The River

I didn’t want to go to the water by myself, but Kellan has band practice. They have to play at homecoming, and her part is especially important. Kellan plays the drums. The drums are the only part of the band that anybody cares about, unless there is a really remarkable saxophone player, and at our school, that is definitely not the case. I tried to play saxophone when I was in fifth grade band, but I couldn’t even get the thing to make a satisfying honk, let alone learn my scales. Sometimes I listen to music and close my eyes and think that I could have made a great musician, but I try not to have regrets.

My phone doesn’t have service out here, so I won’t be able to tell Kellan what I find. That’s okay, I think, I’ll just take a picture. But when I walk up to the bank of the stream, or what’s left of it, my stomach drops completely. I don’t think a picture will show her the extent of the problem. And how can I explain to her that it’s not just the frightening width, the speed at which it's growing, that’s scaring me? I didn’t even have to come here today. I could have sat in my room yesterday evening and drawn a diagram of the water today, down to the exposed roots of grass hanging over the bank’s edge, rustling slightly despite the lack of a perceptible breeze. And I won’t have to come here tomorrow. I could paint a perfect picture of how it will look by then: these trees by my side will be gone, the dark will have moved at least ten feet further south. And after that, it will get bigger, faster, eating away at the dirt under Kellan’s house, then mine. In my mind I see the image that persists like an optical illusion, a big boiling dot on the white wall when I first wake up. It’s the huge bird’s-eye view of the town; like a hole punched through the map--there’s just nothing. Not a black spot, but just a lack, a nothingness so deep that your brain almost lets your eyes skip over it. 

I take a breath. Sit in the dirt and cross my legs. I think I might be sick from the deja vu, an almost painful sliding sensation, like I’ll never stop falling. I’ve seen this before! my whole body is shouting to me. It’s like jumping at the movement of a shadow or starting at the buzz of a fly. There’s something that I’m supposed to do when I see this! There’s something that I should know. But in the dreams I’ve had, I never get that far. I come down to the stream and I look into the dark. It moves and grows and just as something seems ready to emerge, I’ll wake up. But for the past few months, the dreams have been stronger, and I get them more and more. Slowly, the line that started as nothing, almost like a black thread running the length of the stream, has grown and grown until there is nothing left, and my dream self is just floating over the scene completely outside a body. 

I look at the photo on my phone. It’s certainly startling, but it’s nothing compared to the real thing. The photo belongs under some headline about an oil spill; the water looks dark and slick. But in real life the water isn’t there at all. Whatever flows through the river also flows down, up, and out. It’s somehow still and yet growing. The stuff is so dark that it seems to grab the light in my eyes and pull it out with a gentle tug. The real color is impossible to pin down, but it’s almost soft. If I could touch it, it would feel like velvet. 

When I have the strength to look up again, the bank has reached the edge of my sneakers. A chill runs down my spine and settles in the ends of my toes; it doesn’t leave as I pull them back and walk home. My toes are white when I get back, and they only turn pink again once I’ve let them sit under warm water in the bathtub. This water is clear and colorless. But it looks exactly as it should; it feels indescribable, like water always has. And if I plunge myself under the surface, I will still be able to see. 

***

Something wakes me in the middle of the night. At first I assume it’s my phone, but there are no new notifications. When I got home from the creek I texted Kellan: 

its still there!

It says she read the text and didn’t respond. That’s okay; she probably got home late. 

But I’m a very light sleeper. Once I wake up I can’t just fall back to sleep. I’ll get up, fill a glass, go pee. I walk through most of the house without turning on the lights, unless it’s a particularly dark night. There’s usually some kind of light, something coming from the moon and slipping down the halls, to let me see just the edges of things. And I’ve lived in the same house my whole life, so I know my way around. But I always avoid looking in the mirror. It’s a bad habit from when I was younger. I would just know, be so completely sure, that if I looked up I would see someone I did not recognize looking back at me. 

