Still Water Blinks

Carter says it was the still water that killed Troy. Normally you’ve gotta take anything Carter says with a whole handful of salt, but I can’t think of anything else it might’ve been. Still, I’ve got loads of better things to do than admit Carter’s right. Things that those stuffed shirts at the Academy couldn’t even fathom, because they’re too busy learning how to kill ghosts, and they’re too dumb to know that actually it’s ghosts that kill you.

Of course, we didn’t know the water had ghosts in it, otherwise we never woulda dared Troy to jump in. Touch it, maybe, but nothing more than that. Carter and I called Troy a wimp when he wouldn’t do it at first. I guess if I had been able to do something different, I wouldn’t have called him that, even if he was acting like one. I’d much rather sit next to a wimp when school starts up again next month, than to sit next to nobody at all.

Carter says it won’t help nobody to think about it, and that I shouldn’t, but I still do sometimes. I think about how Troy was acting all funny after we got back, and how he wouldn’t eat. I didn’t blame him; dinner at the House that night was beef stew but they forgot to put the beef in, so we were just drinking meat-flavored water. I told Troy that tomorrow I’d give him some of my breakfast so he wouldn’t be so hungry. In the morning his eyes were yellow instead of white, and his body was shaking but he wasn’t breathing. It took three men to get him out. Normally a 12-year-old against three of the House staff isn’t a fair fight, but Troy wasn’t normal that morning. I didn’t end up having to share my breakfast after all, but I didn’t end up eating it, either.

It’s only been a couple of weeks and I think Carter and I are the last people who still remember Troy. None of the other kids in the House care, it’s pretty much every boy for himself at this point. And the staff don’t care either, because for them it’s just one less mouth to feed. Sooner or later another boy whose parents got in a mining accident or just can’t afford to keep him anymore will show up, and he’ll take Troy’s bunk and there’ll be no more signs that Troy ever even existed. It makes me sad to think about it, which is probably why Carter tells me not to. He says that tears are just toughness leaving your body, and the only way to survive the House is to keep all the toughness you can. If that’s true, then my pillow is probably the toughest thing in the House, though if Carter knew that he’d stop hanging out with me altogether.

I found something this morning, under Troy’s bed. It was a simple necklace, just a small, roughly-carved wooden frog with a leather cord threaded through its hind legs. I’d seen Troy wear it dozens of times, but he only ever talked about it once. He said his dad made it, before… and then just stopped. I asked him “Before what?” and all the toughness started leaving Troy’s body and Carter smacked me across the head for making him cry. I guess Troy wasn’t wearing it when the ghost got into his head.

It didn’t feel right to hold on to it, and Carter was on sweep duty this morning so I couldn’t ask him about it either. All I had to do today was wash dishes and that wouldn’t be until after dinner, so I decided to go for a walk. Leaving was easy–the door to the Yard was always open, and the staff still hadn’t found the hole in the fence, or if they did they hadn’t done anything about it. Regardless, I squeezed under the chain links with the frog necklace clutched in my hand and after just a few seconds I found myself in the middle of what most of Vassensstad called the Slabs.

The Slabs stretched on for a few miles in every direction, because whatever genius designed the House decided to drop it smack-dab in the middle. It stood out like a sore thumb: a five-story wooden building with a pointy roof that was just as rickety as the future of every kid who ended up there. A chain-link fence wrapped around the back, keeping in the only patch of green in all the Slabs. Look at literally any other building and you’d understand how the district got its name. Some were two or three stories, and a couple were four, but their height and their faded paint were the only ways you could tell them apart. It was as if a cement-eating giant had made dozens of cookies with a single, square-shaped cutter and then forgot about them in the oven.

There were no signs, either. Street and building names were decided by whichever person had a can of spray paint most recently. Most of Vassensstad wouldn’t be caught dead here, and the rest of Vassensstad ends up dying here. It happened to Troy; one day Carter and I are going to die here, too. I just hoped that when it was my turn, Carter or somebody would make their pillow a little tougher.

But I didn’t want to think about that today, not before I’d done my part to remember Troy’s. The path was easy to retrace: four blocks straight north, turn right at the giant blue graffiti eye, and there it was. The building I was looking for broke up the uniformity of the Slabs in more ways than one. Covered in a crusty yellow paint, it was only two stories tall, squatting below the skyline of the district like a short kid who accidentally got cropped out of the family photo. The habitation of most buildings in the Slabs was questionable at best, but this one was clearly abandoned due to the gaping holes in the wall and one corner that had completely collapsed.

The street was empty, so nobody saw me spend nearly five minutes working up the courage to climb back in the building. I looked inside, then at the frog necklace, and back. Last time, Carter had boasted that we would never have made it without him, but here I was. Thinking of Carter and what he might say made me grit my teeth and pull myself in.

I’d forgotten how different the air felt inside. The layout of the Slabs made it so no matter where you stood on the street you’d feel a breeze from one direction or another. In colder months it was downright miserable, but most of the time the wind was something you got so used to, you didn’t even notice it until it was gone. Still air and still water in the same place. I hadn’t made that connection before and it caused me to laugh, a quick bark that echoed around the concrete corridors before fading into silence.

