The Unforgettable Guinevere St. Clair Page 21

  I was halfway across the field when I saw it sticking out from the ground: Gaysie Cutter’s coffin.

  I ran to it, putting my hand on my heart. “It’s here!” I said to Micah. “It’s really here. Micah—you might not want to be here for this.” Using my hands and an old hand tool I found in the ground, I pushed away dirt to reveal the whole of it.

  “You’re right, I can’t look,” Micah said, turning himself and Bitty around.

  I wasn’t ready to see Wilbur Truesdale in this box either, but I forced myself anyway; that’s what lead investigators had to do. Without a lid, you could see all the way in if you dropped to your knees. Slowly, I opened one eye. It was filled with dark mud, small rocks—and one piece of Wilbur Truesdale.

  “His hat!” I exclaimed. “It’s Wilbur’s hat!” My hands shook. Wilbur Truesdale had been in this box.

  Micah turned and started shaking his head. “No, no, no. This doesn’t mean . . . He could have dropped it! It could have blown off his head or off the tractor or . . .”

  I considered this. Micah was right. It didn’t prove anything, and yet Wilbur’s hat in the coffin? It was more than a coincidence.

  We heard Jimmy make a rooster call from the creek.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said for Micah’s benefit. “Come on, we have to tell Jimmy.”

  Closer to the river, we saw the jagged edges where the bank line had fallen in, leaving giant tree roots exposed like giant, hairy spider legs.

  “To the mighty Mississippi!” Jimmy yelled. He was balancing on two large pieces of thick floating Styrofoam, one foot on each piece. They were broken apart and irregular in shape, but big enough for two people to sit on each. He kept the Styrofoam close to the bank by holding on to a large tree root bursting out of the ground.

  “Where’d you get ’em?” I asked, impressed.

  “They came with some farm equipment a few weeks ago. Guess what—they float!” He grinned proudly at us, flicking his Mohawk from his eyes.

  “Rafts,” I breathed.

  Micah pushed up his glasses and trembled.

  “Jimmy,” I said, taking a deep breath. “We can’t go! Gaysie and Nana will wring our necks. And we found Wilbur—his hat, I mean. It was in the coffin.”

  “But no Wilbur?”

  We shook our heads.

  “Well, then,” Jimmy said. “Looks like he’s not dead after all. Gaysie Cutter just buried his hat. Now, get on.”

  “Jimmy!”

  “Then, don’t come,” Jimmy said lazily. “I’ll sail to the Mississippi alone. And I’ll find Wilbur myself.”

  I had to give it to Jimmy—he sure knew how to goad me.

  “Jimmy, you can’t just set sail and find missing persons!”

  He shrugged, then made a movement like he was leaving us behind.

  “Wait!” I said, lifting one foot onto the Styrofoam.

  “Gwyn,” Bitty said, grasping my arm.

  “Bitty sails on my boat,” Jimmy said, balancing between the two pieces. “She’s the lightest and I’m the heaviest.”

  “No way. Bitty’s with me.”

  “Listen,” he said. “You want to tip over and drown or do you want to get to the Mississippi?”

  Micah shuddered.

  “It’s okay, Gwynnie,” Bitty said. “I’ll be okay.”

  I looked doubtfully at Jimmy. “You have to promise me . . .”

  “I promise. Double dog cross my heart.”

  Bitty tentatively put one of her pink mud boots on the raft. The Styrofoam was sturdier than I expected, staying afloat and not tipping an inch with Bitty’s weight. I looked down into the water, the river so high and swollen I was surprised I couldn’t see the bottom any longer. I pushed Nana’s objection far from my mind.

  “Ready?” I asked, looking back at Micah.

  He had a look on his face.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He didn’t answer, his face pale, his purple cape wrapped protectively around him.

  “I . . . we . . . we could drown!” he burst out.

  “Micah,” Jimmy said, standing like a captain. “So you’re not going to live ’cause you’re afraid to die?”

  I looked at Micah’s face. I remembered how in the horridly humid summertime he never swam, even when it was a hundred degrees. He was afraid to wade in the creek when it came to only our ankles. The water now was probably over our heads. And it was moving.

  “You won’t drown, Micah,” I said. “You just won’t.”

