This Is Where the World Ends(13)
“What’s easy?”
The road is now gravel. Pebbles. “Dammit, Micah. What the hell do you think? Use your stupid busted head. Why the hell do you think the police have been around so much? Why do you think they keep wanting to talk about the fire?”
When he puts it like that, the answer is obvious.
They think I set it.
Dewey slows to a stop by the edge of the quarry.
The deepest part of the quarry is two hundred and nineteen feet deep. The water rarely gets warmer than fifty degrees in the dead of summer. This used to be the greatest limestone mine in the northern Midwest, which is hard to imagine. It’s hard to imagine anything under the water. It’s too dark.
The quarry is blocked off by a chain fence that is never closed. There is a NO TRESPASSING sign that is missing most of its letters. On the far side, there is a ledge where stoners dare each other to jump. On this side, there is Old Eell’s barn, where Janie used to store cheap vodka. Next to it was a huge pile of rocks left over from the mining.
The reason I couldn’t see it from Janie’s house is that it’s not there.
“Micah,” Dewey says as we pull up. “Listen, don’t freak out—”
I am already out of the car.
The Metaphor was enormous and ugly and now it’s only missing.
Dewey follows me.
His hands are in his pockets when I turn and stare at him.
“Where is it?” I ask.
He kicks the ground. Technically it is still littered with the stupid rocks, but the mountain is gone. The entire landscape is different. It almost looks nice now.
“What the hell happened? Does Janie know?”
Dewey doesn’t look at me. “Of course she knew. She threw a f*cking tantrum. Not like that made a difference.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before? Why didn’t you tell me about this first?”
I turn and look around. It shouldn’t come as a surprise now, everything disappearing. But it does, my blood is in my head and I don’t remember which way is up anymore.
I start forward toward the rough rock-strewn circle, darker than the rest of the shore, where Janie and I spent every Thursday afternoon since fourth grade.
Gravity is irrelevant.
My head hits the ground. Pain is everything, and that is when Janie comes back. Because she knows that I cannot understand living without her.
Her fingers are in my hair, her lips at my ear. “Of course I know that.”
I don’t open my eyes.
“Of course I know.”
But if I were to open them, she’d be there. Her hair like fire falling into my eyes as she leans over me.
“Janie,” I say. “Janie.”
She smells like cinnamon and vodka. Lemons and sleep.
Someone is dragging me to my feet. Dewey is swearing in my ear, so it can’t be Janie. But I keep my eyes closed still.
It’s crazy. I’m going crazy.
“You’re not going crazy,” she whispers to me. “You’ve been here for ages.”
THE JOURNAL OF JANIE VIVIAN
Once upon a time there were two beautiful kingdoms. The prince of the first kingdom was golden and kind and the pride of the kingdom. The princess of the second kingdom was good and lovely and had a very large trust fund dowry. The fell in love at first sight and swore to love each other forever, because of course they would. Of course. He gave her flowers for her hair and she gave him gold for his treasury, and they were horribly, desperately happy. On their wedding day, both kingdoms rejoiced, and their day went on far longer than it should have because not even the sun could bear to stop smiling at them.
But then the prince took the princess back to his small kingdom and they became the king and queen, and slowly things began to change. The king’s kingdom was small and poor—there were no cocktail balls for the queen to dance at and no other princesses drowning in pearls for her to talk to, and she was lonely. She sat in the castle by herself most days and nights while the king took her money and left without telling her where he was going. The king and queen fought and cried and the nights began to last longer and longer, because not even the sun could bear to look at them.
When they could no longer stand it, they went to the fairies and begged them to make them happy again. The king and queen thought the fairies were good, but really they were just stupid, and they told the king and queen that if they should have a baby, all would be well again.
All except one. One fairy warned the king and queen that the child would be cursed, but no one listened to her.
Soon after, a princess was born. The stupid fairies came and cooed over her cradle and the kingdom rejoiced and the sun peeked out again, and the king and queen sat together with smiles pasted on their faces.
Of course it didn’t last. One day, the doors burst open and the last fairy flew in, furious. “Fools,” she seethed, one long finger stretched toward the king and queen. “How dare you? This child was cursed from her first breath. She will not save your marriage, and you will ruin her. Listen well. On her eighteenth birthday, at sunset, she will blow out her birthday candle and be gone from you forever. And then what will you do?”
The king and queen trembled and clutched their princess so tightly that she wailed. And as she grew, they held on ever tighter. Because they would never let her out of their sight, the princess grew up watching them scream and sob. She counted the days until her eighteenth birthday, and the king and queen held on tighter still, avoiding each other’s eyes but thinking the same thing: what will we do then?