Many Waters

by William Woodall

  Chapter Twenty-Two - Lisa

  I drove in silence, leaving the radio turned off for Marcus’s sake, and when we got back to Goliad late that evening I was exhausted all over again. I drove across the dam and past the peach orchard to his house, not knowing where else to take him, and I guess he’d started to recover a little bit by then. He was able to walk inside, at least, and lie down on the bed by himself.

  I stayed with him that night, worried that he didn’t need to be left alone just yet. I slept on the couch, and in the morning we talked.

  He was already more or less back to normal by then, except for his wrists. But still, there were shadows under his eyes and a haunted look on his face that I’d never seen there before.

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  “You really don’t want to know, Lisa,” he said darkly.

  “No, but I probably ought to,” I said.

  “Well, I went to see her that morning, like I told you. She seemed friendly enough, told me a few things about Selena Garza, and then said she had some more stuff back at her brother’s house if I wanted to go see it. And me, like an idiot, I fell for it. She seemed so dadgummed sweet and innocent, you know. Anyway, once she got me out there alone in the middle of nowhere, it was all over. She sneaked up and hit me on the head from behind, and next thing I knew I woke up tied to the ceiling,” he said.

  “Did she hurt you?” I asked.

  “No, not really. Not the way you think, at least. All she did was let me hang there. No food, no water, no nothing. It wasn’t too bad at first, but then my wrists and my shoulders started to hurt something awful. She came in now and then just to stand there and watch me suffer, like she was enjoying it or something,” he said bitterly.

  “Yeah, I think she does,” I agreed.

  “I don’t think she cared if I died or not. I think she wanted me to. I think I would have, if it’d been much longer. She said I’d probably taste good, whatever that means. She seemed to think it was funny,” he said.

  “You don’t think she, like, eats people, do you?” I asked, feeling sick.

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t put it past her,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, Marcus,” I said.

  “Wasn’t your fault. You saved me from that nutball,” he pointed out.

  “It’s not over, yet,” I said, and his head snapped up.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “She said she’d break the curse on Cody’s family, but only if I hurt him really bad and break up with him. She even wants video,” I said.

  “That’s crazy!” he said.

  “It gets worse, I’m afraid. She wants me to tell Cody that you and me hooked up and we’re together now, to make it hurt more,” I said, forcing myself to say the words. Marcus just stared at me.

  “We can’t do that,” he said.

  “That’s what I said. But if we don’t, then the deal’s off. Cody’s back under the curse and I’m not sure what she’d do to you and me. Probably have us both hanging from the ceiling till we die of thirst. I’m afraid all three of us are on the block, here,” I said.

  “You don’t think we could just tell Cody the truth, and try to figure something out?” Marcus said.

  I hesitated; the same thought had crossed my own mind, but there was one stubborn problem with that idea.

  “I want to. But if we do, then what’ll happen? Layla will never break that curse unless we do this. I want to give Cody his life back, and the only way to do that is to give the monster what she wants,” I said.

  “You believe in the Curse now?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I guess I do,” I agreed.

  Marcus is no fool; he recognized reality when he heard it, no matter how much he hated the idea.

  “So what’s the plan, then?” he asked, defeated.

  “I guess I’ll have to go to Alaska and do what I have to do. Then we’ll see,” I said, surprised that I could be so steely-eyed about it.

  “Do you think you can make Cody believe it?” he asked.

  “I have to. Maybe I can tell him we went to a party and got drunk, or something like that,” I said.

  “You know he’d never believe that. He knows neither one of us is a boozer,” he said.

  “Well. . . I don’t know. What if I tell him it was supposed to be a fish fry or a wiener roast or something innocent like that, and somebody spiked the punch? He might believe that,” I said.

  “Yeah, he might. Tell him it was at Tommy Jones’s house; he’s a meth-head from way back,” he suggested.

  “I don’t know Tommy that well,” I said. I remembered him slightly, since Jenny had dated him for a while a couple months ago. He was exactly her type; a good-looking, muscular ex-football player who loved to party and run wild.

  “He lives over there on Redbud Street in Ore City. I used to run around with him a little bit, before I moved out to Goliad my senior year. He didn’t used to be quite as much of a doper as he is now. Anyway, Cody knows all that, so maybe he’d believe it if you told him we went over there,” he said.

  “I guess so,” I agreed, thinking how unreal it was that I was actually sitting there having a serious discussion about how best to deceive Cody.

  There was nothing left to say, and waiting would only prolong the agony. I figured if the thing had to be done, then it was best done quickly. But there was still one more conversation I needed to have before I hit the road.

  I wasn’t sure if Miss Josie would be home or not, but after leaving Marcus’s place I pulled in at the main house just in case. There was a slight chill in the air as I headed up the steps, and I pulled my sweater a little closer around my shoulders. Miss Josie must have seen me coming, because she opened the door with a smile before I even had time to knock. Then she saw the look on my face, and her smile faded.

  “Is something wrong, Lisa?” she asked, looking concerned.

  “No, ma’am. I just came to talk to you about something, that’s all,” I said, nervously fiddling with my keys.

  “Oh, all right. Well, come on inside, then, before you catch your death of cold out there,” she said, stepping aside to let me in. I followed her to the kitchen, shutting the door behind us.

  “Can I get you some coffee, maybe some hot chocolate?” she asked, in her usual hospitable way.

  “I’d love some hot chocolate,” I admitted, knowing how much she liked to be a good hostess.

  “Sit down, then, and we’ll talk awhile. I was fixing to go wash some clothes, but that’s nothing that can’t wait,” she said.

