Wish Girl

by Nikki Loftin

  I heard something then, a yowling scream that didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard before. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “We’re safe here,” I whispered to myself. I believed it, but whatever had made that noise was big. Maybe mountain-lion big? I shook the thought away.

  We were safe. We had to be. And happy, for the moment.

  Bored with mud, and with me probably, since I was ignoring her, Annie swam the few feet out to a small rock in the middle of the stream, where it was deeper. Behind her, a limestone cliff went up about twenty feet, and in front of her was more of the muddy bank. She was facing me, standing up on the rock to wring the water out of the bottom of her shirt, when my neck prickled again. I saw someone standing at the top of the cliff behind her.

  The sun was behind the figure, putting a halo around the shape so I couldn’t see who it was. At first I thought it might be my dad or someone else looking for us, come to bring us back to safety.

  But then I heard the voices—“Did you hear that? Sounded like a cougar!”—“Never mind that, I think we found him!”—and I knew. It wasn’t anyone who wanted to bring us to safety. These two wanted nothing more than to hurt me—and maybe Annie, too.

  How had they gotten down here? How had they found us?

  Why hadn’t the valley kept them out?

  “Annie,” I said softly, “hide.”

  “Why?” She splashed some water toward me.

  “Hide,” I repeated, frowning hard, and she paddled quickly over to the cliff, squeezing into a small recessed place that had a stone overhang. She was mostly hidden, I figured. Definitely hidden from the top of the cliff, anyway.

  I stepped away from the bank. If they caught anyone, I wanted it to be me. Not Annie.

  “Well, Petey, Petey,” I heard. “Looks like we found you after all.” It was Jake. I held a hand up to block out some of the sunlight.

  I could see why I’d mistaken him for an adult. He was wearing a lot of clothes—long sleeves and jeans, a jacket, and a hat. Work boots. It wasn’t his normal look.

  “We been hunting for you,” I heard Doug say, and I watched as his head appeared behind Jake’s. He was dressed strangely, too. They both had to be sweltering hot in all those clothes. I stared as they batted bugs away from their faces, and I realized what they had done. They had worn all those clothes to protect themselves—from bugs, falls, poison ivy, all the ways the valley had of keeping them out. “We been looking all night.”

  As they came closer to the edge of the cliff, the wind picked up, like it was trying to push them off, tumble them into the river. But they didn’t move, just stood there, watching.

  “Thought you’d be down here,” Jake said. “The old lady said she liked you. Told our parents we beat you up. Told them we came to your house to steal things.”

  “Thought you was smarter than that,” Doug added. He had a stick in his hand, I noticed. A big one. Big as a baseball bat. “We warned you what was gonna happen if you told. Too bad you can’t be friendly, Petey. Too bad for you.”

  I had no doubt about what he was planning to do. And I knew myself. Knew I wouldn’t be able to fight back. Down here, so far from hospitals, from help?

  They might kill me.

  The cliff was long, and there was no way down. I could outrun them. The valley would make a way for me, I was sure of it.

  But I couldn’t leave Annie. Couldn’t chance that they’d find her, alone.

  “Guys, I didn’t want to get you in trouble,” I said. “I didn’t tell. I ran away. Just let me go.”

  “Ran away from us, we figured,” Jake said. “But there’s no running away from what you got coming.” He started moving forward, like he was going to climb down the cliff face and swim across for me. Doug took his stick and used it as a support to clamber down a bit further on.

  A little help, I thought. I can’t leave Annie. I can’t run.

  The wind picked up again, shrieking. The valley had heard me, I thought. But wind wasn’t going to do it. Then I realized the shrieking was a hawk. I watched it, over Doug’s head, a red-tailed hawk, plummeting faster than rain. Doug saw where my eyes were and followed my gaze, spying the hawk at the last minute. He ducked, screaming. “Jake!”

  Jake stopped and ran to his brother, wrenching the walking stick out of Doug’s grip and thrashing the air with it as the hawk harried them both, sharps talons only inches away from their faces. Finally, Jake threw the stick at the hawk, and the bird flew away.

