Undercurrent (11 page)

Bryce.

He’s across the room, sitting one back from the empty desk. And he hates me. It’s written on his face.

But he’s afraid, too—I can see from the way he drops my stare. Well, he should be. The more I think about Bryce, the angrier I’m getting. The guy tried to kill me! After all the lumps I took for him? Well, luckily he failed. But it means there’s a score to settle between us.

With that thought, my eyes narrow at him, my once friend, my now would-be murderer. But he doesn’t look back, glancing instead at the empty desk in front of him.

Mr. Potts looks up at the clock. We’ve wasted a chunk of the period, he sees. Thankfully the attention is taken off me as he finally begins the lesson. I’ve missed some reading assignments, but I’m off the hook for them, he informs me. So I just sit back and listen.

It’s a nice change. I sure hope all my classes are like this.

I’m relieved when the bell finally rings and I can get out of the same room as Bryce. Fortunately the next class is biology, which we don’t have together.

Mr. Gould—Schroeder’s replacement from last year—is running late. I sit down in the last open seat, beside the anatomical dummy with its plaster organs out for all to see and only part of a face. The dummy’s single eye, perched in its open socket, stares down at me.

I look around the room. That’s when I notice Willow.

She’s sitting right beside me. But her body is twisted away, and all I can see is the back of her neck and the pink crescent of an ear poking through her wild curls.

Whatever. I’m happy just to sit this close for a little while—close enough to detect the smell of her mother’s incense sticks, like black licorice, which always clings to Willow’s clothes.

Again I think about how much smell is linked with memory. That must be true. Because right now I’m remembering this past year with Willow: the long walks after school to my house; crossing the bridge to the south side, where we’d sometimes stop to watch the falls. And then later, sitting in my room, working on songs together, my fingers aching by the end of the session.

This all happened, I know it. And yet Willow is acting not only like she doesn’t know me, but she can’t even sit facing me.

Mr. Gould’s monotonous voice washes over me as I steal glances at her for the rest of the lesson.

When the bell rings, I wait in my seat, watching everyone exit. Willow looks back at me. Her face is full of suspicion. I really screwed up somehow. Just by saying her mother’s name? I don’t understand.

“I would hurry up, Mr. Harris, or you’ll miss your next class,” Mr. Gould says, looking up.

“Yes, sir.”

I hustle to my locker and check my schedule. My next class is gym.

I quickly grab my sneakers, shorts, and T-shirt, just in case. As everybody knows failure to bring your gym uniform is an automatic detention. Even with such a spectacular medical excuse, I don’t want to test Keller on this.

Then I head off, trailing just behind Manuel Rivera. He’s a scrappy little dude who never fails to elbow me in the face no matter what the sport—he even got me through a badminton net once. “It’s your big nose,” he usually tells me as an apology. “It gets in the way.”

Today he’s a lot chummier though. Spotting me, he slows down. He offers a fist bump as I draw up alongside him, which I return awkwardly.

“Hey, Cal, what’s up?” he asks. But before I can answer, he lowers his voice: “Yo, I heard you got your hands on some more stuff. Is that true?”

“Stuff?” I ask. “What stuff?”

“Keep it down,” he warns me. “Some Holden’s, man,” he whispers. “Me and my buddies were hoping you could sell us a bottle.”

He wants Holden’s—the Holden’s hidden in my closet. I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.

“Uh-uh,” I tell him, shaking my head.

“Really? That sucks—there’s a big party this weekend we’re gonna crash. Some chick’s place.”

“Sorry,” I say flatly. “I don’t have anything.”

But the guy just won’t leave it alone. “Hey, that’s not fair, selling only to seniors. We can pay, man, whatever they’re paying. . . .”

“Look, I’m not selling anything!” I tell him.

With my voice still echoing down the hall, Manuel drops the subject. But I’m still feeling uneasy. Does the whole school know I have a closetful of whiskey? Did Ivy tell everyone?

As I approach the gym, I hear the thud of basketballs. And, as usual, it sends a shudder through me. I hate basketball. And not just because of Manuel’s elbows, which are a complete nightmare, but because I’m really bad at it. I’m not that tall, I can’t jump, I can’t dribble, and I sure as hell can’t shoot. So except for randomly knocking the ball out of somebody’s hands, I contribute pretty much zero to any team I’m put on. And it’s a fact I’m always made aware of:

“Christ, Harris, get out of the way!”

