Dreams Underfoot: A Newford Collection (52 page)

Lucia looked up from the magazine she was reading at the kitchen table. Laying it down she walked over and joined Amy on the sofa.

“I was
tres
surprised to find you sleeping here when I got in last night,” she said. “Katrina said you got sick, so she put you to bed on the sofa and slept on the floor herself How’re you feeling now,
ma
cherie?”

Amy worked through what Lucia had just said. None of it quite jibed with her own muddled memory of the previous evening.

“Okay ... I guess,” she said finally. She looked around the loft. “Where’s Katrina?”

“She borrowed the bus money from me and went to Hartnett’s Point after all. True love wins over all,
n’est-ce pas?”

Amy thought of mermaids swimming in the Kickaha River, of Katrina kneeling by the water, of the silver knife.

“Oh, shit,” she said.

“What’s the matter?”

Amy didn’t know what to say. What she’d seen hadn’t made any sense. She’d been sick, dizzy, probably delirious. But it had seemed so real.

Pierce his heart ... bathe in his blood ....

She shook her head. None of it could have happened. There were no such things as mermaids. But what if there were? What if Katrina was carrying that silver knife as she made her way to Matt’s gig?

What if she did just what those ... mermaids had told her ...

You must do it—before thefirst dawn light thatfollows tomorrow night ...

What if

Or
foam you’ll be ...

—it was real?

She bent down and looked for her shoes, found them pressed up against one of the coffee table’s crate supports. She put them on and rose from the sofa.

“I’ve got to go,” she told Lucia.

“Go where? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have time to explain. I’ll tell you later.” Lucia followed her across the loft to the door. “Amy, you’re acting really weird.”

“I’m fine,” Amy said. “Honest.”

Though she still didn’t feel quite normal. She was weak and didn’t want to look in a mirror for fear of seeing the white ghost of her own face looking back at her. But she didn’t feel that she had any choice. If what she’d seen last night
had
been real ...

Lucia shook her head uncertainly. “Are you sure you’re—” Amy paused long enough to give her friend a quick peck on the cheek, then she was out the door.

Borrowing a car was easy. Her brother Pete had two and was used to her sudden requests for transportational needs, relieved that he wasn’t required to provide a chauffeur service along with it. She was on the road by seven, tooling west along the old lakeside highway in a gas-guzzling Chev, stopping for a meal at a truck stop that marked the halfway point and arriving at Harnett’s Point just as Matt would be starting his first set.

She pulled in beside his VW van—a positive antique by now, she liked to tease him—and parked.

The building that housed Murphy’s Bar where Matt had his gig was a ramshackle affair, log walls here in back, plaster on cement walls in front. The bar sat on the edge of the point from which the village got its name, with a long pier out behind the building, running into the lake. The water around the pier was thick with moored boats.

She went around front to where the neon sign spelling the name of the bar crackled and spat an orange glow and stepped inside to the familiar sound of Matt singing Leon Rosselson’s “World Turned Upside Down.” The audience, surprisingly enough for a backwoods establishment such as this, was actually paying attention to the music. Amy thought that only a third of them were probably even aware of the socialist message the song espoused.

The patrons were evenly divided between the back-to-the-earth hippies who tended organic farms west of the village, all jeans and unbleached cotton, long hair and flower-print dresses; the locals who’d grown up in the area and would probably die here, heavier drinkers, also in jeans, but tending towards flannel shirts and baseball caps, T-shirts and workboots; and then those cottagers who hadn’t yet closed their places up for the year, a hodgepodge of golf shirts and cotton blends, short skirts and, yes, even one dark blue captain’s cap, complete with braided rope trim.

She shaded her eyes and looked for Katrina, but didn’t spot her. After a few moments, she got herself a beer from the bar and found a corner table to sit at that she shared with a pair of earth-mothers and a tall skinny man with drooping eyes and hair longer than that of either of his companions, pulled back into a ponytail that fell to his waist. They made introductions all around, then settled back into their chairs to listen to the music.

