The Dark Beneath the Ice

by Amelinda Bérubé

  “You should stay in your room for now, sweetie,” she said hoarsely.

  “Mom?” I pushed myself up on my elbow, blinking, trying to figure out what she was talking about.

  “Just—please!” I recoiled from her sudden shout. She put her hands over her face, and then after a moment spoke through them. “Please listen, Marianne. I need you to stay in your room. Okay? Until I come and get you.”

  “Okay,” I whispered. She pushed herself to her feet and left the room without ever meeting my eyes, closing the door with exaggerated care behind her. Maybe I should have gone after her, tried to help, offered a hug. But as I sat up I realized I was still dressed under the covers. When I swung my feet to the ground I found them bare, just like in the dream: no socks to hide the calluses scabbing my toes, the lizard-scale patches where the skin had blistered away and healed and blistered again under the friction of pointe shoes. My jeans were stiff and gray with mud from kneeling next to Mom in the garden while she sobbed. And my hair spilled loose over my shoulders. It’s just like Mom’s, long and stick-straight and easily tangled, so I always braid it at night. I’d left it that way all day. Hadn’t I?

  Even now, hours later, I’m trying to think back to last night for an explanation and there’s nothing there; the silence and the water have engulfed the whole evening, like a sinkhole. Did I go to bed that early? Without changing out of my mud-caked jeans? Why can’t I remember?

  But the questions only lead me back to the dream, to the weight of the water, the pit of the sky. Of the feelings that bubble up through the icy lake, it’s not bewilderment or hurt or worry that stay with me. It’s dread. I don’t want to know what happened. I’m afraid to think about it for very long, but it hangs over me anyway.

  Like the silence did, in my dream. Like the dark.

  3

  Getting to school from Aunt Jen’s just means another transfer. I’m still stuck taking the 66 Special—the 666 Special, as it’s aptly known. I wedge myself into a seat next to somebody’s backpack. They don’t bother to move it. Last day before exams means all the idiots are in high spirits, talking about how awesome this weekend’s party is going to be and how drunk they’re going to get. I can usually absorb their braying without a ripple, but this morning I’m all jagged pieces inside, sharp edges grinding against each other.

  I’m lucky, I suppose; I’m invisible. Like magic, light bends around me, and I vanish into the seats. Mom jeans and high-necked, long-sleeved shirts are too boring for them to bother with. And it’s amazing what comes out of their mouths when they don’t notice you’re there, when they don’t think anyone important is there to judge. What they’ll admit to really thinking, the golden girls and boys, the ones who get handed the community service awards, the ones who volunteer to help with the special ed classes. I hear everything that’s really going on. The stuff they won’t even put on Snapchat.

  When Luke Schafer and Farrell Melnik got suspended, after the solemn assembly where the principal told us we would all be taking half-day workshops about tolerance and online bullying, the bus ride home explained everything. They went on about it for days, in the hushed, serious, delighted tones they reserve for the juiciest stories. It was Jeremy who told, they said. You’d think he was some whiny little ninth grader instead of a senior. But it only made sense, others argued, since he was one of those special snowflakes in the so-called gay–straight alliance. Why did they have to be so in-your-face anyway, it was like nobody was allowed to have an opinion anymore. That was Jeremy all over, he took everything so seriously. No sense of humor. It’s not like they actually would have hurt him or anything, they protested, and why did they have to share a locker room with him anyway; it wasn’t like they’d let guys use the same changing room as girls. And guys like that, what they were into? That was just gross. No offense or anything.

  Another year stuck in a box with these losers. It’s like a life sentence.

  I wrap myself in icy water and swim through the day until there’s only one period left to get through. Math. Miss Kendrick is new this year, so I guess she still feels obligated to give preexam algebra review her best shot, even though her smile has been looking brighter and more fixed for the last few months. I’m stuck sitting right in front of Luke—youth group counselor, a regular at leadership camp—and his lieutenants.

