Dark Child

by Jo Raven

  Mud, and a body by the river.

  Shaking the images off like a dog shakes off water, I turn and lift Cos up on a stool beside him, then insert myself between them, aware my sisters and their men placing themselves on his other side—as if to stop him from fleeing the scene.

  “You,” he says, voice raspy as if after too many cigarettes, and now I’m beside him, I smell the tang of old cigarette smoke. It turns my stomach.

  “Yeah,” I agree. “It’s me.”

  Slowly he lifts his head and looks at me. His pale eyes are bloodshot, his lips cracked, and yet it’s disconcerting, seeing a face that’s pretty much a reflection of my own.

  It always gutted me, that the town bully, the greatest douchebag the world had seen—in my opinion back then, anyway—looked so much like me.

  Then again, I hadn’t known he was my half-brother. I’d thought it was only a cruel joke of life that we looked so alike.

  “Whatcha want?” he mutters, frowning. He seems unaware of the rest of the family standing in a semi-circle around him as he downs the rest of his drink. His cheeks are flushed. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “Work where?”

  He flashes me a look of irritation. “In construction. Want the name of the company? It’s Phil Construction. Gonna check if I’m lying?”

  I don’t care one way or another. It’s not what I’m here for.

  Well, gee, what a relief. He starts to get up, but sways a little and sits back down on the stool. Out of the corner of my eye I see Jarett taking a step forward as if to catch him, but I shake my head at him.

  “Did you fucking want something, or…?” He waves a hand.

  “To talk.”

  “I don’t fucking wanna talk.”

  “I think you do. Just won’t admit it.”

  “Yeah, whatever, Dr. Freud.”

  “You told us where to find you. You called Octavia the other night, asked her about a silver swan I mentioned.”

  He freezes.

  It’s fascinating to watch it happen from up close, how his pupils widen, his hands on the bar go still, how his chest seems to stop moving with each breath until he’s a living statue sitting beside me.

  “Hi, Ross,” Cos says softly from my left.

  The statue moves. His hand spasms on the bar, eyes narrowing. “Who’re you?”

  “Cosima. I’m with Merc.” She smiles, not as brightly as she smiles at me, but it has a strange effect on Ross. He hunches over a little, as if in pain, and the hostility leaves his gaze.

  “Okay.” His gaze darts around, and he lets out a breath. “So what’s this? A family reunion?” He glances at Octavia. “You’re back to interrogate me some more?”

  “No,” she says quietly. “I’m not. This is between you and Merc. We only drove him here.”

  “Oh, I see. Sightseeing and ambushing Ross on the day’s schedule?”

  “Ambushing? What are you afraid of?” Gigi asks.

  “I’m not.” He shakes his head. “What do you people want?”

  “The swan,” Cos says. Her voice is so soft, it barely rises over the muted sounds of the bar—stools shuffling on the floor, the bartender talking to a customer, the gurgle of a faucet spewing water in a sink, ancient pipes rumbling in the walls.

  But he hears her. His eyes widen for a long second. Then they narrow.

  “Why don’t you tell me first,” he turns to me, “what the hell you were doing, calling me that night? You’re the one who started this.” He jabs a finger at me. “You called me. You said those things.”

  “What things? I can’t remember.”

  “You fucking kidding me? About the river and the swan and the… the ax.” He huffs. “You sounded crazy, or drunk off your ass.”

  I catch Gigi’s eyes on me. “I was hopped up on sleeping pills. A bit too many, as it turns out. Too many nightmares can spoil the night, you know?”

  Again his eyes widen. Looks like we keep catching him off guard today. “Nightmares,” he repeats dully. “If this is just about fucking dreams…”

  “Your turn,” I cut in, as if we’re playing a children’s game, dammit. “Tell us about the swan.”

  The goddamn swan, whatever it means, looks like it means quite a bit to Ross, because he pales, chewing on whatever thoughts are going through his head.

  At this point, I’m almost sure he’ll walk out, refuse to say another word, but he doesn’t move. He turns his hands palms up on the bar, curls his fingers in until they’re tight fists.