“Pass the goddamn ball, Harris!”

“You suck, Harris!”

But hold on—Keller knows I’m supposed to go to the library, I remember. Mom told the school. No sports for me! And certainly no weight lifting, I laugh to myself.

When I don’t spot Keller in the gym, I head to his office. He always waits a few minutes before making his big entrance, blowing his whistle like he’s been trying to get our attention for the last half hour.

“Come on, you buncha monkeys!” he always yells. “What the hell are you all doing?”

Waiting for you, numb-nuts
is the honest answer we can never give.

Keller is in there, all right, reading a magazine before making his appearance. “Harris!” he cheers when he sees me. “You’re back already. Great to see you!”

“Thanks, Coach Keller.” I still hate calling him “Coach.” Because he’s not my coach—he’s just my phys-ed teacher. And that is already too much for me.

“So how’s the head? You ready to get back at it?”

“Well, no, to be honest. I’m under doctor’s orders to stay away from contact sports.”

“Basketball?” he says, snickering. “Since when does Callum Harris consider basketball a contact sport?”

Since when? Ever since starting at Crystal Falls maybe, when I began spending most of every game skinning myself on the floor?

“Since the accident?” I say instead.

“You need to start working on the cardio, my man,” Keller tells me. “Gotta get those lungs back. . . .”

I remind myself that he thinks I’m his star running back—the article I read online even included an interview with him, where he singled me out for securing the win. Well, tough, bucko, because shortly I’m quitting the team. I don’t need to get my neck broken on top of everything.

“Well, maybe, but I’m supposed to avoid exerting myself completely,” I tell him.

“Okay, okay. I’m not forcing you. The important thing is to get better as soon as possible. Take your time—but hurry up!” The gym teacher cackles, filling the room with his stale breath.

“Can you write me a note so I can go to the library?”

“The library?” he says, surprised. “Sure, sure. Good idea. That’s a great place to catch up on some z’s.” He scribbles on a yellow pad and tears off a sheet with a flourish. “But when you feel up to it, try a few laps around the track at least. Remember, we need those legs!”

“Laps—gotcha.” I’ll agree to anything to get out of his sweat-stinking office.

The coach gets to his feet. With a slap on the spot where Holt nailed me, I’m sent on my way. Over the basketballs, I can already hear Keller shouting at the class as I head out into the hall.

“Ladies! Ladies! What are you doing? Knock it off and listen up!”

I couldn’t be happier to put gym behind me as I escape into the hush of the hallway. And I waste no time heading to the library.

The most recent addition to the school, the library is accessed by means of a covered walkway, just after the office. With its big windows, the walkway always reminded me of something a giant hamster would run through. Here, though, the rodents keep tagging the Plexiglas with markers, so it’s now a bit of a mess.

Just at its entrance is the music room. Hoping to catch a glimpse of Willow, I turn my head to peek in—and then walk straight into something really hard. I stagger backward, clutching my head.

The entrance to the walkway—it’s gone. There’s just a solid wall of cinder blocks where it used to be.

Rubbing the swelling above my eyebrow, I turn to the nearby fire exit. I push open the heavy door and step outside.

I can’t believe my eyes. The library. It’s gone too.

It’s drizzling, but I continue on. Crossing a parking area, I head through the gate and onto the field as if in a dream. Unlike at the motel lot, here there isn’t even an outline where the annex once stood. Instead there’s a bunch of old trees obviously planted before I was even born.

There’s a flash and some thunder. I look around the field, toward the woods that lines the north side. For a moment I see a hooded figure heading along the outside of the fence. It’s the same figure, I’m sure, from the hospital parking lot, the same guy wearing the Crocodiles jacket.

“Hey!” I shout as loud as I can. “Hey!”

There’s another flash and a really loud bang—a close strike that makes me jump. Looking again, I see the figure slipping into the woods.

Oh no, you don’t, I think. Dropping my gym bag, I start running after him.

