The Storyteller (30 page)

Phaedra sighed. It was probably the best chance I've ever had to take her down a peg, to make fun of her or, I don't know, laugh at her. Instead, I channeled the power of Princess Sigrid. I found a well of kindness in myself. I sighed too and said, “Thank you for telling me that.”

“It's a great story,” Phaedra replied. “Except for the last part. Not a big fan of that. It was kinda stupid. I didn't get it.”

I burst out laughing, because this was the Phaedra that I knew. Not that we were ever going to be friends, but there was something comforting about knowing that even when she was being nice, Phaedra was a bit of a jerk.

Mandy is a bit of a jerk. I guess I've always known that. We haven't talked much since that day in Hanlon Park. It's amazing how quickly your best friend can become an acquaintance, someone you say awkward hellos to in the hall and that's about it.

When she yelled at me that day, Mandy said I was selfish. She was probably right. She said I didn't deserve Glen, and she was probably right about that too. I dated him for all the wrong reasons. Still, it shouldn't have been up to her to put an end to things. Even if she would never admit it, I know the reason she helped Glen get my story published was to sabotage our relationship. She knew it was sneaky to look at my diary. She knew how I would react. She knew me.

But she doesn't know me anymore. I'm better. I'm kinder. I'm more complete.

Which reminds me, Stella, I should tell you what day it is today.

SATURDAY, 8/11/1990
EVENING

Today is Fiona Loomis's thirteenth birthday. I know that it's her birthday because best friends know these sorts of things about each other. In the last seven months, Fiona and I have grown as close as two girls can grow. Because of geography. Because of circumstance. Because we really like each other.

I won't sugarcoat things. It's been a tough stretch. Fiona's memory is spotty at best. She has talked to her fair share of police and doctors. No one, not even Fiona, has an explanation for what happened to her, why she disappeared, where she ended up, or how she came back.

Well, I suppose
I
have an explanation. But I haven't shared it with her yet. She's not ready for me to be telling her those things, though I do plan to tell her someday.

Right now, I'm there for her. To listen. To comfort. To make stupid jokes. To laugh. To watch movies. To bake cookies. To tell her it's okay that her dad moved out, that dads move out all the time.

Things have changed at her house. I don't press her for the gory details. I let her talk about what she wants to talk about, and she rarely mentions her family. I know her sister, Maria, moved back home and her mom has stopped drinking and is doing support groups and things like that. Life appears to be headed in the right direction, and while I realize things aren't always what they appear, sometimes they are. Often they are.

There have been others like Fiona. Kids who were missing and came home with faulty memories. Sunita, of course. But more since her. In other countries mostly, so we don't hear about them much, and I doubt anyone has connected the dots to what happened here in Thessaly.

Except for me. I spend a lot of time at the library now. Ms. Linqvist, the librarian, helps me do research. I tell her I'm going to write a book on missing children someday. She understands why the subject interests me and she queries other libraries, computer databases, and so on to find newspaper stories about disappearances. It helps that I have a few leads, names that Alistair once said.

Werner. Chua. Rodrigo. Boaz. Jenny Colvin.

According to the articles we've located, they're all home again. Confused. Slightly broken. But home.

“I only hope that someday we'll be reading a story about Charlie Dwyer,” Ms. Linqvist said to me last week.

“Me too,” I told her.

Still no Charlie. Kyle has done his time for illegal gun possession, returned home this June after a month in a minimum-security prison. I still see him and his parents going for walks. Well, they're walking. He's sitting, being pushed. I guess that's how it'll always be.

I could ask Alistair about Charlie, about what happened to him and if he'll ever be back. But I've already done that. So many people have done that, far too many times. The answer is always the same: a stone-faced “I don't know.”

I'm not entirely sure what happened out there by the river on New Year's Day. That fishbowl floating away was the end of something. Or the start of something. Same thing, I guess.

Alistair doesn't talk about Aquavania anymore. Not to me, anyhow. His silence could mean at least a couple of things.

Option One: He still visits Aquavania and goes about his work as the Riverman, silently, diligently putting back together the ones who were lost. Only he's not telling me because he's humble like that.

Option Two: He's forgotten all about it. Maybe in that split second before I grabbed the fishbowl from him, he went to Aquavania and did exactly what I'd begged him not to do. Maybe he threw himself into that waterfall and risked everything. And maybe the risk was worth it. Maybe in the blink of an eye he was back and all those kids were on their way home. Maybe Charlie's not far behind them.

Is there an Option Three? One where there is no Aquavania, where there never was an Aquavania? Anything is possible, I suppose, but it doesn't seem likely, does it, Stella?

Stuff isn't exactly back to how it used to be, of course. Alistair seems happier, calmer, more satisfied. He acts goofy and sweet like a kid is supposed to. But Mom and Dad aren't about to forget that day along the side of the road and all the strangeness that led up to it. They refer to that time as Alistair's breakdown, even though it appeared, at least to me, to be the opposite. To me it was the moment that Alistair built up all of his courage.

My opinion didn't matter, though, because I didn't have much of a say in things. Not surprisingly, Mom and Dad did the Mom and Dad thing and decided not to send Alistair back to school in the new year. Instead they hired a tutor to keep him on top of his studies. Dr. Hollister agreed it was a wise move, and Alistair didn't object.

Recently, they took it a step further. Come fall, I'll be starting high school. But last week, Alistair already started boarding school. It was another mutually agreed upon decision. While I get a continuation of my life in an old place, he gets a fresh start in a new place.