  At least he didn’t have a weapon now, I thought, as they turned their attention back to me. And I was pretty sure the valley was going to make sure they didn’t find another one.

  But I was wrong.

  As they came toward me, the cliff edge started to crumble. I glanced down at Annie, quickly. She had frozen there, like I’d told her. Not making a peep. But the rocks falling down were freaking her out, I could see. I moved closer to the bank, my toes squelching in the mud, ready to try and swim across to her if she needed me.

  “I can run faster than you,” I told the guys. “Go ahead and climb down, but I’ll be gone by the time you get here.” I pointed at the rocks. “This valley hates you, but it likes me. It’ll hide me as long as I need. Look—it wants to make you fall. Don’t you see? All of a sudden, that cliff looks pretty unstable. If I were you, I’d back up.

  “Annie, get ready to run,” I said, trying not to move my lips, but the stream was so loud, I wasn’t sure she’d heard me.

  Just then, a rock fell down the cliff, and Annie started shaking her head. What? What was she trying to say? I was distracted and didn’t notice that Doug had disappeared.

  Jake called down. “You think this . . . valley . . . likes you? You think it’s alive or something?” He hooted a laugh. “I knew you were stupid and afraid of your own shadow. I didn’t know you were crazy, too.”

  “Say what you want,” I answered, feeling my face heat. “You know this valley doesn’t want you in it. But it’s protecting me. Just watch. Nothing you do is going to work.” I tried to project confidence in my voice, like Dad had always told me I needed to do. Tried to sound like I believed what I was saying.

  I almost did.

  “Get ready,” I whispered to Annie, wondering what had happened to Doug, hoping he hadn’t sneaked around the side of the cliff. I motioned for her to wait, but another shower of pebbles fell down, and she shook her head again, slowly moving across the water toward the small island in the middle.

  “Well,” I heard Doug say, then saw him reappear, carrying something—a rock? A huge rock, at least a foot across. “Let’s see what your valley can do about this.”

  And then he hefted the rock up over his head. The wind picked up, howling through the leaves. The sound was incredible—leaves rustling in anger, the wind screaming at the top of the cliff, the water churning suddenly, like there was a flash flood coming—and I knew I was in trouble.

  I wasn’t sure what was on my face, but it must have scared Annie, because she started out in earnest across the stream, swimming the remaining few feet to the rock in the middle. Doug didn’t see her, I think, and Annie had no idea what was happening above her. The rock was almost in the air when Annie started to rise up on the stone island, her head moving in between me and Doug, the wet red curls on the top like a stop sign, like a warning flag.

  “No,” I yelled, “stop!” I was talking to Annie—but Doug listened, hesitated. And instead of throwing the rock at me with his full strength, he let it fall short.

  I watched the enormous stone arc toward Annie, toward her head.

  Watched it hit, saw the fear and pain on her face the split second before she fell to her knees, to her face, below the water, the red of her hair growing into a wider and longer stream of red as she bled.

  It looked like she was bleeding to death.

  Chapter 28

  So
mewhere closer than before, the yowling cry tore the air of the valley in two. “It is a cougar!” I heard Doug shout.

  I didn’t care. I didn’t think about it, couldn’t think about myself or Jake or a cougar or anything else. I didn’t even think about Doug on the cliff, whether he had any more rocks to throw, whether I would drown trying to swim to her. I just moved.

  In seconds, I was there, pulling her head above the water. “Annie!” I said. “Are you all right?”

  Her eyes were shut. Was she dead? I didn’t know. But I knew I had to stop the bleeding, fast. I set her head down on one of my knees. I could hold her up with the help of the water that buoyed her body. In seconds my legs were covered in blood. But then I had my shirt off and pressed against the gash on her head that ran from her temple to somewhere in the middle of her scalp.

  “Oh, man, Jakey.” I heard Doug’s voice, but it sounded weird, high-pitched and scared. “Oh, man, it’s that girl. I hit that girl with a rock.”

