Chapter 2

  River

  I was trapped inside a drum, being abused by a crazed heavy-metal musician, at least that was my first half-dream thought upon waking up to the sound of the rain tap dancing on the metal roof. Confused and not sure where I was for a second in the new room, I stumbled to the window and looked out. It was dark still, and rain slashed down out of the sky making a wall of cold water. Small bits of ice, hail I realized were striking the glass making a pop, pop, pop sound like distant gunfire. Turning back to face the alarm clock I saw it wasn’t even a quarter past four the glowing red letters stared at me, mocking me. I flopped back into my new bed and buried my head under a pillow, but I soon realized sleep was impossible. Getting up I stumbled downstairs finding Uncle Hank already awake and sipping coffee in the kitchen.

  “You’re up early.” He remarked from behind a comically large white mug that had a faded picture of a cartoon fish on it.

  “Is it always this loud?” I shouted the metal roof of the house drumming away above us

  “Loud?” Uncle Hank raised an eyebrow, “Oh the rain!”

  “Yeah, the rain!”

  “Nah, this ain’t as bad as it gets. You should have been here last week, almost gave me a headache” I stared at him with a mix of defeat and horror, praying silently that he was pulling my leg.

  ‘You want some breakfast? You didn’t eat anything last night.” I did actually, I hadn’t realized it but I was starving. He puttered about in the kitchen for a few minutes producing some ominous smells, before finally placing a plate of eggs and bacon in front of me.

  I learned many things that day, starting a new school, meeting new people. The most surprising thing I learned was just how awful eggs and bacon could be made to taste by a sufficiently incompetent cook. I had never been a picky eater, but this was almost impossible to get down. Somehow greasy and dry all at the same time.

  “Uncle Hank?” I asked cautiously not wanting to cause offense.

  “Ugh?” He grunted through a mouthful by way of a reply.

  “Why don’t I take over some of the cooking while I’m here?” I asked, trying to sound innocent

  “That bad?” He asked, grimacing

  “No, I just thought I could-” He cut me off with a wave of his hand.

  “If you’re willing, please. I never was good in the kitchen” We both laughed at that, and it felt good, I had been underwater for a long time, in truth I still was but I could see the surface now. The rest of the meal passed with random small talk. I asked Uncle Hank what there was to do in town and he told me honestly that there wasn’t much. The Montreal, a confusingly named movie theater. Confusing because as far as anybody knew it had never been owned by anybody from Canada. Most of the Churches in town organized various dinners and socials, he said, and occasionally there would be some kind of public show or dance sponsored by the VFW or the Masons. Beyond that, there really wasn’t much. It seemed that when people wanted to have fun around here they would take a day trip into Port Erehwon and even then there wasn’t a lot to do. Not to my way of thinking.

  After a while, Uncle Hank left for work leaving me alone in the house. I took advantage of the chance to search the kitchen and see what there was to cook with, and to my dismay, there wasn’t much at all. Mom and Dad had both been busy all the time with their work, and I had ended up doing most of the cooking for the past few years. It had never bothered me, it was something I enjoyed, even when I was stressed out about something at school or whatever I could always clear my mind in the kitchen. It was a form of meditation to me. I had a little money in my wallet and I figured it would be enough to at least get whatever I needed for tonight. Beyond that, I would have to ask Uncle Hank what his food budget was.

  It was time by then to leave for school, something I was not looking forward to, but I had to do it. So I walked out to the old police car and climbed in. The car itself started with ease and roared to life, its V8 growling like an animal, unbidden a grin made its way to my face as I felt the engine hum through the steering wheel. The school itself wasn’t far perhaps five five-minute drive on the sleepy small-town roads. It was a two-story red brick building showing signs of age despite the construction date carved over the door showing it to only be about twenty years old. The parking lot was still mostly empty as I pulled in finding a space close to the door. It was still raining and showed no signs of stopping, so I made a mental note to myself that if this kind of weather would be common I should leave early enough to park close all the time. As I walked to the doors two shapeless forms in yellow raincoats glided ghostlike towards the building in front of me. Their feet seemingly lost in the fog

  A new school at my age was bound to be a disaster, if I were a different person then perhaps I could make it work. But I had never been cool, I hadn’t had a ton of friends even before everything got turned upside down, and didn’t see any chance of myself making more now that I was the weird new kid from the big city. That might interest the locals, but it wouldn’t endear me to them.

