Klickitat (18 page)

Some of this seemed familiar to me; reading back through the yellow notebook, I recognized sentences from earlier messages, all shuffled together, mixed with new sentences, other voices. I remembered things Henry had said to me, and Audra. I thought about the books I'd been reading. The words came snarled, all at once. Sounding me, seeking a channel.

TWENTY-FIVE

I keep expecting Audra's voice, or her footsteps
clattering up the stairs. Mom and Dad never raise their voices, never make any loud noises; they are so careful, almost afraid of me. They tell me things will get easier, and they will, they do. And then, at the same time, I don't feel that I belong here, that I will stay.

I have written this sincerely. I never asked for anything to change, to see and hear beyond this world around me. That's one way to say it: In one of Audra's books,
Indians of the American Northwest
, I read that Klickitat is not just the street in my neighborhood, the street where Beezus and Ramona live in the books, and it is not
only the name of a county in Washington and a river. It is also the name of an Indian tribe. The Indian word
Klickitat
means “beyond.”

I was back for two weeks before Mom and Dad would leave me by myself at home. Even after they went to work, I kept expecting them to double back, to check on me. Mom called me five times and Dad four, that first day, to know that I was home, and I could tell by the sounds around them that they were at work. That meant that I had some time before they could make it home, if they decided to come check on me.

What I did, then, was go downstairs and switch on my dad's radio. I sat down in his chair, put the earpieces of the headset over my ears, and dialed in the numbers.

“CQ, TF8GX,” I said into the microphone. “N7NTU calling TF8GX. CQ.”

I could hear my breathing inside my head, and then bursts of static, the voice finally rising through it, becoming clearer and louder.

“Be happy,” she said.

“Iceland,” I said.

“You wandered your way back home—your father told me so. He must be so happy. He's been so worried. And your sister?”

“She's gone,” I said.

“You're there,” Iceland said. “I'm here. Let's have a conversation.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I like to talk to people who can't see me,” Iceland said. “Though my walking is improving, day by day. When I was a girl, I couldn't walk at all. I just sat in my wheelchair all day watching the barges go by—did I tell you that?”

“Yes,” I said. “Are you really in a truck?”

“In the back of a truck,” she said. “It's a camper, of a sort. With an antenna, yes, and windows and this radio setup. I can see the lava flows now, out my window.”

“You like the Number Stations,” I said. “My dad told me that. You listen to them.”

“Yes,” Iceland said. “That is correct.”

“I listened,” I said. “I don't know how it made me feel.”

“They're mysterious,” she said, “those stations, and
sometimes they make me sad, sometimes they make me hopeful. It's nice and it's sad, isn't it, to think that they're always out there, waiting for someone to understand them?”

“But you don't understand them,” I said.

“Me? No, not really, I don't.”

“Spies use them,” I said. “That's what Dad said.”

“Spies?” she said. “That's what he said?”

“Are you a spy?”

“I wouldn't say so. I believe I'd know if I were.”

The static rose up in my ears, a thick tangle, and I didn't know how to change that, and for a moment I thought our talk was over.

“People are always trying to reach people,” she said. “Sometimes people who aren't alive anymore.”

“But you're alive,” I said.

“Of course I am. I'm old, but I'm still here! But the others, they can sound so different. My sister Berglind, for instance—she talks in the voice she had as a little girl.”

“What does she say?”

“She says that she loves me, and that it's crowded, that the winds blow every direction where she is. Still,
she speaks to me, her little voice finds a way through the static.”

“I get messages in a notebook,” I said, after a moment. “Handwriting.”

“They can come to us any number of ways,” she said.

“It's from a lot of people at once,” I said. “So it's hard to understand.”

“Of course it is,” Iceland said.

Again, the static—voices whispering, pieces of words. Again, it cleared.

“I'm listening for my sister,” she said. “My sister Berglind, who has died. She comes on different channels, she's trying to find me. Dead people have to learn to talk again, how to count, how to make any kind of sense. And we also need to be patient, to listen.”

“I'm patient,” I said. “I can be.”

“How did you lose your sister?” Iceland said.

I'd been watching the red needle as it lifted and fell, as it jerked with our words, but now that was blurry, the tears in my eyes. I closed my eyes and all I could see was the black of Audra's neck, all I could hear was what
she said about the body rolling across the bottom of the ocean.

“She drowned,” I said. “She was in a boat and it capsized.”

“And that's where she is now?”

“I think so.” I was crying. I held my hand over the microphone.

“You can still talk with her,” Iceland said. “It will take time. Everything you need to know is inside you, the same as it's inside her. You'll figure out how to talk to each other. You'll have to figure out how to listen, to understand.”

“I'm listening,” I said. “I will.”

“It's so cold, here,” she said. “I can see snow on the volcanoes, right from this window.”

“Volcanoes?” I said.

“You're thinking of Snæfell, yes? The one from the book?”

The static again, my curled toes cold inside my socks.

“Is it cold there?” she said.

“Not really,” I said. “It might still be raining.”

“There is so much for you to do,” she said. “So many places.”

“How do you know?” I said.

“I can feel it,” she said. “Let's have another conversation, another time.”

TWENTY-SIX

Yesterday I walked in Forest Park. The sun
was out—it's almost summer, now. It wasn't easy to find where the blind had been, but I found it. All torn apart, the box dug up and stolen.

I climbed up into the tree house and read the letters I cut into the wood.
KLICKITAT
. There was no answer carved there.

The only tunnel I saw was when a rabbit shot across the path, disappeared into its hole.

I saw people, but not Taffy, not Audra, not Henry.

I still think about Henry. I wonder. Did he make it back to where he was from? Did he also drown? Will he write to me? I wait, I listen. At night I think about how
he can see in the dark and I remember his deep voice, the way he walked, all the stretches and yoga poses, the things he'd do with his body. His feet and hands, the sound of him cracking his knuckles. He appreciated me, the ways I am different. Will he come back for me? When will the messages tell me where and how to find him?

We will tell you the when and the where, the what to do, and still we must be patient, all of us
.

Henry needs me, he said that, like he said his people needed the man who could hear the boats coming by listening to the ground, who could read animals and see people others couldn't see.
Klickitat
is a word that means beyond, different than how this world is, around me, and when Henry comes I'll be ready to go with him.

Klickitat. Audra, she is watching me, listening. I miss her, and I feel that she is here, as much as she can be.

My hair has grown, but the last few inches are still black, reminding me of that time when we were last together. I'm stronger now, I don't take any pills, I stay hopeful. Sometimes I feel I'm writing to her, and other times it might be for people I don't even know. It keeps the agitation away, it keeps me balanced, it keeps me safe.

I used to be so snarled up inside, agitated, all these waves and words tangled on each other with no place to go, a pressure that kept building and building. Now my snarl is sounds, voices, words.

Here in the notebooks I've let it out, I've collected all these different words. The ones in the yellow notebook, they found me, they find me still. They are the words that came from beyond, because I was ready to receive them. And then the rest of the words, these words I'm writing now—they don't feel so different, they also come through me. I listen in; I intercept them. I receive these words and send them out again, so they can reach the next person.