The Rosemary Spell

by Virginia Zimmerman

I sit beside him and prop my foot up on a stone so that my knee can support my forearm. My arm is actually throbbing. In cartoons, exclamation points and asterisks radiate out from a bright red injury. It turns out that’s a pretty realistic way to draw pain. I close my eyes and allow my head to drop onto Shelby’s shoulder.

  “Start at the beginning,” she says.

  We tell her about the codex and the void poem and Constance, putting all the pieces together for her.

  Adam explains, “She lost her brother, Wilkie, here on the island, and she found the poem and figured out about the rosemary and the rue, but she didn’t make it in time. It was the ’24 flood, just like now, and she tried to go by herself, but she couldn’t make it, and her dad had to rescue her, and then he couldn’t get to the island either, and the new moon came, and it was too late.”

  No one says anything. The river sounds like an engine. The crow caws.

  “But when a person, like, goes into the void, they’re gone. Completely. Right?” Shelby asks.

  Adam nods.

  “But . . . you just told me about Willie.” Shelby speaks slowly, trying to make this piece fit.

  “Wilkie,” I correct. Pain burns up my arm. Why does it hurt to talk? I bite my cheek and focus on the metallic taste of blood.

  “Yeah, Wilkie,” Shelby says. “You know his name. You know about him. So he’s not in a void, right?”

  “The rosemary line from Hamlet makes you remember,” Adam explains. “It brings people back from the void—not really, but as memories.”

  Adam and I say the verse together. For Wilkie. My voice is thin with pain, but his is steady and sure.

  And even though Shelby sits by my side, the line still summons memories. Only now they come slow and easy. Adam and Shelby and me on the island. So many times before and also now.

  We sit in silence, remembering.

  Shelby shifts slightly on the log, and I shift with her. On my other side, Adam presses in to me. They hold me up. Darkness fills my head and pushes behind my eyes. Adam’s arm solid against me. My head on Shelby’s shoulder. I sink into the darkness.

  Horrible shudders yank me back to the cold and the wet and the pain. Each spasm wrenches my arm, and I gasp out sobs.

  Shelby and Adam talk across me in low, panicked voices.

  She says “shock” and “dangerous.”

  I wonder if they think it will be dangerous to brave the river or dangerous to stay. I don’t really care. All my caring is wrapped up in pain and shaking and cold. So cold. It goes all the way to the insides of my bones.

  “No one knows to look for us.” Adam’s voice is high with fear.

  I want to remind him of the siren. Maybe they are looking for us. But I can’t figure out how to talk. My throat is clenched tight, and the shaking binds me.

  “Rosie needs a doctor.” Shelby’s decided. “We have to go for it.”

  Adam squats down and tries to look into my face, but I’m curled into a ball and can’t meet his gaze. His hand rests on my back, and I quake against it, great wrenching tremors. He says grimly, “Okay.”

  “B-b-but . . .” I stammer. “Only . . . Only two. Two. Two vests.”

  Adam pushes his hair off his forehead. “I should’ve brought another one. I guess I just didn’t think.”

  “It’s all right,” Shelby says with fake brightness. “We’ll be fine, and I’m a good swimmer.”

  “No one’s a good swimmer in water like this,” Adam protests.

  “Well.” Her tone is settled. “Rosie obviously has to have a life vest, and I’m not about to sacrifice my baby brother, so we’ll just have to do our best to stay in the boat.”

  It seems like a year ago that I thought we were the life preservers. But we’re not. We defeated the void, but we can’t possibly defeat this river.

  Shelby strides forward and starts hauling in the rope. Adam works alongside her.

  I reach out vaguely, but between the shaking and the pain that comes with every movement, I’m completely useless. I stay as still as I can and wait.

  Shelby holds the rope, and Adam half carries me to the boat. Some remote part of my brain registers the burning cold of the water and its insistent tug as we step into the river.

  Adam bends down and cups his hands like people do when they’re hoisting someone onto a horse in movies. I step into his hands and use my good arm to pull myself into the boat. Pain and nausea swirl and swirl, and I lie still, panting and waiting to feel better. The damp wood of the boat’s bottom is solid and reassuring against my cheek.

