“Is the girl still here?”
Ms. Linqvist shrugged and kept on with her work.
I could have searched the stacks for Fiona, but she clearly wanted me to see something on the sheet first. The microfiche readers were in a dark corner of the library. Hardly anyone ever used them, and today was no exception. I settled in at the machine closest to the wall and fed the sheet into the viewfinder.
I had no idea what I was looking for. The first stories I scanned through were about local politics and sports. I didn’t recognize the name of the newspaper, but references to Washington, Oregon, and Idaho implied that it was from somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.
The film had a week’s worth of newspapers on it, and I scrolled over dozens of stories, two or three times each, until I finally zeroed in on the one Fiona wanted me to find. It was a capsule piece, tucked in next to the police blotter.
THE SEARCH FOR CHUA LING ENDS
Police have suspended the search for twelve-year-old Chua Ling, who disappeared two months ago from her bedroom in her North Carson home. “It has been a very trying time for everyone,” Police Chief Falcone says. “But unfortunately we cannot contribute any more resources without further leads.” Hundreds helped in the three-county search for Ling, who was described by friends as “sweet, friendly, and incredibly imaginative.”
December 12, 1988
As soon as I finished reading, there was a whisper in my ear.
“It was the Riverman. You need to hear more,” Fiona said.
THE LEGEND OF FIONA LOOMIS, PART III
Chua Ling didn’t believe in the Riverman, at least not in the beginning. She had heard that he was a horrible beast, a phantom, a ghoul, but she couldn’t imagine that he was actually real.
On the night of their first sleepover, Chua told Fiona how she first learned of the Riverman.
“There was this darling boy named Werner. He was from Germany and spoke German in the Solid World, but here in Aquavania we all understand one another, no matter what languages we speak. He would visit me and I would visit him. We would stand at the folds and whisper sweet nothings to each other. Yes, it was sweet, but it was nothing too. We only kissed a few times. I think I might have loved him.
“Werner told me stories. He said that there are empty worlds in Aquavania. Rumor has it they are cold and gray places, like ruins made of stacked ashes, but they are also home to rainbow-colored rivers that glitter and snake through all the muck. Ancient tablets and glyphs found in these worlds carry the same creepy warning: The Riverman is coming. Freeze his heart and say the words ‘Riverman, Riverman, blood to ice,’ or else he will steal your soul.
“Werner didn’t know anyone who’d actually seen these Dead Worlds. It was something whispered about, a ghost story to remind us that, oh yes, we were gods in Aquavania, but we weren’t gods of everything.
“To be honest, we didn’t actually discuss the Riverman too much. Why focus on all that spooky stuff when you can talk about hopes and dreams? And that’s what we usually did.
“‘Sometimes I wish I had as much confidence in the Solid World as I do here,’ I told Werner one afternoon. ‘That’s something Aquavania can’t give me.’
“‘You can give that to yourself,’ Werner said. ‘You can’t create the same things in the Solid World, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t amazing and special there too.’
“‘Maybe,’ I told him. ‘It’s hard to see that, though. What about you? Is there anything that Aquavania hasn’t given you?’
“‘Sometimes I wish I knew what my father really thought of me,’ Werner said.
“‘And Aquavania can’t tell you that?’ I asked.
“‘It cannot,’ Werner said.
“‘Maybe if we combine our wishing powers and both of us wish as hard as we can wish, Aquavania will grant us the answer,’ I proposed.
“So that night, the two of us slept on these lovely beds made of tiny stars, high in the sky above Werner’s world. When we closed our eyes, it was as black as black can be, but when we opened them, the stars were so bright that we couldn’t see each other. Only a wonderful glow. So we held hands to assure ourselves we were side by side.
“As I dozed off, I wished for that thing that Werner needed so badly, and I knew that he wished for it too, because I could hear him whisper, ‘Please tell me. Please tell me.’
“I woke up later. Coulda been minutes, coulda been hours. I heard the sound of another voice. It said, ‘I will slip the answer into your ear.’
