I don’t know what I screamed out to them. The wind stole it away. They melted into the rain like ghosts, twenty men and women who left a child to drown. I don’t think my nightmares could summon anything more horrible than the expressions in their eyes, when they looked at me for the last time. They knew exactly what they were doing.
I huddled into the lee of the rock and dug my fingers in. They sank into slick pockets of soil and grit. Beetles scurried over my fingers when I finally thought I had a good grip. I squealed and yanked my hand away so quickly that I lost my balance. My feet slipped, and the rushing water caught my toes before I desperately threw myself back against the pillar. Panting, I hugged it and rested my cheek on its icy side. My hands were so cold that they hurt, but my face was sheltered from the worst of the storm. I closed my eyes and tried to pray, but the water started to rise above my ankles and I couldn’t help looking down. The water rushed over my bare feet so quickly I felt as though I was racing forwards. Dizziness made me sway, and one of my hands slipped free.
“Clay!” The voice was rough, and a hand hit my back hard enough to slam me back onto the rock. I yelped and looked around. Jonas’ face was so close to mine that I could see the red blood vessels in his cheeks. He held out his arms, and I clung to him so tightly that he grunted in pain. Wrapping his arm around me, he struggled back through the current towards dry land. The rising water had swept away so much soil that sometimes Jonas sank up to his hips. When the icy water shoved at against my thighs I lost my grip on my rescuer’s back. Jonas slipped and stumbled, but he caught me.
When we reached solid ground Jonas gasped for air. I could feel his body shaking with weariness.
“We have to hide before they come back!” he panted, and tightened his hold on me. He dragged his feet towards the caves. The gaping tunnel looked more like a trap than ever. A branch of the river had split to pool around the base of the cliff. Jonas hesitated when he saw it, but when I shivered and cuddled closer he ran straight into the darkness.
The water was filthy with clay and fallen branches. Even when the passage rose and there was less debris the water came up to his knees. The rushing water echoed off the stone walls into a roar. When the pathway got narrow Jonas put me down, and I shrieked when my feet sank into the icy mire.
“Hush!” The boy snapped, shaking me. “Do you want Petra to find us?”
We were frozen and soaked when we got to the cavern. The fishing pond had overflowed, and the entire floor was a pool of water. Jonas looked utterly defeated. I had to tug at his hand to make him move out of the rain which poured in from the opening above. There wasn’t much point – he was already soaked to the skin – but I wanted him to snap out of his daze.
There was a shelf of rock about halfway up the cavern wall. I stood on Jonas’s shoulders to clamber onto the rock. When he was sure that I was safe Jonas threw himself up so violently that I expected the shelf to collapse. We dragged ourselves back from the edge and huddled together.
“Look,” I said through chattering teeth, and pointed at the entrance. The tunnel we had come in through had almost disappeared under the seething flood. We watched as the water grew higher, and higher, until our only way out was completely submerged.
“Well, if it gets much higher we can swim out through the roof.” Jonas joked, but his brash words sounded feeble against the roaring water. I looked up at the distant ceiling and wished I hadn’t. The sun was starting to rise, but all it was doing was making the roiling smoke-billow clouds look darker. I tore my eyes away and stared at the water, which was so close to our feet that it was starting to lap against the dry stone.
“Clay…” Jonas cleared his throat, and then tried again. “I did not believe it for a second. I don’t believe it. But… but if you can command the water, this would be a good time to do it.”
I blinked and then looked down at my muddy hands. I couldn’t even mop up a spill of milk without Petra yelling at me. How could I turn a river around?
I looked up at Jonas. His face was white, and he shivered, and the water on his cheeks was too warm to have come from the sky. I reached up and brushed the tear away.
“Yes.” I said. “I’ll try.”
CHAPTER 4
Did I have magic?
I prayed that I did. I hoped with all my heart that I could say the right word, or make the right gesture, and save our lives. I closed my eyes and wished as hard as I could.