  She proceeded to busy herself at the stove, pulling out milk and chocolate and this and that and the other thing. I knew her well enough by then to know that she would have been horrified if you’d suggested using instant hot chocolate, or anything else instant, for that matter. She always made everything from scratch. But practice makes perfect, I guess, because it didn’t take her long to get the chocolate done, and then she sat down across the table from me while we sipped the warm drinks. The cup felt good on my cold fingers.

  “So what is it, sweetie?” she asked, taking a sip of her own chocolate.

  “I don’t want you to think badly of me,” I began, my palms beginning to sweat with nervousness. Telling Miss Josie was a major risk, but I just had to.

  “Oh, honey, no. I could never think badly of you. You can tell me, whatever it is,” she promised me.

  “All right, then. Just promise you’ll hear me out to the end, okay?” I asked, and she nodded.

  “A few months ago, Cody told me he thought there might be a curse on y’alls family, that everybody would die young,” I said.

  “I see,” she said.

  “I didn’t really believe it at first. Not then. But then several days ago Marcus told me some rumors he heard about how the curse came from a witch in New Mexico, and we finally decided it was worth having Marcus go out there to see if he could find out anything, since it seems
to bother Cody so much,” I told her reluctantly, my nervousness increasing to the point that my throat was getting dry and making it hard to talk. I took another swallow of hot chocolate to moisten it.

  “I see,” Miss Josie said again.

  “We didn’t tell Cody anything. You know how he is; he would’ve worried, and maybe even come running back down here, if he couldn’t talk us out of it,” I said, pausing to take another drink.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “Some bad stuff happened. I had to go out there and bring Marcus back. That curse is not just a fairy tale, Miss Josie. It’s real. I believe that now. But I think. . . I hope, we found a way to get rid of it,” I said, forcing myself to say the words. There was a thick pause in the room, and I wondered if the woman thought I was crazy.

  “How would you do that?” she finally asked.

  “It won’t be easy. I don’t know what all I might have to do, yet. I might be gone for a while. I might. . . I might have to tell Cody some things that are not true. Even some really bad things. I just want you to know that I love him and I always will, no matter what. He’s everything to me. Whatever you hear and whatever happens, please believe me when I say that,” I said.

  “I believe you, Lisa. But I can’t lie to him, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said sternly.

  “I’m not asking you to do that. Only to keep all this to yourself, and please remember what I said, that I love him more than anything in the world. That’s all,” I said.

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Do you think if I told him a lie that really hurt him, that he’d forgive me later on? If he knows I only did it for his own sake?” I asked.

  “I honestly don’t know what he might say in a situation like that,” she admitted.

  “Me neither,” I said.

  “I do know this much. You’d be a lot better off if you told him the truth,” she said.

  “Not about this,” I said bleakly, and Miss Josie shook her head.

  “Lisa, I’ve been around for a good many years, and I’ve never yet seen a time when deceit was the right choice. Not even to protect someone. It always comes back to haunt you later on. Cody has the right to make his own choices about what he wants to do with his life, just like you do. You can’t make them for him, no matter how well-intentioned you think it is. Believe me, he won’t thank you for that,” she said.

  “Even if we’re talking about saving his life?” I asked, my voice cracking. Miss Josie took a long time to answer that one.

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s possible there might be exceptions to every rule. I can’t tell you for sure what you should do. But I would think long and hard before lying to him, no matter how good you think the reason might be,” she said.

  “But if I have to. Do you think he’d forgive me?” I insisted.

  “I think if it was a case where you really, truly had no choice in the matter, then yes, I’m sure he would. He’s not unkind, you know,” she said.

  “Yeah, I know that,” I agreed.

  “So have some faith in him, and trust God that things will work out the way that they should,” she said.

  I left not long after that, heavy-hearted as ever. I drove slowly, trying to count up in my mind how much money I had. I didn’t know how much it might cost for a plane ticket to Prudhoe Bay, but I was willing to bet it wouldn’t be cheap.

  It turned out I had a little over a thousand dollars saved up. It was supposed to be set aside for emergencies, but I figured this surely had to count as one if anything did.

  The cheapest flight I could find turned out to be thirteen hundred dollars, which left me about two hundred dollars short. I didn’t know where I might get the rest, let alone have anything left over for food or anything else. I finally scraped it up, though; I pawned whatever jewelry I could find and sold my computer and my textbooks. All together, it was barely enough.

  I bought the ticket for Thursday so I’d get there on Friday afternoon, and then I was supposed to come back on Monday evening. Even though I didn’t really expect to stay that long, I’d already decided I had to make it seem like this whole thing was a legitimate attempt to win his forgiveness. Layla wanted her footage up close and personal, and there was no way Cody would believe I’d come all the way to Alaska to break up with him. I could do that much by phone or letter and spare us both an ugly scene. But he might believe it if he thought I’d come to make up with him. I was going to have to hurt him so much that he’d be the one to break up with me; that was the only way it would ever work, and I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to pull it off.

  I hoped they’d change my ticket and let me come home early after it was all over, because if not then I didn’t know what I might have to do. I wouldn’t have enough money left over to rent a hotel room, that was for sure. But that was all right; I was grimly determined to do whatever it took, even if I had to sleep on the floor at the airport.

  I’d have to tell Jenny and Mama where I was going, of course, and I braced myself for the argument that would cause. Jenny would have to drive me to the airport and come pick me up when I got back, and I could just imagine some of the choice words she might have for the whole adventure.

  I could have asked Marcus to take me, I guess, but considering what I was fixing to have to tell Cody, I think that would have been unbearably awkward at the time. What do you talk about for two hours with a guy you’re pretending to have a fling with? Celebrities? The weather? Out of all the convoluted stories I’d ever read, there was nothing to cover a situation like this one.

  All I could do was cross my fingers and pray it all worked.