In the River Darkness (17 page)

The stray dog barked in protest when I left him behind on the shore. “I’ll be back soon!” I called to my dog, and then our boat was already gliding out onto the river.

“Why are you taking me to your island today, after you’ve done everything you could to avoid it for so long?” I asked Jay, who sat on the bench across from me.

“I just couldn’t stand it anymore,” he muttered, and for a brief moment, I felt guilty for pestering him so much.

But only for a moment. A gust of wind rippled the water and opened gaps in the layers of clouds above us, revealing patches of blue sky.

I enjoyed the sun’s rays on my face as I observed Jay. The river seemed to give him confidence. As awkward as he so often was everywhere else, his rowing strokes were rhythmic and elegant. The oars seemed to skim the surface of the water, like the beating of a bird’s wings. We were practically flying, drawing closer to the mysterious island.

And then there it was in front of us—an elongated strip of land, like the spine of a crouching predator. The trees along its banks were aflame in spectacular shades of gold and red.

Jay skillfully maneuvered the boat to the island, jumped onto land, and tied the boat to a tree. The whole time I was so excited I could hardly sit still. But now, just before getting out, I felt a warning, prickling sensation on my neck. A few weeks ago—just a few yards from this very place—I had almost been drowned.

I had to think of all the creepy stories people in town told about this place. Uncomfortable, I stared over at the shore. The yellow leaves of the trees seemed to stare back like thousands of eyes.

I suppressed the nervous impulse to chew on my fingernails. “What if the island doesn’t like me?” I asked.

Jay laughed. “Of course the island likes you!
I
like you!” Impatiently, he gestured for me to get out. It was probably silly, but I still had a strange feeling.

“Hey, Jay . . .” I stalled, “what does your friend Alina think about you bringing me here? I mean, it’s kind of your island. She seems to not like me at all—though I still don’t get why.”

Alina is jealous. And angry, very angry.
Jay’s remark echoed in my head. Then the image of the dead fish in my room. And the broken cello strings.

Could this Alina have something to do with that? Whoever had done it—what else might he or she be capable of?

“I don’t want Alina to get even more pissed off at me because I’m poking around her island,” I murmured.

Jay wasn’t laughing anymore. “This is
my
island, too!” he said defiantly. “And
I
invited you! It’s none of Alina’s business!”

He stretched out a hand toward me to help me. I hesitated. Then I grasped it.

My shoes immediately sank into the wet, spongy layer of fallen leaves that covered the ground. It was odd to imagine that I was probably the first stranger to set foot on this island in a long, long time. I felt like an explorer, someone stranded on a faraway island.

A colorful bird perched on a branch near the shore heightened the foreign, exotic impression. It studied us with its black beady eyes without the slightest shyness—as if it wanted to greet us.

“Oh, look, Jay!” I cried with excitement. “Is that a kingfisher? I’ve never seen a real one!”

Jay froze when he saw the bird. And then his face contorted with an expression of rage that I had never seen before. “Get out of here! Leave me alone!” he screamed, throwing a piece of bark at it. The bird fluttered away in a cloud of shimmering turquoise-blue feathers and disappeared in the brush.

“Why did you chase it away?” I yelled at Jay angrily. “It was a harmless little bird.”

“It was a spy!” Jay muttered through clenched teeth. There was definitely something wrong with this guy. Shaking my head, I followed him through the undergrowth.

The island was larger than I had surmised from the water. Countless pale violet flowers bloomed among the tree trunks. Were they some kind of crocus? I wanted to pick one, but Jay stopped me. “Don’t touch them!” he warned. “Those are meadow saffron. They’re poisonous!”

I quickly pulled my hand away, and we continued.

The sea of flowers all around us gave me a surreal impression of springtime, even though the leaves had already fallen from many of the trees. It was if time took a different course here and didn’t obey the usual laws of nature.

Jay had once called it the Island of Bliss. Yes, I could feel it. This island was a strange, magical place . . .

The wind had gathered strength and rustled through the fallen leaves. Single leaves fell and rocked to the ground at a majestically slow pace, back and forth, seeming to defy gravity itself—like sparks of gold. I followed them with my eyes, not sure if I was awake or dreaming. There seemed to be a tinkling and clanging hovering in the air, or did that only exist in my head?

