Maybe he was a little bit like all of them. It didn’t matter, really. What my mom said was the most important thing. War will change people. It must have changed Dorian into the type of man who carries a sharp blade, a man who stands in the backyard pretending to smother someone with a pillow. Maybe it turned him into something far worse.
This all led me to think about Chua Ling. Why Chua Ling? Did Fiona dig up some article about a girl who had disappeared all the way across the country just to make me believe she was having trouble at home? Not necessarily. She wanted me to see the story beneath the story. The Riverman was out there stealing children. He was someone she knew. In fact, she lived with him.
* * *
I really needed to talk to Fiona alone, so I avoided her until the end of the day. After the last bell, I waited at the bike rack. Wedged in the maroon teeth of it was a solitary bike—Fiona’s. Snow or no snow, she was the only kid who rode to school this late in the year. To some that made her seem tough. To others, a little crazy. Like so many things about her, it was open to interpretation.
She exited the school through the rarely used east doors and followed the brick path past the dumpsters to the bike rack. As I had hoped, she came alone. I didn’t bother saying hello. I jumped right into it.
“There are others like Chua?” I asked.
She pursed her lips and nodded. I hadn’t abandoned her yet, and this seemed to please her. “He’s gotten others I know of,” she said. “Werner, obviously. Then there’s Boaz and Rodrigo. Can’t find the articles in the library yet, but if you make some calls, it checks out. Missing. No evidence.”
“I see.” I turned my eyes to the base of the rack, where the paint was chipped and exposing the rust.
“Do you not believe me?” she asked. “I can give you full names, hometowns. I can give you phone numbers. Newspapers, police stations. Long distance, unfortunately, but—”
I looked back up at her. “No, I believe you,” I said, and I did. I had no doubt that if I called those numbers I would hear stories of other missing children. What I didn’t believe was that there was anything supernatural about their disappearances. That’s not to say the disappearances weren’t connected. I figured if I humored Fiona, maybe she’d let more truth slip out.
“I’m trying to understand how he does it,” I went on. “How does he sneak into other kids’ worlds, again?”
Fiona’s feet shuffled in the gravel. “When you’re at the folds, it’s not easy to cross over to someone else’s world the first time. You have to be invited. You have to have something they need. One of the things that Chua needed was a friend like me. And I was there. So that’s how I ended up in her world. It’s not always so simple.”
“So if I needed, say, hamburgers, and I called out that I needed hamburgers, then I’d be inviting the Hamburglar to my world?”
Fiona reached over and patted me gently on the stomach. “If you needed hamburgers, you could have hamburgers, Alistair. This is Aquavania. Not a drive-through.”
Her touch made my muscles clench. “I was just—”
“It’s not about objects,” she said, pulling her hand away. “It’s more emotional. Things you can’t wish up yourself. Things that only others can provide. Encouragement. Debate. Love. Hate even, I guess. Werner needed to know what his father really thought of him. And I guess the Riverman was able to give him that, or at least the Riverman was able to pretend he could give him that. In Aquavania, you can create anything your mind can think up. You’d be surprised what your mind can’t create. It’s often the things you really need.”
“So the Riverman knew what they needed. But how? You said that he might be here, in the … Solid World?” I still wasn’t comfortable with Fiona’s terminology, but I was trying.
“Everyone else who visits Aquavania also lives in the Solid World,” she said. “So why wouldn’t he?”
“Do you think he met Werner and Chua in the Solid World? Do you think that’s how he knew what they needed?”
She ran her foot across the gravel a few times, as if she were using it to cross off theories that didn’t fit the facts. “At the very least, he knew about them.”
I’d never been to a police station, but I imagined maps with thumbtacks and threads connecting them to identify patterns. “What if he’s a drifter? A guy who goes from place to place and meets kids and tricks them into trusting him?”
I was laying it on thick and I was looking for the recognition in her eyes. Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t give anything up.