The school isn't like most boarding schools. They have psychiatrists on staff. Group meetings to discuss emotions and so on. Apparently, my parents had proposed the option to Alistair as far back as December, and eventually he warmed to the idea. I guess Thessaly was getting to him, as it seems to get to a lot of people. So they waited until the time seemed right—or the financials went through, I don't know for sure. All I know is that we drove out to Vermont eight days ago and dropped Alistair off at a place that looked like a college, all brick, stone, and ivy.

I hugged my brother next to a willow tree and I told him, “I will always love you.”

He said, “I will always love you too.”

I think it's the first time he's ever said that. Actually, I'm sure of it.

My memory is good; stellar, in fact. Still, I like to write things down. I sometimes wonder if maybe that's all Princess Sigrid needed to do in the first place. To write things down. To have a look at her ideas and feelings. To experiment with characters and other worlds. To create. Maybe it would've helped her empathize with other people without actually having to live their lives. Maybe she never needed to sell her soul in the first place. At the very least, by writing things down, she would've always had a tool to remember.

As for me, stories help me feel complete. Even though I haven't written in you in months, Stella, I've never stopped writing stories. My latest story is longer, however. It's called
The Whisper
. It's basically a sketch right now, jotted into the diary my parents got me for Christmas. I'm not sure I have it in me to write an entire novel yet, but that's what it will become someday. Because it's epic.

It's the tale of Alistair's adventures in Aquavania, of Una and Banar, of the Riverman in his—or her!—various forms. Even if I finish it, I don't know if I'll ever let anyone read it. Maybe it will be something exclusively for me, to remind myself that believing in ridiculous things isn't always so bad.

Why isn't it so bad? Because my brother is getting better. Because we have Fiona back. Because some of those lost children are home.

I don't know how they are home. I honestly don't care.

I went over to Fiona's house for lunch today. Her mom made a cake, and Maria and I sang at the tops of our lungs, which made Fiona plug her ears, but also smile. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, and she said something a little strange.

“Meet me out by Frog Rock, tonight after sunset,” she said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Years ago, your brother and I made promises to each other,” she said, “that if one of us ever left Thessaly, then we'd bury something out by Frog Rock. I have to see if Alistair kept his promise.”

So that's what we did. We dug a hole beneath the stars together, me and my best friend. Did we find anything? Does my brother keep promises?

Well, he kept this one. Because buried next to Frog Rock was an old ammo can—Dorian Loomis's ammo can, of all things. In that ammo can, there were cassette tapes.
PLAY ME
was written on them in Alistair's distinctive scrawl. I mean, come on, little brother, like someone needs to be told what to do with a mysterious cassette tape!

It was getting late and Fiona couldn't spend the night, so she took the tapes home with her. She's playing them now, I suppose, though I can't presume to know what's on them other than a message meant for her. If she wants to tell me what that message is, I'm here to listen.

I will speculate, obviously. And I will write more of my stories. Maybe not ones with happy endings, maybe not ones with endings at all. I'm simply going to see where inspiration takes me. Because inspiration is still out there somewhere, and it's assuring me that it's okay if everything doesn't work out perfectly and every question isn't answered. It's okay if the oceans are deeper than we suspect and the stars go farther than we could ever imagine. Because there's something absurdly comforting about the notion that we live in a universe of infinite possibilities.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This novel is dedicated to Michael Bourret and Joy Peskin for obvious reasons. At least the reasons are obvious to me. They have supported the story—the trilogy!—from the very beginning. Back in 2012, when I approached Michael with fifty strange pages, he believed that I could deliver another thousand or so even stranger ones. Or at least he pretended to believe. That's all I needed to keep writing. And I will always thank him for that.

Joy edited those thousand or so pages, helping me ditch a few hundred along the way. Good riddance to those ditched pages. The story didn't need them, but the story definitely needed Joy's guidance, her wisdom, and her encouragement. She was tireless in finding holes in the plot, in the characters, in the world. Then she patched those holes up and made it look like they were never even there.

There were others who have been with this trilogy since the beginning. Beth Clark designed the books and they are lovely things indeed. Yelena Bryksenkova illustrated the covers and I couldn't have asked for more beautiful representations of Alistair, Fiona, Charlie, Keri, and their furry friends. Angie Chen saved the day many times throughout the process, keeping the books on schedule and looking their best. Kate Hurley and Karla Reganold copyedited and proofread all three volumes and humored my grammatical eccentricities. Mary Van Akin sang the trilogy's praises and people listened because she can really sing. The rest of the gang at Macmillan and the folks at Recorded Books, including Claudia Howard and Graham Halstead, have helped share my tales far and wide. Lauren Abramo and the other agents at Dystel & Goderich have been kind and supportive since the day I decided to join Michael's roster of authors.

My family has been there all along too, of course. Mom, Dad, Tim, Toril, Dave, Jake, Will, Jim, Gwenn, Pete, and all the other members of the Starmer, Van Scotter, Amundsen, Finney, Glitman, Evans, and Wells clans (as well as their respective dogs): I love you. Cate and Hannah: I love you the most (sorry, everyone else) and, really, all my books are basically dedicated to you, because you dedicate so much to me.

Finally, a storyteller doesn't exist without someone who's willing to listen. You, the reader, have been willing to listen and have stuck around to the end. That's quite incredible of you, and I am forever in your debt. Thank you, thank you, thank you …

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aaron Starmer
was born in northern California, raised in the suburbs of Syracuse, New York, and educated at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. His novels for young readers include
The Riverman, The Whisper, Dweeb,
and
The Only Ones
, and his travel writing has appeared in numerous guidebooks. He lives with his family in Hoboken, New Jersey. You can sign up for email updates
here
.