“Werner’s hand was still in mine, but it was limp. I opened my eyes, and our star beds were now dim. A dark figure was hunched over my sweet Werner. I couldn’t see a face, but I could see a glass fountain pen in the figure’s hand. The tip of the pen was dipped in Werner’s ear, like it was an inkpot. The end of the pen was in the creature’s mouth. There was this horrible sucking sound, and the pen was filling up with a sparkling liquid.
“Werner’s eyes were open and he was staring at me, but he wasn’t moving. I let out a howler of a scream. As soon as I did, the stars let go of me and I fell. Werner must have had the power to wish at least one more wish, because a parachute puffed up behind me and slowed my descent. Below me I could see Werner’s world, with its castles, forests, and grassy plateaus. Everything was losing its color, like fresh paint in the rain. It was draining out into a glorious new river that wound through the center of everything.
“A few feet before I hit the ground, my parachute disintegrated around me and I crashed into a world that was exactly as the stories described. Stacks of ashes instead of the castles, instead of the forests. It was a shadow of Werner’s creation. Gray. Dead. Everywhere … except for the river. The river was alive and swirling with color. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I touched the water. And like that, I was gone, back home to the Solid World.
“The next time I went to Aquavania, I waited for Werner. I waited for weeks, calling out for him constantly, oh so desperate for a reply. It never came.
“So I decided that if I couldn’t find him in Aquavania, I’d find him in the Solid World. I knew what town Werner was from. I knew his last name. There was a German bakery down the street from me, and I told the baker that I was hoping to talk to my German pen pal. I asked him if he knew anyone from Werner’s town. He did. I asked him to call that person and to see if they could find Werner’s phone number. He did. And when I got Werner’s number, I dialed up his house and asked for him. Thankfully there was a woman who could speak English there, and someone handed her the phone.
“‘Werner is missing,’ she said. ‘If you know where he is, please tell us. We are sick with worry. This is a horrible time for our family.’
“It was a horrible time for me too. I cried for days. I never thought what happened in Aquavania could affect us in the Solid World. Now I knew that it could. And the Riverman, he was real. He was after us.”
“Why?” Fiona asked Chua.
“I don’t know for sure,” Chua said. “But remember the warning? Or else he will steal your soul. When I saw that sparkly stuff filling up that pen, it was like I was seeing Werner’s soul. And when all the color drained out of Werner’s world into the river, it was like everything he created, all of his stories, were being stolen, carried away. The Riverman must want these things. Our souls. Our stories.”
“Do you think that Werner is … dead?” Fiona asked.
Chua shook her head. “No. That river leads somewhere. That pen is somewhere. Werner is somewhere. And the Riverman is going to give him back to me.”
“How do you think he got into Werner’s world?”
“He must have promised to give Werner what he needed—to let him know what his father really thought of him—so Werner invited him across the folds. Like I invited you. Only Werner couldn’t have expected it was the Riverman.”
Fiona recalled what she had heard when she was pulled into Chua’s world: The girl named Chua needed nothing more than to meet someone smart and new so that she c
ould share her story.
“But you expected him? That’s why you stabbed me with the icicle? You thought I might be the Riverman?” Fiona asked. She wasn’t injured, but the memory of the attack still coursed through her body.
“He tricks his way into your world, feeds off your desires, pretends to be something he isn’t. I’ve got friends in Aquavania. There’s Boaz, Rodrigo, Jenny, and a whole bunch of other kids they know. They’ve all helped fill in the story of the Riverman. They’ve heard old legends too. The legends tell of the icicle and the chant. Stabbing him with the icicle won’t destroy the Riverman, but it will freeze him, make him submit. And if I can get him to submit, maybe I can get him to tell me where Werner is.”
“How can you be sure of that?” Fiona asked.
Chua placed her hands on Fiona’s shoulders. Her grip was firm, as were her eyes. “I can’t be sure. But no one can convince me not to try.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Well, I really hope I’m not wrong,” Chua said. “Because then there will be only one chance left. The Swimmer.”