  “What girl?”

  “The red-haired one. I didn’t see her,” Doug yelled down. “Is she gonna be all right?”

  “No,” I said as loud as I could with my heart pumping hard in my throat. My hands were growing bloodstained even through the fabric of my shirt. “She’s not. You’ve got to get help.”

  “She’s fine, I bet,” I heard Jake say. I couldn’t see him. It sounded like he was coming down the cliff, around the side where I’d been worried they were sneaking up on me.

  I wasn’t afraid of them now. There was nothing worse they could do to me than what had already happened.

  Annie shifted in my arms, then slumped back down. Her motion surprised me, and I dropped the shirt to catch her, keep her from being submerged again.

  The cut on her head wasn’t stopping. How much blood could a girl her age lose before there wasn’t any more?

  I was more scared than I’d ever been. And when Jake showed up, five feet away on the muddy bank of the stream, a rock in his hand, I was the most angry I’d ever been.

  “Why aren’t you getting help?” I asked. “The bleeding won’t stop. You two have to get help.”

  I watched the gleam of cruelty that usually sat behind Jake’s eyes flicker, and something else take its place. Fear. For the first time ever, he looked like what he was: a ten-year-old boy. A kid, a stupid kid.

  “We didn’t mean to hurt nobody,” Jake said. “Not really. We were just gonna scare you. We didn’t even know for sure she was with you.”

  “Stop talking,” I managed to say calmly. “It doesn’t matter. Just get help. We’re too far for anyone to hear us. She needs an ambulance.”

  When I said the word ambulance, Annie moaned and shifted, and the blood started to drip out the side of the shirt again.

  “Oh, crud,” Jake said. “We didn’t mean to. I—I gotta go. Doug!” He yelled up the cliff, where his brother was scrambling down to us as well. “Doug, we gotta get. She’s hurt bad.”

  Doug froze when he saw us. I stared into his eyes, speaking as firmly as I could. “Get help, Doug. It doesn’t matter how it happened. She just needs help.” I pressed my hand tighter to the wound. “I can’t go. I have to stay with her, try and keep the bleeding down. You have to go.” Why wasn’t he moving? Didn’t he get how serious this was? “If you don’t go now, she could die.”

  “Die? Die? What are you sayin’? I didn’t do it to kill no one,” Doug said. “I never did that. I—Jake, we got to get out of here.” He stopped talking and ran.

  Jake gave me a scared, mean look. “You take care of her. We weren’t never here. We never even saw you down here. We’ll just forget the whole thing.”

  “What, you’re going to leave us?” I managed to sputter as he turned on his heel. “You’re seriously going to leave?”

  Inside, a scream began to rise up, echoed by another one, closer, in the valley—the cougar.

  “Run, Jake!” I heard Doug yell.

  “Oh, crap,” Jake breathed, then twisted around entirely and hurried after his brother. “Wait up, Doug. Wait!” he yelled, the rock falling from his hand as he fled.

  I closed my eyes, so I didn’t see what it was that rushed past me a few seconds later. But it smelled musky and wild, and it loped on heavy, padded feet.

  After the boys. I hoped it caught them, whatever it was. They deserved it. After all, they weren’t traveling in the direction of their home, of any homes. They were going farther into the valley.

  They were running away. I listened as a hawk cried overhead, as their crashing footsteps disappeared into silence. Until the only sounds were water gurgling in the stream, Annie’s shallow breathing, my heartbeat, and the soft whisper of a breeze in the canopy of leaves overhead.

  “P—Peter?”

  “Annie?” I asked. Was she waking up? She had to have a concussion. I thought I remembered something about keeping people with a concussion awake. “Stay awake, Annie.”

  “Hurtssss,” she slurred. “Let me go.”

  Let her go? What was she talking about? “No, Annie, I won’t. You have to stay awake.”

  “No ambulance,” I heard her say. “No doctorsss.”