  “How do you know? It happens, you know.”

  “Because,” I said, “we can’t die yet. You wear a cape, Micah!” I faced the water and yelled, “Today we set sail to the great ends of the earth!”

  “To Neverland!” Bitty yelled, bouncing up and down.

  Micah smiled then. “Remember when you knighted Jimmy, Gwyn? Remember what you said?” He straightened his cape and lifted his face to the sky. “It is better to die with honor than live as a coward!”

  “Err-er-er-errr!” Jimmy crowed at the top of his lungs. He was playing Huck, but I thought he sounded just like Peter Pan.

  CHAPTER 31

  WE WERE INVINCIBLE. THE WATER swirled beneath our rafts, but couldn’t touch us. It pushed all our cares behind and hurled us toward an exciting new land. Jimmy faced the river like a warrior, his black hair blown back in the wind, pure exhilaration on his face: the boy who was afraid of nothing.

  I was exhilarated just watching Jimmy balance on his Styrofoam raft, remembering how he once said he was going to sail away and never come back. But that was a long time ago, before he really knew me and Bitty. Now here we were, sailing toward the mighty Mississippi together.

  Micah sat cross-legged at first, his hands clenched on either side of him, trying very carefully to balance both our weights. Only after drifting a long time without falling off and drowning did his clenched hands relax.

  “Micah,” I said. “He doesn’t really think we’re going to sail to the Mississippi and find Wilbur, does he?”

  Micah looked at me, hope in his eyes. I thought of our move here, the Hail Mary pass. Yes, I supposed that I could believe in Micah and Jimmy’s quest too.

  The small creek opened up at times but always narrowed again, keeping our two rafts together. We used long Moses sticks to propel us forward by pushing off the sides of the bank, but after a while we lay down in the early-spring sunlight and just let the current take us. I lay close to the edge of the thick Styrofoam raft and reached out my hand to touch Bitty’s, who lay on Jimmy’s raft next to me. She giggled as we tried to keep our fingertips together and squealed at the shockingly cold water.

  We were given a slow and thorough tour of Crow, from the river’s standpoint. The flood had tipped trees, eroded riverbanks, ravaged fields. The farmers, though, were beginning again. Tractors were out, men and women consulting. For the first time since moving here, I felt a surge of pride for a small town I was beginning to belong to.

  It was only when we moved farther toward the edge of Crow’s town limits that the creek widened slightly and the water began to carry us faster.

  “Dingle!” Jimmy shouted, pointing to the next town’s welcome sign, barely visible from the creek. Reluctantly, Nana came to mind.

  “Hey, Huck,” I yelled. Jimmy stuck his long staff in the water and dragged it along the muddy creek bottom until we caught up.

  “How far are we really going to go? We’re going to have to walk back, you know.”

  “You’re not chickening out now, are ya?”

  “No! It’s just that the Mississippi is really like five hundred miles away and . . .” But Jimmy wasn’t listening. A blade of grass fell from his mouth, his eyes catching something behind me.

  “Jimmy?”

  I turned my head. I saw nothing at first but then—flashes of moving clothing behind trees coming quickly toward us.

  “What the . . . ?”

  Micah stood, straightened his glasses, and wobbled on the Styrofoam.

&
nbsp; “What do you know? The Creepers,” Jimmy said. “They followed us here.” A rock ricocheted off our raft.

  “I knew they’d get me someday,” Micah moaned.

  “No, Micah. Never!” I said, eyes narrowing.

  Bitty, on the raft with Jimmy, bit her lower lip as she stirred the brown water like a vat of witch’s stew.

  Jimmy pushed off the riverbank with his staff just as Travis and the Creepers caught up to us. They tried, but there was no hiding their jealousy at the sight of us floating down the river. I smiled and waved like a pageant queen.

  Travis leaped into the water toward us.

  “What are you doing!” I yelled.

  His hideous sneer turned to panic as he began to doggy-paddle helplessly.

  “I can’t touch!”

  Reluctantly, I lay on my stomach and held out my arm. He heaved himself onto our raft, soaking us and nearly tipping us over.

  And then he sat, knees pulled to his chest. We stared at each other.

  I was sitting on a raft opposite a Creeper.

