The Dark Beneath the Ice

by Amelinda Bérubé

  And then, as suddenly as it started, it passes, the seashell roar draining from my ears. The sound of the river recedes to its proper dimension, waves rushing up onto the beach behind me, and ordinary small noises rise up around me again: the passage of a car on the next street, a door slamming. I collapse, gasping, on the sand. I can hardly see. Beyond the beach, the park is swathed in darkness, the trees that line the path dim silhouettes against the orange-lit clouds. Where have the streetlights gone?

  The first time I try to get up I almost fall, leaning against resistance that’s no longer there. And the second time I push myself into a run. The street is a dark corridor, the houses barely visible except for their rooflines against the sky. At its end, the pale twin stars of the lights on Aunt Jen’s building beckon me back toward normalcy.

  I half fall through the patio door, pull it closed, lean against it. Aunt Jen, sitting in the armchair in the corner, looks up from her crocheting in surprise.

  “That was quick,” she says. “I wasn’t that worried, Mare-bear, you didn’t have to—”

  “Marianne,” I correct her automatically, but my voice is shaky, barely there, and she talks over me, frowning as she takes in my soaking jeans, the look on my face.

  “Good heavens, Mare-bear, look at you. Are you okay? What happened?”

  “It’s Marianne. Please.” The dread comes trickling back through my relief, gathering in pools. Another thing I can’t explain. Add it to the list. What’s happening to me? “I-I fell. That’s all.”

  She looks doubtful, but doesn’t question me further. I decline her offer of tea—Aunt Jen’s answer to everything—and hurry up the stairs. In the room that’s not mine, I leave my clothes in a sodden heap, yank on pajamas, and pull a dry pair of fuzzy socks on, hiding the knobby callused joints with the little toes bent too far in. Hardworking feet, Mom used to call them. More like monster feet. The ugly truth under the pretty slippers.

  I check my phone, but Ingrid hasn’t called; I turn the volume to max and set it down again. I can’t bring myself to turn off the bedside light. I turn away from the quilt-shrouded dresser, pull the blanket up around my ears. I stare at my shadow on the wall, my thoughts reeling in dizzy circles, a nightmare merry-go-round of half-formed questions.

  • • •

  Aunt Jen, singing off-key in the kitchen, wakes me up the next morning. The fear has burned itself out for now, leaving my head thick with ashy exhaustion and my whole body sore. My joints crack in protest as I point and flex my feet, rotate my ankles.

  I redo my braid and pull a fleece sweater on over my T-shirt. It’s ridiculous to still be wearing a sweater at the end of June, but the rain hasn’t stopped, and the damp chill has settled into me, a heavy stiffness I can’t shake.

  I stretch my arms over my head and sink down into a side split, then flatten myself onto the ground, my nose against the cold floor, my fingers colliding with the edge of the dresser. The stretches are the one thing I’ve kept. I tried to leave them behind with the pointe shoes and the mirrored walls, but after a few days without them my body was a coat of armor weighing me down.

  I close my eyes. Hesitantly, like I’m feeling for a wound, I think back over last night’s walk.

  Was I dreaming? Again?

  I can’t have been. The clothes I wore are still sitting in a heap near the door.

  I nudge them with one foot on my way out of the room; icy wetness seeps through to my toes. I dump the clothes into the laundry basket and throw a towel on top so I won’t have to look at them again.

  “Marianne,” Aunt Jen calls from downstairs. “Breakfast!”

  “Coming.” I sound almost normal. I feel almost normal. The bare spaces among the pictures on the wall stare down at me. The smell of bacon cooking drifts up the stairs from the kitchen. Whatever it was that dragged me toward the water—if it was even real—it must be gone.

  Right?

  I’ve always loved Aunt Jen’s kitchen. Between the butter yellow walls, the white cupboards with leafy vines trailing over their tops, the comfortable mishmash of cookbooks, it’s impossible not to feel like the day is promising sunshine, despite the leaden sky in the window. When Aunt Jen smiles at me, I manage a real one in return.

