Thunder Falls

by Michael Lilly

  The man glances over each shoulder before flitting back out into the night, quick and quiet as an owl on the hunt, but only after pushing the mat just a small bit askew. Smart. He must be acquainted with Remy’s compulsive tendencies.

  And, Todd reasons, this mysterious man must trust that Remy will be home soon. Otherwise he wouldn’t be so comfortable leaving anything of import just lying under the mat. For a moment, Todd is tempted to go and look at the contents, but he, like Remy, is averse to creating any sort of reputation for himself, including that of snooping trespasser.

  This reasoning gives him the self-restraint necessary to sit and wait in his car.

  Remy

  My confidence is much bolder on the return trip than it was on the way here. The moonlight still dances in that mysterious way, but now, I feel like I have an ally. Even if the stalker isn’t friendly, at least we have a common goal: to find out more about Willa Frye. Perhaps he already has an angle he’s working. Certainly, it would be interesting to discuss this with him.

  I think my newly bolstered confidence comes, in part, from a mantle of purpose, of doing. I had been sitting in my apartment, stagnating, for far too long. My sense of being and my identity were crippled, mangled. But now I’m Remy Thorn again. I don’t know all of the implications that that holds, but I am glad to be doing things again.

  And maybe the risk I took in being out and about will turn sour, but my current high has elevated me beyond the point of giving a damn. If my life is at risk, or is even forfeit, that’s unfortunate, but is it any better to hole myself up and refuse to live for fear of dying?

  The chill of the waterfall’s spray sends me into a mild shiver, and coupled with the cold of the night, it persists for some time before my body heat is sufficient to pull me out of it.

  I consider doing a bit more exploration as a detour on the return trip—maybe visit some of the other abandoned cottages around here—but my body and mind ache for the safety of my apartment. Of my bed. Perhaps tomorrow.

  With the added weight in my bag, I have to adjust slightly in my weight distribution in order to keep my footsteps quiet, which is made more difficult by the varying decline. The moon lights up the path well, but even with its assistance, I find myself stumbling and tripping here and there. Logic would suggest using my flashlight, but even my newly emboldened confidence isn’t enough to dilute my aversion to running into people right now.

  Before, it would have seemed suspicious at worst, maybe a little weird at best. But if a cop stopped me now and happened to find me with a backpack full of stolen property, the vast bulk of which being privileged documentation on a teenage girl and her supposed suicide from decades ago… well, there’s no perspective from which that looks good.

  Add to that my newness to the town and that I keep to myself, and instantly my reputation bursts into being as some weirdo or a pervert or something. So while my general confidence has indeed seen an uprising, I must still take the necessary precautions to avoid drawing attention to myself. With that in mind, I observe all of the precaution I can think of, and with a surprisingly clear head.

  Soon, I see the town’s lights twinkling into view. The leaves even thin out enough for me to make out the moonlit sides of buildings, one of them with windows reflecting the moon’s brilliance. The streets are quiet, like early Christmas morning before normal families are piling into minivans to go visit relatives or are outside playing in the snow. That mysterious inhaled breath that acts as an odd limbo between things gone and things to come.

  It settles with ease on me and I on it.

  The path levels out and I walk into the town’s outer limits. It’s just as quiet as I perceived from the trail. In fact, being this close to it makes it seem even more so, like being submerged in a settled snow globe.

  On my way to the apartment, I walk casually, but still stick to the shadows as much as I can. I think I’m free of observers, but the chance that I’m not is enough to keep me careful. An amusing mélange of sentiments stir in my mind: amusement, purpose, indulgent melancholy. But above all, I appreciate the simple feeling of…feeling. Of sentiment in any form. Of having a connection to the world and its inhabitants that is more than just cognitive.

  I won’t pretend that the pains don’t come floating back in, too, however. The pain of dragging Todd through this with me, the pain of having left him so quickly, and with such a brief good-bye. That vein is one through which hope and anguish flow in equal parts. The source of the pain is obvious enough. The source of the hope is the prospect of putting an end to the pain. Maybe one day soon I’ll read a headline about how Todd Love single-handedly brought the entirety of a sex trafficking and child porn ring to its knees, and we’ll be able to make a safe, happy return to Riverdell.

  Maybe other conditions could occur to enable our reunion, but this is the one that fuels my fantasies. There are other varieties, of course, as one might expect of a man who spends more than ninety percent of his time alone. Maybe the whole of the issue bears down upon me, gun-wielding pedophiles in throngs being handled in some way or another, the bounty on my head going unclaimed. Perhaps he finds a way to send me the cryptic messages of our style. Sometimes I fantasize that he somehow manages to find me, knocks on my door, and is just…here. In each case, the desperate gravity of longing and the subsequent frustration are counteracted by the driving hope that one of these can come to fruition.

  As much as I want to treat this new, unfamiliar town like the hornets’ nests the last two were (or that I turned them into), I can’t help but feel at ease, looking at the warm glows of the street lights tonight. Even if only by habit, I avoid these pools of warmth, but tonight, their connotation is not one of danger.

