The Storyteller

by Aaron Starmer

  He was. Most of the time. And I wasn’t. Most of the time. I hadn’t gotten him anything. I’d like to say I forgot to get him something, but that isn’t true. I considered buying him a videotape of old cartoons—Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and that big rooster, whatever his name is. He’d like something like that, but I didn’t follow through. Because I’m lazy. Because I’m mean. Because I hold grudges. Why was I holding a grudge? So he wanted to know about my stories. What’s so wrong with that?

  I felt even worse when I opened the present. It was one of those necklaces with fake diamonds and a heart pendant. There was a little heart-shaped card inside as well. It read: YOU HAVE MY HEART, YOU HAVE MY SOUL.

  Now, I’m well aware that those pendants are tacky and I know that notes like that are usually a bunch of bull. But I’m going to be honest, Stella. I got choked up.

  “Put it on, put it on,” Mom urged, which totally caught me off guard. Not that she hates Glen, but she was never this enthusiastic about him.

  I slipped it around my neck. Mom’s mouth twisted up, but not in a bad way. In a gimme a moment because I’m feeling a lot of things right now sorta way, and she put a hand on Dad’s shoulder. Dad raised his mug of coffee in a toast, though no one else had a drink so he was toasting alone.

  Alistair stared at the pendant for a moment, then he started collecting his presents in a big box. “I have to go to my room,” he said. “I have more work to do.”

  “No,” Mom said, in a tone that was probably harsher than I think she intended. “It’s Christmas. We spend Christmas together.”

  There were dark splotches under Alistair’s eyes, almost like bruises, but I knew they weren’t the result of a night in bed speculating about presents. Something bigger was taking a toll on him. You could see it in the way he moved, like his limbs weighed tons.

  “You’re right,” he told Mom. “I’m sorry. Being home is about being with all of you.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Dad said.

  “No,” Mom said. “He should apologize. I know it’s been tough for him, but it’s been tough for all of us. Being home? Where else has he been?”

  It had to be the pendant that set him off, and I suddenly remembered there was something about a guy named Chip wearing a pendant. Something Jenny Colvin was supposed to ask about. Something in Aquavania.

  “You’re right, Mom,” Alistair said. “I get so preoccupied with stuff that is … Well, family is the most important thing. Being home means not being trapped in my own mind for a bit. I know it’s been difficult talking to me and that’s my fault.”

  “It’s not a matter of whose fault it is,” Dad said.

  “It is,” Alistair said. “I feel a bit like a stranger here, but not because of anything you guys have done. I really should be honest with you about what’s going on.”

  Holy crap, I thought. Is he going to spill the beans on Aquavania and Jenny Colvin and the whole thing? How much do our parents already know? How much will they be able to handle?

  “Honesty is all we need,” Mom said.

  “Fiona is not dead,” Alistair said, enunciating every word like English was our second language. “Neither is Charlie.”

  “Oh, Alistair,” Dad said. “Speculating like that may feel like the right thing to do, but we have to be realistic.”

  Alistair’s voice remained firm and clear as he said, “I’m being more realistic than you could ever realize. Everyone is hanging their heads and acting like there’s no hope anymore. We all pretend like they’re gone for good, and when the subject comes up, we change the subject. But there aren’t any bodies. Milo Drake didn’t do a thing, and the reason I spend so much time alone, the reason I don’t seem to be interested in things around here, is that I’m spending all my time trying to get them back.”

  “You don’t even know what happened to them!” Dad shouted. The outburst was so sudden that I flinched. I’ve never heard Dad that loud before, but it wasn’t an angry loud. It was a befuddled loud.

  It didn’t spook Alistair at all, and still cool, still calm, he said, “I know what happened, and I know they will be back. Turn on the TV.”

  Mom crumpled up a piece of wrapping paper and tossed it in the fireplace, where some glowing embers sparked it up and set it aflame. All eyes turned to the fire. “It’s Christmas,” she said. “No TV.”