  “Thanks?” he said awkwardly.

  The raft bounced. I turned forward, Micah scooting closer to me.

  “Jimmy!” I yelled, and pointed over to the bank where we could get off. He nodded. But moving back over to the left proved harder now as the current pushed us over to the right and a heavily wooded forest, with no route home. Bitty kept her eyes on me.

  “Jimmy!” I yelled again. You promised.

  Jimmy pushed Bitty behind him.

  “Get us closer, Micah,” I said. “We have to get Bitty.”

  “He won’t let anything happen to her,” Micah said. “He’d die first.” And suddenly, that’s exactly what I was afraid of.

  “Come here, Bitty,” I said, holding out my hand.

  “What are you doing?” Jimmy said.

  “Come here,” I repeated. Bitty reached out, fingertips touching mine.

  “Gwyn,” Jimmy said. “Don’t do that, you’ll sink. I got this, Gwyn.”

  Jimmy’s raft bumped a large rock in the middle of the creek, forcing it into a fast spin of river water. I dropped to my knees, tried to control the panic creeping into my veins. Micah shook with fear.

  Over the sound of rushing water Jimmy yelled, “Get off up ahead!”

  We looked up the river. Glancing at Travis, I was filled with resentment; we would have gotten off earlier if the Creepers hadn’t interfered. My eyes met Jimmy’s, his promise held fast there. I wanted to believe him.

  The sound of a large gush of water pulled my attention back. I looked up ahead.

  What was once a simple and shallow creek was now a full-fledged river, wide and fast, the high water rolling us quickly forward.

  “Swirls,” Micah whispered. “She talked about the swirls.”

  I was going to contradict him until I saw a small white cross at the base of a giant oak tree. Around the cross were overgrown winter flowers, and new green shoots popping out of the earth. A memorial for Myron. Gaysie had done this for her childhood friend. I was sure of it.

  Jimmy glanced back at me. We were headed toward trouble.

  I had learned how desperation turned a person outside of himself, made someone do something they never thought they could. There was power and strength in the world. There was force and brutality that crushed the weak. When pushed up against a wall, the weak could either stay still or push back.

  “Whoa,” Travis said, his voice trembling. “I don’t swim, I don’t swim, I don’t swim.”

  I looked at my little sister again. Bitty Baby.

  We floated faster, tried in vain to stay together. Finally, our chance came as we neared the left side of the bank. Jimmy grabbed a large tree branch that was sticking out of the water. Our rafts bumped together and stalled.

  “Go,” I said to Micah. The water, fast and bumpy, moved us up and down, splashing onto our faces. But he did it. With a little awkward bunny hop, Micah’s legs and cape carried him up and across the water, and he landed on the bank of the river.

  “Go!” I yelled at Travis. But he sat, scared and immobile.

  Our chance was lost within seconds when Jimmy’s tree branch snapped, and our rafts moved swiftly downstream again.

  “Gwyn!” Micah yelled, “Jump off!” But I couldn’t leave Bitty. I pushed off, still on the raft with Travis. Micah ran along the shoreline beside us, his cape flying behind him. He tripped in the mud, splashing his broken glasses with black goo, and clambered back up.

  My raft hit a rock, circled, and hit Jimmy and Bitty’s.

  Bitty was on all fours, holding on to nothing, her fingers trying to curl into the Styrofoam, pure panic on her face.

  “It’s okay, Bitty baby,” I called.

  “Gwynnie,” she said, tears swimming in her eyes.

  “I can’t swim,” Travis said again, the look in his eyes so different from his usual demeanor.

  The river swirled, pushed us forward, and our once-unsinkable rafts felt light and inconsequential. Jimmy’s face held intense concentration, but still, no fear.

  Suddenly, he dropped the big Moses stick into the water.

  “Here we go,” he said.

  Up ahead, across the entire width of the river, was a line of large rocks. Before the flood, the rocks would have made a path across, but now only the dark, wet tips were visible, slowing the avalanche of water for a second before it diverted around them.

  “We’re gonna hit hard,” Jimmy yelled, balancing like he was on his skateboard about to ollie up a curb. “Climb on and, whatever you do, don’t go over the rocks—there’s a waterfall. I got Bitty.” I had no time to argue.

