He’d gasped for air, exhaling in cold, murky breaths. The sucking mud pulled at his clothes. Pond water lapped against his skin.Hush, it said.Hush. Hush. Hush.He didn’t understand. When he’d died, the pond had been frozen. Winter thick, but not dense enough to bear the weight of two young boys on skates.
He’d felt it crack beneath him seconds before he fell through. Like a bone cleaving in two. Like the tectonic shift of plates. He’d listed to the side, his skates going akimbo, and met his brother’s wide-eyed stare. “Liam,” he’d cried. And then he’d gone under. His teeth cracked together against the broken shelf. His gloves scrabbled for purchase. It was no use. The water swallowed him whole.
Lying on the shore, feeling slow-crept back into his limbs. His jaw ached. It was a dull, heartbeat pain that pricked when the wind blew. He’d been dead. He’d beendead. At nine years old, he’d known little of death, but he recognized it when it came for him. His heart had slowed to a stop. He’d watched his vision go black.
But there was his heartbeat, hammering beneath his bones.
And there was the little girl, a study in rainbows. Rainbow stockings. Rainbow mittens. Rainbow bows. He was alive, alive, alive, and the girl was watching him out of an owl-eyed stare, stark and suspicious.
“Are you a boy,” she whispered, “or are you a shadow?”
His chest heaved in reply. The water in his lungs tasted like dirt. He rolled onto his side, coughing, coughing. Water needled his face. Mud squelched, and he glanced up to find the little girl crouched down, pond water lapping at her pink rubber boots. The fringe of one braid tickled his jaw.
“The water’s too cold for swimming,” she said, as if he were flailing in the muck of his own volition. “You need to get up.”
Something cracked in the woods. A car door slamming shut. Startled, a magpie took flight. It careened through the air with a raspingkureeek. A woman’s voice carried through the balsam trees. “Lane? Laney, don’t wander off.”
Then a man: “She’s gone ahead to the water. I don’t think she can hear you.”
The girl reached out and touched a mitten to Colton’s chin. The wool came away red. She held it up between them for inspection. “You’re bleeding.”
Colton was distinctly aware of the wrongness of his circumstance. The sky was the same. The trees were the same. The pond was the same. But the air—the air was several degrees too warm. This was not, he thought wildly, the same day that he’d fallen through the ice.
“Lane!”
The girl’s head whipped around. “Mama,” she called. “Mama, I found a boy in the water!”
The realization that Liam was missing snapped something deep in Colton’s chest. He flopped onto his stomach, army crawling through the muck. Seconds ago, his brother had been there. Skating out onto the ice after him. He was sure of it.
Liam, pulsed his thoughts as he dug through silt and scum.Liam, Liam, Liam.
“Wait!” The girl splashed after him. “What are you doing? You’ll drown.”
She seized his arm, drawing him back. He snatched at her, choking, afraid. He’d meant to shove her off him, but his hand only closed on the purple cuff of her jacket sleeve. A tether. A handhold. He couldn’t bring himself to let go. He could feel something tugging him, like a thread wound around his ribs.
He didn’t want it to take him again.
The water, dark and cold.
The strange pulsing in his skin.
The feeling, odd as it was, that some small piece of him had been scooped clean out of his chest.
The little girl looked down at him, frowning. Her leggings were striped with red, orange, yellow, and green. Drowning had been cold and dark, but every part of her was bright, bright, bright. Her tiny mitten cuffed his wrist. The stitching was lumpy, done by hand.
“Don’t let go,” he pleaded. “Don’t let go of me.”
“Okay,” she said, so unafraid.
He meant to speak again, but when he opened his mouth, there was the dirt in his lungs. There was that buzzing in his empty chest, the tight spool along his bones. His arms ached, as if he’d dragged himself some unfathomable distance. Somewhere nearby, he heard the sound of running feet. He burbled, choking and fading and so, so very afraid, and the world shut up silent as a tomb.
***
She was standing in front of him.
Lane. His Lane. It was Monday, and there she was. It was 10:40 in the morning, and there she was. It was impossible.
And there she was.