“Who’s the Swimmer?” Fiona asked.
“Another of those legends. The Swimmer is the person who can swim the river without getting sent back to the Solid World. If the river leads to the Riverman, then maybe it leads to Werner too, and maybe the Swimmer can find my love. You’re not the Riverman. We’ve established that. But maybe, and this is a big old maybe…”
“You’re the Swimmer?” I asked Fiona in the dark corner of the library.
She nodded. “I’ve spent a long time in Aquavania wondering if I was.”
“And…?”
“And I still don’t know. I’ve never been to one of the Dead Worlds, as we call them. I’ve never seen the river. Chua is the only kid I know who has, and that was only because she was in Werner’s world when it happened. Now she’s gone too.”
I looked back at the screen and the newspaper story. If this was a cry for help, it was an astoundingly complex one.
“I made a map of Aquavania,” Fiona went on. “The handkerchief. It lists all the kids I know about there. But it’s a good thing I burned it, because I think the Riverman might be in the Solid World too. And he’s after those kids. Your mind is my map now, Alistair. You’ve got to help me stop the Riverman. Before he has every soul in Aquavania.”
* * *
When the library closed, we walked home together through the mist and slush. Words were thin. I was even more confused than before. I wasn’t sure what sort of help Fiona expected. We split off at her house, where she left me with an apology. “I’m sorry, but there’s no one else I can confide in.”
Again, it was a why me? moment. This had all started because Fiona had admired something that I wrote. Before I knew it, she was asking me to memorize a long and complicated fairy tale, and she was begging me to help her stop some monster that I was quite sure didn’t exist. It didn’t add up. If something bad was happening in Fiona’s life, then who were these other characters? Who were Chua Ling and these other kids?
When you pen something it means … well, it means you do it like an artist. You dig up the story beneath the story.
That’s what Fiona had said to me. I was beginning to realize that the story beneath the story wasn’t simply about some girl who was having trouble at home. It was much bigger and much more disturbing than I had ever suspected. As I watched Fiona walk past the pickup truck parked in her driveway, I started to dig deep into my imagination.
A dangerous man. Missing children. A girl too scared to tell the truth.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26
The streets were clear by the next morning and school was back on. I hauled my backpack to the kitchen where my mom was at the counter, spreading peanut butter and marmalade onto bread.
“Do you know anything about Fiona Loomis’s uncle?” I asked her.
My mom had grown up in Thessaly, and for years she had worked at the post office, the only one in town. While it wasn’t a gossip mill, it was a place that everyone visited, a place where everyone revealed themselves through their bills and their catalogs and their boxes big and small and long.
“You’re spending a lot of time with Fiona, aren’t you?” She smiled, but it was a cautious smile.
“I guess so. She has this uncle, and he’s like a heavy metal guy and—”
“His name is Dorian. Dorian Loomis.”
“You know him?”
My mom bagged a sandwich, plucked a couple of apples from the wooden fruit bowl, and washed them in the sink. “We went to high school together.”
“Fiona’s parents too?”
“They were older, gone by the time I got there. Dad and I got to know them later, when you kids were all little. But Dorian and I graduated together.”
I wasn’t sure how to put this without causing her alarm. Still, I needed to know. “Was Dorian a … good guy?”
My mom thought about it for a second, and she handed me my lunch. “He was a guy. Like any guy. War will change people. Some for better. Some for worse.”
“He was in a war?”
“A lot of the guys went to war back then. Around here, the draft wasn’t something you got out of.”
They would be stringing the memorial lights up on the tree in the center of town for Veterans Day in a few weeks. My mom might have known some of the people those lights honored. This was the first time that thought had occurred to me.
“Do you think he came back for the worse?” I asked.
Maybe I didn’t want my mom to understand what I was getting at, but I wanted her to look more concerned than she did. She smiled again. “As I heard it, Dorian drifted around for a while after the war. He’s had his troubles, but he came home this summer and he’s home for the right reason. He’s looking after his mother. Fiona’s grandma. She’s a nice girl, Fiona. But the more time you spend with someone, the more you realize they’re not perfect. Everyone comes from a different place with different problems.”
