Black River Falls

by Jeff Hirsch

  I found a place a little farther down the ledge and sat. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean sometimes when I think about, you know, before, I get this feeling like maybe I was the one who did something. Something awful.”

  “No,” I said. “No way.”

  “You don’t even know me, Card.”

  I wanted to tell her she was wrong, that I did, but I knew it wasn’t true. She was as much a stranger to me as she was to herself. I sat there staring at the ground, feeling stupid, wondering what to do or say. If things were normal, I could have put my arm around her, hugged her, told her it was going to be all right, but of course I couldn’t do any of those things. Not then. Part of me wondered if I ever could have.

  “What was her promise anyway?” she asked.

  “What?”

  Hannah was looking out to where the trees rose over the mountain’s highest peak.

  “Lucy must have promised somebody something pretty big for them to name a whole mountain after it. What was it?”

  How strange was it that in all that time, I’d never asked the same question? There must᾿ve been a town legend about it, something they would have taught us in school, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t remember what it was.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Hannah thought for a moment, and then she turned to face me. “So I guess it can be anything we want.”

  We were sitting so close, closer than we should have been. Her eyes were dark and huge, twin universes. For what felt like a very long time, neither of us moved or said anything or looked away. The cabins in the camp below felt very distant. Black River was another world.

  Hannah laid her hand on the rock between us. In the moonlight it was this pale, beautifully curving thing, like a dove. I moved closer. My hand shook as I reached out and placed it on top of hers, covering it. I thought I could feel a little bit of her warmth through my glove, and the gentle tapping of the pulse in her wrist. My breath grew hot under my mask as something rushed into the space between us. I didn’t know what it was or where it came from, but it was there, warm and alive, connecting us both.

  And then, just like that, it was gone. She drew her hand back, and time spun forward again. The air was just the air.

  “I should probably get some sleep.”

  “Yeah,” I said, my voice as thin as a slip of paper. “Me too.”

  I started to go but stopped at the trail and turned back. Hannah was standing at her tent, holding the flap open.

  “My dad used to read me and Tennant all these Greek myths,” I said. “Gods and heroes and monsters and all that stuff. Penthesilea was the queen of the Amazons. She was a great warrior and one of the most beautiful women in the world.”

  The treetops whispered in the high wind. Hannah smiled.

  As I walked back to my tent I expected the world to come crashing back over me—my worries about the Guard leaving and the Marvins taking their place, my confusion over seeing Mom again. But some remnant of that moment with Hannah clung to my skin and kept it all at bay. I stopped at the bluff that overlooked the kids’ cabins. They were silver and black in the moonlight. I could feel Greer and the others inside them, asleep on their cots, breathing as one.

  Before I went into my tent, I looked down the path that led to Hannah’s. There was another light out there in the trees. She’d gone inside with her flashlight, making the skin of the tent glow a greenish yellow. I watched the dance of shadows inside as she got ready for bed. And then the light winked out and everything was dark.

  I lay down on my sleeping bag and closed my eyes. I could feel the in-and-out pulse of the camp’s breath. Hannah’s too. I fell into rhythm with it, imagining the air in their lungs flowing into mine and mine into theirs. We’d built an entire world out of ourselves and all the cast-off things around us. Right then it felt as if it would go on forever.

  It felt unbreakable.

  13

  THE NEXT THING I knew, I was standing in my bedroom back home. It was late. I was still wearing the shorts and Captain America T-shirt I’d gone to sleep in. I thought I must have been dreaming, but I looked down at my feet and saw that they were caked in mud from my walk down the mountain. My hand went to my face and I felt a little thrill of fear when I realized I’d walked all the way through town without my mask or gloves.

  The room was dark, but the little bit of moonlight coming in through the window revealed that it was just how I’d left it the night of the sixteenth. A pile of comic books lay at the foot of my unmade bed. The laundry Mom had done earlier that afternoon sat in the basket beside my desk—pants and shirts folded into neat squares, socks rolled into balls the size of fists. The air tasted like dust.