  They’re models of boys-will-be-boys charm for the teachers they know they have to toe the line with, but they’ve long since left off even pretending to listen to Miss Kendrick. They lounge in the back of the class, texting each other and sniggering. Besides me, the only person in the room who’s not talking is Rhiannon, a few rows over, sprawled over her desk with her chin on her hand, staring out the window. The gray light glints from the spiky collar around her neck and the strings of silver jewelry layered over her black clothes.

  Miss Kendrick hasn’t called on Rhiannon since that one time she put up her hand to point out a mistake in a question on a test, so of course I’m the one who gets summoned to the blackboard to solve a sample equation. I scrape my way out of my chair as slowly as possible. Josh Nguyen splutters with laughter as I walk by. I try to think of sunlight sifting through cold, still water. And of math. But there’s a roaring in my ears, and my fingers are numb when I pick up the chalk. I stare at the equation on the board, willing it to make sense, trying to marshal some focus.

  Another smothered burst of snickering erupts behind me, arrows landing between my shoulder blades. I make the mistake of twisting around to look over my shoulder. Farrell is doubled over his desk, laughing helplessly. Luke finishes saying something, smirking, and then looks up. Catches my eye. Winks.

  I turn back to the board, lift the chalk. Calm down. They’re not talking about me. They never are. I close my eyes, trying to quiet the moths jumping to life in my chest. Ice. I am ice, set adrift. I’m sinking out of reach. I’m breathing water.

  Breathe in. Breathe out. It fills my head, a muffled roaring silence. The inside of a seashell. The blood in my ears.

  And when I open my eyes the room is dark.

  I blink, scrub the back of my hand across my eyes. But the light doesn’t return. My arm is pale against the chalkboard. The classroom door stands ajar into darkness. The window admits a hazy orange glow.

  Streetlights.

  And Miss Kendrick’s desk is empty.

  All the desks are empty.

  The seashell roar fills my ears, the only sound, even when the chalk slips from my fingers. I press the heels of my hands to my eyes, take a stumbling step back. The metal ledge of the chalkboard jabs into my back.

  “Marianne!”

  Miss Kendrick’s voice snaps me back to daylight. To reality. I stagger, put a hand out to clutch the cool metal of the chalk tray. Something crunches and rolls under my shoe, almost overbalances me: the chalk is scattered in broken pieces over the floor, not just the one I dropped but a whole assortment of white and yellow and rose, spinning away from my feet in all directions. The tray is empty. Like someone tipped all its contents onto the ground.

  And a hush has fallen over the classroom. In one sudden stroke, I’m no longer invisible; everyone is staring at me.

  “A simple ‘I don’t know’ would have been plenty,” Miss Kendrick huffs. She looks betrayed. Like she might cry. “That really wasn’t necessary. For the last time, take your seat.”

  All the questions are impossible. What just happened? What did I do?

  “Take your seat!” Miss Kendrick repeats with a shrill. I duck my head and scurry back to my desk. She declares the rest of the class to be dedicated to pages 215 to 230 in the textbook and stalks from the room, closing the door with a bang behind her. I sit motionless as the class comes back to life around me, a flurry of murmurs and giggles and speculative, incredulous glances cast my way. Every now and again even Rhiannon is looking at me sidelong, her black-lined eyes wide.

  • • •

>   Aunt Jen doesn’t get around to offering dinner until late, but I’m not hungry anyway. The rain starts again, on the edge of hearing, as the light seeps from the room. I wish there was somewhere I could go, a new book to disappear into, some way to shake off the circles I keep pacing through in my head: all those weird little mysteries, the chalk, the mirror, the missing evening, the dream. Are they related somehow? How could they be? The questions cinch tight around me, numbing my hands, stealing my breath. I have to calm down. I have to stop thinking about it.

  I don’t want to know.

  The computer screen offers no answers, no relief. Downstairs, Aunt Jen launches into something languid and dreamy on the piano.