  Somehow Adam and Shelby get themselves into the boat, and they work the oars.

  We lurch downstream. Adam grunts, and Shelby swears, but they manage to move us across the current and closer to the shore. It’s like a tug of war. The current yanks us down the river, and Shelby and Adam, red-faced and straining with the effort, haul us west, over the current and closer to safety. I lie against the damp bottom of the boat and watch them handle the oars. They’re doing okay, better than Adam and I did. And it helps that we have a bigger target this time. We’re not aiming for the small island. Just the riverbank. It doesn’t matter if we miss the boat launch. Dry land is all that matters. And a hospital.

  I use my good arm to pull myself into a sitting position. I lean, panting and shaking, against the side of the boat.

  Adam jabs the water with the oars. The muscles in his neck stand out like cables.

  With each stroke, Shelby grunts like a tennis player.

  Beyond Adam, in the water, something approaches.

  A huge, metal something. A piece of machinery. Heavy and industrial-looking. It gets closer. A bar pokes out like a hand pointing, and a chain dances madly.

  I try to cry out, but my voice doesn’t carry past my pain.

  Adam and Shelby don’t hear me. They’re focused on reaching the bank. Close, but not close enough. They don’t see the machine.

  It travels faster than we do. It’s coming.

  The mottled gray and brown and black of old and rusted metal looms just over Adam’s shoulder.

  A scream rips out of my throat, and the pain in my arm doesn’t matter, because the chain lashes wildly at the boat, and the broken piece of industry is going to kill us.

  Adam follows my horrified stare and turns.

  The chain whips into his face. Blood instantly sheets down from his hairline.

  There’s a thunderous smash and a roaring scrape, and we’re in the river. The machine drags the boat away.

  For a minute, Adam and I bob in the water, our orange vests holding us upright. His bangs are red with blood, which courses down the side of his face. His eyes aren’t focusing.

  Shelby treads water. She forces out commands between gasping breaths. “Get. To. Shore. Stay. Together.”

  I try for a gentle, one-armed breast stroke, but I can’t move myself at all. None of us is moving, as if we’re trapped in some strange whirlpool. Shelby launches herself into a strong freestyle stroke, but even though she’s working hard, she stays in one spot.

  Adam just hangs in the water. He raises a hand to wipe blood from his eyes.

  With no warning, the current grabs me and tears me away. I don’t even try to escape. It was stronger than that hideous piece of machine. It’s stronger than me.

  “Rosie!” Shelby’s voice follows me.

  The river carries me close to the shore and then tugs me back, like it’s teasing me. It spins me, so now I face upstream. I can see Adam and Shelby, small and helpless, bobbing in the weird still spot. Shelby hangs on to Adam now, the two of them using his life vest to stay afloat. Maybe she is helping him stay conscious.

  Water fills my mouth. I spit it out. A residue of silt coats my teeth.

  Suddenly, even with the life vest, the water drags me under. I kick as hard as I can, and I’m back on the surface. I cough out river water and try to push away the pain in short, sharp breaths.

  Adam and Shelby grow smaller and smaller as the river carries my body dow
nstream.

  Then the current spins me and shoves me toward a branch that hangs low, out over the water.

  I can grab it. I have to grab it. I concentrate all my strength on my left arm. Hold my breath. Reach . . . and snag the branch. My fingers slip. I can’t . . . but I do. I hold on. Pain races all over my body. I’m freezing and shaking, and my elbow is exploding, but I’m holding on.

  Somewhere I find the strength to hoist myself up so I can hang over the branch, my good arm coiled around it. My lower legs dangle in the water, but most of me is out of the river now. I just have to hold on. And keep holding on. Until someone comes. Please, someone, come!

  I whisper a pathetic, useless “Help!” but I can barely hear my own voice.

  I twist as best I can to look behind me for Adam and Shelby. The brightness of his orange vest and the glimmer of her light hair in the sunlight are all I can see.

  And then the glimmer is gone. Adam’s orange vest bobs alone, and a horrible wail drifts downstream.