Thinking about it wouldn’t change anything, so I slowly began to walk the route the three of us had taken a few weeks prior. The building only had one staircase left because the other one had collapsed some time ago. Last time, Carter had spent close to half an hour figuring out how to get back there, and Troy and I had helped him move a bunch of rubble out of the way. The trail was easy to follow, so it only took me a few minutes to cover the distance.

The staircase area was darker than I’d remembered, but I could see all the important details. There was no way to get up to the second floor as there were no stairs anymore, leaving only a small landing ten feet up and across from where I stood. Right below my feet lay a flat black plane, indiscernible except for a faint glow far below the surface.

Seeing it brought back the memories in quick succession. Carter and Troy had argued about what it was until I threw a chunk of concrete at it and it splashed. Carter had told us this was why they didn’t build anything with a basement anymore, and I had wondered where all the water had come from. Troy was the first to notice the glow at the bottom so Carter and I dared him to go find out what it was and then called Troy a wimp when he wouldn’t. And then…

I turned away from the water as a spike of sadness punched me in the gut. I sank to my knees and pulled out the frog necklace. I hadn’t planned to say anything, but if I didn’t say anything then I’d end up crying, and then any ghosts watching me would know I’m not tough.

“I’m sorry Troy,” I said, then stopped. “Sorry” was a word for when you got mad at someone and hit them, not for letting a ghost get in their head. Still, I wasn’t sure what other word to use. After a moment of thought, I started again.

“I’m really, really sorry, Troy. If I’d known there were ghosts in this water I never would’ve called you a wimp. Carter and I are the real wimps for making you do that.” I paused, shifting to a more comfortable position. I looked at the frog in my hands, rather than the water, and a memory resurfaced. I began speaking again, uncovering the memory with my words.

“A month or two ago I was out past curfew and I was hiding in the yard. A couple of the staff were out there, just smoking and talking. I remember they took forever, because I was in a tree and couldn’t get down without making noise and they just wouldn’t stop talking. I didn’t really care about what they were saying, but right at the end one of them flicked out his smoke, turned to the other, shrugged, and said ‘still waters run deep.’ The other nodded like it wasn’t the dumbest thing he’d heard all day, and then they went inside and I could finally get down.”

“Most water is pretty deep for us, Troy. Maybe if he’d said ‘still waters have ghosts’ or something like that then you’d still be here.” I was on my feet now and my voice was growing louder. Despite my best efforts, my eyes were getting wet. “And any ghosts that can hear me, I hope you’re happy! You got into Troy’s head, and now you’re in mine because I can’t stop thinking about it even though Carter tells me not to, and sometimes I wish he’d been the one who’d–”

My voice broke into a sob. I took the frog necklace and threw it as hard as I could into the water. It made a couple of ripples, then bobbed in place in the middle of the water. The glow from the bottom was just strong enough to make the shadows on the frog look like it was smiling, at least from this distance. The frog had gone home, so now it was my turn. Even so, I paused. Curiosity spiked and I couldn’t help myself; I had to take one more look at whatever was glowing at the bottom.

I knew in my heart that it was just another one of life’s unanswerable questions. Like why can ghosts get you in still water but not in still air? Or why are some kids left to die in the Slabs while others get to experience the nice parts of Vassensstad? I’d never get an answer, but it was interesting to think about. Carter wouldn’t want to, he’d say that if a question doesn’t have an answer then there’s no point asking it in the first place, but–

SCHLOOP.

The wet, sucking noise pulled me away from my thoughts. My heart started thumping real fast, like it was trying to jump right out of my chest. I looked at the water, trying to see what was different, even though I knew it hadn’t moved. It was just as still and empty as before.

The frog.

Had it floated to one of the far corners? Even as I squinted into the darkness I knew it was gone. The ghosts had sucked it beneath the surface. Nothing else could’ve made that noise. As I looked at the corners I found that I didn’t need to squint anymore. A cold hand squeezed my lungs as I dared to look down into the still water one final time.

The glow was brighter than I’d ever seen it. It was a yellow orb, impossibly wide, split down the center by an oval-shaped void that seemed even darker than the water above it. As I watched, darkness slid over it from top to bottom, plunging the room into shadow for a moment before retreating just as fast.

I blinked. As I stared at the water, I realized it had blinked first. Before my brain had time to process what that meant, I was gone. I’d never been the fastest kid in the House, but I’m confident I’d have put any of the other boys to shame at that moment. After barely a minute I was out on the street, but I didn’t stop.

Later that afternoon I’d find bruises on my shins and cuts on my back from how fast I crawled under the fence, but they wouldn’t begin to hurt until a day or so later. Even after the bruises faded it took another week for me to feel safe, to convince myself that I’d been able to outrun the ghosts, or whatever it was hiding in the still water. I never told Carter, or anyone else. Maybe someday I’ll be able to convince myself that it was just a dream. Or maybe the ghosts will get me first.