To this day, I don’t know what actually saved us. Perhaps a swathe of the mountain fell and blocked the monstrous waters. Perhaps the flood burst through to the next valley. I cannot believe that I did anything, but on that day I opened my eyes and felt the universe shining in my hands. The waters had started to recede. We watched, dumbstruck, as the lapping waves cringed away from our stone ledge.
Our joy was short-lived. Swampy mud vomited out of the tunnel, and the waters turned black. The sour reek made us cover our noses. Jonas peered down into the water and turned white.
“It’s the graveyard!” he choked, and turned to spit bile off the platform. “All the bodies…”
I peered over the edge and gagged. The mire was rotting. I could not make out what the soft lumps were that bobbed onto the surface, but my imagination gave them staring eyes and grasping nails. I whimpered and clung to my friend.
“Don’t be an idiot.” he growled, and shoved me off. “They’re already dead. If we don’t get out of here we’ll look just as bad by morning.” he lowered himself off the platform. His feet made a wave of gas puff up from the muck. I shook my head urgently when he raised his hands. He actually scooped up a handful of the filth to throw at me!
I’ll leave you here if you don’t move! If that rain starts again we’re dead!”
I pressed my hands over my sickened stomach and nodded. I moved as slowly as possible until Jonas cursed and yanked me forwards. I fell with a shriek. For a second I was glad that the water had cushioned my fall, and then something bobbed past my face and I screamed. Jonas pulled me upright and shook me.
“It’s just… it’s meat!” he swallowed back his own nausea and pulled me forwards. The water was beginning to rise again, just as Jonas had guessed. The waist-high torrent did not tear our feet from under us, but the surface was black with mould. We struggled through it without looking down. It was better to trip and slip than to see what we were standing in.
The tunnel was fine until the path began to undulate. We had to climb down into the mire and then haul ourselves up the slippery rocks on the other side. When we reached a section where the water came up to my neck I started to sob. Jonas kept urging me on in his soft voice – but by then even he was in tears. Even if we turned around we would have to swim underwater to break back through to the cavern. In the darkness, neither of us knew where we were. We could be a meter or a mile from the exit, and the water kept rising.
We reached another dip. There was barely an inch of air above the seething sewage. Jonas took hold of my hand. “Don’t let go.” he whispered, and then he took a deep breath and dived under the water.
He was not a fast swimmer, but he was strong enough to drag me behind him. He rolled on his back to suck in mouthfuls of the air, and then lifted me up to do the same. The air was stagnant, and I choked and vomited out the precious oxygen as soon as I was back under the water. We finally crawled onto the next bit of high land, and Jonas crept ahead. There was a dim light, and I prayed we were near the surface and that it wasn’t just the dazed lights between my eyes. By the time he returned the boy had to shake me out of my dizzy state.
“I think this is the last one.” he croaked, coughing in the rotting gas. “Take a deep breath, Clay. The water fills the whole tunnel.”
My lip wobbled in fear, but I grit my teeth and nodded. The boy smiled shakily and hugged me for a soggy second. “I love you, little River.”
I couldn’t answer. I held out my hand, and when he took it I squeezed it as hard as I could. He grinned with a spark of his old bravado, and
then he dived. The water moved so fiercely that I was sure I would be torn loose, but Jonas pulled us both blindly forward. When he could not swim he sank to the bottom and dragged us along by the rocks. I kicked back with my feet, and suddenly there was light, and sound, and Jonas shoved me hard into the stone wall and up to the surface.
The daylight was a sickly grey, but we turned our faces up to the sky with whoops of relief as we pushed ourselves free of the tunnel and up onto the rocks. The water kept rushing into the cave, roaring so loudly that I could barely hear Jonas gasping for air. The flow was so quick that when I tried to catch my footing I stumbled and had to catch myself against the rocks. It felt as if the cavern was trying to suck me back in. I wailed, and Jonas caught me. He grinned and kissed me.