  Shelby’s face bursts from the river, her mouth open, gulping air. She hurtles toward me. Her arms flail. She goes under again.

  Where is she?

  She surfaces. A leaf is plastered to her cheek. Her skin is pale. She’s so close to me. I hear the sharp intake of breath as she struggles to fill her lungs.

  I have to . . . I shift myself so I hang lower into the water. I can’t hold on with my bad arm. I can’t reach for her with it. I have to . . .

  She’s gone. A clump of leaves darts beneath me. A broken piece of Styrofoam. A . . . a wire? Headphones. It’s Shelby’s headphones. They swirl in a tangled mass of unnatural white beneath my dangling legs and hurry away.

  I drop. My elbow explodes in new constellations of pain. I kick sharp scissor kicks, helping the vest to hold me up.

  Something in the water, a tree trunk or a rock, holds me in place.

  “Shelby?” I holler, somehow finding my voice.

  The river races.

  Shelby is nowhere.

  Gone.

  Into the void.

  Again.

  I kick something. Something solid but not.

  I hold my breath. Force my head into the water. Open my eyes. But the water’s too cloudy. Grainy shadows are all I see.

  I kick again. This time reaching out, feeling for Shelby in the water.

  She’s there. Or something is.

  The panic dies away, and I’m swaddled in a deliciously numb fog. Is this shock? Or hypothermia?

  I think about myself like a character in a book, a character I don’t really identify with in a book I don’t much like.

  The cold backs off. The pain in my elbow has dulled to a steady throb. Maybe I could go to sleep. Just for a few minutes.

  My mind emerges from the crowding fog and shakes panic awake.

  I’m not a character. I’m me, and I’m Shelby’s only hope.

  I extend my good arm to where I was kicking and fumble around. Something stringy and silky runs through my fingers. Hair. Shelby’s long hair.

  It’s so silky. Soft. Like the fog. I hang in the water, enjoying the feel of her hair floating around my hand, like sand running through your fingers at the beach. Only not warm. And not so nice. Not really. Because the hair is on a person. Shelby. A person under water. Under water too long.

  Two things try to connect in my mind, but I’m floating away from myself.

  Maybe I should try to pull Shelby out of the river. I should grab her hair.

  I close my fist around the hair.

  Maybe if I just close my eyes for a minute, I’ll feel better. I snuggle into a warmth that comes from nowhere. It envelops me. It soothes away the pain in my arm.

  Something orange races toward me. Adam! In a life vest . . . like mine.

  He crashes into my right arm and grabs me. It’s like a knife digging into my elbow, and all of a sudden, cold shoots through me, and terror snatches me from the false arms of relief. I tighten my grasp on Shelby’s hair and yank.

  I yank her out of the water.

  She’s pale. So pale. Her eyes are closed. Her lips are blue.

  The three of us hang in the water. A cluster of panic and pain. Braced against the tree or rock or whatever holds us in place.

  “Rope,” Adam chokes out.

  His eyes aren’t focusing right.

  I shake my head. I don’t have any rope. Why would I have rope?

  “Vest,” he says, through chattering teeth.

  Through the blood and the fear, his face steadies me. I hold on to the idea of Adam and pull myself away from oblivion.

  He fumbles with his life vest. Undoes the buckles with trembling fingers.

  “Hold . . . here,” I whisper.

  He hangs on to my vest. I hang on to Shelby, keeping her face out of the water.

  Adam squirms out of his vest and unwraps the flat rope from his waist. It’s not long, but the vest itself makes a sort of lasso.

  He wipes blood from his eyes. Takes a breath. Tosses the vest. It collapses into the water. He tries again. The vest brushes the branch and falls away.

  “You. Can. Do. This,” I whisper.

  He takes a breath, steadies himself against me, focuses on the branch and hurls the vest. It catches easily.

  He ties the rope in his hand to my vest.

  I keep hold of Shelby. I worry that I might be hurting her, pulling her around by her hair. I worry that I’m not hurting her. And I don’t let myself think about what that means. I yank again, trying to hurt her. She is still and pale, and I hate her for not reacting to the pain. A sob rises.