  I went still then, more still. What was she saying?

  “You’re going to be fine, Annie. You’ll be okay. I’ll get help.”

  The corners of her mouth, pale and blood-streaked, turned up the tiniest bit. “Already dying, Peter. This is . . . better. No doctors.”

  She slumped down again. I wanted to shake her—to wake her up, partly. And partly because I was so mad at her, I couldn’t stand it.

  Hot tears began to course down my face. “Annie,” I whispered, feeling her slip out of my grip, feeling her weight pull her and me down the stream, like the water was trying to take her away.

  I knew what she meant, but I would rather face a dozen mountain lions than hear it. Than have to watch it happen.

  She wanted me to let her die. She thought, somehow, that this was a better way to go, all at once, than to lose herself to the cancer treatment.

  Before, when she had told me how she felt, I had understood, sort of. She wanted to make her own decision. And she was counting on me to help her.

  I had said I would. But watching her die, in my arms, I knew. She was wrong. She had been utterly wrong.

  It wasn’t better for her to die. It couldn’t be. Already, the light in the valley was dimmer, the sounds were flat and harsh instead of magical. Already, the hum that I always felt underneath my skin when I was with her—making art, playing, just being—had gone still and silent.

  I couldn’t imagine the valley would ever be magical again without her in it. The whole world would never be . . . whole.

  I couldn’t imagine walking through the rest of my life, thinking there was no Annie somewhere out there. Even different, even changed, in a wheelchair, or not talking, or not remembering how to do things . . . not remembering me. All that didn’t matter.

  She was my friend, my true friend. The only one who had ever seen me, listened to me.

  I couldn’t live with myself if I let her die now.

  She might never want to be my friend again. She might hate me for taking her choice away. But I had to do it. I had to break the promise I’d made just the night before.

  I loved her too much to let her go.

  But what could I do? I couldn’t leave her, couldn’t run for help.

  The answer came fast: the valley.

  “Help me,” I whispered. “Help me, please.” I held her closer, held the wet shirt against her head, her head against me, feeling the cold water grow cooler as the wind picked up.

  “Help,” I said again, louder. The valley wind turned sour, spat grit and leaves against my face. I have to, I thought, then said it out loud. “I have to!” I remembered what I’d promised the valley, that I would be quiet. That I would never ruin
it, fill it with noise.

  But Annie was dying, and I was the only one who might save her. I couldn’t keep any of my promises. Wouldn’t keep them.

  I prayed the valley wouldn’t send a mountain lion after me, or a wild boar, or a rockslide. I prayed it would understand.

  I prayed—I wished—for it to help me. I needed to be loud. Louder than loud.

  I needed to be as loud as thunder, as an avalanche, as a thousand screaming hawks.

  “Help!” I yelled it. I thought about Dad’s drums, Laura’s guitar, Carlie’s screaming, Mom’s yelling, and filled myself with all that sound. Filled myself with the racket, the noise, the pain. “Help!” I yelled again, and the word seemed to echo around the clearing.

  “HELP ME!” I let the words ring in my head and in the valley, bringing more noise into this magical place than I had ever been willing to, had ever thought I could.

  My voice seemed to grow, louder and louder, fuller and richer and deeper, echoed over and over until the entire valley was filled with those words. Until my eardrums ached with the sound.

  The words rang forever, for a thousand heartbeats, carried by the wind. The valley was helping. My voice became as big as the sky.

  But it wasn’t big enough. There was no answer. Annie’s face went slack, her arms dropped, stopped twitching.

  It was too late.

  Her breath got soft, unsteady, like a piece of dandelion fluff caught on a sleeve. Her whole body seemed to fade, grow shadowed, like a rain lily that had been picked and was starting to die.

  Annie was almost gone. The light of the valley followed hers, covering us in gloom.

  And then, when the darkness was almost complete, in a roar of engine and red, flame-colored glory, help arrived.

  Chapter 29

  “Looks bad,” I heard when the engine cut off. It was the Colonel’s wife.