I feel that tugging again. It’s like someone pinned strings down in the middle of my brain and ran them through the center of my eyes straight to the mirror. The strings pull me up. Just a black figure in the mirror; exactly what you expect. But the longer I look straight ahead at the spot where my eyes should be, the more the darkness starts to shift. I know this movement. On pitch black nights with no moon at all, sometimes I stare at the ceiling and see complex scenes playing out in the dark. Colors bloom like a kaleidoscope; I usually see brilliant pinks and sickly greens, swirling. I see it now, in my face--in the reflection of my face. I blink twice, trying to wipe the colors from my eyes like I’m wiping condensation off of glass, but each blink just makes the colors touch, meld, settle, until a pair of eyes looks at me. 

I glance down, embarrassed. The girl in the mirror keeps her eyes trained on me. 

“Anisa?” 

For a moment I think it’s my mom, calling from another room. But when I look up, the girl--the woman’s mouth is moving in time with the words.

“You can see me,” she says. She sounds so relieved, I am compelled to answer. 

“Yes, I think so.” I add the qualifier because I really don’t know if I am alive or dead right now. The person in the mirror is obviously me. I don’t need to explain why I know this. You know how mirrors work; of course it’s me. But she’s different in a few obvious ways. Unfortunately, I look straight across at her, our eyes at exactly the same height. So I won’t grow anymore, I think. Because on some level I have already accepted who this stranger is: me, but older. Her skin is slightly matte, like it has lost some kind of luster. She has a tiny scar on her chin, which makes my own throb with a quick pang of sympathy. Her hair looks long and soft. Maybe in the future, I have some kind of nice job and I can afford hair products that promise those kinds of results. Or maybe when I get older, that will just happen to my hair. I guess I could ask. 

“Who…?” Of course, I ask the one question I already know the answer to. 

“Well, I’m Anisa. I really can’t tell you that much more. I didn’t even know if this would work,” she says. She cuts herself off; I think she is feeling overwhelmed. 

“Oh, right. That’s okay, I don’t think I want to know about my future anyway.” I smile at her.

We stand there for a moment, smiling. The longer I stare at her, the more her face threatens to get lost in that sea of blackness, so I keep blinking. She may think that I’m crying.

“You did so good, Anisa,” she whispers. I can’t help smiling. I like pleasing adults. I like being the teacher’s pet.

“I guess…I still go by Annie, right now.” I tell her. 

Her face falls a bit. I feel bad; I was just trying to be helpful. Maybe, in the future, when I go by Anisa, my name now will just seem like a silly phase. But I thought it would only be right to tell her. Now that we’ve established this difference, though, it becomes easier to talk. I’m less mesmerized by the way she moves in the mirror, giving me a shadow sensation with each turn of her wrist. Anisa explains to me how this works--you can reach your own psychic dimensions, different planes of your experience, using deep meditation. She says she’s been focused on me for years, imagining her ninth grade routine every night before going to bed. If you think on something intensely right before you go to bed, you’ll usually dream about it. That’s why we--well, why I dreamed about certain people a lot, when I was your age. 

When she says this, I can’t help it; I clam up. It feels a little strange that Anisa knows who I was dreaming of just minutes ago. I want to ask if, in the future, she has told people about these dreams and desires, but asking is almost as bad as admitting to it out loud. So I just nod. So you come here through dreams? 

Anisa says that she’s never managed to find me in front of a mirror before. That’s the most surefire way to make a connection; but now that we’ve done it once she says it’ll be much easier to reach me. 

“I’m not really here. I guess in a way this is all happening inside your head,” Anisa explains. “If I work on the communication link, you might be able to see me in other undefined places. Like, between being asleep and awake. Shadows, sometimes. Loud spaces without a clear noise to focus on, maybe you’ll hear my voice.”

Anisa looks me up and down. I feel something horrible. It’s like the sliding sensation of deja vu but it’s worse. Instead of just falling, this feeling is only impact. Again and again, forever. I’m hitting the pavement and the feeling makes me want to curl up and cry.

And when I do, I find that I’m back in bed. I can’t remember walking here. For a frightening moment I think that Anisa carried me back. Surely she can’t touch me. She said she is only real in my mind. I lay my head back, and hit something hard. A little black book, heavier than it looks. It says JOURNAL on the front in gold letters, and the spine is creased. The thing is fat with wrinkled pages, stiff and warped from water damage, still a little damp like it’s just gotten out of a bath. I throw it on the floor.