  “Something should be on the news,” Alistair said. “Or I should hope it is.”

  “What news is worth interrupting Christmas?” Mom asked, and she pointed at the fire. “This is your TV today. Your news today involves what time the ham will be served and how many pieces of pie your dad can eat.”

  “I’m talking about proof,” Alistair said. “Another one is back. Like the Littlest Knight. Only alive.”

  EVENING

  They’re calling it a Christmas miracle. Sunita Agrawal was an exceptional young woman who, at the age of thirteen, was already studying engineering and psychology at college in her native Nepal. Until one night in 1983, she vanished. Early yesterday, on Christmas Eve, she returned home. She has no memory of where she spent the last six years, but she was wearing the same clothes as the day she disappeared. Many questions remain, but her family and the entire community are very thankful to have her home.

  That was the gist of the news report. It was one of those heartwarming little stories they play at the end of newscasts. A Christmas miracle, though? I’m only fourteen and even I know they don’t celebrate Christmas in Nepal. Do they? I’m pretty sure they’re Buddhists. Or maybe Hindu. In either case, not into decking the halls.

  Aside from that obvious blunder, the news report was actually quite creepy. It featured video of the girl, Sunita, hugging her joyous family, paired with a picture of her taken in 1983, shortly before she disappeared.

  She looked the same in both images. Exactly the same. Not only the same clothes, but the same hair, same face. Like she hadn’t aged at all. Maybe it was something with the lighting. Maybe she was actually taller but the camera didn’t show it. Maybe in person she looked different, but on TV she resembled a time-traveler from six years before.

  Our mouths weren’t agape as we watched it, but they might as well have been. “How … Did you see something about this last night? Were you up late watching TV?” Mom asked Alistair.

  “Sunita Agrawal is a brilliant girl known as the Astronomer,” Alistair said. “She was where Charlie and Fiona are now. I brought her back. And I’m working to bring them back.”

  Dad turned off the TV. “Buddy,” he said, “we can’t do this anymore. We can’t play games like this. You need to talk this through with Dr. Hollister. You need to address what’s making you tell these stories.”

  “You’re talking about your friends,” Mom added. “These are real lives here.”

  Alistair nodded solemnly and whispered, “Fiona appreciated what you said to her, Mom. When you saw her riding her bike that day a couple months ago and asked her if everything was okay at home. I’m sorry if I doubted you. You were listening. It’s not your fault what happened.”

  Mom pulled back, stunned.

  “Wait,” Dad said. “What are you talking about?”

  “And Charlie,” Alistair said, turning to him. “He appreciates that you said you’d buy him a new rabbit after the one he got for his birthday disappeared and his parents decided not to replace her. That was your secret, between you and him, and I know it might not seem like he kept that secret, but he did.”

  Now it was Dad who recoiled.

  I finally decided to say something because it couldn’t get any weirder than it already was. “How exactly did she get home? This Sunita girl?”

  Alistair pointed to my pendant. “I put her back together.”

  “Like the candy cane girl?” I asked, forgetting that no one else has actually read my stories.

  “I don’t know about that,” Alistair said. “But I extracted her from her creations. Her figments.”

  “Keri,” Dad said in a tone as serious as
I’d ever heard him use. “Can you please go to your room? We need to talk to your brother alone.”

  And so that’s where I am. In my room, wondering what comes next.

  NIGHT

  I was lying in bed a few minutes ago, with the heart pendant in one hand and the phone in the other. Mom, Dad, and Alistair were still in the family room talking, so I used the opportunity to call Glen.

  If I were a character in one of my stories, I’d be the most annoying character in the world. Characters are supposed to have understandable motivations. The reader is supposed to be able to relate to them. But then there’s me, the master of questionable decisions.

  For instance, I decide to make Glen my boyfriend out of the blue. Why? For attention, I guess. For distraction. Then what happens? He’s very nice to me. Isn’t that awful? Of course it isn’t, but I act like it is. Because I’m not very nice to him. If I’m not a villain, then I’m something pretty damn close.

