River Runs Deep by Jennifer Bradbury Page B

he’d recalled that last glimpse of them waving from the landing back in Norfolk, the tears on his mother’s cheeks, the ones Granny blinked back. Tillie holding fast to Charger’s collar, wrestling with the big dog to keep him from jumping into the river and following the boat.
    He’d figured that even if the doctor’s cures didn’t work—and he hoped, oh how he hoped, they would—at least he could spare his mother the sorrow of watching him die the way Daddy had.
    Still, it was hard to be so distant, hard not to resent them a little for sending him away.
    â€œIt ain’t like that,” Elias said more softly.
    â€œI barely ’member my mama,” the voice whispered. “She was long gone ’fore I left.”
    Left? Elias perked up at the word.
    â€œAnd I ain’t never seen me an ocean. But I traveled all the way up the Mississippi afore I ended up here. You seen the Mississippi? Lawd, that’s a river, that is—”
    â€œJust go ’way,” Elias said, shifting to the bed, sliding Nedra’s book out from under Bedivere, who had climbed up on it and was working loose a thread in the binding. “Shoo,” he said to both the bird and the voice on the other side of the window.
    â€œYou don’t want me to go,” the voice said.
    Elias snorted and flipped the pages noisily.
    â€œYou readin’ now,” the voice said. “I see how it be. Rather read some old book than visit with a pal who brung you a gift.”
    Pal?
    To keep from having to listen to such nonsense, Elias read the words out, starting at random in the middle of the poem.
    On either side the river lie
    Long fields of barley and of rye,
    That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
    And thro’ the field the road runs by
    To many-tower’d Camelot;
    And up and down the people go,
    Gazing where the lilies blow
    Round an island there below,
    The island of Shalott.
    He read the first stanza at a racing clip, loud and steady, so that by the time he’d finished it, he had to pause and gulp air. It was enough time for the voice to break in.
    â€œWhat’s ‘clothe the wold’? That don’t make a lick of sense.”
    Elias ignored the question and charged through the second stanza, louder this time. As he finished, he held his breath, waited for the voice to say something, but didn’t hear it. What he did hear was Nedra calling.
    Nedra. His heart sank a little. It wasn’t her fault she was nearly the spookiest thing about the whole place. Still, at least it gave him an excuse to get away from the voice.
    â€œElias?” she called again.
    He threw the book on the table, sending poor Bedivere hopping sideways to avoid being hit, and bolted out the door. Once outside, he couldn’t help looking round to the side of the hut. Nothing there but darkness.
    â€œElias?”
    â€œComing!” But he hadn’t made two strides before a stone rolled out from the shadows and right past Elias’s feet.
    Elias froze as the stone came to a stop.
    Pest. He set his jaw and walked over to Nedra’s. Dr. Croghan had told him about her. That she had a fiancé who had visited often at first. That she taught French to the daughters of fine families down in Memphis where she lived before she came here. Elias had not had the courage to ask how long it took her to reach her current state. He didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to know how quickly he might end up like her.
    â€œYes, ma’am?”
    â€œYou were shouting out Shalott .” If there was such a thing as a ghost in the cave, Nedra had to be the closest. She was still beautiful; that was easy enough to see. But her long golden hair had grown matted and frizzy, like a pony left wild. Her skin was pale enough to seem transparent, save for the blushed spots in her cheeks. Her blue eyes were sunken deep into her face, and she had the stink of fevers about her that Elias remembered