The Rosemary Spell (22 page)

Adam looks at me like I'm crazy, and I am. Crazy with pain, but now we have time because we have Shelby and everything will be okay. I speak slowly. “You know, our lives move on a straight line, but for Shelby, the line wrinkled, and she passed over all the days we spent forgetting her and remembering her. For Shelby, the void poem wrinkled time, and I guess if we hadn't gotten here before the new moon with the antidote poem and the rosemary and the rue, her line—her whole self—would have disappeared. Into void and nothing.”

But that didn't happen. We got here in time. We found the poem. Everything is okay. Except my elbow, which, like Shelby, is out of joint. But it can be put back, too, and we won't need any magic words.

“What are you talking about?” Shelby demands.

Adam hurries through a rough explanation of what happened while we walk back to the boat. I don't help. I focus on my arm and on walking and breathing.

She says, “Shakespeare wrote magic spells?” She doesn't believe him. Why would she?

He starts pointing out changes as evidence that time has passed. It's cold. It's wet. There's snow on the ground. We're soaked. And wearing different clothes. And wearing life vests. And my elbow. “Rosie's elbow's dislocated!”

“Dislocated,” Shelby echoes as we reach the bank.

The boat tugs against its rope. The river still rages.

Shelby's eyes widen as she watches a lawn chair race past, tumbling in the water.

“This is your proof,” she says. Her voice goes higher. “I would never have come here with the river like this. I would never have let you come.”

“We made it over,” Adam assures her with a confidence I'm certain he doesn't feel. “We'll make it back. Plus, now we have you to help.”

Her face is pinched with worry. “But maybe we should wait. The river will settle down. Or someone will come for us.”

“She's right,” I say. “If we sit here, on the bank, maybe someone in Cookfield will spot us.”

“Those life vests would be hard to miss,” Shelby agrees. She pulls her phone from her pocket. “No reception,” she murmurs.

Adam drops onto a log. It's soaked, but so is he.

I sit beside him and prop my foot up on a stone so that my knee can support my forearm. My arm is actually throbbing. In cartoons, exclamation points and asterisks radiate out from a bright red injury. It turns out that's a pretty realistic way to draw pain. I close my eyes and allow my head to drop onto Shelby's shoulder.

“Start at the beginning,” she says.

We tell her about the codex and the void poem and Constance, putting all the pieces together for her.

Adam explains, “She lost her brother, Wilkie, here on the island, and she found the poem and figured out about the rosemary and the rue, but she didn't make it in time. It was the '24 flood, just like now, and she tried to go by herself, but she couldn't make it, and her dad had to rescue her, and then he couldn't get to the island either, and the new moon came, and it was too late.”

No one says anything. The river sounds like an engine. The crow caws.

“But when a person, like, goes into the void, they're gone. Completely. Right?” Shelby asks.

Adam nods.

“But . . . you just told me about Willie.” Shelby speaks slowly, trying to make this piece fit.

“Wilkie,” I correct. Pain burns up my arm. Why does it hurt to talk? I bite my cheek and focus on the metallic taste of blood.

“Yeah, Wilkie,” Shelby says. “You know his name. You know about him. So he's not in a void, right?”

“The rosemary line from
Hamlet
makes you remember,” Adam explains. “It brings people back from the void—not really, but as memories.”

Adam and I say the verse together. For Wilkie. My voice is thin with pain, but his is steady and sure.

And even though Shelby sits by my side, the line still summons memories. Only now they come slow and easy. Adam and Shelby and me on the island. So many times before and also now.

We sit in silence, remembering.

Shelby shifts slightly on the log, and I shift with her. On my other side, Adam presses in to me. They hold me up. Darkness fills my head and pushes behind my eyes. Adam's arm solid against me. My head on Shelby's shoulder. I sink into the darkness.

Horrible shudders yank me back to the cold and the wet and the pain. Each spasm wrenches my arm, and I gasp out sobs.

Shelby and Adam talk across me in low, panicked voices.

She says “shock” and “dangerous.”

I wonder if they think it will be dangerous to brave the river or dangerous to stay. I don't really care. All my caring is wrapped up in pain and shaking and cold. So cold. It goes all the way to the insides of my bones.

“No one knows to look for us.” Adam's voice is high with fear.

I want to remind him of the siren. Maybe they are looking for us. But I can't figure out how to talk. My throat is clenched tight, and the shaking binds me.

“Rosie needs a doctor.” Shelby's decided. “We have to go for it.”

Adam squats down and tries to look into my face, but I'm curled into a ball and can't meet his gaze. His hand rests on my back, and I quake against it, great wrenching tremors. He says grimly, “Okay.”

“B-b-but . . .” I stammer. “Only . . . Only two. Two. Two vests.”

Adam pushes his hair off his forehead. “I should've brought another one. I guess I just didn't think.”

“It's all right,” Shelby says with fake brightness. “We'll be fine, and I'm a good swimmer.”

“No one's a good swimmer in water like this,” Adam protests.

“Well.” Her tone is settled. “Rosie obviously has to have a life vest, and I'm not about to sacrifice my baby brother, so we'll just have to do our best to stay in the boat.”

It seems like a year ago that I thought we were the life preservers. But we're not. We defeated the void, but we can't possibly defeat this river.