As Matt’s set wound on, Amy began to wonder just exactly what it was that she was doing here.

Even closing her eyes and concentra-ting, she could barely call up last night’s fantastic images with any sort of clarity. What if the whole thing
had
just been a delirium? What if she’d made her way to Lucia’s apartment only to pass out on the sofa and have dreamt it all?

Matt stopped by the table when he ended his set.

“What brings you up here, Scallan?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Just thought I’d check out how you do without the rest of us to keep you honest.”

A touch of humor crinkled around his eyes. “So what’s the verdict?”

“You’re doing good.” She introduced him to her companions, then asked, “Do you want to get a little air?”

He nodded and let her lead the way outside. They leaned against the back of somebody’s Bronco up and looked down the length of one of the village’s two streets. This one cut north and south, from the bush down to the lake. The other was merely the highway as it cut through the village.

“So have you seen Katrina?” Amy asked.

Matt nodded. “Yeah, we walked around the Market for awhile yesterday afternoon.”

“You mean, she’s not up here?”

“Not so’s I know.”

Amy sighed. So much for her worries. But if Katrina hadn’t borrowed the money from Lucia to come up here, then where
had
she gone?

“Why are you so concerned about Katrina?” Matt asked.

Amy started to make up some excuse, but then thought, screw it. One of them might as well be up front.

“I’m just worried about her.”

Matt nodded. He kicked at the gravel underfoot, but didn’t say anything.

“I know it’s none of my business,” Amy said.

“You’re right. It’s not.” There was no rancor in Matt’s voice. Just a kind of weariness.

“It’s just that—”

“Look,” he said, turning to Amy, “she seems nice, that’s all. I think maybe we started out on the wrong foot, but I’m trying to fix that. For now, I just want to be her friend. If something else comes up later, okay. But I want to take it as it comes. Slowly. Is that so wrong?”

Amy shook her head. And then it struck her. For the first time that they weren’t on stage together, or working out an arrangement, Matt actually seemed to focus on her. To listen to what she was saying, and answer honestly. Protective walls maybe not completely down, but there
was
a little breach in them.

“I think she loves you,” Amy said.

Matt sighed. “It’s kind of early for that—don’t you think? I think it’s more a kind of infatuation.

She’ll probably grow out of it just as fast as she fell into it.”

“I don’t know about that. Seems to me that if you’re going to be at all fair, you’d be just a little bit more—”

“Don’t talk to me about responsibility,” Matt said, breaking in. “Just because someone falls in love with you, it doesn’t mean you owe them anything. I’ve got no control over how other people feel about me—”

That’s where you’re wrong, Amy thought. If you’d just act more human, more like this ...

“—and I’m sure not going to run my life by their feelings and schedules. I’m not trying to sound self-centered, I’m just trying to ... I don’t know. Protect my privacy.”

“But if you don’t give a little, how will you ever know what you might be missing?”

“Giving too much, too fast—that just leaves you open to being hurt.”

“But—”

“Oh, shit,” Matt said, glancing at his watch. “I’ve got another set to do.” He pushed away from the Bronco. “Look, I’m sorry if I don’t measure up to how people want me to be, but this is just the way I am.”

Why didn’t you open yourself up even this much while we were going out together? Amy wanted to ask. But all she did was nod and say, “I know.”

“Are you coming in?”

She shook her head. “Not right away.”

“Well, I’ve got—”

“I know.” She waved him off. “Break a leg or whatever.”

She moved away from the Bronco once he’d gone inside and crossed the parking lot, gravel crunching underfoot until she reached the grass verge. She followed it around to the lawn by the side of the building and down to the lakefront. There she stood, listening to the vague sound of Matt’s voice and guitar as it carried through an open window. She looked at all the boats clustered around the pier. A splash drew her attention to the far end of the wooden walkway where a figure sat with its back to the shore having just thrown something into the lake.

