“Trey Vance, who took a chance
And was pushed in the river grim
.
He lost his life not by a knife
But because he couldn’t swim
.
“They say I’m famous in twelve counties. Whenever kids don’t want to learn to swim, their mommas always say, ‘Now, little Bobby, you know what happened to Trey Vance, don’t you? Get your butt back in the water.’ ”
“Thought you said you were a ‘powerful good swimmer’?”
He nods. “That’s the good thing about this place. You get to be what you wanted most to be when you died. And hell, if I’d have been a good swimmer, I’d still be alive.”
I look down at his arm, which he’s hugging to his body. “You can heal me, but you can’t heal yourself?”
He shrugs. “That power’s beyond me.”
“Is it beyond the all-powerful Mistress of the Waters?”
“You joke about it, but that’s ’cause you don’t understand it,” he says. We cross the highway and start up the driveway. “Can’t heal the dead. But you can bring a person back to life. The Mistress of the Waters can do that. It’ll damn near destroy all her power, but she can do it. I think that’s what they want your momma for.”
“Who wants her?” I sputter.
“They want her to make them alive again.”
“Who?”
“Don’t know. Jack, I think.” His face twists. “It’s hard to get you to understand, when even I don’t know what’s what, sometimes.”
I groan. “I want to understand it, but you’re making it so damn hard. If I’m destined to become this royal-over-the-waters, shouldn’t I just go and accept my destiny?”
“No. Not now.” He stops suddenly, trying to think of the words, then exhales, defeated. “Being here is dangerous. Too dangerous for you.”
“Why? Is it because of Jack? Who sent you, anyway?”
“Mistress Nia,” he says softly. “Your momma.”
Every time someone says my mother’s name, I cringe inside. I’m so used to having that reaction to her, I can’t rid myself of it. And so when Trey says her name again, I bite down hard on my tongue and don’t say a word until we’re in the cabin. When I open the door, I can already hear loud snores emanating from one of the upstairs bedrooms. Hugo, no doubt. Our little kayak trip seems a million years away, almost as if it never happened. And the funny thing is, when I look down, I realize my clothes are completely dry. Not like they dried, but like they were never wet in the first place. They’re not stiff with river grime. My hair even smells like the shampoo I used the evening before.
I turn to Trey, about to ask him why my mother would send him as a warning, when I see him staring into the hallway mirror. There’s no reflection. I am standing behind him and yet all I see in the glass is myself. He shakes his head. “I ain’t seen myself in a mess of years. What year is it now? 1940? 1945?”
I know my eyes are bulging. “What year did you …”
He chews on his lower lip. “Last I was like you, it was 1935.”
How could he have somehow misplaced so many years? “It’s much later,” I say.
He grimaces. “It’s hard keeping track of the days here. I tried for a while but lost it.” He runs his hands through his hair. “What do I look like now? Hell?”
“Um … fine,” I say. For someone who has been dead for so many decades, he doesn’t look half bad.
He looks around the house and whistles long and loud. “This the way people living these days? This a hotel?”
“No, it’s Angela’s parents’ vacation cabin.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Just the three of them? Live here?”
I nod. “But only a couple weeks out of the year.”
“Dang, I was born at the wrong time.” He walks into the kitchen and opens the freezer. “Heh. If this ain’t one of them—what are they called? Refrigerators. We had one. Brand-new. My dad got it for my momma for her birthday.”
He turns the under-the-counter can opener on and steps backward in a hurry when it begins to whir. I help him shut it off. “That opens cans.”
“Angry little thing, ain’t it?” He shakes his head at it like it’s a naughty puppy and begins playing with some of the other appliances. I explain each one to him, and each time, he laughs and shakes his head. Then he turns to the microwave. “What’s this? This chew the food for you?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer. His eyes fasten on the fake moose antlers over the fireplace. He whistles again. “Must’ve took ten men to bring that beast down, heh?”
I don’t want to tell him they’re fake. Based on the way he reacted to everything in the kitchen, he already knows the people of today are a bunch of wusses who can’t do anything for themselves. “Um, I guess.”
There’s a noise in the foyer, probably just the house settling, but it reminds me that Angela and Justin might come home at any minute, or Hugo might wake up. Trey has moved on to the bookcase. “Hey, I had that one, too. Journey to the Centre of the Earth. My momma bought it for me on my seventeenth birthday. Never finished it, though. Died before I could.”
He says it so matter-of-factly, it makes me gasp. “You can borrow it, if you want,” I say, since I doubt that any of us will be doing any real reading this weekend.
“Yeah?” He gets all excited, like I offered him a Porsche, and takes the book down from the shelf. He stares at it for a minute, and then gently puts it back. “I’d best not. Don’t want to muss it up.”
“Um, I’m afraid you can’t stay here. My friends will be back any minute,” I say.
“They can’t see me, kid.”
“Yeah, but I can. I can’t act normal if you’re around.”
He nods. “All right, all right. But knowing your momma wanted me to protect you, ain’t that enough for you to get yourself home?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know who to believe. Jack is telling me one thing. You’re telling me something else. All of it is so unbelievable. And I know I should be running in the other direction, but I can’t leave until I know. If my mother is here, I want to see her.”
He throws his hands up in frustration. I’m clearly getting on his nerves. “I told you. That ain’t possible. Across the river is her kingdom. She can’t abandon it. You can’t see her unless you cross the river. And you need to be dead for that. If you cross, you ain’t coming back. And you like your life, don’t you? You don’t want to leave it?”
“I do, but—”
“There’s another part to this story. Listen,” he says, his face turning to stone. “According to your momma, there’s a relation of yours from many years ago. This person would have inherited the title, but died very young, and has been living on the outskirts of your momma’s kingdom, in the shadows. The story is that ever since this person came here, they’ve been wanting to step in. They’ve been off in secret, developing these powers. This person’s been in this kingdom a long time, longer than your momma’s been ruling, and they’re awful strong. Stronger than your momma. Stronger than you, because not only was this person destined to rule, but they know more about your powers than anyone. And they’re angry. Real angry at your momma.”
I swallow. “I don’t understand. Who is this person? Jack?”
“Doesn’t matter. All it means is that you need to get.”
“Can’t my mother just come to the edge? Just so I can …” I trail off. This is so stupid. Asking to see my mother. My mother, who abandoned me. She’s dead. Gone. Even if I could see her, I shouldn’t want to.