Klickitat

by Peter Rock

  I pushed the branch aside, stretched my arms above my head. It felt good to stand up straight.

  “Vivian. Do you even know how dirty you are?”

  I turned around—the voice didn’t sound right, not like Audra’s, and it took a moment to see where it was coming from.

  Taffy stood ten feet away, smiling at me.

  “I didn’t hear you,” I said. “I mean, I didn’t know where you were.”

  “I know,” she said. “I’ve been following you. I know what you do.”

  I climbed out of the hole, sat down, and unzipped my pack. As I drank from my water bottle I felt her come closer, her shadow on me.

  “You don’t know what I do,” I said.

  I felt her hand touch my water bottle, and I let her take it, watched as she drank, water spilling in white lines down her neck, alongside the long white scar that cut down from behind her ear. She had a scab on her forehead and her dark hair was much longer on one side, full of knots. Her shoes didn’t match. One blue sneaker, one white one. On the white one it said TAF in black marker.

  “I saw the posters with you on them.” She sat down next to me, close, our knees almost touching. “Your picture and your name, and your sister’s picture and her name. Your hair was longer and you looked different, but still I knew it was you.”

  I took out a hard, round rice cake from my pack and took a bite. When she reached out, I handed it to her and got another for myself. It made me feel good to know there were posters, that Mom and Dad had made them.

  “How far does that scar go,” I said, “under your shirt?”

  “You want to see?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Far,” she said.

  I looked across the little clearing where a yellow rhododendron was starting to bloom.

  “I thought you didn’t really have parents,” she said. “I thought you were like me, but then I saw that poster.”

  “Everyone has parents,” I said.

  “But yours are looking for you. You could go back there and live with them, even without your sister.”

  “She’s coming for me,” I said.

  “What did your parents do to you?” Taffy said.

  “Nothing.” I twisted the lid back onto my water bottle.

  Taffy leaned forward, then, and pulled up the back of her shirt. Scars showed white against her pale skin, knots that were raised just a little. Reaching out, I touched her skin, rested my hand there. I was afraid, for a moment, that I’d take hold of her and not let go, that I’d scare her, but then I was able to pull my hand back to myself, to rest it in my lap.

  “They’re on my legs, too,” she said.

  “From the electricity?”

  “Some,” she said. “But mostly from my foster parents, back in Spokane.”

  The sound of her voice made me think she might be crying, so I leaned forward, to see her face. She was staring straight ahead, her expression serious, but she wasn’t crying. She pulled her shirt back down, over her scars.

  “This is an okay place to stay for a little while,” she said, “but not for a long time, not really a place to live.”

  “People do live here,” I said. “A girl lived here with her dad for four years.”

  Taffy laughed. She took a stick in her hand like a sword and started tapping on every stone that she could reach.

  “They got caught,” she said. “I knew her, that girl. We were locked up at the same police station, after that time they caught her. And then I saw her again, later, with her father on the street. They were running away.”

  “You didn’t really know her,” I said.

  “Her name was Caroline,” Taffy said. “She wasn’t really that nice.”

  “Maybe she was just shy,” I said.

  “Maybe. They even tried to come back here to live, but that didn’t work. They didn’t fit.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “Somewhere. Anyway, I’m just saying this isn’t an easy place to stay.”

  “I can wait,” I said. “I can live here until my sister comes back for me.”

  “Your sister?” Taffy looked away, into the trees, back again. “Your sister, I don’t think she’s coming back here.”

  “She is,” I said. “You don’t know.”

  “It’s Henry,” she said. “He left town, like last week or something.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Everyone knows that.”

  “And Audra?” I said.

  “She must have gone, too. Haven’t heard of her being around.”

  “What else haven’t you told me?” My voice was rising.

  “Don’t be mad,” Taffy said. “I was afraid you’d get mad, and I wanted you to like me, and I didn’t want you to leave.”

  “You should have told me,” I said.

  “Let go of me,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.” I let go of her arm; I hadn’t realized I’d taken hold of it.

  In the silence, I looked down at my feet, dangling in the black hole of the tunnel.

  “Where are you sleeping tonight?” Taffy said.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “In the ground, or in your hammock, or where?”

  “That’s later,” I said.

  “Can I stay with you?” she said. “Can I sleep where you sleep?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you still mad?” she said. “Don’t be.”

  “It’s not that,” I said.

  We sat there in the silence for a little while, the shadows stretching toward us, and then Taffy got up and walked away. I almost said something, went after her—I wanted her to stay with me, so I would not be alone, so lonely, but then I knew it would be complicated to explain when Henry and Audra came back for me. They’d always wanted me to be so careful, not to talk to anyone else.

  I sat there and watched Taffy go into the trees until I couldn’t see her anymore.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Dusk is an uncomfortable time, the way the light is. I crossed the tree line, off the fire road and through a thick meadow, then back into the shadows. It’s not easy to see everything right, and it’s the most likely time to be surprised. I read about this in the books; I was aware.