In the cold daylight I could see the damage that the storm had caused. Barrels, fence posts and wicker baskets floated on top of the water. Jonas grunted when his foot connected with something sunken beneath. I kept watch, pointing out eddies in the current which concealed gateposts and bricks. The sun broke through the clouds, and I shrieked into Jonas’ ear. I had screamed so often that night that my voice was hoarse, but he still cursed and tore me off his back. I splatted down into the water and pointed with a trembling finger to what I had seen.
“Another body?” Jonas waved his hand irritably. “Are you still scared of them?”
I shook my head, and large tears squeezed from my eyes. It wasn’t a body from the graveyard. It was… fresh. I hate to use the word, but that’s exactly what it was. It was a man, his hand still clutching at a bag of coins, his eyes white and staring at the sky, his lips as grey as the clouds. A huge wound crushed his entire chest. The ragged edges oozed pink fluid around by the wooden post which had impaled him. The rushing water must have thrown him into a fence, or brought the fence to him. Either way, Petra’s husband would never argue with her again.
I stared at him, numb now that my fear had faded. He had made so little of an impression on me that he was as boring dead as he had which he was alive. I darted forward and snatched away the bag he was carrying.
“That’s stealing!” Jonas said automatically, then: “What is it?”
“Money.” I showed him the bronze coins before stuffing them back into the bag. “I’m not stealing it. The villagers gave her a load of it to look after me, and she still fed me potato peelings every night.”
“That doesn’t mean it belongs to you.”
“She’ll never know it was me who took it.” I folded my arms, unrepentant. “By the time she finds out it’s gone, I’ll be home.”
“Home?” he scratched his head, “What do you mean?”
I did not understand. “I’m leaving! They tried to kill me. You had to save me. They’re nasty, horrid people and I hate them!”
He spoke slowly, as if I was a fool, “Petra told everyone that you called the storm. There were barely enough angry, frightened idiots to kidnap you. The others were furious. But what could they do? They had their own families to rescue. Now that it’s all over you can find Landen and stay with him.”
“What if he’s dead?”
“What if Petra’s dead? What if you starve on the road?” he snapped, and then sighed. “Petra’s crowd will not hurt you now that the storm is over.”
I fell silent. The boy patted my shoulder and, in the same careful voice, said, “Someone will find you soon enough.”
“Aren’t you… aren’t you coming?”
“I’ll never get another chance like this. I have to leave. I hate it here.” His brow furrowed. He refused to meet my eyes. “On my own I might have a chance. I cannot… you’re such a little girl, and I wouldn’t…”
I felt my heart was crumbling into ashes. My voice came out in a babyish mew. “You’re not so much bigger than me.”
Jonas did not answer. He had grown up. He was older, wiser, and as cruel as any other grown up. He had no right to look like a ten year old boy, with muddy clothes and filthy hands. I bit my lip. Was he selfish? If he stayed in this horrible place for my sake then I would hate myself.
I loved Jonas more than anyone else in the world. I wanted him to stay with me forever. I knew there was nothing I could have said to make that happen.
We found an oak tree whose gnarled branches had withstood the storm. Jonas lifted me onto his shoulders so I could reach the branches. I scrambled onto a wide branch and lay back against the trunk. It was bliss. My feet itched as the water trickled off my toes.
Jonas looked up at me, and scratched his nose awkwardly. “Well.” he said. I wondered if he was scared. He looked around at the drowned village before he spoke again, and I did not know if the sadness in his voice was for his home, or for me. “Goodbye, then.”
“Wait!” I scrabbled at my jacket and almost slipped out of the tree. The boy cursed and got ready to shove me back up again before I righted myself. “I want you to take this.”
I threw him the bag of money. It wasn’t much, but in the eyes of ignorant children it was a fortune. Jonas looked at it suspiciously.
“I still won’t take you with me.” he said with a trace of his old smile.
“I don’t want you to! You’ll just get lost!” I growled back. “Now they’ll blame you for stealing that money, not me. It serves you right.”
He grinned and slid the bag inside his filthy coat. I stared after him until my eyes burned. He splashed upriver with the sun rising in front of him and a smile glowing on his face.
