Found Things (14 page)

Chapter 25

I put Meadow Lark to
bed in my flannel pajamas and covered her with the down comforter from the top of the closet. She slept so quietly that a few times during the night I almost put a mirror under her nose.

All that night I went over and over what had happened. By morning I knew I had to go back to Daniel's house right after school and talk to him about Theron. I had to hear everything, and then I had to find Theron and bring him home.

This time I brought a bag of Cheetos from lunch. They were for Honor, because she had been so nice to me about my collage. When I gave them to her at the door, she opened her hand to show me different kinds of miniature candies.

“You have to take one, or you don't get past me.”

“Only one?” I asked.

She looked at the little candy bars, her eyes moving from one to the other. “Two,” she say, and when I took a Snickers and a Butterfinger, she added, “They're from Halloween.”

“Oh, thanks,” I say, and slipped them into my pocket. I noticed the house still smelled like old fruit.

Then she whispered, “His tutor's here, but they're just reading.”

Benjamin,
I thought, and when I stepped into the living room and saw him sitting with Daniel, my pulse calmed down.

“Why, hello,” he say.

“Hi.” I glanced at his leg and noticed it was still in the boot, and a cane rested on the arm of the sofa.

“Look, Daniel,” Benjamin say, “your friend is here.”

Daniel wasn't wearing sweats and a rumpled sleeping T-shirt with holes this time. Today he wore his regular clothes—shorts and a T-shirt that looked only half-wrinkled—but he still looked like a curled-up old man. He gave me his usual glare, and then looked back down at his book. “She's not my friend,” he muttered.

“Note,” Benjamin say, “she was the only person who came to see you in the hospital.”

“Note—I'm paying you,” Daniel say.

“Correction—you are not. And we are done for today.”

“We still have five minutes,” Daniel say.

Benjamin reached for his cane and stood up. “My ride will be here early.” Then he hoisted his backpack over one shoulder and did his little bow to me and left.

I watched him step out to the front door, and then Daniel glared and say, “You're still here?”

“What happened to Benjamin's leg?”

“He fell off a cliff,” Daniel say, and glared at me again, as if Theron had something to do with that, too. That's when I noticed Daniel's wrist.

“Your bandage is gone,” I say.

“Genius.”

His vocabulary must have expanded,
I thought. “Are they graduating you?” I asked.

Daniel put his bony bare feet up on the coffee table. Then he let out a big sigh and crossed his arms. “With summer school.”

“But isn't that what Benjamin's for?”

“What's with all the questions?” he asked, and threw his head back against the sofa. “He's moving, so he can only come a few more times.”

I shrugged. “Before I forget, call Sonya.”

“Sonya?” he asked. “What for?”

“Just call her.”

Daniel clapped the book shut. “So, what are you doing here?”

I didn't want Daniel to see my knees shaking, so I sat in the big chair. Then I asked him, “How did you meet my brother?”

He was quiet for a few seconds, and then his big toes started wriggling, and then his fingers. “You don't know?”

I didn't say anything, but let him answer. It might have been my imagination, but Daniel's cheeks had turned pink and blotchy like he was about to cry. Finally he spoke. “You know that program at the community center, the one for kids?”

I nodded. That program was for kids who got held back in school and got into trouble.

“Well, Theron . . . that's where he tutored me.”

Then I realized that Daniel wasn't about to cry—he was embarrassed.

“Theron never told me that.”

“Well, good,” Daniel say. A little meanness had crept back into his voice, and the embarrassment was gone.

“How long did you know him?” I asked.

He shrugged and scratched his nose. “A year, maybe,” he say. “What's with all the questions?”

“I want to know about him.”

“And you think I want to help
you
?”

I sat up straight in the big chair and planted my feet square on the floor and clutched the arms. “Look, Daniel Bunch, I know that you want to know just as much as I do. I know that you want him to come back just as much as I do. And I know I was the only person who
came
to see you in the hospital. And except for Benjamin, I'm probably the only person who's come to see you since you got home.”

The whole time I say this, Daniel Bunch looked at his toes. His jaw was bulging and his lips were moving like he was trying to keep them still. So I kept on saying what I come to say.