  I climbed up into the tree house and lay there on my stomach, running my fingertips along the letters I’d carved, listening to the wind in the trees all around me. Out in the meadow, black against the moonlight, crows were arguing, tearing open a plastic bag they’d found. I watched, curious what was inside, and then there was something else, someone coming through the forest.

  At first I thought she was a drunk person. She didn’t really look like a girl at first, just a person stumbling along, bouncing against tree trunks, tripping into bushes and snarls of blackberries. She passed right beneath me, her hands out in front of her, her head jerking from side to side, and that’s when I knew it was Audra.

  “Wait!” I said. “It’s me.”

  She didn’t slow, and I tried to keep her in sight as I climbed and slid down out of the tree. I had to chase after her, to get around in front of her to get her to stop, and even then she didn’t recognize me right away.

  “Audra,” I said.

  She looked past me. Her hair was all wet, sticking out one side, and her face was dirty and scratched, dried blood on her forehead, on her chin. Her neck was black. She wore camouflage pants and a torn T-shirt, laces trailing from her boots. All of her clothes were dripping wet, and it was not raining at all, it hadn’t been raining.

  I tried to slow her down and she slapped my hands away. The sound of our hands, or the feeling of my skin, finally made her slow, made her notice me.

  “Where are our things?” she said. “I hid them all, I put them someplace.”

  “The blind’s over there,” I said. “I’ll help you. Slow down.”

  “If I can find them, then I can meet Vivian there, I can find her and tell her—”

  “But I’m here,” I said. “It’s me. Ri
ght here. You found me. I found you.”

  I led her along. I wanted to get her to the first aid kit. I stayed close in case she fell or she tried to run away. The darkness was suddenly thick all around us.

  “Where’s Henry?” I said. “What happened?”

  She started rushing again, then her boot fell off and she stumbled.

  “I don’t know.” She suddenly looked at me, at my face. “Vivian! It’s you.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. It was me. I was afraid he was going to choose you, that you’d both leave me.”

  “I would never,” I said.

  “I didn’t know!”

  “Slow down,” I said.

  “It’s too late,” she said. “It’s impossible. It’s too late for that.”

  “No,” I said. “What? What happened?”

  “The boat in the water,” she said, “and the capsizing—”

  “Where?”

  “We flipped over, into the cold water, the depths is where I’m coming from, to you—”

  Her voice stuttered, her words got louder and quieter like she couldn’t control them.

  “Vivian!” she said. “You need to think about what to do, where to go. I can’t figure out what is the right thing and I’ve already made mistakes.”

  “You’re coming with me,” I said. “We’ll find him. We can still go.”

  Audra made a sound like the beginning of a kind of laugh in her throat.

  “No,” she said. “I can’t. It’s too late for that, it’s way too late, and even coming here now, tonight, is impossible. I don’t know if it can ever happen again.”

  “Why?” I said. “What are you saying? I’ll stay with you.”

  “Vivian,” she said. “You have to listen. I came back so you would know that I’m sorry. I made a mistake! We capsized, Vivian.”

  We crossed a meadow, our shadows sliding in the tall grass. Audra’s hands were dark, almost black under the moon, like they’d been burned. I don’t know if she could feel that I held on to her shirt as we walked.

  “You kept a secret,” she said. “You kept a secret from me.”

  “What?” I said.

  “About the notebook, the writings in there—”

  “They were for me,” I said. “You wouldn’t have believed me. You left me.”

  When we got to the blind, she didn’t want me to touch her, wouldn’t let me clean her cuts and scratches. The Band-Aids wouldn’t stick, like water was coming out of her body, and she didn’t want the headlamp on at all.

  All she wanted was to lie down next to me, to be beside me. I wrapped her in the blanket, I tried to dry her off with my clothes. The wetness kept coming through.

  “You’re not leaving me again,” I said.

  “I’m hardly even here,” she said.

  “You are here.”

  “I’m here and I’m not here.”

  “Where’s Henry?” I said.

  “I don’t know that,” she said. “I lost track, I haven’t seen him. He’s not here, he’s not there.”

  “Calm down,” I said. “Slow down.”

  “There’s no time!” she said. “I’m sorry. I came back because I miss you so much and I always want to take care of you but I can’t take care of you, now. I want you to know that, to trust yourself, to remember me.”

  “Audra,” I said. “You’re here.”

  There was the wind in the trees, an owl calling. A dog barked, far away. Audra rolled over, her eyes catching the light.

  “I waited,” I said. “I found a tunnel, but I didn’t find anyone in it. Did you see me? Did you watch me? I missed you when you were gone but I knew you’d come back for me.”

  “It can be so upside down,” Audra said, her whisper breaking into a shout, then going quiet again. “The nets spill out on the deck and the fish are silver in the sun. From the bottom of the ocean you can see the dark triangles way up high, boats sliding on your ceiling. You can’t breathe but it doesn’t hurt and the salmon are like birds flying smooth around you without a sound, the nets like a cloud coming through.”