Shelby strides forward and starts hauling in the rope. Adam works alongside her.

I reach out vaguely, but between the shaking and the pain that comes with every movement, I'm completely useless. I stay as still as I can and wait.

Shelby holds the rope, and Adam half carries me to the boat. Some remote part of my brain registers the burning cold of the water and its insistent tug as we step into the river.

Adam bends down and cups his hands like people do when they're hoisting someone onto a horse in movies. I step into his hands and use my good arm to pull myself into the boat. Pain and nausea swirl and swirl, and I lie still, panting and waiting to feel better. The damp wood of the boat's bottom is solid and reassuring against my cheek.

Somehow Adam and Shelby get themselves into the boat, and they work the oars.

We lurch downstream. Adam grunts, and Shelby swears, but they manage to move us across the current and closer to the shore. It's like a tug of war. The current yanks us down the river, and Shelby and Adam, red-faced and straining with the effort, haul us west, over the current and closer to safety. I lie against the damp bottom of the boat and watch them handle the oars. They're doing okay, better than Adam and I did. And it helps that we have a bigger target this time. We're not aiming for the small island. Just the riverbank. It doesn't matter if we miss the boat launch. Dry land is all that matters. And a hospital.

I use my good arm to pull myself into a sitting position. I lean, panting and shaking, against the side of the boat.

Adam jabs the water with the oars. The muscles in his neck stand out like cables.

With each stroke, Shelby grunts like a tennis player.

Beyond Adam, in the water, something approaches.

A huge, metal something. A piece of machinery. Heavy and industrial-looking. It gets closer. A bar pokes out like a hand pointing, and a chain dances madly.

I try to cry out, but my voice doesn't carry past my pain.

Adam and Shelby don't hear me. They're focused on reaching the bank. Close, but not close enough. They don't see the machine.

It travels faster than we do. It's coming.

The mottled gray and brown and black of old and rusted metal looms just over Adam's shoulder.

A scream rips out of my throat, and the pain in my arm doesn't matter, because the chain lashes wildly at the boat, and the broken piece of industry is going to kill us.

Adam follows my horrified stare and turns.

The chain whips into his face. Blood instantly sheets down from his hairline.

There's a thunderous smash and a roaring scrape, and we're in the river. The machine drags the boat away.

For a minute, Adam and I bob in the water, our orange vests holding us upright. His bangs are red with blood, which courses down the side of his face. His eyes aren't focusing.

Shelby treads water. She forces out commands between gasping breaths. “Get. To. Shore. Stay. Together.”

I try for a gentle, one-armed breast stroke, but I can't move myself at all. None of us is moving, as if we're trapped in some strange whirlpool. Shelby launches herself into a strong freestyle stroke, but even though she's working hard, she stays in one spot.

Adam just hangs in the water. He raises a hand to wipe blood from his eyes.

With no warning, the current grabs me and tears me away. I don't even try to escape. It was stronger than that hideous piece of machine. It's stronger than me.

“Rosie!” Shelby's voice follows me.

The river carries me close to the shore and then tugs me back, like it's teasing me. It spins me, so now I face upstream. I can see Adam and Shelby, small and helpless, bobbing in the weird still spot. Shelby hangs on to Adam now, the two of them using his life vest to stay afloat. Maybe she is helping him stay conscious.

Water fills my mouth. I spit it out. A residue of silt coats my teeth.

Suddenly, even with the life vest, the water drags me under. I kick as hard as I can, and I'm back on the surface. I cough out river water and try to push away the pain in short, sharp breaths.

Adam and Shelby grow smaller and smaller as the river carries my body downstream.

Then the current spins me and shoves me toward a branch that hangs low, out over the water.

I can grab it. I have to grab it. I concentrate all my strength on my left arm. Hold my breath. Reach . . . and snag the branch. My fingers slip. I can't . . . but I do. I hold on. Pain races all over my body. I'm freezing and shaking, and my elbow is exploding, but I'm holding on.

Somewhere I find the strength to hoist myself up so I can hang over the branch, my good arm coiled around it. My lower legs dangle in the water, but most of me is out of the river now. I just have to hold on. And keep holding on. Until someone comes. Please, someone, come!

I whisper a pathetic, useless “Help!” but I can barely hear my own voice.

I twist as best I can to look behind me for Adam and Shelby. The brightness of his orange vest and the glimmer of her light hair in the sunlight are all I can see.

And then the glimmer is gone. Adam's orange vest bobs alone, and a horrible wail drifts downstream.

Shelby's face bursts from the river, her mouth open, gulping air. She hurtles toward me. Her arms flail. She goes under again.

Where is she?

She surfaces. A leaf is plastered to her cheek. Her skin is pale. She's so close to me. I hear the sharp intake of breath as she struggles to fill her lungs.

I have to . . . I shift myself so I hang lower into the water. I can't hold on with my bad arm. I can't reach for her with it. I have to . . .

She's gone. A clump of leaves darts beneath me. A broken piece of Styrofoam. A . . . a wire? Headphones. It's Shelby's headphones. They swirl in a tangled mass of unnatural white beneath my dangling legs and hurry away.

I drop. My elbow explodes in new constellations of pain. I kick sharp scissor kicks, helping the vest to hold me up.

Something in the water, a tree trunk or a rock, holds me in place.