The Valley and the Flood

by Rebecca Mahoney

  I forgot for a few hours, didn’t I? I’d started thinking like it was Gaby and me, walking from house to house. I almost had fun.

  “Felix.” I sound just like I always do—at least to myself. But he snaps to attention. “When something bad happens to someone. You don’t think that might . . . set them down a different path?”

  “Well . . . of course it might,” he says with a shrug. “I just don’t like to see someone choose a path because they think it’s all they deserve.”

  We go quiet after that. Felix draws my notes to him, and I watch him for a while, flipping through page after page of Lotus Valley’s fondest memories. If I look at him, I don’t look at what’s behind him.

  And like that, we count the minutes until our appointment.

  Seventeen

  THE MOCKINGBIRD

  I RUN A little water onto my hands, then push it through my hair, root to tip. It feels as windblown and coarse as it did a second ago, but now it’s wet. So that did accomplish something.

  I lean in to study my face. This past year, no matter how I felt, it helped a little to know that I was pulled-together on the outside. I don’t know that I could say that now. My skin looks pale under the freckles. My face looks bruised from the lack of sleep. When I look at myself, my own brown eyes stare back, dark and unfocused.

  Cupping some more water in my hands, I splash it on my face, too. And as I turn, I just barely see that my reflection stays where it is. She’s looking down at her hands. At scrapes and bits of pavement.

  “I know,” I mutter. I get it. Break’s over.

  Down the hall, I hear the rustle of footsteps, the hiss of whispers. Felix’s is too low to hear. Alex’s is impossible not to.

  “You don’t get it,” he’s hissing. “You haven’t tried to get it.”

  Felix mumbles something in return, his voice wavering, placating. Alex barely lets him finish. “It’s bad enough that they treat me like glass—”

  They drift out of earshot, Alex’s next words tight and inaudible. I wait until they’re well down the hall before I open the door.

  I pick up my notes and backpack on the way out front, almost running into Sandy in the hall. She brushes off my apologies, her soft face pursing. “I can come along, honey,” she says. “That old bat doesn’t bother me.”

  I try to smile. Of course she can see through me. She’s used to Cassie.

  “We’ll be fine,” I say. “But thank you.”

  I step out onto the porch, narrowly avoiding Alex as he barrels through the door behind me. I’m not sure he notices me there. Felix trails behind him, defeat in every step.

  “What did you do,” I say.

  “I just . . .” Felix says. “Offered. Suggested? That he could stay with Sandy while we—”

  I blink. “Felix.”

  “I know,” he says.

  “You don’t!” I hiss. “What did I just say?”

  “He’s exhausted!” he says.

  “We’re all exhausted.” We both jump—neither of us saw Cassie slide out of the house behind him. “The Mockingbird’s been taking clients for years now without issue. We’ll be fine, as long as we follow the rules.”

  “Wonder if that’s what Lotus Valley Community Radio thought,” Felix mutters.

  “I’m not saying she’s reformed,” Cassie says with a shrug. “But hunting got old, after so long. This is how she has her fun now.”

  Felix doesn’t look convinced. “You don’t like her, either.”

  Cassie flushes. But she tilts her chin higher, like that’ll disguise it. “That’s a personal preference,” she says. Then she deposits the paper bag she’s carrying into Felix’s hands and follows Alex to the car.

  I nod to the bag as we move to follow. “What’s that?”

  Felix wrinkles his nose. “Tribute.” And he leaves it there.

  He barely says a word the entire twenty-minute drive. Alex, next to him, is even quieter. For lack of a rock to hide under until the awkwardness blows over, Cassie and I restart the game in the back seat.

  “Favorite soda,” I ask.

  “Seltzer,” Cassie says.

  “Oh, girl,” I mutter. If I ever make it back here, I’m bringing her a Mexican Coke.

  Cassie shoots me that crooked smile. “Worst subject in school?”

  “English,” I say. “Which is the only language I speak, so you can understand how embarrassing that is for me.”