“But how? How does he know where to find them? How does he know which kids in the Solid World have been to Aquavania?”
“Maybe he doesn’t,” I said. “Maybe he takes advantage of wherever he is at the time. Seeks out the easiest prey.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. He can’t randomly have found both Werner and Chua. He sought them out specifically. They were friends.”
There was no one else around. At the west entrance of the school, kids were lined up and piling onto buses or they were following the sidewalks into the surrounding neighborhoods. On the east end, it was us and us alone. I really wanted Fiona to finally confess, to admit that she was making this all up, that she was painting over the truth because the truth was too ugly to bear, or too dangerous to admit. But she didn’t do that. Instead, she grabbed the handgrips of her bike and pulled it from the rack.
“Oh my god,” she said, her voice breathy and incredulous. “I get it. I finally get it. Each kid he takes gives the next kid away. The next victim. That stuff in the pen? It’s their souls, but maybe their thoughts are part of their souls. And the Riverman knew what Chua needed because Werner knew what Chua needed. And now he has Chua’s thoughts too. Which means he knows about me. He knows that I know. But he doesn’t know what I need. No one does.”
She was off before I could say anything else. But as she pedaled through the gravel and past the tennis courts, I focused on that statement: He knows that I know.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27
I rolled over and checked my clock. 1:37. Holy crap. Is it possible that I overslept by more than six hours?
Consciousness pulled back from my head like the tide. Next thing I knew I was lying in the shower, curled up as if taking a nap. Naked, exhausted, I let the water massage my ribs while I worried about the classes I was missing.
Next I was in the hall, half-dressed, backpack slung over one shoulder. The tide pulled away again, and when it returned I was at the kitchen table, eating cereal. Outside it was dark, but that didn’t register.
“What on earth are you doing?” My mom, ensconced in a duvet, leaned against the kitchen’s entryway.
Milk dribbled down my chin as I looked up. I hated seeing her face like this. It wasn’t a mother’s face. It was the face of a person who was frightened and had no answers.
“I’m late,” I told her. “I’m so late for school.”
“It’s two in the morning.”
My shirt was soaked. I hadn’t toweled off after my shower. I didn’t even have jeans on. I was sitting there in my underpants and sneakers. Is this sleepwalking?
“Everything okay, sweetie?” she asked.
“Yeah … I looked at the clock and … I was confused.” Embarrassed was more like it. I pushed the bowl away.
“You don’t have to be up for hours. Go back to sleep. You’ve had a tough week. What with Charlie.”
Charlie. I had forgotten about Charlie. He’d only been out of school since Monday, and I’d already screwed him over.
I burrowed into bed, but I couldn’t fall back to sleep. It proved Fiona’s point. I obviously needed something that my mind couldn’t give me.
* * *
“I forgot to bring your homework yesterday. I’m so sorry,” I told Charlie on the phone when the real morning arrived five hours later.
“You’ve got more important things goin’ on,” he told me, his voice difficult to parse. He didn’t sound angry or sad or annoyed. He was
almost teasing me.
“It’s not that. It’s—”
“Don’t sweat it. You think I really care about my homework? I was expecting you to come over and we’d try to solve the necromancer’s lair.”
“I will. This afternoon. Right after school.”
“Sleepover?”
I knew how this would go. He was going to spend my guilt before it was banked away and forgotten. “You bet,” I said.
* * *
It was the end of the first marking period, and the teachers rewarded themselves by taking a breather. School was filled with filmstrips and games of Seven Up. Normally this would make for a carefree day, but my exhaustion and my anxiety were immune to such diversions.
It also didn’t help that I didn’t see Fiona. I was beginning to figure out her schedule, so I knew where in the hall to loiter after each bell. At lunch, I knew which tables to plot a course around. She was nowhere, and this was not a good sign.
I went to the bathroom stall where I’d posted my plea: In the story of Aquavania there is a Riverman and a girl. Who is the Riverman? Is the girl in danger?