“Everyone has a story about that night, but I don't believe any of them. Pretty soon they'll be making up lies about you. So why don't you tell me the truth.”

It felt great to talk to Daniel like that.

Daniel's face flushed again and his chest rose and fell like it would explode. He was working up to something big, and finally he say, “You weren't the only person who visited me in the hospital.” He looked at me with eyes rimmed red. “After you tried to slice me up, Theron came.”

“Theron? But how . . . ?”

“I was asleep one night, and someone whispered my name. I opened my eyes, and he was standing there. He said, ‘I just had to see you're okay.' Everyone knew he disappeared, so it was like seeing a ghost.”

If he come to see Daniel, then that meant he was around here at least a week ago. “How did he get in without getting caught?”

“Theron found a way,” Daniel say, and wiped his eyes. I couldn't believe it, but I felt sorry for him. “Then . . . he told me something else.”

“What?”

Daniel mumbled something that sounded like, “Don't worry. The secret's safe.”

“What secret?”

Then Daniel started crying and couldn't catch his breath, like a secret that had been beating him up inside was now punching its way out.

“Daniel,
what are you talking about
?”

Turning fully to me, Daniel blurted, “Theron—wasn't drunk. He—was-n't.”

“I
knew
that! I knew it couldn't be true—”

“He wasn't drinking anything, I swear. Not even water. I know it—because I saw him.”

I'd been right all along about Theron.

“I was hanging out. He drove up and saw what I was doing and told me to get in the car—he'd take me home. I wanted to go with him, but I said only if I could drive.”

“You drove? He let you
drive
?”

“I pushed him to see how bad he wanted me out of there. There weren't any cars around that night, so he said okay.”

“So . . . you . . .” The horror split my chest and my stomach heaved. “You . . . drove the car . . . and you—”

“It was me.
I
drove off the road.
I
made the wreck, not Theron.”

“Why didn't you tell anybody? Why did you lie about it all this time? Why did you . . . take it out on me?”

“Theron told me to keep quiet. He said he was responsible, and he would take the blame.”

I sat stunned at what Daniel told me while he sobbed all over again. Finally, after he calmed down, he say, “I miss Theron too. And it's all my fault he's gone!”

Chapter 26

By the next day, the
downpour of rain had turned to soft showers that played tag with the sunshine, and the lake had turned back into an overgrown path.

I paused in front of the bridge. The log was gone. Someone might have rolled it off the bridge, but knowing that log, it probably pushed itself off and floated away. The water ran several feet below the bridge now, looking close to normal. The only thing that hadn't changed was the pounding of my heart.

I took a deep breath and shook the fear out of my body. Theron could be on the other side of the river, and that bridge wasn't going to stop me this time.

I stepped onto the floor and grabbed a beam, then closed my eyes. I took another step, and another, forcing myself to breathe evenly as I made my way beam by beam to the other side.

Then it happened again.

River, honey, you stay right there.

It was the same voice I'd heard when I come to the bridge for Mr. Tricks, a voice from deep inside me.

Don't go any farther on that bridge,
she say, her voice fluttering with fear
. Don't be scared, baby. I'll come get you.

The smell of tar and wet wood and moss and fish surrounded me, and the icy water washed over my bare feet, numbing them.

Why did you run out like that and worry me so?
she say.
Why did you go out here when I tell you to stay put?

It was too dark to see her. I could only hear her voice, so close to me that I knew every word and how it would sound before it come out. That voice—so like my own.

Mama!
I cried.

Then someone with big hands and strong arms scooped me up and carried me. The hands set me down, and I heard Daddy's voice.
Don't move, River. I'll go back to get your mama now.

The voices and the vision had dissolved by the time I felt solid ground under my feet, telling me I'd reached the other side of the bridge. I opened my eyes and dashed off, my heart pounding, and leaned against a tree to catch my breath. That voice—so familiar, so close to my heart—and Daddy's lingered in my mind.

My legs were still jiggly, but I needed to keep going. I looked around for a path, but all I could see was a narrow strip of dirt and overgrown grass to the left, so I began to follow it.

