, and definitely not a trick.

There was a memory of Allison-me swimming on a swim team as a little girl, and I had a sense that Gesama-me, in a time before the spider, had been able to swim as well. I went up against the fence, knowing that I wouldn’t be strong enough to swim away from it if I tried. I inched into the water, pulling myself along the chain link diamonds with my finger. When I got in deep enough for my butt to get wet, the water seized me. It was trying to pull me down and my pajama pants slipped down my butt an inch or two. The wire of the fence dug into my fingers as I worked along like it would cut right through my skin.

But I wasn’t giving up. I still had to get to her. I continued to work my way out towards the middle to the stream, ignoring the way the water had now stripped my pajama pants down nearly to my knees, bursts in the current slamming me against the fence again and again.

Michele had quit trying to move. She just clung to the place where she was as I moved deeper and deeper into the water. I was in nearly to my armpits by the time I reached her. I could hear her breath heaving with fear and exertion. A hand would not be enough. I worked close enough to her to put an arm around her back, gripping under the left armpit as her right hand momentarily let go of the fence, flailing to grab me and then grabbing the fence again.

“We have to use the fence and work our way back to shore.” I shouted to her. “You’ll need to let go with your left hand and move closer toward me.”

But when she let go the water tried to twist her away from me. I gripped tighter to armpit, frightened that the current would pull us both under. We moved a few inches, but then it had us again. It seemed like it would take all of my strength just to get myself out of the river, even with out the small weight of this tiny girl. But now that I had her I was determined not to let go of her. I yelled, “Help us. Somebody help us,” hoping that by now someone else had noticed the open door.

Then I felt something tickling around my waist, leaves brushing my belly. It was a vine, and at first I wanted to fight it, thinking that it would work with the current to pull us under. But it wasn’t. It was pulling us sideways towards the shore, actively pulling us. It didn’t make sense, but I wasn’t going to challenge its desire to help us.

“Michele hold onto me your right hand, and then move your left hand towards me.” I shouted to her.

She did, and I felt another surge of the current trying to rip her away from me, but I held on. With her closer to me I was able to move my right hand closer to shore in the links of the fence, the vine pulling to keep us moving in the right direction in that moment when I no longer had a hand on the fence.

“Again,” I shouted, even though Michele was less than a foot from my face. The second time doing the maneuver worked better – her moving her left hand over towards my face and then me moving my right on towards the bank, with the vine providing the extra necessary tug.

An image of a man-eating plant awaiting us flashed through my mind, but I figured we could fight that once we were out of the water. The process continued, and then I felt the mud under my feet and drug Michele up onto the bank where she landed on top of me.

My pajama pants were down around my knees and my left breast nearly exposed by the way the top was all askew, but we were on the bank. The vine which had pulled us in simply retreated. I looked up to see Ms. Slanick, Jeremy and a couple of the girls standing above me, and suddenly felt awkward about the way my wet underwear was probably totally exposing my privates, about the way that Michele and I were clinging to each other. I rolled her off of me, and then, arching my back pulled my pants back up before straightening my top. The wet pajamas had pretty much become transparent. I wanted to growl at Jeremy to back off, but my chest was still heaving trying to regain my breath.

It was Ms. Slanick who approached us and pulled us one at a time to our feet. “Into the house,” she ordered.

Michele and I walked side by side, water dripping off of us into the wet grass, the wind chilling us. On the now brightly lit veranda a whole group of students had gathered, along Jeremy who had walked up there ahead of us and was now ogling the way my breasts were exposed by the clinging wet fabric of my top. And Mr. Perkins was there, lurking behind some of the other girls, as if wanting not to be seen. The collection of girls present seemed to include just about everyone in the house. I would wish later that I had had the presence of mind to take attendance, but there were so many that it would have been hard. It seemed our adventure had drawn quite an audience.

A few minutes later we were standing in Ms. Slanick’s office wrapped in blankets that had appeared from somewhere. “What were you doing?” Ms. Slanick asked both of us.

When it became obvious that Michele wasn’t going to answer I spoke, “I heard her cry for help, and I went out to help her. That’s all.” I said quickly, not mentioning that I had actually stepped out onto the veranda before I heard the first scream.

“And what were you doing downstairs after Lights Out?” she asked, shifting her full attention to me.

“I came down to get a tampon from the machine.” In the bathroom on each floor, sitting atop the vanity, there was a little dish with a few tampons, but the dish was frequently empty. The other place to get them was from a vending machine in the common room. It took a swipe of our meal card, but because tampons were so essential there was a generic card tied to the machine with a string. It was a lie, of course. I wasn’t on my period, but I was pretty certain that she wasn’t going to make me drop my pants to check that.

She nodded and turned towards Michele. “The cameras support Allison’s story. What about you, Michele? Why were you out there?”

Michele didn’t answer, but simply looked at the floor.

“Then I will consider this an escape attempt, but it’s a first offense. Three days solitary confinement in your room, Michele.”

Michele nodded.

“Allison, thank you for your heroic, but very foolish work to pull her out of the river. You will not be punished, but if something like that happens again it is your duty to notify us, not to try to handle it yourselves.”

I nodded as well, and then muttered a “Thank you.”

“I will be investigating how that door alarm became deactivated, but in the meantime it’s important for both of you to know that the fence across the river goes all the way down into the riverbed. So if you’re thinking that you can escape by swimming under it, you can’t.”

We waited in silence.

“Now both of you, into the showers and to bed. Your respective showers of course, Allison second floor, Michele third floor. And I will be up later to lock the door of your room, Michele. Your meals will be brought to you. Three days.”

Still dripping river water we walked up the stairs, Michele ahead of me. As we came to my floor she turned and said, “Thank you. I owe you big time.”

I wasn’t ready just to forget her attitude those times we had spoken in the cafeteria, and I was pissed that I had had to risk so much because of her foolishness. “You don’t owe me nothing. I’m still white.” And then I went on through the door into my hallway.

In the bathroom there was still one tampon in the little dish on the vanity. I buried the still-wrapped package in the wet pajamas I stripped off before anyone could discover my lie. Then I let the warm water wash away the muddy cold of the river, knowing that Michele was doing the same in the bathroom above me.

When I was finally back in my darkened room, in dry pajamas, I walked over to the window. I knew that she would be there on the other side of the partition. ”Thank you,” I whispered. “That vine was you, wasn’t it.”

I wasn’t surprised that she answered. “I told you that’s about all the magic I have, a few tricks with plants. I saw it all from the veranda.”

“How did you know? That I was even out there?”

“I don’t think it counts as magic, but I always seem to know when you’re in trouble.”

I puckered a little kiss sound and whispered, “Thank you, again,” before going back over to my bed. I wanted to tell her how much needed to hold her, but then I figured she probably knew.

“Good-night.” She whispered back. “See you tomorrow.”

And then I slept the rest of the night so peaceful that I might have been back home in my bed, or maybe so peaceful that I might have been lying next to Phyla, which sounded even more appealing.