  My breath catches at the chirp of a new notification. And yes, there’s Ingrid Snow in the corner of the screen. Finally. She’s tagged me in something. A Harry Potter joke about Ravenclaws—my house, we decided. She’s a Hufflepuff through and through. Her comment says: Miss you! :)

  Miss you. A shock wave travels through the icy lake. I wait it out, measuring every breath. It’s ridiculous, that lurch of…of whatever that is. I won’t let it trick me into getting clingy. Those two words are the sort of thing you’d say to anybody. They don’t mean anything.

  Except that she’s online.

  I scramble for my phone, type out a text.

  hey

  Hey! How’s it going??

  ugh not so good

  :(

  how’s sf

  OMG it’s amazing. Our house has an ocean view!!

  pix?

  Posted on insta!

  There’s a long pause; like so many times before I sit with my fingers poised over the phone. Is this weird? Is this TMI?

  so my parents are splitting up

  OMG!! That is horrible! Are you ok?

  not really

  :( :(

  dad took off and mom is freaking out.

  staying w my aunt.

  I decide I don’t care how it sounds.

  can you call me?? just need someone to talk to.

  things have been really weird.

  But her message pops onto the screen at the same time as mine.

  Listen I have to go, going out for dinner.

  Call you later tonight tho OK??

  It lands like a punch, scattering all those moths back into flight. I shouldn’t have said anything. She thinks I’m a freak. I try to tell myself that it’s not a brush-off, that she must have been typing at the same time, that she can’t drop everything just for me. It doesn’t help. I could cry.

  ok sure

  In desperation, I scroll through Ingrid’s Instagram feed. I’m looking for her house pictures, but the first set she’s posted looks like selfies. Ingrid wants to be an actress someday, and she totally will be. What better career could there be for a chameleon? And she’s got the looks for it, the style, the perfect burnished blond curls.

  It’s always kind of amazed me that she even spoke to me. I don’t really know how it happened. We were in a science camp together last summer. I’d heard she’d be going to Pearson too, that her family moved around a lot, but that was about it. I’d kept myself submerged in books during breaks, the twistiest, most intricate, most absorbing fantasies I could find. It was safer and easier than talking to people. But suddenly Ingrid was sunnily asking what I was reading, insisting I had to check out this amazing thing she’d read about a girl who discovers she’s part dragon, inviting me to eat lunch with her. It was like she’d just decided I was her friend. That’s what she does, and I accepted it, bemused and grateful. No one could resist her.

  A few photos in, she’s not alone in the pictures anymore. Another girl is mugging for the camera with her. I flip past pictures of them pouting, laughing, making stupid grimaces, their faces pressed close together to fit into the frame.

  No wonder I haven’t heard from her. She’s forgotten all about me. I try to shake off the thought—what am I now, her jilted girlfriend?—but it clings to me and won’t be dismissed. Pathetically, I tap the photos to “like” them. Every one.

  And then: ping! New email. From my dad. “What’s going on” is the subject. Great. Like I want to know. I hug my pillow close like a shield and open it.

  Hi Bunny,

  There was a lot of static on the phone when I called yesterday, and I wasn’t sure if you could hear me. I haven’t been able to reach you since.

  Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I’m still your dad and I love you. Nothing will ever change that, no matter what happens between me and your mom.

  We were really young when we got married, and I don’t think either of us knew what we really wanted. I’m still trying to process everything, but the one thing I know for sure is that I need to give us all the chance to be truly happy.

  I’m sure you have a lot of questions. Please, please call me so we can talk.

  Love,

  Dad

  I stare at the Delete button, listening to my rattling breath. I don’t touch it. Instead I look back through the message, scrolling up and down. Words jump out at me again and again, like stones clattering down a well. Truly happy. Seriously? Could he be any more clueless?

  I set the phone carefully down on the nightstand. I don’t care. I am glacial, bottomless. But my gaze jumps from the quilt-draped mirror to the suitcase by the bed, and they propel me to my feet, down the stairs.

