Floating Staircase(79)

“There’s nothing to see.”

“There’s everything to see.”

“No. You’re making this up. It’s all in your head. You’ve convinced yourself of this goddamn make-believe story. The boy drowned. It was an accident. Get it through your head.”

A white rage quaked through me. I saw Detective Wren’s face looming like a full moon in front of my own, one hand on my shoulder, asking me to go over once again what happened to my brother.

“You’re wrong and you’re blind,” I growled at Adam.

“Goddamn it. You’ve lost your mind. You can’t tell the difference between fiction and reality.”

“The reality,” I said levelly, “is that David Dentman murdered that boy and no one is willing to hear it.”

“Then prove it.” Adam slapped his hands against his thighs. “You’re so goddamn certain. I want you to give me some actual goddamn proof.”

“The proof is in the character. The proof is in the lousy goddamn notebook.” I threw it into the air. “The proof is in this house. It’s in the sum of all the stories. It’s—” My gaze settled on the coffee table and the little wooden blocks from my childhood, though they were now Elijah’s blocks, still constructed to suggest a tiny, colorful staircase. A strangled laugh erupted from my throat. “The proof is in these blocks. See? The proof is in the staircase!”

Around me, the world seemed to freeze. Something akin to a doorway unlatched in the center of my brain, flooding my skull with brilliant white light. I hardly noticed when Beth and Jodie appeared in the hallway.

“The perfect place,” I muttered, turning to them.

“Travis,” Adam said.

“So simple. It’s the perfect place because it’s been staring at me since the first day.”

“He’s lost his mind,” said Adam.

“Oh,” Jodie moaned, starting to cry. “Oh, God . . .”

“You want your body?” I cried at him. “You want your proof?”

Like a locomotive, I stormed past Adam and flung open the front door. I heard Jodie shriek my name but I didn’t stop. I never even paused. I wasn’t here—I was floating somewhere above, watching myself in a dream. I was a boulder gathering speed as it rolls down a hillside. I was a 747, engines burned to dust, hurling toward the Earth at a million miles an hour. Frantic, I hustled around the side of the house, breaking into a sprint by the time I reached the rear. Before me stood tree trunks like fence posts, a barrier separating me from the lake.

“Travis!” Adam shouted from behind me.

Charging through the snow, I continued down the gradual slope toward the trees and the lake. I made a beeline for the axe whose head was wedged into a tree stump chopping block, grasped the wooden handle with both hands, and gave the axe an almighty yank upward. The bladed head wrenched free of the chopping block, the release nearly toppling me backward.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Adam barreling toward me and Beth trailing behind him. Only Jodie—my Jodie, my girl—remained at the side of the house, watching as the events unfolded.

Axe in hand, I pushed through the trees, swatting branches out of my way, chopping at them when I could. Somewhere very close a flock of blackbirds took flight, startled by my presence. I was no longer running, and I could hear Adam crunching through fallen branches, closing the distance. He was still calling my name.

Consumed, driven, I broke through the last of the winter-brittle trees, my chest heaving with each breath. Before me: the lake. Directly before me: the floating staircase. Unlike the first time, there was no ice on which to walk. I hardly paused to consider this. Instead, I look another step right into the water. The ground was muddy and congested with reeds. My foot sank quickly in the mud. The water was an ice bath; I felt the chill race up through my body and explode like a rocket at the base of my skull. Possessed, I would not be thwarted.

“Travis,” Adam yelled. The crunch of dead twigs grew louder, nearer . . .

I waded out to my knees, my hips. My whole body shook, rattling apart the way I thought David Dentman’s truck might when he gunned it past sixty. From nowhere, the weight of the axe increased by about fifty pounds, and I needed two hands to hold it. The water level rose to my chest, and I slung the axe over one shoulder. My teeth chattered a mile a minute. I was no longer taking steps but rather sliding along the silt at the bottom of the lake. How deep did it go? I had no idea. And I didn’t care—I could walk across the bottom of the ocean floor right now.

Back on land, Adam finally cleared the trees and staggered to the lake. He shouted my name over and over again. I could hear Beth now, too.

I did not turn to see if either of them was pursuing me into the water, but I didn’t think they were. Anyway, it didn’t matter. The floating staircase, that prehistoric beast, crested out of the placid surface of the lake only a few yards ahead of me.

Splashing behind me: I turned and saw Adam stomping through the water.

There were stairs under the water. I climbed, the axe still slung over one shoulder. The wooden planks were weathered and beaten and ugly, brittle like diseased bone. I rose with them out of the freezing murk. The wind was unrelenting. The water had kept me preserved; now, the flesh exposed to the air was rendered immediately numb. Still, I mounted the steps, bullying straight to the top.