“But … do you think her uncle is a good man?”
My mom dried her hands on a dish towel. “A girl is not her family, sweetie.”
Smiling there in the kitchen, she must have thought she was giving me advice on exploring the foreign lands of a first girlfriend. She didn’t ask Is something wrong? or Are you worried about Fiona?
It was baffling, but it was typical. We all see what we want to see.
“Thanks,” I said, and I left for school.
* * *
I didn’t know war. Skirmishes sometimes lit up our TV during the nightly news, but war was something that happened in other places at different times to faceless people.
I knew stories. My dad would sometimes tell the tale of an old friend named Herb who tried to dodge the draft by deliberately failing the psychological exam. He studied psychology texts so that he could answer the questions in a way that would make him seem woefully unstable. When the draft board called him in, an officer clasped Herb’s hand and said, “Figured it out, huh? No one’s ever scored so off-the-charts insane. You must be some special kind of brilliant.”
They assigned Herb to intelligence, and he spent years in the jungle trying to extract information from locals about underground tunnels and weapons caches. When he returned home, he refused a government job, choosing instead to move to Reno, Nevada, where he lived off of blackjack winnings. The dealers weren’t nearly as disciplined in Reno as they were in Las Vegas, and Herb claimed that when these novices drew a face card or an ace and had to check their hand for blackjack, he could read subtle clues in their eyes that would tell him whether to hit or hold. Odds tipped ever so slightly in Herb’s favor, but ever so slightly was always enough in the long run.
When his winnings were large, Herb carried a lot of cash, but also a holster that bulged in his jacket and made people think twice about pulling fast ones. He didn’t pack a gun, though. After what he’d seen in the war, he hated guns. Instead, he kept his winnings—his wad of twenties and fift
ies—in the holster.
One night Herb was grabbing a bag of cheese curls at a gas station when a fidgety cashier—also a veteran—saw the bulge and the flash of leather. The station had been robbed a few weeks before, so the cashier now kept a shotgun hidden in a box of candy bars beneath the register. As Herb stepped to the counter, the cashier buried his hand deep in the box and curled a finger around the trigger.
Just a few minutes before, Herb had slipped some bills to a man who had approached him in the parking lot. The man wore a camo jacket and carried a piece of cardboard with a message inked on it: We gave our souls for your freedom. All we ask you to give in return is your spare change.
The cash Herb gave this other veteran was the cash he kept in his pocket so that he didn’t have to dip into the holster stash and startle the civilians. Luck goes as luck goes, and giving away all his pocket money was one of those things that made Herb’s luck go the wrong way. Because when Herb placed his cheese curls next to the register, he placed his other hand in his pocket. No cash there, so he went for the holster.
The shotgun blast didn’t knock him on his back or into the display of snack cakes, but it tore his shoulder open. The cashier didn’t keep firing. He ducked down behind the counter and prayed for things to end.
Herb stumbled outside into the parking lot and collapsed on the ground between the gas pumps. The panhandler was still there and he raced over to help, but when he saw the holster and the wad of bills sticking out from the bloody and shredded jacket, baser instincts took over. Soon the beggar was fleeing through scrubby and vacant lots with nearly five thousand dollars tucked into his pants.
Herb survived, but lost an arm, and now lives in a cabin in some state forest where he reads a lot and talks to truckers on his CB radio.
So, no, I didn’t know war. I knew stories about men who went to war, men defined by their decisions, decisions made out of desire or fear, or for survival, or simply because their spirits had been bent one way or another. And I couldn’t help but apply such stories to Fiona’s uncle Dorian. Was he a guy like Herb? Did he once have great potential, only to see it squandered by luck and consequence? Was he like the cashier? Perpetually scared? Paranoid? Quick to employ violence? Or was he like the panhandler? Broken? Desperate? Willing to do anything to satisfy his needs?
The Riverman (The Riverman Trilogy) Page 8