“Hey, Moni? What creature lives in the river out here?” I ask, looking over my shoulder at her.
She furrows her brows as she looks at the river. “Um—only playful river spirits, but they’re harmless and only come out during dusk. Why?” she asks, turning around and picking up another stick.
Shaking my head, I turn back to the river.It’s lunch time, so I must be seeing things.I reach back down into the cool water, “Oh nothing. I guess I’m just seeing thin—” A silver hand clasps onto my wrist and pulls me into the rushing water and down to the pebbled riverbed.
The cool water is a shock to my system as the current pulls at my hair and clothes, thrashing me around. The hand let’s go and I take the opportunity to look in it’s direction while I'm underwater and see what looks like the silver surfer creature smiling at me. But instead of silver, he’s a mixture of greens, dark blues, and browns. A few fish with bright colorful, fairy-looking riders holding onto their dorsal fins swim past as I get my bearings.
My body rolls until I feel rocks along my back, and I kick up with my feet as they find purchase at the bottom of the river. Sputtering and coughing as I reach the top, I hear Moni scream my name as the current carries me away.
Thankfully, I know how to swim and I slowly make my way over to the other side where the current slows down and Moni catches up.
“Holy wet molasses, Rez, why did you decide to go swimming now? Fall isn’t the time to take a dip, it’s Summer. Summer, Rez,” she announces, her bark flashing between yellow and white.
“I know that,” I sputter out as I pull myself out of the water and lay on my back. My breath heaves out of my lungs as I try to calm down before I get my bearings.
“Then why the dip?” Moni asks, plopping her tiny two-inch self on my belly.
“I was pulled in by something,” I tell her, but Moni just cocks a skeptical brow at me.
Rolling over, she yelps and falls off as I pull myself up and look around. I catch sight of the river spirit—now that I know what I’m looking for—when my eyes pass over the water. Giving him the I-see-you look, I point at my eyes with two fingers then at him with a squinty look as a warning. The river suddenly gurgles as if someone is choking on water, and I squint to take in the spirit's form as he bends back and forth.
Is the fucker laughing at me?
Flipping him off, I turn, giving him my back. A spurt of water hits me between the shoulders making me stumble with the force of a water cannon. Moni snickers as she peers around my shoulder and waves. I turn enough to glance back, and I bite my cheek to keep from cursing out the water spirit that’s waving obnoxiously back at me.
I swear to God, if I could get my hands on that spirit—Walking away from the shore, I turn back to Moni. “How far away are we? I don’t know this area very well,” I admit, wringing out the excess water from my tank.
“Oh, I think there’s a small bridge down this way,” Moni says, pulling a cup of coffee out of nowhere. I swear, I need to learn how the fuck she makes that happen.
This side of the river, the bed is filled with brush and weeds so it’s slow going for me as Moni flies above it all.
“Man, Rez, you’re clumsy,” she observes while sipping her drink.
“And you’re no help. You would think being able to get above all this crap, you could help guide me out of this mess,” I scold her and when she looks at me in shock, I wink, lessening the blow.
“Well, why didn’t you just say so. Come this way, away from the river,” she advises and as soon as I follow her, the plants do break away, and there’s a slight trail running parallel to the river.
You can’t kill your bestie. You can’t kill your bestie,I chant over and over as I close my eyes and take in a deep breath before continuing on. Opening my eyes, I notice it seems a little darker than normal, but the sun hasn’t shifted that much. It’s not a creepy darker by any means, but just different, misty almost. A silver sheen catches my eye as I glance around and Moni calls out to me.
“You coming?”
“Yeah, sorry—this is just really cool. Can you see this?” I ask, not taking my eyes off of what I’m looking at and point to the silver mist off to the right leading away from the river.
Moni comes over and perches on my shoulder, “What do you see?” she asks, her interest piqued.
“It’s hard to explain, but it looks like some silver tinsel off of a Christmas tree. Like a silver mist floating in the air, about knee high?” I explain and Moni hops down from my shoulder, floating at my knee for a few moments.
“Moni?” She doesn’t answer so I take a chance and look down to where she’s turned a yellowish green and white. “Moni!” I yell and she jerks, flying up and blinks her wide eyes.
“You can see that?” her voice shakes, and I can hear her coffee sloshing around inside of her Gallon from Sparks.
“Moni,” I say, grabbing ahold of her shoulders and making her look at me. “What’s wrong?”
“I saw that the night of the party. There was blood on your patio and that silver mist leading away from it,” she whispers.
Well there’s no way this could be from the same night since that was weeks ago, so where did this come from? Is it from the same guy that took Lynx? Like a magical signature of some sort? Are they hiding down the path, or is this just a setup and I’m looking into another trap?
FUCK!