There were two responses.
Hey river man, I heard you got a river of diarea, uh uh, diarea.
The only danger is you’re greasy farts!
Poorly spelled comebacks weren’t a surprise, but they certainly weren’t a consolation.
At the end of the day, I collected Charlie’s homework and, since Keri had plans with Mandy, I walked home alone. Temperatures had climbed and the only remnants from the snowstorm were scattered chunks of gray ice that lined the road and burst like rotten fruit when you stepped on them. Passing Fiona’s house, I noticed that Dorian’s truck was the only vehicle in the driveway and every window in the house was dark. If her family had planned a vacation, she hadn’t told me, but it certainly seemed like no one was home.
All day I had been contemplating going to the police. It meant breaking Fiona’s trust, but if it kept her out of danger, then I figured it was worth it. The only problem was, how would they ever believe my wild, unsupported theories?
Dorian Loomis is responsible for a bunch of missing children. Fiona knows about it, and I’m afraid of what Dorian will do to keep her quiet, I’d say.
And your evidence? they’d ask.
Microfiche, a pillow, a belt sander, and some stories about a magical land made of water, I’d have to admit.
In books, even the very best boy detectives are dismissed with a laugh. In real life, they’re sent to psychologists. If I was going to be taken seriously, I needed more proof.
So I waited until after dinner, until the sun was down. I was supposed to be at Charlie’s for the sleepover by seven thirty, but I set out at seven and took a detour to Fiona’s, where the windows were still dark. Dorian’s truck was still in the driveway, and that seemed as good a place as any to start my investigation.
As I moved toward it, the first thing I noticed was the mud splattered on the red paint. It had probably been driven off-road somewhere. That didn’t tell me much, so I peered into the truck’s bed. Empty, except for a few leaves and sticks trapped in the waffled grooves.
On the back window of the cab I could see there was a sticker, but I couldn’t decipher what it was. Rather than walk around to the side and strain my neck to see it, I stepped onto the tow hitch, climbed into the bed, and crawled toward the cab. As soon as I reached the window, my curiosity about the sticker was replaced by a desire to know what was inside the cab.
Using my hands as a visor to block out the glare of the streetlights, I leaned into the window. It was hard to see much, but the first thing I noticed was some sort of stuffed animal on the floor. A squirrel? Maybe a cat?
Also, on the passenger seat, there was a lump underneath a ratty and stained towel. A small wing poked out from the terry cloth. A toy airplane?
“See anything interesting?” someone said.
The voice was loud and spiny and almost sent me to my back. Oh please no, I thought. I knew exactly who it was.
“Good evening … Mrs. Carmine,” I said as I turned around.
Mrs. Carmine stood in the middle of the street, smiling like she’d found a quarter in a jar of buttons. “Not sure Dorian would appreciate you poking around his truck.”
“Ah … no, ma’am, I don’t know if…” In my eagerness to uncover evidence, I had completely forgotten about the most obvious obstacle. I didn’t even have an excuse lined up.
“You don’t trust him, do ya?” she said as she took a few steps closer and stopped at the edge of the driveway.
“Excuse me?” I asked. I had heard her clearly, but I was having trouble believing she would ask such a perceptive question.
“I wasn’t thrilled about him moving back here neither,” she explained.
I crawled my way to the back of the bed and climbed out. “I was looking for a … water rocket,” I told her. “Shot it off and it landed somewhere around here. That’s all I’m doing.”
“Water rockets?” She chuckled, her throat rattly and dry. “At night? That’s rich.”
I couldn’t keep this up. I was a terrible liar. Looking down, I said, “I’m sorry if I bothered you.”
“It’s no bother,” she replied. “I realize that boys are curious beasts. But I’d be careful around men like that. You don’t need to confirm the rumors.”
I looked up. “What rumors?”
Her voice got softer, a ghost story voice. “That the man is a deviant.”