Amy had one of those moments of utter clarity. She knew imme-diately that it was Katrina sitting there, feet dangling in the water, long hair clouding down her back, knew as well that it was the silver knife she’d thrown into the lake. Amy could almost see it, turning end on slow end as it sank in the water.

She hesitated for the space of a few long breaths, gaze tracking the surface of the lake for Katrina’s sisters, then she slowly made her way down to the pier. Katrina turned at the sound of Amy’s shoes on the wooden slats of the walkway. She nodded once, then looked back out over the lake.

Amy sat beside her. She hesitated again, then put her arm com-fortingly around Katrina’s small shoulders. They sat like that for a long time. The water lapped against the pilings below them. An owl called out from the woods to their left, a long mournful sound. A truck pulled into the bar’s parking lot.

Car doors slammed, voices rose in laughter, then disappeared into the bar.

Katrina stirred beside Amy. She began to move her hands, but Amy shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t understand what you’re saying.” Katrina mimed steering, both hands raised up in front of her, fingers closed around an invisible steering wheel.

Amy nodded. “I drove up in my brother’s car.”

Katrina pointed to herself then to Amy and again mimed turning a steering wheel.

“You want me to drive you somewhere?”

Katrina nodded.

Amy looked back towards the bar. “What about Matt?” Katrina shook her head. She put her hands together, eyes elo-quent where her voice was silent. Please.

Amy looked at her for a long moment, then she slowly nodded. “Sure. I can give you a lift. Is there someplace specific you want to go?”

Katrina merely rose to her feet and started back down the pier towards shore. Once they were in the Chev, she pointed to the glove department.

“Go ahead,” Amy said.

As she started the car, Katrina pulled out a handful of roadmaps. She sorted through them until she came to one that showed the whole north shore of the lake. She unfolded it and laid it on the dashboard between them and pointed to a spot west of Newford. Amy looked more closely. The place where Katrina had her finger was where the Dulfer River emptied into the lake. The tip of her small finger was placed directly on the lakeside campgrounds of the State Park there.

“Jesus,” Amy said. “It’ll take us all night to get there. We’ll be lucky to make it before dawn.”

As Katrina shrugged, Amy remembered what Katrina’s sisters had said last night.

Before the first dawn light follows tomorrow night.

That was tonight.
This
morning.

Or foam
you’ll be.

She shivered and looked at Katrina.

“Tell me what’s going on,” she said. “Please, Katrina. Maybe I can help you.”

Katrina just shook her head sadly. She mimed driving, hands around the invisible steering wheel again.

Amy sighed. She put the car in gear and pulled out of the parking lot. Katrina reached towards the radio, eyebrows raised quizzically. When Amy nodded, she turned it on and slowly wound through the stations until she got Newford’s WKPN—FM. It was too early for

Zoe B.’s “Nightnoise” show, so they listened to Mariah Carey, the Vaughan Brothers and the like as they followed the highway east.

Neither of them spoke as they drove; Katrina couldn’t and Amy was just too depressed. She didn’t know what was going on. She just felt as though she’d become trapped in a Greek tragedy. The story-line was already written, everything was predestined to a certain outcome and there was nothing she could do about it. Only Matt could have, if he’d loved Katrina, but she couldn’t even blame him.

You couldn’t force a person to love somebody.

She didn’t agree with his need to protect his privacy. Maybe it stopped him from being hurt, but it also stopped him from being alive. But he was right about one thing: he couldn’t be held respon-sible for who chose to love him.

They crossed over the Dulfer River just as dawn was starting to pink the eastern horizon. When Amy pulled into the campgrounds, Ka-trina directed her down a narrow dirt road that led to the park’s boat launch.

They had the place to themselves. Amy pulled up by the water and killed the engine. The pines stood silent around them when they got out of the car. There was birdsong, but it seemed strangely muted.