  “Audra,” I said. “What are you talking about?”

  “The bottom of the ocean,” she said.

  It was quiet for a while. Audra’s breathing sounded raspy, and I wondered if she’d fallen asleep. She smelled like metal, in that tight space, like salt.

  “Where I am now,” she said. “I can understand better how you are, everything that comes rushing at you, Vivian, the voices—”

  “What?”

  “But I don’t understand it all yet and I don’t know what will happen. There’s still so much for you to do. I don’t have the words but I will, I’ll send them—”

  “How?” I said. “Quiet.”

  “I didn’t understand before, I couldn’t,” she said. “I wanted to take care of, protect you.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “We’ll be all right.”

  “A current underwater is just like a wind in the sky,” she said. “Only thicker. A body can roll along the bottom for miles and miles until it simply comes apart.”

  “You’ll stay with me,” I said.

  “It’s impossible. It’s too late for that. But I am with you always.”

  She sat up and crawled out of the blind—so suddenly and I was after her, so fast the blind came apart on top of me. I shook it off and I was out in the darkness where it was impossible to see. I could only hear Audra stumbling around in the night.

  “Don’t forget me,” she called, suddenly farther away. “Don’t forget that I love you, Vivian.”

  And then there were only the black tree trunks, there was only the night.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The next morning, the forest was quiet. I’d rebuilt the blind in the night, before I finally fell asleep. I slept there, in case Audra came back, even though I knew, I could feel, that she wasn’t coming back.

  I carried my pack, my shoes, in my hands. I wandered through the forest, crawled through the tunnels, climbed into the tree house. I watched the birds, the boats and bridges, the river below. I thought I would find Taffy, I hoped she would find me, but I did not and she did not.

  I walked down into the city in the afternoon. At Pioneer Square, I bought a burrito from a cart and sat on the steps for an hour, trying to figure out what to do. Around me, street kids were kicking a hacky-sack. Skateboards were off to one side, with some dogs and girls. I’m sure Taffy knew them, and they knew her, but she wasn’t there. Audra probably knew some of those kids, too, and maybe even some of them recognized me, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to join them, didn’t want to stay outside any longer on my own.

  Audra had said there was a lot for me to do, and that was how I felt, but I didn’t even know how to begin, how to continue. I knew that I wanted to go home, to see my parents, to wait there, even if I’d only have to leave again.

  It wasn’t until dusk that I decided this, that I caught the train, rode across the river, back to our neighborhood.

  Nothing felt like I knew it and still I kept on, slowly and quietly. The moon was full, and I dragged my black shadow along, past Klickitat Street, right down Siskiyou.

  The tire swing was gone. I looked up, saw the raw spot on the tree branch, where the rope had been. And the house seemed darker, painted a color I couldn’t quite tell in the moonlight. The footprints from Audra’s shoes, above the window, were gone, too. Painted over.

  The windows were dark except the one on the side, the kitchen window.

  I went around, away from the lit kitchen window, down the driveway. Past the garage, into the backyard. I was crouching low, back in the trees where I could see through the window.

  My parents were eating dinner, sitting across from each other, the sides of their faces toward me. They were talking. Something seemed not quite right, and then I realized Dad had shaved off his beard, and cut his hair short. He poured a glass of wine—there was a bottle on the table,
next to my mom’s pyramid light. She said something to him, glanced away.

  I watched them for a little while, maybe to see if I would run away, or if they’d do something that I didn’t recognize, that would show me that I shouldn’t return. I didn’t know what I was going to do until I did it.

  At last I crossed the backyard, stood for a moment on the concrete steps. The door was unlocked. I opened it, and stepped inside.

  Mom and Dad looked up and didn’t move, didn’t say anything at first. I set down my pack on the floor, my jacket.

  “Vivian.”

  When Dad stood, his chair fell over backward, bouncing with a crack on the floor. He didn’t pick it up. It seemed like he wanted to step closer to me but didn’t want to scare me away.

  “Are you hungry, honey?” Mom said.

  “Yes,” I said.

  I ate three bowls of chili, sitting between them, and drank two glasses of milk. They watched me eat. They didn’t say anything. Mom switched off her pyramid light and they just watched me, careful and tentative like I might suddenly stand up and bolt for the door, disappear again.

  I didn’t look straight at them, but I liked having their faces there, at the edge of my vision. I could imagine someone watching me, from out in the trees. I liked being in the warm kitchen again, the feeling of the fork in my hand, the sound of the refrigerator. I could see through the doorway, into the living room, where a new television rested on a stand.

  “And Audra?” Mom said, her voice soft.

  “I’m back,” I said. “I’m really here.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “It’s too late for her,” I said.

  “Can’t you tell us something?”

  Standing up, I wiped my mouth. “She’s never coming back.”

  “Stay,” Dad said. “You don’t have to tell us everything right away. Wait.”