  Aunt Jen glances up from the piano keys as I come into the living room, smiles at me, goes on playing. Mom used to play piano too, once upon a time. She used to tell me about it whenever she was after me to stretch or practice, how she’d given it up because she knew she’d never play as well as her sister, how she’d regretted it ever since. But whenever Jen urges her to take it up again, she always demurs with a self-conscious smile. It’s too late, she always says. Too late for her to be any good.

  I slide onto the bench next to my aunt as she leans into the music. I remember this piece, though I don’t know its name. It’s warm and sweet and sad, designed to draw tears. I swallow and resist it. I’m underwater, where there’s no sound.

  “That was nice,” I manage when Aunt Jen finally glides to a stop, because I feel like I should say something. “What was it?”

  “Beethoven. Sonata Pathetique.” She peers at me. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” I say. “I’m fine. I’m… I think I’m going to go for a walk.”

  She hesitates a long moment, as if trying to find a reason to say no.

  “I just need to think.” I need to not think.

  “Well, okay, I guess. Don’t be too long.”

  • • •

  Outside the air hangs thick and wet, somewhere between mist and rain. Tree branches slice the streetlight’s glow into long, soft bars. Not a breath of wind. At first I think the noise suffusing the night is traffic, maybe from the busy street at the top of the hill; but it’s the river, a far-off, full-throated, rain-swollen voice. I glance toward the seawall. Beyond it there’s only a twinkling line of lights scattered across the far side of the water to interrupt the dark.

  I jam my hands into my coat pockets and turn away without really picking a direction, striding down the closest street, past a few stately houses and a row of towering brick town homes. The streetlights stretch out ahead of me in a string of floating orange globes, the occasional porch light casting a dim, foggy halo. My footsteps, ghostly on the asphalt, are dwarfed by the rush of the water.

  The formless churning in my head pushes me forward, past the pine trees towering over the entrance to the park, from one island of orange light to the next. The park’s broad lawn is studded with them, buoys in a dark sea, turning the trees into long witchy shadows, marking the path that winds past the beach.

  Dread rises up around me, colder than the fog, nagging at me. Trying to remind me of something I don’t want to
remember. Something awful and familiar.

  I walk faster to outpace it. I refuse to freak myself out. Am I afraid of the dark now? I have to calm down. But the fear creeps over me anyway. Like the realization that you’re cold. Like water stealing past your knees. I try to focus on my breath, like they taught us in yoga, listening to it as it rasps in and out—and in—and—why can’t I hear it anymore?

  Why can’t I hear anything?

  Even when it’s quiet, there should still be sound: the slap of my feet against the pavement, the rasp of fabric as my jacket sleeve brushes my side, the whisper of my jeans. But it’s all gone. All that remains is an unceasing, oddly muted roar. The rush of the river presses close against me, stuffing my ears.

  And I’m still walking. Turning off the path.

  Stepping between the trees, onto the sand.

  No. It should be a whimper. I feel the breath leave my lips. But there’s no sound. There’s nothing. Panic screams through my head: something has changed, some fundamentally stable, unmovable thing has slipped off its foundations. It was a dream, that dark, silent beach. Am I dreaming now?

  My feet aren’t mine. They drag me forward. Fighting them, I slip and shamble, kicking sand. But still, I lurch onward. It’s as irresistible as falling. And the water looms out of the blank, orange-tinged wall of fog: glassy, silent, fringed with a distant crust of ice.

  Ice.

  It’s June.

  When my feet meet the water they don’t splash. My steps are soundless. Water soaks into my shoes, seeps up through my jeans. The world is a shoulder leaning into my back, unseen hands pushing me forward into the dark. I can’t stop.

  I finally manage to fling myself backward, sit down hard in an inch of water, dig my fingers into the sand. All I can think to do is get away, get back to safety, a block and a half behind me. A world away. I creep back up the beach on my hands and knees, away from the water, inch by inch. It’s like leaning into a strong wind, though the air is heavy and still. Like climbing a cliff face.