  Jimmy was right. We hit the rocks hard. I tried to climb as the foam broke into pieces, flipping and tossing us mercilessly into the river. The cold took my breath away as I plunged down, the freezing water coming through my skin and all the way to my bones. The water swam over the edge of my rain boots, soaked the lining of my socks, and froze my toes. Touching the bottom of the river, I rocketed up to the surface and grasped the slippery rocks to see Micah hopping onto a boulder and attempting to edge across the rocks toward us, slipping every few inches.

  “Gwyn,” Micah said, reaching me, both lenses of his glasses now completely gone as they sat crooked on his face.

  “Get Bitty,” I half coughed, half cried, water coming out of my nose and mouth.

  He crawled three feet farther to my right. I turned my head and saw Jimmy’s hands emerging from the water, pushing Bitty up onto the rocks, where she perched like a bird. Micah pulled her up and held her tightly as she screamed for me.

  My body was so cold I could barely pull myself out of the water, but I did.

  “Jimmy,” I said, my whole body shaking as I finally sat up on the rock.

  “Micah,” Jimmy yelled, his teeth chattering like an anatomy skeleton as he tried to climb out of the water. “We need help! Get Gaysie.” What was he talking about? Gaysie was miles away!

  “Gwynnie,” Bitty said, shaking and crying hard as she tried to balance across the wet, slippery rocks in front of me. “Help me.” I tried to stand.

  Then another voice shouted, “Help!”

  I looked over my shoulder to see Travis climbing over Jimmy in a panic, trying to get out of the water. I reached out to help, but wobbled and fell, slamming my shins down on the rocks. It hurt so badly I cried out in pain. Jimmy and Travis thrashed in the cold. I reached out again, but instead of pulling Travis out, he pulled me in. I struggled under his weight, tried to wiggle out of my jacket and kick my rain boots off. The current was so strong, it propelled me into the rocks again, this time connecting with my head.

  Micah yelled my name, and then Jimmy was beside me. With all of his twelve-year-old power, he pushed me upward. I grasped the rocks with my entire upper body, my arms and fingers numb with cold.

  I was so tired I could hardly move. I wanted to be warm, to stop fighting. But it was the moment that I realized I could either lie down and die or try a little h
arder.

  So I clung to the rocks with every bit of strength I had.

  Travis, panicking, put his arms and full weight around Jimmy’s neck. They went under.

  “Jimmy!” Micah screamed. Jimmy came up, gasping.

  “Go,” he chattered brokenly at Micah. “Gaysie. Get . . . Bitty . . . across.”

  Micah set his face in determination and took off his cape.

  Using it like a life preserver, he threw one end in the water and yelled for Travis and Jimmy to grab it. Travis grasped it, pulling himself out while Jimmy swam to me.

  “Gwyn, hang on!”

  The water lapped up and hit my face, my fingers and hands slipping as I tried to lift myself out of the water again, the cold, dark river that was becoming a part of me—hungry, like wolves lapping at my face. My hands were incapable of holding on any longer. I slid off the rocks again and went down. Down, down deep.

  Everything grew darker. I looked up from the bottom of the river. It was like a slow-motion scene, and I was hearing Vienna play the piano. What was the song? “The Playful Pony”? The music began to fade as I became weaker, the fight leaving me. Deep bubbles escaped from my mouth.

  But then there was a hand. Floating gently. It was white and wrinkled and bloated, reaching out to help me. I grabbed it but it didn’t grab back. I pulled hard, then screamed, the last of the oxygen bubbles coming out of my mouth. I inhaled water through my nose and mouth as I dropped the hand of Wilbur Truesdale. I could not see his face, only his hand and arms, the flannel shirt he always wore. His spirit was clearly gone but somehow his body lay under the cold Crow River.

  Wilbur’s splayed fingers touched my leg and, though horrifying, I was distracted by Jimmy’s feet thrashing in the water. I instinctively knew that Jimmy was going to have to make a choice: Save himself or me.

  It was my father’s voice that came to me, and then his deep, dark, thinking eyes reminding me to use my brain. Yes, my brain was what was going to save us. I focused on a rock in front of me. It was angular, had a place to hold, perfect for my hand. I grabbed it.