  After a few minutes of wandering around, I found the office and stepped inside. It was a plain room, decorated with the mix of cheap furniture and generic artwork common in government buildings. The area behind the desk however was a riot of color from a jungle of potted plants. Behind the desk sat an older man with a wild shock of frizzy white hair, and glasses that made his eyes seem overlarge and insectoid. Despite his weird appearance, he gave me a friendly smile when I walked in and rose to his feet, extending his hand to shake. I looked at it for a moment in mild confusion before I took it.

  “Stan Mason,” The man’s grip was like a vice as he wrung the life out of my hand. “And unless I miss my guess, you’re Benjamin Willard.” I nodded my head hoping he would release my arm

  “Just Ben.” I grimaced trying to pull my hand out of his grip.

  “Ah, sure Ben.” He finally released my hand, and I let out a grateful breath. “Welcome to Whisper Bay” He spoke theatrically, gesturing his arm towards a window at the rain-soaked town beyond.”

  “Uh, sure.” My hand was screaming at me and I flexed it subtly to try and ease the pain.

  “Well, Ben. Here’s a map of the building” He pulled a sheet of printed paper off of a stack on his desk as he spoke. To show me where my classes were It was faded, a photocopy of a photocopy, and perhaps a few more levels beyond that. I could barely make out what it was trying to show, and he seemed to realize. His speech trailed off and he offered a sheepish grin.

  “Wait right here.” He dashed out into the hall leaving me alone in the office. I walked to the window and looked down on the parking lot below me. To my surprise, I saw a car that I thought I recognized pulling into the parking lot. It was a green VW Kombi painted with pictures of flowers and swirling vaguely Celtic patterns. The same one I had seen driving off of the ferry the day before.

  Just then Mr Mason bustled back into the room and waved for me to follow him. Standing out in the hallway was a skinny girl dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt, her curly red hair sticking out from under a ballcap emblazoned with the faded picture of a fish holding a football. The same fish I realized that had been on my uncle’s mug. I guessed it was the school’s mascot. What was most striking about her however was how worn she looked. Almost exhausted with dark bags under her eyes and very pale almost anemic-looking skin. She offered me an awkward lopsided grin from under the brim of her hat. He introduced her as River, she had most of the same classes as me and he had enlisted her to be my guide for the day. If I had any questions I was to ask her etcetera, etcetera. I knew I wouldn’t. In fact I would try to avoid her as much as possible not wanting to bother her. The school was trying to force her to be my friend so I wouldn’t feel left out. I had seen it before and wouldn’t force my friendship on someone who had no interest in it.

  He left us alone and she glanced over my schedule making sure that we were actually in the same classes. We were, except for seventh period when she had Band, and my uncle had chosen to enroll me in Shop. then we set off down the hallways. We passed the time in awkward silence for a few minutes before she broke it.

  “So… what was it like in California?” There was an edge of excitement in her voice that I hadn’t expected. Of course, I realized that she was only interested in the romance of a place so far away from anywhere she had ever been.

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  “Um, warm,” I mumbled

  “Yeah? I bet so. Not wet and miserable like here.” She said excitement turning into an edge of bitter humor as she spoke.

  “Yeah,” And before I could catch myself I had asked a question “Is it always this way here?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. There’s a dry season that lasts about a month and a half, two if you’re lucky in early summer. But most of the year it’s rain fog or snow. Sometimes all three” She gave another of those lopsided grins and then gestured to a door. “Here we are, room 107.” It looked about like a classroom anywhere else in the world. Rows of desks with bored-looking teenagers seated behind them. I walked to the teacher’s desk and handed a piece of paper Mr. Mason had given me to the teacher. A plump shorter woman with her hair tied up in a bun. She looked at me and her face contorted into a strange look of sympathy, I went cold, it hadn’t occurred to me that Uncle Hank would tell people why I was here, but in hindsight, it seemed so obvious. The prospect of my time on this island grew grimmer as I realized that not only would I have to put up with being the weird outsider, but people would pity me as well. I wanted to turn and walk out in that moment to get in my car and drive home. Or perhaps drive into the sea, but River who was still standing next to me reached out and subtly brushed two fingers against my hand as if to reassure me, and strangely it worked. As introductions were made to the class and I found my seat it seemed somehow harder to worry at least at first.