  Eventually, he says, “My mother. She wore a silver pendant of a swan when she left.”

  What the fuck? I didn’t expect this. Totally out of left field. A glance around the others’ faces tells me they’re just as shocked as I am.

  Wait, wait…

  “Now you tell me.” He’s back from the place in his mind he seems to have sunk into just seconds ago. “You tell me where the hell you saw that swan. If you’re telling the truth.” He glances around, too, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think his gaze is pleading. “Where did you see my mom? Is she okay?”

  Ah fuck…

  “You dream of a body,” Ross repeats, his face too still. “And a swan, an ax, a temple… are you fucking serious? This is bullshit. Who put you up to this?”

  “Nobody put me up to anything. I tell you I keep dreaming of this since I was a kid—”

  “Dreams.” He sneers. “I see what this is. Bully the bully, is it? You think you found a way to get to me?”

  It seems I did, though. Get to him. After all, he’s still sitting here, with us, talking. He’s nervous.

  And scared. Scared that my dreams are real.

  “We think the dreams are memories,” Gigi says, and he shoots her a hostile look. “He was gone for a whole night when he was little, when he was about four.”

  Unexpectedly, the blood leaves Ross’s face, leaving it bone white. “Four. I’m two years older than you, so I was six then.”

  “What is it?”

  “That’s the year Mom left.”

  “Fucking shit.”

  “No way.”

  “What are we saying here?” Octavia asks.

  They’ve all pulled stools around Ross, and we’ve ordered a couple of soft drinks to appease the bartender who doesn’t care much for family reunions in his bar, as it turns out.

  “Bullshit,” Ross says again. “They’re just goddamn dreams. Dreams of a river. With swans. What are you, a girl? I dunno why we’re even talking about this.”

  “Your mom, did she say where she went?” Jarett asks. “Do you have an address?”

  Ross shakes his head.

  “Did she pack her things before she left?” Gigi asks. “Did she take—?”

  “You don’t get it,” Ross says. “She left one day without a word. And never came back.”

  This is looking bad.

  Or like I’ve been saying all along—it could be just dreams. Fucking bloody dreams cooked up by a dark corner of my mind, a little demon cackling in the night and slowly driving me insane.

  “I wanna walk by the stream,” I say, pushing away from the bar. “See if I find the spot.”

  “You’re nuts,” Ross snorts, his hands shaking on the bar.

  Maybe so. “Coming?” I ask the bar at large, and my family start moving. I take Cos’s hand, help her down from the stool—not because she needs help but because I love helping her, being near her—and turn toward the door.

  I don’t comment when Ross throws some bills on the bar and follows us out—and then down by the stream.

  Whatever this story is, he’s a part of it. In fact, as it turns out, he might be a much bigger part of it than I ever was.

  “I don’t remember your mom,” I mutter as we trudge toward the river, on a barely-there trail among rushes and scraggly trees.

  “We met her a few times.” Octavia studiously avoids looking at Ross, keeping her gaze on the path. “She came around our house to tell Mom to screw off and stop pro
ducing bastards. As if she produced them all alone.”

  Ross’s jaw clenches. He kicks at a piece of trash.

  “Anyway, I remember her. You don’t look like her,” she tells Ross. “Not much.”

  We’re all basically carbon copies of our asshole common father.

  “Dad says I have her mouth,” Ross mutters. Said mouth twists. “That usually preceded his beating the shit out of me.”

  Ow.

  “She was a good mom. She is. I mean…” He jams his hands into his jeans pockets. “Before she left.”

  “Did she seem happy?” Cos asks.

  “What?” He stops so suddenly Jarett and Gigi almost plow into his back.

  “You know. Was she happy?”

  “Would she be if she chose to leave?” he barks at us, and starts walking faster.

  Good point. Who would be happy with a husband like Jasper Jones? Violent, unpredictable, a drunk and a sadist. Sleeping with other women. Having three bastards living around the corner.

  As if reading my thoughts, Ross says, “I think there were more.”

  “More what?”