Sprinting across the damp field, I think of Keller’s comment about my lungs. Well, they’re back, all right, and burning in my chest like a couple of fireplace logs. But I don’t care. I’m going to catch up to that guy, whoever he is. I’m going to pin him down and find out what’s going on.

Even winded, I surprise myself at how fast I’m up and over the chain-link fence. Landing on the other side, I feel pretty amazingly agile. I spot fresh footprints and follow them into the woods. Not wanting to lose my quarry, I fall into the same stride, noticing that the prints are about the same size as my own. It becomes too hard to keep up though. I slow down, feeling like I’m going to throw up.

Eventually I have to stop, but it doesn’t matter. With the drizzle, the trail is pretty clear in these muddy woods, even though the tracks occasionally get lost across bare rock and fallen leaves. Wherever they end up leading, I’m confident I can follow. And at this point, I’m committed.

Unfortunately I lose the tracks completely down by the river. Cursing, I head to the riverbank, hoping to pick them up there. But there’s nothing. I keep walking, following the fast-flowing current. I look at it nervously, imagining falling in and being swept off to the long drop that even now I can still feel in the pit of my stomach.

I have no doubt how it would turn out this time.

Soon comes the steady boom of the falls themselves. Now cold and soaking, I’m suddenly gripped with fear. I want to turn back, to run away. But just then I spot them again: tracks from the same running shoes, this time on what appears to be a familiar-looking hiking trail.

There’s no time to be scared. I need to keep going.

The trail ends at the edge of the falls themselves. Through the trees I catch sight of the footbridge. Someone is standing in the middle of it. Below, the water curling over the lip of the falls looks strangely dirty, like a storm has churned up the bottom of the river.

Okay, this is not how I imagined this confrontation: high atop what is now the most terrifying place in the world for me. But I need to find out who that guy is and what he’s trying to do. So against every fiber of my being, I clamber up the wooden stairs to the bridge.

And sure enough I still see a figure there—it’s just not the one I was expecting. Because it’s Mr. Schroeder, my old biology teacher. In a heavy rain jacket like something a seaman might wear, he’s making adjustments to some sort of metallic-looking cylinder. As I watch from the stairs, a red light suddenly begins flashing on the top end.

I’m stunned to see Mr. Schroeder drop the cylinder off the bridge into the water. The man produces another device, a little black box with a red light flashing on it, just like the cylinder. After watching it for a minute or so, he suddenly returns the device to his pocket and begins heading my way.

I head back to wait for him on more solid ground.

Mr. Schroeder looks at me quizzically as he thunders down the stairs with surprising speed. He was a teacher, so I’m expecting to catch some crap for skipping class. But I don’t. Instead he darts a look over his shoulder and asks: “How did you do that?”

I don’t understand the question, but he doesn’t seem particularly interested in my answer, turning to head off. I’m confused. Could this be Mr. Schroeder’s twin brother who I met in the supermarket? He seemed the grumpy type.

“Wait—sir!” I call after him. The man stops and turns around.

“Yes. What is it?”

“Were you Mr. Schroeder, the teacher at Crystal Falls High?” This sounds weird, and the man’s face shows it. “I mean, are you that Mr. Schroeder?”

“I am,” he says.

“Hi. It’s me, Callum Harris. You taught me biology.”

“Oh, I remember you, Mr. Harris,” he says. “I remember you as the most disruptive and uninterested student in the whole class, if not the entire school.”

Now wait a second—that isn’t fair. “What do you mean I wasn’t interested?” I protest. “I got a ninety on almost every test you gave.” Although I did flunk one, I’m ashamed to recall.

“Whatever you say, Mr. Harris. My congratulations on your past success.” My former teacher turns again to go. This time I notice that his limp is completely gone.

“Wait! Mr. Schroeder!” I call out, stopping him again.

“Yes, Mr. Harris?” he responds, this time with a loud sigh.

“What were you doing?”

“What was I doing where?” he asks impatiently.

“On the bridge,” I say, not that it could be any more obvious. “Just now. What did you just drop into the falls?”

Mr. Schroeder looks at me while the rain bounces off his jacket—and I am probably as wet and cold as when they pulled me out of the river. “It was a message,” he tells me wearily, “saying I was on my way.” He pulls out the little black box again, which now has a solid green light on it. “And according to this, the message was delivered.”