The foliage around me quickly grew thick. As I walked, the river roar faded, and the twitter of birds and the crackle and thud of branches breaking and falling in the woods surrounded me.

I walked and walked, always making sure I stayed on that path, stepping over poison ivy and thorns and slippery vines, looking down so that low-hanging branches wouldn't poke my eyes.

That's how I saw it—a white feather in a tangle of brush, and then another feather. I picked them off the brush. I took out the feather that was in my pocket and compared it with the two I just found. They were all the same shade of white and all the same texture and pattern. They could have come from Mr. Tricks. His feathers could have blown here, he could have been on this bush, or he could have gotten caught here. Or was still here, hidden. Maybe even dead, I thought, and shuddered, but I had to look. I had to do everything possible to find Mr. Tricks.

I pulled away the bushes, my hands shaking, and picked through the vines until I had searched the whole area. I saw a salamander and some shiny beetles on the ground, but no signs of Mr. Tricks, and I sighed with relief.

Then I put all three feathers in my pocket and continued walking along the path. I climbed over one stone wall covered in moss and bittersweet, and another farther along. And then far in the distance I noticed something tall and wide and dark through breaks in the foliage. A shack, maybe, but as I got closer I saw that it was as big as our garage. Then I walked out of the forest and into a meadow, and I saw that the shack was actually a house. Even closer, it had charcoal-gray shingles and faded white shutters and a porch. Several feet away stood a shed off to the side. Then I heard the smooth rush of the river nearby and realized it was coming from behind the house. I'd walked a long way but had been following the river all that time.

It had started sprinkling again, and I watched the house and listened to the rain drum gentle against the shingles and the roof. Something so familiar about that house sat in the deep core of me. I knew it like I knew the sound of the voice I'd heard on the bridge. It was the house of my mind—except it wasn't only in my mind, because that house existed here in the forest, and it had been waiting for me.

It looked deserted. No one went in or out of it, and no curtain drew aside, so I stepped up to the porch and knocked on the door. No answer. I opened the door and went inside and I let my eyes adjust to the dimness.

I walked to the kitchen, where the smell of onions and oregano and apples surrounded me. There was the same long counter and deep sink that I knew. And the same pantry, though nothing, no tomato cans or chocolate bits, sat on these shelves.

The dining room was empty too—no big table, no desk, and the rug was gone, but it was the same room. Everything about that house was exactly the same as the house in my mind except for one thing—the house in my mind was bigger and taller and wider and deeper than this house.

Then I walked to the staircase, and climbed the stairs, recognizing the fern-patterned wallpaper all the way to the second floor. The bedroom at the top of the stairs was dark. I clicked the light switch, but no lights went on, so I opened the curtains, and dust rolled off them and swirled in the dim light. On the dark wood floor was the outline where the bureau had stood.

I heard the front door open downstairs, and then footsteps on the staircase. Someone was coming up! There was no bed to hide under anymore in this room, so I slipped into the closet and left it open a crack so I could see out.

The footsteps reached the top of the stairs and stepped inside the room. My pulse drummed in my ears, and a scream started working its way up my throat.

“River?” asked a familiar voice.

Theron.

I burst out of the closet and ran into his arms, hugging him tight. “Theron,” I say, crying into his chest. Even though he looked thin, his arms felt as strong as always.

Above me I heard a whirring noise, then a coo, and I looked up to see Mr. Tricks flapping and fluttering, until he perched on the windowsill and tucked his wings against him.

“He learned to fly,” I say, laughing. Then I held out my hand to him, and he tilted his head and blinked.

“Mr. Tricks,” I whispered up close, stroking his head with my thumb. “Meadow Lark will be so happy to see you.”

“I hoped you'd come looking for me,” Theron say.

I closed my eyes so I could concentrate on the sound of his voice. “I hoped you'd be in this house,” I say, and loosened my hold on him, though this time I would not let him go. He backed against the wall and slipped his hands in his pockets.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“A few weeks,” he say. Then he grinned his beautiful grin, the one I hadn't seen in more than three months and I wondered if I'd ever see again. “I just couldn't stay away. I wanted to come back home. I just didn't know how to.”