“A deviant?” I asked. “What … what has he done?”
“If you don’t know, then I’m certainly not going to tell someone so young,” she said with a huff. “All I can say is keep your distance. No matter what folks claim, men like that don’t change their stripes so easy.”
Thoughts percolated, questions that I was sure she wouldn’t answer. Has he hurt kids? Has he done violent things? She couldn’t possibly be talking about Chua Ling and the others, because if she knew about them, Dorian would be in jail. And yet she knew something. I opted for a less salacious query. “What do the police think of him?”
She waved me off. “I’ve voiced my concerns, but they don’t make out search warrants because of concerns. Lazy lazy, these cops. Don’t worry too much about this guy, though. I’m keeping an eye on him.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said, because I believed her. But her eye only saw so far. It didn’t see what Dorian had done in the past, or might do in the future outside of the neighborhood.
“Don’t mention it,” she said as she turned and headed back toward her front steps. “And I won’t be mentioning our talk to your parents. They wouldn’t be happy to know what you’ve been up to, even if your intentions were good. So let’s not get them worried this time, okay?”
It was rare for Mrs. Carmine to practice such compassion, but seeing that she was the neighborhood snoop, perhaps she sympathized with my behavior. “Thank you, ma’am,” I said again.
“You’re welcome,” she replied, and she made a motion with her hand that told me to run along now.
As I set off toward Charlie’s house, exhausted and concerned, I still had no concrete evidence, but I was more convinced than ever that I was on the right track.
* * *
“Exterminate. Exterminate. Exterminate!” Charlie’s voice stacked on more glee each time I sliced a creature in half with my sword.
It was a tick or two from midnight, and I had been playing the video game for more than four hours. Charlie had granted me a single break, and that was only so I would open some cans of tuna that he served to the clubhouse cats. My hands were starting to cramp, but my gaming had improved. I had defeated eight of ten big bosses, thanks in no small part to Charlie’s amazing ability to spot their weaknesses.
“Back of the knee!”
“Block twice with your shield and wait for him to blink!”
“Shoot an arrow at the stalactite as soon as she’s on the marble tile!”
When we finally paus
ed again to fetch some microwave popcorn, Charlie asked what would seem to be an unusual question for an avid gamer. “Do you think it bothers the swordsman? Killing all those monsters?”
“He’s an eight-bit cartoon,” I said as I opened the ballooned bag and let the corny steam assault my cheeks.
“Seriously,” Charlie said. “If he were a real person, would it scar him? Would he go all crybaby in his bed?”
An image scorched my mind. Red night-light. Blade on a nightstand. Homemade quilt. Fiona’s uncle Dorian bathed in the red, under the quilt, on his back, looking up at the ceiling. “I guess someone who does that much killing has to think it’s the right thing,” I said. “Or else they don’t care. Don’t have any feelings about it either way.”
“Who’s doin’ ‘that much killing’?”
A figure stood on the other side of the kitchen, away from the island of light created by the open microwave.
“Didn’t think you were coming home tonight,” Charlie said.
Stepping forward, Kyle caught his hip on the seat of a counter stool. The stool performed a clumsy pirouette on one leg, which amused Kyle, and he waved his arms like someone coaxing a bowling ball. When the stool found its feet, Kyle turned back to us and mocked us through his grin. “Am I distawbing da widdle gawls’ slumba pawty?”
“Mom and Dad are gonna wake up and get a whiff of you, and you’re gonna be so toast,” Charlie said.
Kyle leaned in and wiggled his fingers like a warlock casting a hex. Now that he was face-to-face with us, I could see his forehead was splotchy and red and I could smell a heavy sweetness on his breath.
“How can this be a sleepover without a game of jack-in-the-box?” Kyle asked, snatching the popcorn bag and helping himself.
“Like the stupid toy with the crank and the clown?” Charlie said. “You don’t make any sense.”
The Riverman (The Riverman Trilogy) Page 9