The Half That You See by Rebecca Rowland (the two towers ebook .TXT) 📗

her and she felt neither wet nor cold, just the sensation of movement, of being tugged as through a warm wind, farther and farther, deeper and deeper.

She should let go. She should let go and float to the top and get back to shore, get herself to the nearest mental hospital and yet…

She went deeper, the cormorant’s pull constant and strong. It did not pause to let her gape at the car—a car!—beneath her as she floated past. Its curved shape limned in mud but still, a car. Who knew what other treasures lay hidden here in the heart of her lake?

The fish knew, the turtles. Those eyes they gave her as she whirled past, smiling, eager to reach out and tap their silver backs. They said: Who invited you?

The cormorant pulled her farther still, out and down toward the very bottom of the very middle of the lake. The light faltered here; as she craned her neck she could see only the distant glaze of the sun above.

The bird dove down sharply and Josie felt a chill for the first time, a coldness sliding into her. The air—was it air?—she breathed crisp in her nose, mouth. Like fall, like the excretion of a thousand years of autumn trees on a rain-wrecked night.

Below them, a house—or what was left of one, lurking in the murky bottom waters. A chimney, stone, a wall. A doorway.

The bird pulled them toward it, pulled harder, tugging them down, down, down…and she was through the door—

—and it was the apartment. Her apartment. Her and Mama’s. But…

She was on her feet, standing, not wet, not dripping onto the carpet, which was good because Mama was standing there too. And beside her stood Pop-Pop. They were at the window, their backs to the door.

She could tell from the hunch of Pop-Pop’s shoulders, the way he waved his hand in the air, that he was drunk. “Don’t you hagride me, now, woman,” he was saying with that voice she’d last heard from the cormorant’s mouth.

How could they… “Mama?” she said, then, softer, “Pop-Pop?”

Neither turned at the sound of her voice.

“Go then,” Mama spat. “Go, and so help you, if you do, I’ll—”

And Pop-Pop pushed Mama, hard. And past them, toward the window, Josie saw rain beating against the glass.

“Pop-Pop,” Josie said again, her voice suddenly the low squeak of a young girl.

Mama, dazed from her fall, rubbing the back of her head, pulled something long and silver from her apron pocket.

“What you going to do with that, woman?” he laughed. “Stab me?”

And Mama thrust out with her hand and Josie screamed, loud, louder than she had ever screamed in her life, her throat burning, her ears ringing with the sound of it.

Pop-Pop turned at that, from the window. The black handle of the knife in his chest, a line of red only just beginning to seep beneath it. Mama glanced over her shoulder and then, startled, turned all the way around. “Josie,” she whispered. “You’re here?”

“Jocelyn,” Pop-Pop said, heedless of the knife, the running blood, “my daughter.”

He smiled, but she saw tears in his eyes. Wasn’t he hurting? That knife.

There were tears in Mama’s eyes too now, Josie saw. “Josie,” Mama said. She sounded so sad. “You… you have mud on your dress.”

Josie bristled. Dress? She hadn’t worn a dress since—

She looked down and saw she was in one of the pink and white church dresses Mama always put her in. Before she grew taller than Mama, that is. After Pop-Pop had left.

But there she was, her full-grown size, standing in the doorway of her apartment at the bottom of the lake, wearing pink and white and shiny black shoes with frilled socks. She touched her hair, it was braided in neat rows ending in beads, she knew without trying to find a mirror, that would be pink and white.

But her body was the body that the bird had pulled through the lake…

She turned back to the door, which had closed behind her. She went to open it, to leave. This wasn’t where she wanted to be, this was not the secret heart of her lake. This was—

“Don’t,” her father said. “Not yet.”

She paused, her hand on the doorknob. She stood on tiptoes—tiptoes?—to see out the peephole. Through the fish eye she saw black swirling water—

And then she saw the doorknob, the peephole above her, just out of reach. She should get a chair, her stool from the bathroom sink so she could look, look and see…if the noise outside was Pop-Pop coming up the stairs from the park, banging the walls as he sang, slamming the door so loud she woke—

“Jocelyn, my daughter,” Pop-Pop said again, from behind her, his voice booming through the room. She felt that prickle, that sense of alert. The peephole seemed so very far away.

“Josie,” Mama’s voice shook, “this is important.”

She turned from the door, letting go of the knob.

Her parents were seated on the couch now. A space between them. The knife still in Pop-Pop’s chest.

She lowered her head and obeyed, walking over. She squeezed herself in. Her legs dangled above the floor, and she kicked them back and forth, watching the shine bounce on the toes of her shoes.

“Stop it,” Mama said, putting a heavy hand on her knee.

She stopped it.

She sat, head bowed, waiting.

Her father sighed and said, his voice softening, “It is time.”

Mama gave a soft gasp. “Must we—”

Pop-Pop drew in a deep breath, clucked his tongue. “She’s here. She came of her own choice.”

Josie didn’t say anything. She wasn’t supposed to. She was told to listen, listen and be still.

“Together, woman,” Pop-Pop said. “Do you hear me? Together.”

Josie said nothing. She thought of school, of the book she was supposed to be reading for her report. She didn’t want to go anywhere. She didn’t want Pop-Pop or Mama to go either. Why couldn’t they just stay here?

“Josie,” Mama’s voice, sharp now. “Do you hear what your father said? Will you be a good girl and do as