  Felix, in the front seat, snorts. So at least I’ve accomplished something this afternoon.

  I turn back to Cassie, still grinning. “Weirdest thing on your five-year plan?”

  That was always Gaby’s favorite question. And I thought it’d be particularly good for Cassie. But her face goes oddly frozen.

  At length, she blinks, nodding to the street corner up ahead. “We’re here,” she says.

  As we pull over, my phone buzzes with an incoming text. I’ve heard it enough in the past few days that the jolt doesn’t hit me quite as hard this time.

  How’s it going? asks Christie Jones.

  Not great, Christie.

  We leave the car in a bank parking lot—“Tow me,” Felix mutters wearily—and duck through a narrow alleyway. I would have missed the little door, if not for the panel next to it, and the neatly handwritten sign.

  please enter your confirmation number.

  Felix would clearly rather not. But he keys a number into the panel.

  There’s a click. When Felix tugs the door, something gives with a pop that I feel down to my bones. And the door jolts open with a rush of cold air.

  Alex takes a step forward, and Felix holds up a hand and quickly says, “I’ll go first.”

  “You don’t know where you’re going,” Alex says. But as Felix’s stare lingers on him, he sighs, rearranging his tone into something gentler. “It’ll be fine.”

  He all but vanishes as he steps into the dark of the stairwell. Cassie moves from my side and follows close behind, with Felix and me to bringing up the rear.

  We leave the door open, but it’s hard to tell—the blackness falls in like a curtain.

  The ceiling opens up as we step in, and when I breathe, a rush of cool, heavy air fills my lungs. I don’t get a sense until we’re fully enveloped of just how vast the space is. By the light of our phones, the cavern walls look marbled, shaped by time, and maybe by the ocean that used to rush through it. Next to those walls, the staircase looks jarringly man-made.

  I watch the corners of my vision as closely as I can, even as I take Felix’s elbow and pull him toward me.

  “Don’t tell him how to feel.” The words are barely a breath. Kind of hard to have a private conversation on an almost silent staircase. “Just be there.”

  “I thought I was supposed to leave him alone,” Felix mutters.

  “I’m talking about something different,” I hiss. “Listen. I don’t know what he went through with the Mockingbird. But I can tell he’s terrified. And it’s okay that you’re scared for him. But don’t make him comfort you.”

  He flinches, and I’m pretty sure I should have shut up about ten words back. But the next move I see from him is a nod.

  Felix shakes my hand off as he slips around Cassie, and then all I see the rest of the way down is his back. I can’t hear whether or not he says anything to Alex, but I can see their shoulders, nearly touching.

  I think of the distant look in Cassie’s eyes, back at the movie theater. And I take my own advice. Sometimes people are counting on you to notice when something’s wrong.

  Closing the distance between us, I slip my arm into the crook of her elbow.

  She glances over, frowning slightly. “What’s that for?”

  I shrug. “Best to stick together.”

  I can feel Cassie’s eyes on me, but I keep my gaze ahead. And after a mome
nt, she starts to talk.

  “It wasn’t as bad for me as it was for Alex,” she says softly. “But she likes the loners. And I wasn’t a nice kid. I told my classmates’ futures without their permission. So no one really talked to me. Just her.”

  I wait for her to elaborate. But as usual, she breezes on. “I was in fifth grade when she went legitimate. I hoped I’d never hear her voice again. But I already knew it was a foregone conclusion.”

  “Well.” I shrug. “We’re here to change some foregone conclusions, aren’t we?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see her smile. There I go again. Giving really pretty comfort I can’t seem to apply to myself.

  At the very least, I’m not scared—at least, not as scared as I should be. These past few months, I haven’t been able to shake the feeling that something is dogging my footsteps. But whether it’s something in my head or something waiting at the end of this hall, it’s the same difference. If I get caught, I get caught. Either way, I get to stop running.

  We reach the bottom of the stairs.