  I can change, though, can’t I? Redeem myself? If Glen is a romantic lead in my story, then I can be one too. This thing I set into motion—this weird relationship—I can make it work. That’s why I had to call him, even if it meant facing an awkward conversation. I needed to set things straight between us, because my life is twisted enough already.

  On the second ring, his mom picked up. “Merry Christmas,” she said.

  “Merry Christmas,” I responded, because that’s what you say, even if you’re not particularly merry. “Is Glen home?”

  “My goodness,” she said. “Is this Keri?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Oh, Keri,” she said. “So wonderful to hear your voice. Are your ears burning? Because we were all just talking about you.”

  “You were?” I said. God. What a terrifying notion. A bunch of strangers sitting around on Christmas discussing me.

  “We were hoping we’d all get to see more of you this holiday break,” she said.

  “Oh, I…”

  “I’m sorry, honey, you didn’t call to talk to me,” she said. “You want to talk to Glenny, don’t you? I’ll fetch him.”

  Out of the frying pan, into the fire. As uncomfortable as I was talking to Glen’s mom, talking to him was going to be much, much worse.

  “Ho, ho, ho,” he said when he picked up, which sounded a bit like an insult, but I don’t think he meant it as one.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “For biting you. For being … bitchy. All the time.”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “You weren’t. You aren’t. I’m sorry too. That’s why—”

  “It’s beautiful,” I said. “I’m wearing it right now.”

  “Oh. Good,” he said. “I thought it might be too … shiny?”

  “It’s a good shiny. A beautiful shiny. I’m sorry, but my present to you is … coming.”

  Once I figure out what to get him, that is. Man, am I a jerk.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got another present for you coming too.”

  “No, Glen,” I said. “You don’t have to do that.” Because he didn’t. Because two presents basically puts more pressure on me to get him something extra special. Or two extra special somethings.

  “Already done,” he said. “It’s nothing, really. I didn’t do much.”

  More than me. So much more than me. I had to change the subject. “So how’s your Christmas been?” I asked.

  “Awesome,” he said. “I got a Sega.”

  “So did we!”

  Then we talked about games for a while and then we said Merry Christmas and then we hung up. It sounded exactly like a conversation between a girlfriend and a boyfriend is supposed to sound.

  TUESDAY, 12/26/1989

  MORNING

  Dr. Hollister, Alistair’s psychiatrist, must be a big fan of Boxing Day. In other words, she doesn’t work on the day after Christmas. Or at least my parents can’t afford to pay her to work on the day after Christmas. I heard Mom and Dad discussing it early this morning. Not everything they said, but certain words came up. Words like disturbing and not working and new environment and coincidence.

  Coincidence!

  They must have thought I was still sleeping, but I was in the bathroom, and sometimes you can hear what’s going on in their bedroom through the vents above the sink. Not that you want to hear everything that goes on in their bedroom. Gross. Me. Out.

  That girl in Nepal. Sunita. The Astronomer, right? That stuff about Charlie and Fiona. I know it freaked my parents out more than they’ll admit. Coincidence is one thing but …

  Magic. How about magic?

  I knocked on Alistair’s door again.

  “Jenny Colvin?” I asked when he opened it. “Is she part of this? She helped bring this girl back?”

  He shook his head and ushered me in. “It was me and me alone,” he said. “Well, not alone exactly, but…”

  “So what we did, the call and tape and all that, it was useless?” I asked.

  “The opposite,” he said. “Talking through things with you made me realize that Jenny and Chip and Dot were never going to cooperate. I am the Boogeyman to them. You don’t cooperate with the Boogeyman.”

  “So what did you do?” I asked as I flopped into the beanbag chair.

  “I absorbed them,” he said. “I took what they know, what I know, and what the ones who came before me know, and I used that knowledge to extract Sunita from her creations.”