  As I sat there listening to the teacher deliver her lesson I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. Doing my best not to be too obvious I looked around and noticed a tall girl seated at the back of the room who was staring unblinkingly at my guide. She had the weirdest expression, not happy or upset. Almost empty, blank. I wondered if she might be somewhat retarded but that didn’t seem reasonable. She was immaculately clean, with neat hair pulled back and tied behind her shoulder and neat if very inexpensive-looking clothes. As the hour dragged on I grew more and more uneasy, her blank gaze never seemed to leave River. One time she was called on by the teacher and she almost seemed to pull herself away to answer it and then her eyes snapped back to the back of River’s head. I expected her to make her way over and speak to River after class but instead, she almost ran out being the first to leave despite being seated at the back of the room.

  As we walked to our next class I attempted to broach the subject asking “Who’s the blonde girl that was sitting in the back corner?”

  River seemed to give me a strange look before answering “Chelsea Barlow…” She said with a tone of voice that told me that she didn’t want to answer. “Why?”

  Sensing I was walking on dangerous ground I chose my next words carefully. “She was staring at you all class.” We were at the door to our next class and she took the excuse to not answer. I repeated the ritual of getting a sympathetic look from the teacher and then introducing myself to a class who didn’t care, at least until I mentioned I was from California, then some ears seemed to prick up. How typical I thought scornfully looking at them. As the class went on I noticed another pair of eyes staring at River, these belonging to a skinny boy with jet-black hair. The story repeated itself, and by the end of class, I had a horrid uneasy feeling that I couldn’t exactly explain.

  River was no help, when I tried to ask again she told me to back off with an irritated tone of voice. I sensed I had touched a nerve though I couldn’t guess why, so I dropped it and tried my best to ignore any weird looks she was getting. After all, I didn’t know her, not really, and I knew everyone else here even less. The next few hours passed without any strange looks, and then it was time for lunch. Making our way to the school’s cafeteria, we stood in line for our food. I was ready to split off and find a random empty seat. When River grabbed my elbow and pointed me to a table by the fire exit with two boys sitting at it.

  “Hey guys!” She exclaimed, flopping into a seat.

  “Hey, River…” The taller of the two boys, an athletic guy with blonde hair started to speak, his voice trailing off “Jeez you don’t look so good Riv. You feeling okay?” His voice was a mix of concern and something else, confusion maybe.

  “I’m fine” she snapped, shooting him a look that made him reconsider whatever he had been about to say.

  The second guy smaller and slightly rat-faced looked at me with a mix of suspicion and hostility that I was pretty sure I recognized “Who’s he?”

  “New boyfriend” River said with a sardonic grin, that made it clear she wasn’t serious. All the same rat face flinched slightly confirming my suspicions. And to my shock, I felt my stomach turn over a little at the words. That was something I’d need to think about later I told myself.

  “No seriously who is he?” The blonde asked

  “He’s new.” She tried to talk around a mouthful of bland-looking chicken and rice. Realizing her mistake, she stopped and swallowed before going on.“I’m showing him around”

  “I’m Josh” The blonde introduced himself before pointing to Rat-face “And this is Toby”

  “Ben” I responded making note of their names

  “He’s from California” River added as if this was something special, and perhaps to these small-town types it was.

  “You’re Hank McBride’s nephew, right?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “My dad knows him, they go fishing with the sheriff on weekends.” He explained, giving me another fact to keep track of. “Hey!” River had taken advantage of his distraction to reach across and grab an apple off of his tray.

  “Less talking more eating,” She said fishing out a pocket knife to cut it with. This shocked me

  “You can just bring a knife to school?”

  “Californian,” Toby rolled his eyes disgustedly, Josh fished out an even larger one than River’s to show me and they all laughed.