  He shoots me a scornful look. “Of you. More bastards. Dad likes to sow his oats.”

  “Sow his oats.”

  Wow. “And your mom knew about that?”

  He shrugs. Kicks at a pebble. “Everyone knew.”

  The ground is starting to get muddy, waterlogged, sucking on the soles of our shoes. I wonder how many brothers and sisters I may have out there—here in Destiny, or nearby towns.

  Jeez. I’ve got nothing against an extended family. I’m big on family.

  But it’d be nice to know who they are, and not meet someone with my face on the street some day and wonder. Wonder if he’s my brother. If she’s my sister. Someone who shares my love of music and sci-fi, someone who has my sense of humor.

  Someone who suffered from Jasper’s cruelty as much as we have.

  The water shimmers through the trees. The angle of the sunlight is different, all wrong, but the sense of déjà vu is dizzying for a moment, like a blinding reflection in the water.

  Maybe that’s all it is.

  Cos swings our joined hands, just enough to grab my attention, and arches her brows questioningly.

  I force a smile that hurts my mouth, but it seems it’s reassuring enough for her to keep walking.

  After all, this isn’t supposed to be a relaxed ride. Nobody expects me to skip around laughing and chasing fucking butterflies.

  “Why was I out of the house alone that night?” I ask the world in general, or maybe I’m asking myself.

  But Gigi replies. “You left. Walked right out the back door. I was playing with my dolls. Left you alone in the kitchen. It never crossed my mind you’d go out and walk away.”

  “Yeah, who would? Kids always catch us by surprise.”

  “It took me a while to figure out you were gone, and then I had no idea which direction. I rang all the doorbells and asked all our neighbors. One—Mrs. Conrad in fact—said she saw you walking in the direction of Little River.” She sighs. “I ran up and down this shore for hours. It felt like hours.”

  “Probably was,” Jarett mutters.

  I chew on the inside of my cheek, clutch Cos’s hand. Our palms are sweaty, but I don’t care. The air is cold, the drizzle stinging my face. I lick the moisture off my lips.

  The scent of the stream is foreign and familiar. That annoying light-headedness joins again the throb behind my eyes.

  Awesome. The perfect beat to an already fucked-up day.

  A bizarre family excursion in the woods, looking for—what? A sign from heaven? Footprints from a dream?

  I look down, where I step over puddles and twigs, and try hard not to think of the things Ross said. About how nice his mom was. How she left one day without a word. How she wore a pendant of a swan.

  A silver swan.

  What are we doing here, walking in the mud? What are we going to find—a skeleton? More memories? A Clue with a capital C lying around, waiting for us to discover what spooked a young boy so much one night that he keeps dreaming about it fifteen years later?

  “Look!” Octavia calls. She and Matt have gone on ahead. “The Pagoda.”

  It comes into view in degrees, over the treetops, over the river bend. It’s smaller than it is in my dreams. Shorter. Unthreatening.

  “Merc?” Cos tugs on my hand, and I find I’ve stopped walking. “Everything okay?”

  Sure, except for that sinking feeling in my stomach, like dropping off a cliff, before gravity kicks in. The feeling you get as you enter dreamland.

  I make myself start walking again, step after step, inching toward what looks like the center of my nightmares.

  It’s a bend of the Little River, right across from the Pagoda, lined with desolate trees and shrubs, the ground green with grass. The sun is hiding behind gray clouds, so the colors are muted, ashen, gray.

  Not golden rust caught in the last rays of the Summer sun, but I recognize the place. Damn, my dreams sure got the moment just right, the picture caught in the lens of my mind.

  I stop and let go of Cos to crouch down—partly to imagine how it’d looked when I was little, and partly because my head is spinning, the sky dipping into the trees and the river bursting out of its banks to reach me. The earth is tilting sideways.

  Bracing my hands on the wet grass, I bow my head and inhale.

  “Is this some sort of ritual? What next, do we hold hands and dance?”

  “Shut up, Ross,” Matt mutters. “Merc?”

  “This is the place.” I lift my gaze, nod at him.