  Downstairs, the front door opened and closed. Heavy footsteps moved from the entryway to the living room. I left my bedroom and started down to see who it was. When I came to the landing and made the turn for the final run of steps, I saw that it was Cardinal. He was standing at the end of the couch, perfectly still. This was Dad’s Cardinal, not Gonzalez’s. He was a winged tank, nine feet tall, his armor the color of blood that had become glossy as it hardened into steel.

  The living room windows filled with an orange light that sent shadows writhing across the walls and the floor. I smelled smoke and heard the ring of wind chimes. Cardinal turned and walked toward the front door. I followed him out onto the porch, but the porch wasn’t the porch anymore. It was a shelf of rock at the peak of Lucy’s Promise.

  Cardinal sat down at the edge of the cliff and motioned for me to join him. When I did, he broke the seal on his helmet and set it in his lap. It wasn’t Cameron Conner. It was Dad. He swept his hand across the landscape.

  “Behold, the Gardens of Null.”

  As the words left his mouth, the sun rose over our backs and spread across a world that had been consumed by an immense fire. From where we sat, all the way to the horizon, there was only silence and great dunes of oily gray ash. No buildings. No streets. The Black River had boiled away and the forests had become groves of limbless pillars, charred to cinder. Lucy’s Promise sat at the center of it all. The flames had burned it down to bedrock, leaving its slopes a glossy black. Here and there, fissures showed the deep orange flames that seethed in the heart of the mountain.

  I turned back to Cardinal, but instead of Dad’s face he had yours. I asked how the fire had started, and you leaned in close and whispered to me the great secret of the world.

  “It wants to burn,” you said.

  The sun passed over our heads. The sky became a deep black nothing.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  A knife appeared in your hand. It was black-handled with a chrome blade. A kitchen knife. You placed it in my palm and closed my fingers around it.

  “Forget.”

  You took my hand and gently guided it until the tip of the blade hovered just over my right eye. The next second you were gone and I was alone. A hot wind moaned around the top of the mountain. I turned to my right. Even though the sun was gone, I could see tendrils of shadow falling down the face of the rocks beside me. I thought about the great secret of the world, and then I gripped the knife in both hands and drove it through.

  14

  AND THEN I was standing in the middle of the woods. It was morning. I was barefoot. My T-shirt and shorts were damp with sweat. I looked for a landmark to get my bearings, but all I saw was that I was on a trail. I thought maybe if I kept going, everything would become clear.

  The trail opened up to a small field. It was perfectly empty and quiet except for a low, moaning wind, but I wasn’t sure if that was real or if it was in my head. I moved from the dirt trail to the grass. At the far end of the clearing were two gray boulders perched at the edge of the mountain. As soon as I saw them, everything snapped into focus. This was Hannah’s campsite. But her tent was gone and so were all her things.

  A wormy chill raced up my spine. Had I dreamed her? Dreamed everything that happened to us? And if I h
ad, how far back did the dream go? Maybe there had never been any virus. Maybe you and Mom and Dad were still—

  “Cardinal?”

  Hannah was standing behind me, but I almost didn’t recognize her. She was in shorts and a blue T-shirt with a picture of a rabbit on it. Her hair was pinned behind her ears, turning her face into a pale moon.

  “You all right?”

  “I . . .” I turned to look around at the barren campsite. “Where is everything?”

  “I was just—I’m moving my things down into Astrid’s cabin.”

  There was an ache in my throat as I said, “You’re leaving?”

  “No, I’m just—”

  “When did you decide to do that?”

  “This morning. I asked her and—”

  “You asked her?”

  Hannah’s jaw tensed. “They have a spare cot, and I thought  . . .” Her voice was like a steel wire that had been stretched too tight. “I thought it made more sense that way. For me to be down there with everyone else. I just came back for my—”

  She pointed behind me. Her backpack was leaning against some bushes. I hadn’t noticed it earlier. I picked it up, then returned to Hannah and held it out to her.