  It brings to mind a trip to Portland I went on with my mom, when I was young. I always enjoyed shopping with her. Not that the activity itself was all that exciting—what child enjoys tagging along through department store after department store, really?—but to be out in the Real World without the remarkably short leash of my father’s gaze was magical in itself, and I always felt like a dog whose owner left its gate open by accident.

  This particular trip was for clothing. My dad was always content with buying Trina’s and my clothes locally, but he held my mother to an insane standard of beauty, and she thus had to do her clothes shopping in the city. She enjoyed it, too. I liked to think that she, also, would imagine a different life for herself in those times, like maybe her husband sent her out shopping for a dress for their anniversary dinner, and when she got home, he would be waiting there with soft music playing and a bath drawn, after which she would put on her new dress and he would show her off to the world—not as his property, but as his beloved.

  That day was unusually cold, for coastal weather. Our normally mild winter took a frigid turn and dipped into the single digits for the only time I could remember. Reflecting on it now, I think that my mother was more panicked than I thought about the change in temperature. If snow had come, the journey home would have been quite treacherous indeed, and that part of Oregon wasn’t very well equipped to handle its removal with any degree of efficiency.

  But my mom also treasured these abuse-less outings, and her spirits, though shaken, would not be broken. Instead, she laughed a shrill laugh each time the chilly wind picked up. Eventually, we ducked into a cozy little coffee shop and ordered hot chocolates with extra marshmallows.

  I remember sitting with my mother, drinking my hot chocolate and looking out the window at all of the city lights, and wishing that every night could be so—strange though it was—warm and magical, no matter how cold the thermometer read.

  Tonight isn’t as cold as that night, and Ghost Fork is definitely no Portland, but the warm lights in the buildings and on the street, in contrasting harmony with the tranquil darkness, pull me deep into that memory. I welcome it.

  My apartment building’s parking lot is unpredictable; my neighbors have their cars, sure, but they also often have company or go to visit
friends, so sometimes the small lot is empty, while other times it’s full and a few cars line the street. Tonight, all but one space is full. I can’t see any movement from my angle, but just in case, I circle around to the back of the building. My front door is visible to the parking lot, but by taking the back route, I’ll appear in that visual space for only a moment before slipping into my apartment and out of sight again.

  As I view my apartment, though, and increasingly as I approach it, something seems off. Ah. My door mat has been moved. Has someone been in my apartment? I look around for any more movement, but still detect none. As I bend over to fix the placement of the mat, I notice a slight rise. I pull the mat away to find a manila folder with no markings or labels on it.

  I fix the mat and step into my apartment. The night seems less quiet now, as though my apartment itself is abuzz with anticipation from the moment I step inside. As I sit to open the envelope, a car door closes outside and a dog whines.

  I read the headline of the topmost paper in the envelope, a newspaper. “Thunder Falls Student Takes Own Life After Sexual Assault Allegations”

  Then there’s a knock at the door. This is no time to be soliciting, and I don’t know anyone in this town. Perhaps my stalker is dropping by to make sure I got his gift.

  Quietly, as quietly as I can manage, I creep to the door. The moment is pregnant with potential. I could be only seconds from meeting this guy and finding out who he is.

  Eleven

  I look through the peephole and see…the only thing better.

  I fling the door open and throw myself into Todd’s arms, Odin jumping excitedly at our sides. Even now, I know that in years to come, this is a moment I’ll remember with reverent fondness. His sturdy warmth seems to spill into me, filling the landscape of my soul with a light so full that it illuminates places I didn’t know were dark. On the rare occasion in which I allowed myself to fantasize about Todd materializing in my life, it was always layered with a tenuous uncertainty, the surface knowledge that it must come at a price and that that price would be one (or both) of our lives. Instead, what befalls me is a peace I didn’t think I was capable of feeling anymore. The pent-up confusion and anger and rage that I had been concealing beneath a steadily weakening barrier of apathetic indifference melted away and for the first time in what felt like decades, I experienced a sort of reliable peace—like crossing a rickety rope bridge and finally finding oneself on the sturdy earth on the other side.

  “I missed you,” Todd says.

  “I missed you, too,” I say.

  In all of my fantasy versions of this reunion, Todd melted into a tearful monologue about the treacherous voyage and hordes of antagonists through which he had to fight in order to reach me.

  But this is better. Our exchange of ‘I miss you’ was a formality—everything he wanted to communicate to me was visible in his eyes, his body language—the subtle ease with which his hand found my tricep and the thick glaze of tears over his eyes. It was all there, with the fullness in impact I had gone over in my head upwards of a thousand times since I left him in Albuquerque.

  I don’t know how he managed to find me. In the fantasy versions of this moment, he had also vanished and found some way to track me down, some way to which the opposition has no access, thus closing the door on my worries about the situation. In those versions of this moment, I was still plagued with the perpetual worry that has seemed to be the signature of my life. I guess I must have forgotten how calm Todd makes me feel, because this wordless embrace beats all of the fantasies, banishing my preoccupations with commanding authority.

  It doesn’t matter how he found me. I don’t even care whether he was followed, or someone else found success in the same method as he did. It only matters that he’s here now.