  “Have to work together,” Adam chokes out.

  I stare at the weird contraption of the life vest slung over the tree. It’s like a fat, orange rope with thin strands dangling from either side. It sticks against the wet bark, but if we kick together, maybe we can shift it down the branch and move ourselves toward the bank.

  I hate leaving the solidity of the thing in the water we’re standing on, and I don’t know if I have the strength to support myself, let alone Shelby. But we have to get out of the river. The fog hovers on the edges of my mind again, and I’m with it enough now to know the fog is oblivion. And oblivion is the end.

  “On three,” I whisper.

  Third time’s the charm. I don’t say it out loud. There is no magic here.

  “One,” Adam grunts.

  “Two,” I mouth.

  “Three.” We say it together and shove away from our foothold. The current drags at us, but Adam hangs on to the vest-rope and hangs on to me, and I hang on to Shelby.

  “Again,” he commands.

  On three, we kick again. It’s harder because now we’re just kicking against the current, but we inch closer to the bank.

  Again.

  And again.

  I kick, and my toes drag through the muddy bottom of the river.

  “I can stand!” I cry.

  We still cling to the rope and to each other, but now we stride against the current, our feet planting more and more firmly on the ground as we move out of the depth, pulling Shelby to safety.

  We collapse in a pile on the leafy bank. I breathe in wet bark and rotting leaves.

  Breathe. And breathe. And breathe.

  Adam crawls to Shelby. Pushes her shoulder so she lies on her back.

  She’s so pale. Her hair lies around her head in a wet blond tangle.

  I struggle toward them, but pain explodes in my elbow. My good arm and my legs are so heavy. Breathing feels like lifting weights.

  Thunder rolls. A weird chop-chop.

  Funny. Thunder in winter.

  Adam puts a hand under Shelby’s neck. Tips her head back. Lowers his head down to give her his breath.

  One. Two. Three.

  He sits back.

  “Is she . . . ?” I can’t finish the question.

  Again, he breathes into her mouth.

  Pulls away.

  Her face is so still. A pale pink foam bubbles from her mouth.<
br />
  How long was she under water? Not breathing. It could have been a minute, two minutes, five minutes, a year.

  Something hot is on my face. I reach up and find tears.

  Sobs shake me, and my elbow flames.

  Adam breathes into Shelby’s mouth again.

  Nothing.

  He roars with rage and grief. He slaps her. Her head jerks to the side.

  Chop-chop-chop.

  Not thunder. A helicopter.

  Voices, shouting. Feet pounding on the sodden earth.

  Lights.

  They’ve come.

  “Rosemary! Adam!”

  “Ambulance . . .”

  “Shelby,” I moan.

  Steady hands. A warm blanket. I let blissful nothingness swallow me.

  A paramedic leans over me. We jiggle and sway, and a siren screams. We must be in an ambulance.

  She says “concussion.” Also “shock.” “Broken arm,” she says to someone I can’t see.

  “Out of joint,” I murmur.

  She smiles, kind and reassuring. “Well, that’s easy to fix.”

  The ambulance is fast and loud, like the river, but it’s dry and warm, and they’ve already given me something that’s making the pain back off.

  “What about Shelby?” I ask.

  Her kind smile freezes. “You’ll be all right, Rosemary.”

  Out of joint can be fixed. Into the void can be fixed. But not dead.

  Adam is lying next to me on his own stretcher. They are trying to stop the bleeding on his forehead.

  We look at each other across the narrow aisle. The siren pulses.

  Tears drop down onto my nose.

  We stop, and the rear door flings open. They pull Adam out first, his stretcher springing into a gurney as they haul him from the ambulance. I glimpse his mother standing there, arms wrapped around herself, raw panic all over her face.

  “Thank God,” she moans as they roll him toward her. “Your head . . .” She reaches out, and her fingers shake as they caress his hair. “What happened? They just called me, and I came, but—”

  “Where’s Shelby?” he cuts in.

  “I don’t . . . was she with you?” She plucks at the paramedic steering Adam’s stretcher. “My daughter?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t know.”