  “Card, you’re not . . .” She trailed off. She was looking at me strangely, but I didn’t know why. “You’re not wearing your mask.”

  I lifted one hand, and my bare fingers brushed against my lips. I hadn’t even realized. I set the pack down and backed away from it until I felt stone against my legs. I sat down and found myself wedged between the two boulders. Something in me eased from being surrounded by them. I drew my knees up to my chest and held them close.

  Hannah collected the bag, but didn’t leave. She stood by the trail, fidgeting with the strap, twisting it back and forth. Our moment standing in the moonlight the night before came rushing back to me, but it was all mixed up with looking down at that burned earth and learning about the great secret of the world.

  She asked again if I was okay, but I couldn’t speak, couldn’t even move my lips, so I nodded instead.

  “It’s just . . . you look pale, and your eyes are—did you sleep last night?”

  “Yo! Hannah! Time to get moving! The natives are getting rest—”

  Greer came up the trail at a run and stopped behind Hannah. The palm of his hand hovered over her lower back. “Oh! Hey there, buddy! Damn, you look like crap.”

  “Greer,” Hannah said.

  “What? Have you seen him?”

  “He says he’s fine.”

  Greer left Hannah and headed for me. “Okay, well, I’m glad you’re here! That Raney guy came up this morning to bring us those clothes he promised, and he said the Marvins are throwing this big picnic thing down in the park today. The word is that there’ll be barbecue! Now, Hannah thinks . . .”

  Greer kept talking, but I dropped my head, curling my hands around the back of my skull. An ache had begun behind my right eye, and my nostrils were full of the stink of charred wood. Greer’s voice turned into a knifelike buzz, and then Hannah joined in too. Monument Park. Games. A party. It was the same thing over and over again. Time had folded into a loop, tied itself into a knot, and still they talked.

  “You can’t go!”

  Shouting like that made my head pound, but it was worth it. Silence. Finally. Greer looked at me and then at Hannah, a half smile on his face, as if maybe there was a joke he just wasn’t getting.

  “Oh!” he said. “Don’t worry, me and Hannah figured out a whole new disguise for her. Way better than the last one. And besides, even if those creeps recognize her, there’ll be so many people around, they won’t dare do anything, right? I mean it’s not every day that the kids get to go to a party. A real party with—”

  “What did I just say? You’re not going.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I sprang off the rocks and stabbed my finger at Hannah. “What do you think’s going to happen if Raney sees her?”

  “You said Gonzalez could cover for us!”

  “As long as we’re not stupid.”

  Hannah said, “We’re not going to be stupid. We’re going be careful.”

  “Careful? You’ll be careful? A party? You think this is a joke?”

  “I don’t think it’s a joke. I think—”

  “Guys!” Greer shouted from the sidelines. “Come on. Let’s—”

  “What?” I said. “You think the Marvins are doing this out of the kindness of their hearts? Throwing you a party? Giving you presents? This is for them. They want something, and they’re using this to get it. How can you not see that? How can neither of you see that?”

  “Using it to get what?” Hannah asked. “What could they possibly want from us?”

  I steamrolled past them toward the trail. “It doesn’t matter. You’re not going, and that’s it.”

  “Come on, buddy, wait—”

  Greer’s hand grazed my shoulder. I jumped away from him. The muscles in my arms and my back tensed, like a steel spring twisted down tight. I thought of Dale and Tommasulo and remembered how good it felt to let go completely. My hand became a fist.

  “Card!”

  Hannah was standing just behind Greer, presenting a united front. The two of them against me. The world shifted on its axis. I stepped back slowly, putting more distance between us.

  “We’re here for them,” I said. “For those kids. To make sure nothing ever happens to them.”

  “We will,” Hannah insisted. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

  “You were right,” I spat. “It was your fault. You had people who loved you—friends, family—and you threw them away and ran because you didn’t give a damn about anybody but yourself.”