  The cavern feels a lot like the Flood. Far too vast to see fully, but every time I breathe in, I feel all the years behind it, all the shifts of time and earth that created it. We draw ourselves into a tighter formation, listening. The air barely registers our presence. But something tells me we’ve been noticed all the same.

  There’s another sign, in those same neatly printed letters.

  please make yourselves comfortable.

  And a little lamp clicks on, revealing a couch, two armchairs, and a water cooler, all as incongruously modern as the staircase. There’s a little rectangle of white propped up behind it like a tiny film set, a halfhearted illusion of a wall. A waiting room, right in the middle of the cavern.

  Alex lets out a high, involuntary sound, not quite a laugh. Felix glances away sharply, as if he’s intruding, and I have a sudden, fierce memory of Gaby’s face the first time she saw me cry. How flat-out terrified she looked. How angry she got when I looked up and saw her and laughed until I choked. I forgot she used to think I had my shit together, too.

  Sometimes in my head, I soften her edges too much. I forget her learning curves and her missteps and how she couldn’t watch her mouth, even for a second. I don’t have to soften anything. Thinking of that dumbstruck, slack-jawed face, I love her so much I can barely breathe.

  I catch Felix’s eye and jerk my head toward Alex, exasperated. And somehow I keep from screaming into my sleeve when he goes for the awkward shoulder pat.

  Carefully, I sink onto the couch.

  Felix settles on one of the arms next to me, and Cassie hovers on my other side. Alex stays standing. And we count down the seconds until three p.m.

  The feeling of the room shifts slowly. It’s a familiar sensation now. Like standing at the edge of a wave, bearing down.

  I breathe in deep until it fills my chest. I’m used to the Flood’s presence now. This doesn’t seem that different. But something about it feels—smaller.

  The lights dim, and the cavern ahead crumbles into the gathering dark. We stand, move forward. And something stirs.

  “Welcome, dear customer,” calls my mother’s voice. “What do you yearn for?”

  I start to move. It’s not intentional, it just happens. But there’s an arm, firm and unyielding, in my path. Cassie’s.

  A chill climbs up the floors and into my blood. I look to Cassie, who’s closest to me. As dark as it is, I see enough of her face to feel very sure that it wasn’t my mother she just heard.

  And it’s like my feet leave the ground. Like I’ve come unhooked, and I’m spinning.

  “Hi there,” I say hoarsely. “Big fan.”

  She chuckles, a low, rolling sound that could never be Mom’s. “You’re a clever one, aren’t you? I like the clever ones.”

  Strange how my body’s still standing here untouched, like my insides aren’t collapsing in on themselves. I wonder if the others can feel it, too—the vacuum around me, the gaping black hole. I knew this already, knew it wasn’t Gaby on that tape, but now here it is, undeniable, in front of me. It wasn’t Gaby. It was never Gaby. Gaby is nowhere. She’s nowhere. She’s nowhere.

  I can feel Alex looking at me. Then, softly, he says, “Hello again.”

  I still can’t see her. But I feel her attention, unmistakably, shift to Alex. “Little one,” she says, with something like fondness. “Sheila should have told me it was you. She’s not a very good assistant. As appetizing as she smells.”

  Her focus narrows on him. It seems strange to say that for sure when I can’t see her, and yet I have no doubt.

  “He’s here for work,” I say. “Not for you.”

  “Is that so?” That brief softness in her voice—Mom’s voice—is gone. “You should be careful with him. Something already took a bite. You can’t bleed into the water and hope the sharks stay away.”

  I hear shuffling. Felix has shouldered his way in front of Alex.

  The room shivers with her hum. “Are you still that scared of me, little one?”

  Alex’s breath hitches on the inhale. But when I glance back at him, he’s drawn himself taller.

  “Yes,” he says, his voice small but firm. “But as of this week, I’ve seen scarier.”