  My hold on Todd only loosens when Odin’s persistent, excited whines finally win me over. I kneel to pet and hug my German shepherd and he greets me with an abundant face full of his tongue.

  I usher them inside, still half expecting to wake up any second, maybe having fallen asleep on those dusty, musty couches at the school again. But the dream doesn’t end, and little by little I let myself trust that this is reality—that Todd and Odin are truly here.

  Inside, more silent embracing precedes our first words to each other since last month.

  Apparently, Todd has been searching for me since mere days after I left. Part of me—the romantic part, admittedly—expected that he might, but I never expected him to find me.

  “How did you find me?” I ask. I’m still beaming.

  “Honestly, I got in my car and drove. I figured I’d be able to find you if I put myself in your shoes. I did some asking around, and now I’m here.” This detail also agrees with the more romantic side of me.

  “And that’s it? That worked?” I can’t quite mask my incredulity.

  “Well, it definitely took a while. You don’t fuck around when you disappear.”

  I let out a low laugh. “Nah. Can’t afford to.” We’re sitting on the couch in my apartment, Todd on my right and Odin on my left with his head in my lap, subdued but still breathing rapidly. Naturally, I’m in the process of fire hosing him with questions. Next up:

  “Who was that who took your picture last month? The one who’s been texting me?”

  “Oh, yeah. You ready for this?” He raises his eyebrows in the you won’t fucking believe this way that he’s mastered.

  I nod, although now I’m not sure.

  “It’s your mom.”

  “…What?”

  “Yeah. It’s this whole crazy story. Apparently, when she left your family and went off to New Zealand, she actually just went to Washington. The first thing she did was join a support group for abuse victims. She started asking questions about how to get you and Trina back, and it caught the attention of a shady-looking lady there.

  “So, this lady started asking your mom about the lengths she’d be willing to go in order to get you guys back. Obviously, there’s the legal route, with attorneys and Child Protective Services and DCFS and the likes, but there’s only so much they can do without a dickload of evidence”—this is a word he picked up from me. I’m proud—“and she was afraid that if an investigation was initiated, your dad would kill you two before they were able to get you out of there.

  “So more and more, she got involved with this lady, but she was almost ethereal, the way she would only sometimes be there. She would be gone for weeks or months, then come back just when your mom thought she had dropped off the face of the planet. She was always leaving vague hints about being underground or some kind of operation.

  “This is where it gets interesting.”

  “This is the interesting part?” I say.

  “Yeah. So your mom started getting even more deeply involved with this lady. As it turned out, she was part of this group called Deliverance.”

  “Deliverance,” I say.

  Todd nods and continues. “They’re this group dedicated to finding and rescuing people who have been abused, abducted, or otherwise caught in all that nasty shit. So your mom got all excited. She wanted to solicit their help, and try to get them to go and get you and Trina. But the leader didn’t like it. Said it would be a bit of a lengthy process to figure out exactly how to do it, and she couldn’t afford to have so many of their crew across state borders for so long.

  “Your mom argued and argued, but still they said no. So you know what your mom did?”

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “She fucking joined them. She said, ‘Either help me do it, or teach me so I can do it myself.’ So they taught her. And man, they don’t fuck around. They taught her, all right. From what it sounded like, your mother is well qualified to be in the FBI at this point. We’re talking self-defense, weaponry, tech and digital forensics, the whole nine yards. She could star in an action film. So, after you disappeared, she hopped onto her computer and within minutes, had lists up of all the phones activated near Albuquerque within the prior hour. S
he had your phone number and fast. And she wouldn’t fucking give it to me.”

  I chuckle at the teen-like angst dripping from that last part.

  “So for a while, she convinced me to back off. That was okay for all of a minute, but I got sick of it. I plotted to sneak into her phone and laptop to find out where you were, but all of the relevant information was locked inside an encrypted folder. So I got fed up and decided to find you the old-fashioned way.”

  “By hopping into your car and hoping you’re going in the right direction?”

  “Exactly.”

  I laugh again, and this time he joins me.

  I shake my head. “Damn. So my mom is a closet badass.”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “So, where is she now?” I ask.

  “Probably at the house—our house, in Wometzia—stalking you on her laptop or something. She’s been doing that a lot.”

  I pull out my phone to see if I have any missed texts, but my phone’s screen is black. Dead. I put it on its charger in the kitchen and see the manila envelope. It’s interesting to think that a case that consumed my whole being less than an hour ago can now seem so distant and irrelevant and unimportant. I’ll admit that I forgot all about Willa Frye the second I saw Todd through the peephole.

  Todd catches me thumbing the envelope.

  “Oh yeah, some guy dropped that off while I was waiting for you,” he says.

  “You saw him?” Did you get a good look at him?”

  “No. I tried, but he was fast and well covered. He was agile; at first, I thought it was you.”

  “Hmm. Well, I’m sure that he and I will meet at some point.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Nope.” I tell Todd about the past couple of days. He follows along in appropriate Todd fashion. He nods, furrows his brow, gasps, and laughs all in the right places. He asks the right questions and skips the wrong ones. He’s Todd, and even regaling him with my tale, I find it hard to form words under the thick haze of renewed infatuation.