  She went perfectly still. She barely breathed. I could have walked away, but it was as if she were standing on a ledge and some part of me couldn’t resist pushing.

  “Some things don’t change when you get infected,” I said. “I never should have brought you here.”

  Hannah said nothing, and neither did Greer. I continued down the trail.

  The latch sprang open when I dropped the tackle box, sending weights and lures spilling out onto the shore of the reservoir. I’d stopped by my tent for my mask and gloves and my fishing things. All I could do was get as far away from them as possible and focus on something else.

  As I gathered the tackle, that ache reignited behind my eyes. It moved to encircle my head like a belt, tightening a little at a time. I dropped the lures and filled my hands with water, then splashed it against my face and over my greasy hair, hoping it could wipe away the morning, the last couple of days, the last year. I sat back, eyes shut tight, waiting for the thrum inside my head to ease.

  “Anything biting?”

  Greer’s reflection appeared in the water. He was leaning against a tree behind me, his hands slipped casually into his pockets. I gathered up a handful of lures and threw them into the box. Greer chuckled to himself in that annoying way of his and then took my fishing rod. He found a place farther down the shore and fiddled with the reel.

  “Did I ever tell you that I’m pretty sure I used to be an expert fisherman?” he asked. “And I don’t mean this pond fishing, I mean the real thing, deep-sea fishing, for like sharks and whales and stuff.”

  “We live a hundred miles from the nearest ocean,” I said. “You’ve probably never even been.”

  “Details,” he said. “I’ve got the salt water in my veins, Cassidy. No doubt about it.”

  Greer whipped the rod back and made a perfect cast that flew nearly out to the center of the reservoir. The lure hit with a plop and vanished, leaving the red and white floater bobbing on the surface.

  “See?”

  I tore up a root beside me and threw it into the water.

  “So if you’re so great at it, why don’t you do it once in a while?” I asked. “Maybe cancel one of your Super Bowl dance-a-thons and pitch in. I could use the help.”

  Greer laughed. “Oh, no argument the
re. You need help, buddy. A lot of help. You’re not sleeping. You barely eat.”

  This again. “I’ve told you a hundred times, Greer. I eat.”

  “No you don’t,” he said. “I asked Tomiko.”

  “You’re having Tomiko spy on me?”

  “Oh, not just her,” Greer said. “The whole camp does it in shifts. There is literally not a second in your day when you aren’t secretly being watched by a twelve-year-old.”

  “I don’t need to be watched.”

  “Dude, the things you said to Hannah—”

  “Greer.”

  “—the words ‘titanic jackass’ keep coming to mind, and I know you, you are not a titanic jackass. Buddy. Seriously. I remember like two percent of my entire life, and I’m still pretty sure you are like the least fine human being I’ve ever met.”

  Greer set down the rod and turned to me.

  “Look, man, I don’t know what all happened to you on the sixteenth—”

  “Nothing happened.”

  “Card—”

  “Nothing happened that didn’t happen to a thousand other people.”

  “Yeah, but you remember,” Greer said. “Whatever it was, you remember it. And, hey, if you don’t want to talk to me about it, that’s fine. As your friend, it hurts me deeply, but fine. But you should talk to somebody.”

  “I don’t need to.”

  “Ha!”

  “You and Hannah—” I clenched my jaw to bite off the rest.

  “What?” Greer said. “Say it.”

  “You two think this is a game.”

  Back when Greer was his old self, he almost never had to use his fists. Remember? He would fix his eyes on any of us, either at the bus stop or in the schoolyard, and we would wither. There was something in the way he looked at you that said he saw right through whatever sad little defense you were trying to mount, whatever bluff. It also said that what was inside of him was no bluff at all. Greer looked at me like that as we sat by the reservoir.

  “You really think you know what’s going to happen because you know what did happen?” he said. “You think you know who people are because you know who they were? Trust me here, man. You don’t know a damn thing.”