  The sound of construction drifts in from out front as I slide into a seat at the table: the grumbling of an engine, the shrill beep of something backing up. Beyond the hedge, some huge yellow vehicle lumbers by.

  “Are they working on the road?”

  Aunt Jen doesn’t hear me at first; she’s still humming as she scoops the bacon out of a frying pan. I have to ask again.

  “Hm? Oh, no, actually. Kind of strange. You know the street right out front, that goes down to the park? Ellen, from across the hall, she says they’re working on the streetlights all along there.”

  I put my fork down.

  “Right out front?”

  “Yep. She always walks PJ right at the crack of dawn, and she says all the lights are blown right out. Glass all over the road. She called the city right away. Pretty impressive they got to it so fast.”

  Are we talking about the same street? Outside, a worker on a little platform is being lifted at the end of a long mechanical arm. I think of the rooflines looming black against the sky.

  “Just on that street?” I ask. The words are tinny in my ears.

  “In the park too, I guess. Weird, isn’t it?”

  Weird. I stare out the window, testing the idea that this didn’t have something to do with whatever happened to me last night, finding that it doesn’t bear weight.

  “Maybe it was some kind of electrical problem. A power surge or something.”

  I nod, a puppet on strings. The chasm opens, momentarily, deep and wide under my feet. What am I forgetting? What belongs in that strange, dark blank where I can summon only a shadow of a dream?

  What happened?

  4

  The school halls feel even more dismal than usual with the downpour rattling against the windows. It’s weird to be here so unencumbered. I’ve already returned my textbooks, so all I need is my pencil case and a water bottle. I meant to put the bottle in the freezer last night so it would stay cold all morning, but it doesn’t matter. There’s one exam today; just three hours. I scuff my way through the English wing toward the gym, willing my apprehension away. It’s chemistry. Beyond mundane. Safe.

  Rhiannon is rummaging for something in her locker. She’s dressed in her customary black, her hair an improbable, spiky halo. It’s black as well, fading to fire-engine red at the tips. “It’s like she wants people to stare at her,” Ingrid muttered once. And Ingrid never talks about people behind their backs.

  My footsteps slow as I draw closer, and I find myself drifting to a stop across the hall from her. Nobody knows much about her, except for her grudging responses to Mr. Williams’s stupid icebreaker interview at the beginning of the year. She said her mom’s a psychic. Luke and Farrell and their lackeys had a field day with that for a while.

  I wonder if she was making it up. I wonder if she could tell me what’s going on. I wonder if there’s a universe where I have the guts to talk to her.

  They dubbed her “Emo Rhiannon” when she first showed up at the beginning of the year. A genuine goth at Pearson! What was she pretending to be, some kind of satanist? Maybe she’d gotten kicked out of her old school for sacrificing small animals. They tracked her hair color in gleeful indignation as it shifted from pink to green to purple. And what did she think she was doing with her makeup? So many fashion crimes to dissect!

  But one lunch hour, back in October, Farrell came bolting past me down the hall, looking half pleased with himself and half terrified, and after him came Rhiannon, running like a machine, her hands knifing through the air at her sides, her black lace skirt flying behind her. And when she caught up with him she launched herself at him, catching him with her shoulder a
nd slamming him into the lockers with a bang that got the whole hall’s attention. He hit the floor with a squawk and before he could get up, she slung herself over his chest and straddled him with her fist cocked.

  “I’m sorry!” Farrell bleated. Not laughing anymore. “What the hell, it was just a—”

  “Don’t touch me!” Rhiannon shouted over him. “Don’t you ever touch me again!”

  By that time the teachers had caught up and Mr. Ellis was pulling her away, a little gingerly, and when she shook him off and stalked back down the hall, he didn’t pursue her. Instead it was Farrell who got hauled off to the principal’s office. Farrell tried to grumble about the unfairness of it all, but that only won him laughing jibes about how he’d gotten served by a girl, so after some obligatory snide remarks about how gigantic she was, he shut right up about it.

  Nobody bothers Rhiannon anymore.