  I could feel my face go red and that made it worse. There was a flash, a moment where I just wanted to leave. Or maybe to hit something. But then I was laughing along with them, after all, it was kinda funny.

  After a while I found myself laughing at their jokes more regularly and, for the first time today, I wasn’t worried or upset, or even annoyed. These kids weren’t my friends, not yet at least, but they seemed to like me, or at least not to hate me was almost as good in my books.

  “River?” Toby had been looking around the room for a few minutes with an increasingly confused look on his face when he spoke. “The Mudd Hill freaks have been staring at you all period.” At his words I felt a chill run up my spine, it wasn’t just me being weird and seeing things where there were none, and it wasn’t something everyone knew and understood either. I looked in the direction Toby had pointed and saw a table of five kids, who looked as if they belonged together despite not looking like they were related. They all had very pale skin, almost albino, by far the palest I had seen, even in this rain-sodden town. Their hair was all cut conservatively, almost retro-looking and they all wore what was just short of a uniform. Jeans, a plain colored tee, and from the ones I could get a full view of Identical pairs of Nike sneakers.

  She turned white and stared in the direction of a table at the back corner of the room with haunted eyes like she had seen a ghost. Or to be exact, five of them. After a moment she seemed to compose herself, and with a horrible forced laugh, she said “Oh them? They’re just… weird.”

  “No seriously” I questioned “What’s up, they’ve been glaring at you all day. What’d you do to them?”

  “She didn’t do anything” Interjected Toby, too quickly and with too much force. I shot him an exasperated look but didn’t push it. After all, I didn’t really know what if anything there was between him and River.

  “Can you two stop dick-measuring for five seconds?” Josh sounded annoyed as he stared around at all of us before his eyes fixed back on River. “Seriously Riv, what’s going on?”

  Exasperated she threw down her fork and started to stand. “I don’t want to talk about it okay!”

  I tried to butt in, but she shot me down, “And we’re gonna be late for class if we don’t hurry up. Come on” The last part was directed at me, in a tone of voice that indicated she didn’t want to say it. We hadn’t been cutting things as close as she had made out we were almost alone as we wandered the halls to our next class. I tried one more time to ask her what was going on, and the look she gave me could have frozen lava. After we left Chemistry she recruited another boy named Holden to show me to Shop Class instead of taking me herself.

  The teacher was a big man, with a missing hand that he swore he’d lost by being careless with a saw, though the VFW pin on his lapel suggested another way he could have lost it. He didn’t think much of me, I could tell from the start. He told me to come up with something to do as a project, and by the end of the class, I hadn’t come up with anything which only made things worse. To be fair to him I hadn’t tried, despite myself I found my mind repeatedly drifting back to the problem of River and the strange looks she was getting from What did Toby call them? the something Hill freaks?

  When I found my way to my final class of the day English Lit, I was just on the edge of being late and everyone else was in their seats. I tried to catch River’s eye as I introduced myself and found a seat, but she kept her head down staring at a book. I was worried that I had blown my only local friendship before it actually began, but after class, she waited by the door for me, and we walked together to the parking lot. I had made up my mind not to push any harder about whatever was going on. Which is why I was surprised when she brought it up

  We were halfway across the wet parking lot when she grabbed my arm and stopped me standing there in the rain.

  “I’ll tell you and the guys what’s going on. Just not here, not at school!” she said, her wild intensity startling me. Then she was gone, darting off into the rain. River’s behavior weirded me out, and I wondered if she was a bit crazy. Or if she wasn’t, what the hell I was getting myself into?

  By the time I finished walking the few feet to my car, the cold rain had frozen me to the bone. As my engine roared to life, I silently thanked my uncle for buying me a car with a working heater. It occurred to me that despite my promise to make dinner I hadn’t a clue where in town to buy groceries. I decided that the best course of action would be to drive downtown and look around. If I couldn’t find anyone I was sure I could ask someone in a shop or at the post office… Wherever that was.

  Backing out of my parking space, I found myself stuck in a mini-traffic jam as the kids all tried to leave the school at once. Looking around, I saw the old Volkswagen again, and I felt a weight in the pit of my stomach as I watched the kids, who had been staring at River all day, climb into it.