  “Woo, spooky,” Ross says, and lifts his chin, meeting Matt’s gaze squarely. “I got goosebumps all over. How about we go back now?”

  He sneers, but underneath the bravado and hard façade, I see his fear, and his pain, plain as day.

  “You can go if you want,” I say. This is exactly the place I see in my dreams, night after night. I get up on wobbly knees and stumble to the edge of the water. “Here. She was lying here, framed by the Pagoda behind her. It was late afternoon. The sun was about to set. The water around her was cloudy with blood.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Ross mutters.

  But I barely hear him, because images hit me like fists in the head, and I fall back on my ass. “I’d seen the man bent over her. He wore a baseball cap, drawn low over his face. An ax. He held an ax.” A silver pendant glints at her neck. He pushes her under the water. She doesn’t struggle. “He killed her.”

  “Stop talking,” Ross says.

  “Fuck off, Ross,” Matt growls, the sound like nails. “And if not, shut your mouth.”

  “A double ax,” I whisper. “Like the one on my back.”

  “She’s not dead!” Ross bowls into me, so suddenly I don’t have time to prepare, and knocks me sideways.

  We both crash into the water, his hands around my neck, my sisters’ cries of dismay ringing in my ears. “You’re making this up. She’s not dead.”

  “I’m not making this up. Fuck you, Ross.” I try to pry his hands from my neck, try to breathe.

  He lets go but shoves me back, and I go under.

  Spluttering, I surface, to find everyone wading into the stream. “Guys, stay the hell out of this.”

  “You’re talking bull,” Ross is saying, shoving me back into the water again. I splash around, wipe muddy water off my face, and more memories hit me.

  I’d fallen into the water, I’d slipped. There was a tree right at the water edge, and I dragged myself there. Someone—a man—was stomping through the woods. He was dragging the body behind him.

  “He dragged the body into the woods.” I turn to look at the trees. “That way, I think.”

  “Motherfucker, shut your trap!” Ross yells at me. “Shut it. Enough!”

  I shove at him when he makes another grab for me. “Get off me.” I throw a punch at him and it connects with his shoulder. “Fuck off.” We shove at each other. “You don’t have t
o listen to me. You don’t wanna be here, leave.”

  He falls back, then gets up again. “You don’t know it was her.”

  “Damn right, I don’t know that.” We grapple in the water, feet slipping on the mud and slim of the bottom. “I never said it was her. You’re the one who said she wore that swan pendant.”

  “You called me to talk to me about silver swans and bodies.”

  “I was stoned off my ass.”

  “You dreamed it.” He grabs me in a headlock. I kick at his shins. He grunts and lets go, then we’re again grabbing at each other, until we’re locked in a wrestling twister, water churning. It’s good to move, to hit something solid, something not woven of goddamn dream threads.

  Kicking and punching, we finally slip and fall back into the stream, going under. Ross’s weight is pressing me down, and I swallow water as I try to push him off me.

  Then he’s off me and I sit up, coughing.

  “Son of a bitch.” Matt is hauling a drenched Ross away. “What the hell is wrong with you two? This isn’t what we came here for. Waste of my time…”

  “She’s not dead,” Ross is saying over and over. “She’s not dead.”

  Fuck.

  Jarett grabs me under the armpits and hauls me up. “Come on, man, let’s get out of the water. It’s fucking cold.”

  Now that he says it, I can feel the ice seeping into my bones. My teeth are chattering.

  “I’m gonna drive the pickup as close as it can get,” Matt says, and Octavia slips her hand into his. “We’ll be right back.”

  Ross is standing in the mud as Jarett drags me back out of the stream, dripping and muttering.

  “Show me,” he says at last more clearly.

  “What?” Cos comes to take my hands and starts chuffing them to get some warmth in them. “Show you what?”

  “Where he took her.”

  “Oh, come on,” Jarett growls, “cut it off, you two. You’d better go change, or you’ll catch fucking pneumonia—”

  I’m already walking toward the trees, dragging Cos along by one hand. “I’ll show you.”