“Do you hear that, too?” I asked, and Jay smiled and nodded. It actually seemed like we were drawing closer to the source of the sounds; they were getting louder, clearer.

We stepped into a small clearing. “What is that?” I whispered.

In the middle of the clearing stood a huge, bizarre tree. I think it was a willow. Its branches were knotted and twisted around each other, and its leaves rustled in the wind. And the tree
sang
for us!

Jay touched the rough bark as if he were greeting an old friend. I thought he might be reaching to hug the tree when Jay suddenly grabbed a rope ladder that I hadn’t noticed before. Jay climbed up skillfully, and with a big grin gestured to me from above that I should follow him. I climbed up after him, high into the crown of the tree.

At the place where the enormous trunk forked, there was a wooden platform with a crooked railing. I looked around in astonishment with my eyes, and ears, wide open. Now I finally understood where the music was coming from!

Surrounding us on all sides in the branches, a curtain of rusted forks chimed as they jangled against each other. Carved pieces of wood clapped melodically. Directly above us, a large mobile made from beach finds—glass bottles, a rusted cowbell, and all kinds of other flotsam—twirled delicately in the steadily increasing wind. It was like a polyphonic, ethereal orchestra playing a chaotic melody that only Jay knew and directed.

“Welcome to my musical castle! Do you like it?” he asked quietly.

“It’s unbelievable!” I stammered. “Did you make all this yourself?”

Jay nodded, beaming with pride. Solemnly, he announced, “And now I’ll sing for you.”

Jay’s singing voice was surprisingly low. His “song” had neither a continuous melody nor a text I could understand. It was simply a melodic rising and falling of his voice of sustained vowels that combined into a strange and fantastic language: “Aaaaoooooo uuuuiiiii . . .”

Jay rocked back and forth, almost as if he had fallen into a trance. His full concentration seemed to be focused on a point inside him, like beams of light by a magnifying glass until flames suddenly erupt. The whole thing felt something like a ritual ceremony—a little creepy!

What was that?
At first, I thought it was just the clanging of the mobile in the background, but then. . . . Every fiber of my body strained to listen. Goose bumps crept up my back like cold fingernails.

And then there was a second voice, hovering above Jay’s rumbling bass! A voice vibrating as crystal clear as a glass harp and much higher than Jay’s!

“What is it, Mia?” Jay had stopped singing and leaned toward me, clearly concerned.

“I’m alright,” I murmured, but my fingers were trembling. Jay took my hands in his and breathed on them until they were steady. He probably thought I was cold. He was sweet. Why in the world, with all the nice guys out there, did I have to get involved with a jerk like Nicolas? If I hadn’t fallen for him, of all people, everything probably would have turned out completely differently.

Jay’s face was suddenly very close to mine. He looked just as uncertain and fragile as I felt. We both held our breath . . .

And then he kissed me. Or I kissed him.

It was different than with Alex. And entirely different than with Nicolas. Jay’s lips were warm and soft and so wonderfully awkward that I was sure he had never kissed a girl before.

Kissing him was like kissing for the first time. I left the memory of Nicolas behind me—shed it like a dirty old shell. It was as if I were kissing myself free of him. Jay gave me back my innocence; he let me have his, generously, and without any strings attached.

Slowly, we separated from each other. Turmoil churned inside me. I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. I had just kissed my boyfriend’s brother!

“What was
that?
” I stuttered.

“It was a kiss,” said Jay with a blissful grin. Even a blind person would have noticed that he was completely infatuated with me.

I had to laugh. This was all so surreal. Fortunately, Jay didn’t take offense, but started giggling along with me. I loved that about him: you could just do what you felt moved to do, no matter how crazy it seemed. With Jay, I never had to be afraid of doing something wrong. That was probably the reason I enjoyed his company so much, and why I had even let him watch me play my cello.

But even as our laughter faded, I knew instantly that
I
wasn’t in love with
Jay.
And strangely enough, for the very same reasons! I was able to trust Jay implicitly because I didn’t take him entirely seriously. In my eyes, he was still half a child. Harmless.