  The darkness ahead stills. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Felix gaping at him. If we survive this, I’m going to tell him that he’s not nearly as subtle as he thinks he is.

  “All right,” she says, imitating his careful cadence. “You know how this goes. Payment first, and then we talk.”

  Felix has started to look queasy. But he grabs the paper bag.

  “Brave boy,” she croons. “On that cement block, right there. That’s right.”

  Very carefully, Felix shakes out the contents of the bag and unwraps it from butcher paper, and my stomach does a flip—it’s meat. Bloody rare. There’s a sharp tug, like a pull of the current, and it vanishes into the dark ahead.

  I try very hard not to listen too closely to the wet smack of each swallow.

  “I certainly hope there isn’t a problem,” she says between chews. “I run a legitimate business, as your sheriff well knows.”

  “You know why we’re here,” Cassie says. We all feel the Mockingbird’s attention shift to her, and despite the wobble in her voice, she presses on. “And yet you made us wait a full—”

  “You know, you’re all being terribly dramatic about this whole business,” the Mockingbird drawls. “You have another day before your prophecy comes to pass, don’t you? The days before a disaster are a busy time in my line of work. Your poor planning is no reason to cut in line.”

  “Then we’ll make this quick,” Alex says. “This is about one of your customers.”

  There’s a short, intrigued silence. “My clients expect confidentiality. I can’t hope to create a safe space here if I hand their most trusted secrets to the law.”

  “Safe space,” Felix says flatly.

  “Emotionally safe,” the Mockingbird allows. “And how am I to remember every commission?”

  “I think you’d remember,” Alex says. Polite as ever. But the sharp certainty makes me look.

  “How’s that, dear?” the Mockingbird says.

  “This was a specialty order,” Alex says. “Your premium package.”

  I’ve never felt someone smile before. But it’s unmistakable. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “It sounds like you care about your business,” I say before I lose my nerve. “I’m sure you’ll be disappointed to lose it.”

  “The destruction of buildings means nothing to me, clever one,” the Mockingbird says. “This town will continue, one way or another. It always has.”

  “And do you think it’s just the town above that’s at risk?” I say.

  “Meaning what?” says th
e Mockingbird.

  “Oh!” Cassie, catching my glance, blinks her big blue eyes. “Gosh, this is awkward. This isn’t public information, but since small businesses are so important to Sheriff Jones, we’ll make an exception.”

  “This isn’t going to be an ordinary flood,” I say. “It’s the ocean that dried up here all those years ago coming back home. The ocean that must have formed these caverns. And I don’t know, Cassie. What do you think is going to happen to this place when it floods?”

  “Good question,” Cassie says. “It’s embarrassing, but I don’t always see everything.”

  “She’s only third-most accurate in town,” I say in a stage whisper.

  The Mockingbird’s voice is low when she speaks again. “You’re bluffing.”

  “I wish I was,” I say. “Now. I’m here because of a broadcast that couldn’t possibly exist. The voice of someone I lost. Was what I heard your ‘premium package’?”

  There’s a long, cold pause. And then somewhere ahead, a slow breath in.

  “How clumsy of me,” she says. Her tone is light. But the temperature drops. “But let’s look on the bright side. I can point you in the right direction. And perhaps you can do the same for me.”

  “I’m not sure I can,” I say.

  “Don’t be so modest, dear,” she says. “After all these years, you’ve brought my old friend back.”

  Eighteen

  THE QUESTION

  I LOOK OVER my shoulder. It’s an unconscious gesture now. Even when there’s nothing there, even when it’s just the present and nothing more, I never forget what’s coming.

  “If I’d known,” I say brightly, “I would have come down a lot sooner, let you kids get caught up.”

  The Mockingbird lets out an agreeable hum. “Has anyone ever told you, my clever thing, that you say very little for a creature that talks so much?”

  I let out a burst of air, half a laugh and half an exhale. “Ouch,” I say. “Do you take requests? Because that one would have been perfect in my third-grade teacher’s voice.”