Klickitat by Peter Rock Page B

“This way.”
    â€œWho are you?”
    â€œI’m Henry,” he said. “She never mentioned me?”
    â€œNot your name.”
    â€œWell, the important thing is that we’re together—the three of us.”
    â€œWhere is she?”
    â€œWe’re getting close, now,” he said.
    â€œClose to where?”
    â€œWhen we get there, we can’t talk, not at all. As we approach. Do you understand? This moon can make things more difficult.”
    I followed as we went down a side street that wasn’t paved, that was only dirt with potholes, puddles shining like silver windows in the moonlight. Then he touched my elbow and tugged at my boots, the tops of them, so I knew to take them off. Carrying them, I crouched down low like he did, followed him off to the right, a narrow gap between two wooden fences.
    As we got closer to a tall, dark house, we came to a place in the fence where the lower edges were not nailed in. He pulled them up, held them that way. My back scratched a little on the wood above, behind me, as I slipped through.
    He followed, silent as he moved around me, as he kneeled down close to the side of the house. There was crisscrossing wood there that I learned is called lattice, that blocked off the space between the ground and thebottom of the house. He lifted a section of lattice away and set it down, and then waved for me to get down, pointed into the dark square opening beneath the house.
    A face looked out at me, pale and smiling. It was Audra.
    I was quickly down there, inside in that total darkness. I felt Audra’s fingers brush my arm as I reached out. I got hold of her. I was trying to slow it, to breathe. I couldn’t tell if I was becoming agitated or if I was only so excited. My head hit something hard as we slid over. Her hair in my face, sweet. My legs wrapped around her body and my ankles hooked each other like I could squeeze her in two. I felt her hands rubbing my arms, my face. I heard her breathing, a whisper, felt tears when she turned her head.
    And then my hold slowly loosened, and I began to feel the blankets beneath me, the foam rubber padding.
    â€œOkay,” Audra said. “It’s all right, now. Klickitat. Everything’s fine.”
    I heard a click and then a pale light came on, a little lamp with masking tape wrapped around the bulb tomake it dim. I saw then that Audra’s hair was bleached, that it was blond.
    â€œTry to breathe more quietly,” she said. “You’re gasping. Take it slow, Vivian.”
    In the shadows, as my eyes adjusted, I could see that the lamp was wired somehow into a square black box, the battery from a car, and I could see other car batteries stacked up against the brick foundation that was one wall of the space down there. The other three were lattice, but the inside of the lattice was covered in black plastic, so light didn’t shine out.
    Other cords stretched from the batteries, plugged into blankets, electric blankets, to a white-faced clock that hung from the wall. There were notebooks, there were Audra’s books, library books. The ceiling was low—sitting there, I could reach up and touch it, close to the top of my head—and empty egg cartons and pink insulation were tacked to it, to muffle any sound we might make.
    Beneath the twisted blankets were foam rubber mats, and a wool blanket hung down, separating the space. Onthe other side was my bed, my area, my clothes stacked there, waiting, even my orange life jacket, all the things that had been collected for me.
    â€œI didn’t panic,” I said.
    â€œI knew you wouldn’t.”
    â€œI got the knife you left, but I left it, forgot it. I didn’t know.”
    â€œWe have plenty of knives,” she said.
    â€œI’m so happy,” I said, hugging her.
    â€œEnough,” Henry said, behind us. “That’s enough talk for now. We generally don’t talk, here. And we don’t use