  “Well that didn’t take long,” I said.

  He chuckled and sighed at the same time. Chighed? Shuckled? “Depends what you consider long,” he said. “Like I told you, time is different in Aquavania. It was hard and precise work, involving draining all of Sunita’s figments of their memories of her, but keeping their bodies and other memories intact. Thankfully Chip and Dot had already gotten things started. So it only took a few decades.”

  Decades. As in tens. Of years! I didn’t even bother pressing for more information on that. I needed to know one thing. “And what about Fiona?” I asked. “She’s next?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Mom and Dad are—”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?”

  With a voice that threatened to go hoarse at any moment, he said, “They talked to me last night about my options for the future.”

  “What?” I asked. “Like options other than Dr. Hollister? Something else? Something more?”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Things might change around here, but they won’t stand in the way of what I’m doing. Their concerns will hardly be an issue once Fiona comes back.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “Soon. Or at least it will seem soon.”

  “What about Charlie?”

  “Charlie is another matter.”

  The Sega Genesis was sitting, still in the box, on Alistair’s dresser, next to that fishbowl. Now, I know Alistair has never been a huge video game buff, but he played them enough at Charlie’s to have an appreciation for them. There’s no doubt he knew how big a deal it was to have a Genesis. I can’t think of a kid who wouldn’t have at least plugged the thing in by now. But there it was, unopened.

  I would have opened it and plugged it in myself, but it’s been in Alistair’s room since Christmas morning, and I’m not about to burst in and grab it. Which is yet another reason why I hesitate to disregard anything that he’s saying. A boy who ignores video games is a boy with humongous things on his plate. I don’t know if you could call him a boy at all.

  Remember? Decades. As in tens. Of years!

  “I hate that I believe you,” I said.

  “I love that you do,” he replied.

  “Tell me something,” I said. “When did it start? When did you first become the … Riverman?”

  I’ve been rereading some of the stories I’ve written in the last month and some of the things I’ve been telling you, Stella. Even though Alistair has said there are different names for, well, this job he has in Aquavania, the name that keeps coming up is the River
man. It seems the best name of the bunch, because who are we kidding? I can’t very well refer to my little brother as the Boogeyman. I certainly can’t call him the Whisper. That sounds like something out of a cheesy comic book, some supervillain who’s always putting a finger to his mouth and shushing you before he does something dastardly.

  “I became the Riverman on the night I shot Kyle,” Alistair told me.

  I nodded. “So you did shoot him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wasn’t who I am now,” he said. “I was a scared, confused kid.”

  “And you became who you are now because of what?” I asked. “Because you shot him?”

  He considered this, then said, “In a way. But I had the chance to become the Riverman a long time ago. I’ve had different holes in my life. Portals have opened for me before. That night was the first time I actually went through one and into Aquavania.”

  “So the first time you went was barely a month ago?” I asked. “And yet you’ve been back and been there for … decades?”

  “Centuries, actually. I inherited a big mess, a place full of monsters, and I had to clean it up. Took some time. But like I said, when I’m there, time stands still here. Since I’m the Riverman, I control when people from the Solid World get to come and go. Like the host of a party or the engineer of a train that people get on and off of, when I’m not there, no one else is either. Then it’s Aquavania that’s frozen.”

  “So you could stop going to Aquavania for fifty years and no one else would get to go? And nothing would happen there?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Pretty much. Other Rivermen in the past have gone long stretches without calling kids to Aquavania. Everyone approaches the job differently.”

  I pictured those wispy souls again, only this time, they weren’t in cages at my brother’s feet. They were in a train, a train my brother was driving. In this image, he had an excessively wrinkly face, like a withered piece of fruit.

  “Okay, Methuselah, let’s get it all out there,” I said. “You claim you absorbed Fiona and Charlie, as in, they’re part of … your brain? So that’s how you know private things about them? Their thoughts and memories, for instance? Like the things you said to Mom and Dad.”