He shrugs, a bewildered look on his face. “They just found some bones. That’s all they know right now.”
“Oh! I thought … I mean, I thought it was your uncle.”
He stares at me. “No. He’s hiking the Trail.” Then he eyes me with mock suspicion. “Unless you know something we all don’t.”
“No, I just … um, nothing,” I say, hurrying to the kitchenette. By the time I get there, my cheeks and the back of my neck are burning. I pour the coffee and immediately try to take a sip, but it scalds my tongue. I stand there, inhaling the aroma, trying to wake up so I can spare myself any more awkward exchanges like that. Spiffy must think I’m insane enough already. And he’ll think it all the more when they discover that those bones are his uncle Robert. This I know, just as well as I know my own name. But they don’t need to hear it from me. I’m already Ice Girl. I don’t need to be Oracle Girl, too.
It’s getting pretty crowded and the room is buzzing with adrenaline-pumped adventure seekers, so I quickly make my exit, wrapping my hands around the Styrofoam cup to keep them warm. Immediately the waves start to whisper.
“Why can I hear you, Uncle Robert?” I mutter in the general direction of the river.
“The river only talks to people worth talking to.”
As I whirl around, hot coffee froths from the top of the cup, spraying my hands. I wince at the pain, steady the cup, and bite my sore tongue.
Because standing in front of me is Jack McCabe.
Chapter Twelve
I squeeze my eyes shut. I push hard against my eyeballs with my thumb and forefinger. I chant, “You’re not real. You’re not real. You’re not real.”
I’m going to continue on. I’m going to push past him and get back to my boyfriend, then never leave Justin’s side again. I try to move, but it’s not fast enough.
All the while, Jack is very near. He doesn’t float; his footsteps are soft, but they’re there. I can feel his breath on my neck. I can feel his smooth fingertips prying my hand from my face, lacing his fingers with my own. Something touches my cheek; it is cold as ice, yet it sends a white-hot shock down to my toes. The icy-hot sensation trails toward my mouth. His lips. He presses them against mine, not really delivering the kiss, just … lingering, until I have this overwhelming urge to finish it, to pull him hard to me, to beg him to feed his tongue into me. But suddenly the force is gone, and the cold breeze that slips between us, warm compared to his lips, is like a slap on my face.
I open my eyes. He is still there. It’s just me and him, on the path. From here I can see the Outfitters, and the cabin, and yet I am helplessly alone with him. Whatever he is.
“Do you believe I’m real now?” he says, a small smile tugging at his lips.
I nod, shivering. “Are you a ghost?”
“You’re not like the others. You’re much more in tune with the river than they are. They don’t see or hear the things you do.”
“But why?”
“Ah, Mistress. You mean no one has explained it to you?”
Mistress? Is that a term of endearment? “No,” I mutter.
“All right. Then I will.”
I take a deep breath, which calms me a little. Just a little. Not so much that my entire body isn’t shaking, but enough so that my voice comes out even. “So, explain.”
He holds up a finger, scolding me as if I were a child. “You need patience.”
“Maybe you need to be a little less mysterious,” I counter.
He raises his eyebrows. “All right. I’ll give you that. What are your questions?”
“The river,” I say. “It always sounds like it’s whispering.”
“They have something to say to you.”
“They? Who are they?”
“Let them tell you. They want to tell you. Just listen.”
“I’ve tried,” I say. “Most of the time it’s just pieces, fragments. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“They’re all trying to speak to you at once. The longer and closer you listen, the more you’ll be able to make out the individual voices.”
“But who are they?”
He doesn’t say anything, but I already know. I don’t know if I could stand to hear the answer. And there’s something strange about the way he’s staring at me so intently, as if he’s waited all his life to have this conversation with me. Which is crazy, because I’ve only just met him. “Who are you?”
“I heard your friends telling the story. The story of my life and, it seems, my untimely death.” He laughs. “Don’t look so shocked. I said I was real. But I never said I was still alive.”
My heart shudders in my chest. “So you are a … ghost?”
“Well, I wouldn’t use that term. I prefer to say that I’m traveling on a different plane. But I suppose ‘ghost’ is what humans would call me, yes.”
“Then why can I see you?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you can see and hear all of us, can you not? That’s why all the voices are in your head, and you’re having a hard time sorting them out.”
“All of who?”
“All of those who met their fate on the water,” he answers. “Because we need you. She needs you.”
My breath hitches. “She?”
“The whispers you’ve heard,” he says. “Surely one of the voices you’ve heard has sounded familiar?”
I shake my head. That the river is whispering at all is so much to wrap my brain around, I haven’t had time to think that a voice might be familiar to me. “I don’t … I don’t think so.” I murmur, but all at once I know what he is going to say. And as sure as I’m standing there, I know it’s the truth.
“It’s your mother,” he says. “And she has been waiting for you.”
“My mother?” I repeat, the word sounding strange coming off my tongue since I haven’t uttered it in nearly a decade. “But she died in New Jersey.”
“All waterways are connected. And her body was never found, yes? So she is one of us. She is here.”
“Here? You’re crazy.” My voice quavers. So much for the idea of keeping the Nia Levesque legend five hundred miles away. I can only think back to her funeral. The coffin was empty. In it, we placed her favorite necklace and a scarf she always wore, and a picture of all of us together. My father never said as much, and we never discussed it, but obviously the body hadn’t been found. She wasn’t the first person lost on the river whose body was never recovered. “Then where is she?”
“I’ve come to take you to her,” he says, extending his hand to me.
Instinctively I reach out to grab it, but a breeze picks up, skittering old leaves down the path and digging under my hairline, sending a chill down my back. When I touch them, his fingers are so icy they sting. I try to pull my hand away, but he clamps his fingers tight on mine, squeezing like a vise. Then he begins to pull me toward the river. The river that I hate, that nearly killed me. I try to dig my heels into the gravel, but he’s too strong. I try to steady the hot coffee I’m still holding, but it’s splashing up over the sides of the cup, scalding my hand. I look down the path, but even though the place is normally so busy early in the morning, there is no one around. “Hey! What are you—”
“You want to see her, don’t you?” He continues to pull me.
Panic rises in my voice as I squeak out, “Where are we going?” But I know the answer. Not twenty yards separates us from the river, and there is nothing else in between but a rocky embankment.
He means to take me into the river. He means to drown me.
The cup flies out of my grasp, splattering hot liquid over his forearm, but he doesn’t flinch, even as steam rises from the black droplets on his skin. I’m fighting now, trying to pry his fingers off mine with my other hand, but it’s useless. Soon I’m begging, pleading with him to stop, but he doesn’t listen. Finally, I gather all the strength I can into my arms and yank myself away. I’m free, but when I take a step back my foot lands awkwardly on a fallen branch, twisting. Pain tears through my ankle. I yelp and fall to the ground.