  She snaps her lock closed and looks around at me. Catches me watching her. I clutch my stuff to my chest. Now or never. I have to say something, anyway, or she’ll think… I don’t know what she’ll think.

  “How do you get your hair to stay like that?” I stammer.

  “Egg whites.” She’s not nearly as foreboding when she smiles. I return it, just a little. “Seriously. You could probably use them to spike your hair, even.”

  Small talk concluded, she turns to go, and I blurt out, “Rhiannon?”

  She makes a face at me.

  “Ugh. Nobody calls me that. It’s just Ron.”

  “Ron,” I repeat, startled.

  Her eyebrows go up. “What, is that not girly enough or something?”

  “No, no, of course not! I didn’t mean… It’s just so…plain. And you’re…” I didn’t think this through. I flounder for an adjective while she cocks her head, waiting. “I don’t know. Fancy. I guess.”

  And now I’m blushing. God. This is what I get for opening my mouth. She looks at me sideways, like she’s trying to decide what to make of me.

  “Well. Okay. That’s a new one.”

  I twist the water bottle in my hands, making the plastic crinkle. “Listen. Can I…ask you kind of a weird question?”

  Her expression turns guarded. “You can ask.” Her tone isn’t inviting.

  I hunch my shoulders, quailing inside. No. No, I can’t. I don’t even know her. This is the stupidest idea I’ve ever had. I should just make an excuse and leave before I say something I can’t take back. But the words well up anyway.

  “I was hoping… I mean, since your mom’s…you know…you said your mom is psychic, right?”

  She folds her arms.

  “That’s what she calls it.”

  Too late to back out now. “It’s just that…there’s been something kind of strange going on with me lately. And I was hoping I could maybe…go see her or something. You know. Professionally.”

  “Professionally,” she echoes. I close my eyes, actually tempted to turn and run, plunge myself into the icy lake and never resurface, never. But it’s Rhiannon who breaks the long silence first.

  “You know, I’d probably think you were fucking with me. But you don’t go around with the kind of people who would put you up to it.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” I hate the quiver in my voice, but I can’t swallow it. “I know people have been… I’m just…these things keep happening. Things I don’t remember doing. Like with the chalk. I—what did I do?”

  “What did you do?” She stares at me. “Are you serious?”

  “I’m serious. I don’t remember.” I don’t know how to explain those few seconds where the classroom stood dark and empty. “I was at the blackboard. And then all of a sudden Miss Kendrick was telling me something wasn’t necessary. And the chalk was all over the floor.”

  “Wow,” she says slowly. “Okay. Well. For a minute you just stood there. Miss Kendrick tried to, you know, kind of prod you along. Get you started. And you just…looked at her. She told you to sit down, but you didn’t. You held up the chalk, really slowly, and you broke it”—she mimes snapping it in half—“and dropped it on the floor. And then you picked up another one and broke that too. You went through every piece on the tray, and you were staring at her the whole time. It was a little freaky, actually. You seriously don’t remember this?”

  I shake my head. “There’s…other stuff too. I broke a mirror. Threw something at it. I must have, there was no one else there. How could I throw something without knowing it?”

  She studies me, her face unreadable, a mask of black lipstick and swirling eyeliner. I’m sure she’s about to back away, or make some excuse, but instead when she moves it’s to take a step closer.

  “Listen.” She puts a hand on my arm before I can draw back, startling me into meeting her gaze. Her eyes are the color of black coffee, dark and warm, her voice quiet but earnest. “Here’s my totally unsolicited advice. You don’t want to see my mom. Save yourself eighty bucks and go to a real doctor. Honestly. I mean, what if something’s really wrong?”

  I nod automatically, my throat closing. Right. That’s probably the reasonable thing to say when someone tells you something like this. The sane answer. What was I expecting? For her to name the current of fear that’s been rising in my mind, fear that there’s more to it than that?

  “Yeah,” I manage faintly as she drops her hand again. I resist the urge to put my hand to the spot where the pressure of her touch still lingers. “Thanks.”

  “Take it for what it’s worth.” She heads off down the hall, sparing me a last worried look over her shoulder. “Good luck, okay?”