“I do, Theron. Everything's okay now. You don't have to worry about a thing.”

Theron looked out the window and then say, “Let's go outside.”

We left the house, and he led me to the shed. Mr. Tricks followed us all the way.

Inside was a little table and a narrow bed. I looked around. “This is where you sleep? What do you eat?”

“Mostly fish,” he say, “and berries.” Then he looked steady at me and asked, “Have you ever been here before?”

I nodded. “Sort of,” I say. “Sometimes I have dreams about the house. I started going to it in my mind after you leave us. That's when I start talking different too. It makes Mama sad, or mad—sometimes I can't tell which.”

“Well, it's because you sound like . . . ,” Theron say, but he didn't finish.

“Like what?” I asked, but he just shook his head, so I finished for him, because I knew the answer. “Like Mama's friend—June.”

He looked at me for a few seconds and then nodded.

“She was my first mama, wasn't she?”

The time that passed while I waited for him to say yes or no moved thick and slow, but finally he say, “June was your mother. Surprised?”

At one time I thought that knowing who my mama was would make me faint or dance or throw up. But it didn't, and I shook my head. “No. I think I've wondered all along, but I didn't see it until today.”

There was more I wanted Theron to tell me. “Do you know if . . . did she wear fuzzy blue bedroom shoes—slippers?”

He shrugged. “She could have. Why?”

“Well, once when I was dreaming about this house, I was under the bed and saw blue slippers walk around the room. And the person wearing them talk to me, and she sound like the way I'm talking now. Then when I crossed the bridge today, I had a memory, and the same person was talking again. Daddy was there too. He was rescuing me . . . and rescuing her.”

“Why was Daddy rescuing you?” Theron asked.

“Because,” I say, thinking, “the bridge was flooded with water and June come to save me so I wouldn't drown.”

Then Theron asked, “Where were you running from?” His face looked like someone ready to catch a person falling out of a window.

The one word that would answer all my questions come to me as quick as spit. “Here. I come from here. I lived in that house?”

He nodded. “They're not dreams. It all happened to you,” Theron say, and looked at the floor. “Someone should have told you by now.”

“So . . . why didn't they? Why did Mama and Daddy lie to me all this time?” I looked up at Theron and say, “Why did
you
lie to me?”

“I wanted to tell you, but Mama and Daddy didn't want you to know. They just wanted you to forget all about the bridge and the flood and almost drowning. They didn't want you to worry about anything. So I had to promise not to tell.”

I knew it would take me a while to understand that, but at least now I knew. “I always felt like a song in the wrong key,” I say.

I looked out the window to my house. Everything I knew about that house come back to me. The smells in the pantry, the pattern in the carpet in the dining room, and that voice—my first mama's voice—as close as my own heartbeat. There was something else I needed to know.

“Theron, what was June's middle name? What did the
R
stand for?”

“What do you think?” he asked me.

“Rose—just like mine.”

I felt something I'd been holding in with all my strength break and flow, like water finding its path. My tears made my eyes ache, and then Theron hugged me, and his shirt smelled like his bedroom at home—pine and his own skin smell. “It's a lot to understand all at once,” he say in my ear.

“I missed you so much, Theron.” I sniffled and turned my head away so I wouldn't get his shirt gooey.

“I missed you, too.”

“Is that why you come back?”

“Yup,” he say softly.

“Now you can come home,” I say, hugging him tighter.

His arms stiffened. “No, I can't.”

“Theron, it's true,” I say, pushing away from him. “Daniel Bunch told me everything.”

His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“That it was him driving the car that night, not you. And he swore you weren't drunk. So everything's okay now. You can come home.”

Theron stood up and walked to the doorway. “Daniel shouldn't have said anything.”

I knew what else Theron was thinking—that Mama and Daddy wouldn't want him there, so before he could say anything about that, I told him, “Mama and Daddy will have a party for you, Theron. Everyone misses you so much,” and I took his hand. “Believe me, they know what they lost when you left.”