CHAPTER 5
The villagers found me two days later. They stood around me in silence. Their empty eyes accused me. I clung to the sodden bark of my tree and buried my face in its whorls. It had protected me from the flood; it would not protect me from the villagers.
“River.” one said, and held out his arms. “Come on down, girl.”
I slid down and fell straight into Landen’s embrace. He hugged me and then cleared his throat. The other survivors did not make a sound. While Landen turned around and carried me to safety, they kept trudging forwards.
The village had not just died, it had been erased. The word ‘missing’ was no different to ‘dead’. Children, parents, brothers and sisters had been torn out of each other’s hands by the roaring flood. The river had claimed its sacrifice after all.
The survivors had hidden in another cave above the tide-line. The sight of the narrow entrance made me struggle, but Landen pressed his warm hand to my forehead and shushed me like a baby. The cave had no natural chimney, and it stank of smoke and the fatty, rancid smell of unwashed bodies. There were several fires, and people had layered blankets and pine branches to make a soft floor. It was warm and dry, but the smoke made the air thick and toxic.
Landen carried me to one of the fires and stripped off my soaking clothes. They had been wet for so long that the seams flaked away from each other. Lumps of dirt fell out of the mouldy folds, and we both gagged at the stench. Landen dumped soap into a bucket of water and scrubbed my skin and my hair. I heard him apologising for how cold it was, but compared to the rain I had been shivering in for days it felt blissfully warm. He rubbed my feet and hands with a blanket, and I sobbed when they tingled and ached. When they started to throb in red-hot agony I shrieked and tried to fight Landen off.
“I’m sorry.” he said, grabbing my flailing hands, “But if you ever want to walk again, we have to do this.”
I screamed until my exhausted voice gave out, and then I curled up in my blanket and shuddered at each jab of icy pain. Landen spooned crude trail-soup into my mouth like a baby. My hands and feet hurt so much that the pain blinded me. I could not walk for three days.
Landen did not let any of the other villagers near me. Most of them were so grief-stricken that they did not care about anyone else, but some of them spat at us as they walked past, kicked dirt into our fire and, once, we woke up to find Landen’s supplies soaked in urine. One afternoon a gaunt woman came up to the fire. Landen broke our long silence to tell me that she was Jonas’s mother. Her eyes we
re dead as they looked at me. I shook my head. She turned away.
“Is he really dead?” Landen asked that night. I met his eyes, and he smiled a little crookedly. “Did you see him?”
“No,” I whispered. “The angry people tried to make the river kill me. The river ran away. Then you found me.”
The villagers knew that they were in as much danger now as they had been during the flood. Their homes and supplies had been destroyed. The storm had ravaged the fertile soil. When the cold weather came they would starve. Many of them left, disappearing in groups of three or four without looking back. Some went to the plague-stricken city, knowing that at least there would be food there. Others went downstream to see if any other villages needed hands to help them rebuild.
Landen told me he was going upstream to find the people who had diverted the river.
“I want to ask them why they did it.” he admitted. He looked at my anxious face and tweaked my nose, “I wonder how many fish get stuck at their dam. I bet I could catch one every day for a hundred years! You need to come with me to make sure I don’t eat myself to death.”
We made lures together – some to fish with, and some to trade for food. We made feather hems for our clothes so that we would not get cold when winter fell. Landen decided to leave during the next full moon, when we could travel late into the night without needing to carry torches.
That was the day that Petra hauled her fat body into our circle of warmth. I choked. I had seen her pointing at me and screeching at her friends, but she had not ventured into our side of the cave before. I shoved myself backwards, knowing that it was not by chance that she had walked over while Landen was visiting the privy.
The hag ran her yellow eyes over the collection of lures, and picked up one of the finest ones.
“You’d do better making these into jewellery.” she sneered. “They’re wasted on fish.” she slipped the lure into her pocket, made a show of dusting off her hands, and then cocked a finger at me. “Come on, girl, let’s go.”
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