Staring at the ceiling, I drift off soon. Right before I fall asleep, I think that this journal might explain why Anisa came here, to this version of herself. I hadn’t thought to ask this earlier, and I’m too tired now to know if it is a good or a bad question. 

***

Kellan is on the floor. She can sleep anywhere. God, that makes me jealous. She must have the most pleasant dreams. Maybe she has nights with no dreams at all, just blissful nothing. I wonder, is sleeping so different from dying.

The light is on. Burning bright, so that my eyes see orange when I shut them. Is that the color of my eyelids? Warm, orange, alive. I asked Kellan to come over because I felt bad for lying to her. I want to keep her close, even if I don’t tell her everything about the river. 

On my phone, I choose a track of pleasant, soft forest noises. Like chirping birds and rustling leaves. Something to keep me alert, but nothing that could become sinister. If you want to be aware of your dreams, you need to prevent sleep that’s too deep. With the lights off and the room silent, I might be carried away by the tide of a strong vision. It’ll be so intense that I won’t know the difference between a story that’s real and one that I’ve manufactured. 

Eyes closed, I listen to each sound rhythmically meld into the next. Chirp, chirp, chhhh. I try to focus on my goal, which is reaching Anisa. It helps to visualize the situation you want to dream about. My room, with a few things changed. Thick college textbooks on the floor, unread emails calling for me from a big, fancy phone. Chirp, chirp, chhhh. High school diploma on the wall, debate trophy on my dresser. Chirp, chirp, chhhh. Strange how something as random as nature can fall into a pattern.

Despite picturing the room in excruciating detail, I forgot to imagine Anisa herself. So when I open my eyes and see her standing by the foot of the bed, I gasp. Her hair is long and loose, and the waves move in a breeze that I can’t feel. I bend forward at the waist and pull out the journal from beneath the covers. It takes both of us a moment to recognize it; this journal is different. Its corners have become sharp and defined, the pages smooth and white. Not a word written inside. 

“What did this say?” I ask her. What a stupid question. I know she can’t tell me. And if I really wanted to know, I should have sat with it the moment it arrived, read it cover to cover. 

Anisa takes in the room, looking at my dirty socks and unfinished homework and finally staring at Kellan on the floor. She looks so sad.

“I didn’t think…” she starts. Her sadness is confused, almost pained. “Kellan never spent the night,” Anisa says. Her eyes are glazed with a weird, iridescent liquid, making her irises gleam like an oil slick. 

“Well then, what’s the point?” I shout. Anisa gives me a look like I am an ungrateful child and shakes her head.

The night throbs with the silence that overtakes my words. I look down at Kellan, but she hasn’t stirred. Maybe I am asleep after all. Fine. Gripping the journal, I rip back the covers and head for the front door. I grab the box of matches from the bottom drawer of the cabinet in the foyer. I am kneeling on the driveway with the concrete biting my skin and I set fire to the paper before Anisa has even made it outside. 

“What are you doing? Don’t you want to remember?” Anisa looks at me like she could kill me. “You’re supposed to put everything in there.” Her voice is trembling.

I wonder what Anisa looks at when she sees me. A disappointment, a reminder of all our mistakes. I wonder if she sees a barefoot fourteen year-old shivering in the cold. The journal is blazing, and I realize I must be illuminated from below, dancing shadows turning my face into that of a stranger. When the fire is done I pat the ashes with my hands, making sure there’s no spark left. I don’t bother looking up at Anisa again. Frankly, I walk inside because I don’t know what to say to her. Besides, the sun is rising. It’s time for me to go. 

Kellan is propped up on the floor, scrolling through her phone. She glances up at me and starts, looks quizzically at my black hands. She laughs.

“Annie, what have you been hiding?” 

Soon I’ll walk with her to the creek. We can sit with our feet in the brown water and talk about the future. We can talk about today. I’ll even let her tell me about her boyfriend. We can talk about anything, anything but the past.

I try to focus on one of Kellan’s freckles, but they seem to move and slide like I’m chasing floaters in my vision. Instead I look into her eyes, warm and brown. 

“I have no idea.”