Our kiss had been lovely—but something was missing. Something like passion. Jay couldn’t be dangerous for my heart.

But somewhere deep down, I suspected that people could only get truly close to each other if they were willing to risk something. If something isn’t a little bit dangerous for your heart, it can’t make it sing either, can it?

And the person who could make such chaotic feelings swirl around in my heart wasn’t Jay—it was Alex.

“Uh, Jay, I don’t know what just came over me,” I stammered, bright red with embarrassment. I didn’t want to hurt him, but we had to set things straight right away. “I’m going out with Alex, and I don’t want to ruin things with him. I don’t want you to have any false hope.”

“Shhh!” Jay placed his finger on my lips. “I know you’re in love with Skip. But please don’t say you regret that kiss!
I’m
not sorry it happened!” he said thoughtfully. “It was nice . . . a little scary.” Jay smiled a little wistfully, with bewilderment. “Grown up, I think.”

We sat next to each other in peaceful silence, captivated by the fragile intimacy between us. We both knew there would be no second kiss. All we had was this moment.

And then it was gone, carried away by the cool breeze. We were back to normality. The wind had grown stronger and made us shiver. “I think a storm is blowing in,” Jay said, as if he was taking care to find his way back to a harmless topic.
As if we’re in a bad movie,
I thought to myself,
now we’re talking about the weather!

But then I looked up at the sky and registered with shock how unbelievably fast it had clouded over. The threatening sky was a dark, surreal gray-blue, just the color of a storm.

Its harbingers were already tugging at my clothes and making my hair fly around my face. I spit a strand out of my mouth. “Do you feel how the tree is swaying, Jay?”

In that moment, a fierce gust of wind whipped through the branches of the musical castle. It made the big mobile above our heads sing with furious angels’ voices. I looked up and saw how the fragile construction reeled in the wind, tipping to one side as its balance was disturbed. Then the mobile crashed down onto us!

It would have landed right on top of me if Jay hadn’t sensed it and pushed me aside at the last second. We fell on top of each other on the wooden board of the tree house as shards of glass rained down all around us.

“Come on, let’s get out of here!” Jay called above the howling of the storm, pulling me up. As fast as our feet could move, we climbed down the rope ladder. Then we ran hand in hand through the forest, carelessly trampling the meadow saffron, whose blossoms seemed to turn toward us like blind heads.

The boat, where was the boat? My sides ached, but Jay relentlessly urged me onward. Thorny vines tore at us like greedy hands, as if they were trying to hold us back. They scratched our skin.

The pain of the scratches is what made me realize that this was really happening. It was as if I were waking up from a deep dream. And suddenly, I was scared! I could see in Jay’s eyes that he felt the same way.

The trees groaned under the force of the storm. All around us, leaves and twigs spattered to the ground, as if an invisible person were shaking the branches in outrage. But there, up ahead—wasn’t that where we had left the boat? Yes, there it was! Finally! I almost sobbed with relief.

Jay sped up.

The last thing I remembered about the island was the kingfisher. In the midst of the tumultuous chaos, it perched on a branch near the shore in complete calmness and stared at us as we moved away. Its eyes were as cold as death.

It stormed and rained almost without interruption for three days. Then came the flood. I could see it from the window of my room when I got up on that gray Saturday morning.

The bushes along the riverbank stood in muddy water and stretched their bare branches to the sky as if they were drowning. The first channels of overflowing water had already begun to lap at our yard with thirsty tongues. Of course, I had often seen our peaceful little stream transform itself into an entirely different, raging torrent, but never in such a short time. If this kept going, we would need to start stacking sandbags around our house soon.

I stared at the churning mass of water outside. It was the color of congealed blood . . .

. . . congealed blood, what nonsense!
I shook my head energetically. That strange color was due to all the clay being stirred up by the river, of course. A perfectly harmless explanation. Grandma was slowly making me crazy, too, with her nervous fussing. For days now, she had been creeping through the house muttering ominous phrases under her breath. “The spirit of the river is displeased. That’s going to bring us bad luck, terrible bad luck!”