  I stand there watching her go, fragments of the conversation replaying in my mind all out of order, a tangle of barbs sharp enough to cut. I can’t believe I did that. Talk about desperate. I feel sick. Exposed.

  I feel visible.

  Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I have to keep it together for two weeks, that’s all, and then the holidays will be here. By the time school starts again she probably won’t even remember me. I close my eyes, drawing the hiss of the rain on the windows around me like a blanket, trying to summon indifference, a surface cold and smooth.

  Bang! Bang!

  I jump but can’t identify the rapid succession of noises until—bang!—the door to the classroom across the hall slams shut. I twist around, not sure what I expect to see, but the hallway is empty. There’s no other sound, although down the hall Mrs. Ahmadi opens her door to lean out, frowning.

  It’s almost 9:00 a.m. I force my feet into motion again. Calm down, calm down. Maybe the windows were open; maybe they all caught the same gust of wind. There’s nothing unusual about doors closing. But the water bottle hits my thigh with a heavy, painful thump as I swing my hand. I pause to frown at it.

  It’s full of ice.

  • • •

  The exam passes in a blur. Chemistry should be tidy, soothing. It’s like math: absolutes, right and wrong answers. No room for worry. But today my hands are cold and shaking, my heartbeat an urgent throb. I close my eyes and try to sit still, but after my dream springing up around me on the beach, after looking out at that dim fringe of ice in the dark, I can’t bring myself to call up the water to wash away the fear. It coils around my chest, around my throat, and squeezes. The formulas I knew so well last week scatter like gleaming fish. Equations that should fall into neat balance end in tangles that make no sense, and I have to go back to redo them. The hands of the clock sweep mercilessly forward, and panic tightens its grip. I’m losing time. I can’t do it.

  I do finish in the end, but barely. I spend a long time fussing with my pencil case, letting everyone else stream out of the gym before me, trying to soothe the screaming in my head. They’re not looking at me. They’re not. I’m invisible. I’m underwater. By the time I get on the bus I’m calmer, but I’m still drained and rattled. Jittery. Like I’ve spent the morning fighting
with someone.

  What if something’s really wrong? She’s right. Of course she’s right. I have to tell my aunt. Or my dad. That’s the rational thing to do; that’s what I should have done right away. It’s chemical, or medical, or something. That’s the only explanation that makes sense.

  I pause with my hand on the gate in the hedge and look back over my shoulder, down the street that leads to the park. It’s empty, the wind ruffling the surface of the wide puddles filling the ditches on either side. The road crews are gone. Whatever happened last night, the broken streetlights weren’t just in my head. Unless I imagined the conversation with Aunt Jen this morning too. Unless I imagined the yellow trucks outside the window.

  It’s like the emptiness of that missing night is spilling out into the rest of my life, leaving everything murky and suspect, leaving me floundering. Like the dark water slipping over my knees.

  I won’t pursue that thought any further. I’m not my mother. I will stay cold and rational. I won’t panic. I fumble for the latch on the gate, push through it.

  Aunt Jen won’t be home until this evening. I roam the internet for a while, but the connection is twitchy, hanging annoyingly on a loading screen every few clicks. The sound of the rain on the roof fills the house. I keep unlocking my phone, but of course there’s nothing there from Ingrid, and that message to her has only gotten harder to write. The furthest I get is a sentence, but after letting the phone go dark three times while I hesitate over what to say next, I end up deleting it.

  No voicemail either. My heart jumps when the phone twitches to announce a text, but it’s from my dad.

  Did you get my email? Please call.

  One line. Like a little punch to the stomach. Please call. And say what?

  I’m still staring at it when the phone buzzes again in my hand. Mom, says the caller ID.

  I have to answer it, but swiping the green bar to accept the call feels like picking up a grenade with a missing pin.

  “Mom?”

  “Hi, sweetie.” I can still hear the tears in her voice. Not outright, but not far from the surface. I swallow. In the background there’s a faint pop and hiss, like an old record playing. “How was your exam?”