The River's Call

My little brother’s eyes are bright as he stares up at me from his cushion on the floor of our 2-bedroom apartment, our older sister on the chair next to him rolling her eyes at his tipsy ramblings.

“Everyone’s heard the stories by now—how don’t you know this?” He exclaims. “On nights with a clear sky, from spring through the fall but never in winter, you’ll hear singing coming from the river. If you go looking for the source, you’ll find a beautiful woman in the water, but if you get to close to the river’s edge then…”

“Stop that!” Kenzie screams as Derek pulls her from her favourite chair and onto the hardwood next to him, illustrating the point he was trying to make: approach the woman in the water, she’ll drag you under. Tale as old as time. But not in Southwestern Ontario, typically.

“That doesn’t even make sense—how would something like a mermaid or whatever this woman is have even gotten here?” I question, “We’re nowhere near the ocean, and I can’t think of any North American cryptids like that off the top of my head.”

“Well, that’s easy! That river? It used to be a shipping route a long time ago. It was obviously deeper and wider then and ended right in downtown Olive Grove. She probably came on or with one of the ships and got stuck here.”

“But why would—”

“Just stop already! It’s a spooky story, and I want to check it out, so let’s just go.” Derek stares intently at me, daring me to disagree. “It’s the first warm week of the year that isn’t supposed to cool down again, and you’re sober so you can drive.”

I’m so looking forward to saying “I told you so” when nothing happens. I scoop my keys off the linoleum counter, and Derek hops to his feet.

“Alright! Let’s go! Coming Kenz?” She slowly uses the chair she had been sitting in to pull herself back to standing and shakes her head, long blonde hair falling in front of her face as she does so.

“I’ll leave the door unlocked for you, but I’m going to bed. You know I don’t tangle with this stuff.” And we do. Olive Grove is known for its oddities—multiple paranormal sightings have happened here over the years, along with strange disappearances and even a cult that was just disbanded a couple of years ago—but she refuses to get involved with investigating any of them. Our younger brother, on the other hand…

“Fine, but we won’t share the fame when our discovery makes the news,” he quips as he struts out the front door of the apartment and heads for the stairs to the lobby. I roll my eyes, and shake my head, prompting a soft smile and shrug from the oldest Smith child as she turns her back to us and walks deeper into the apartment.

Derek is already at the car when I get there, sitting on the trunk hatch.

“Hurry up slow poke!”

“Okay ground rules: quiet down, at least act sober since you’re still two years too young to be drinking and I’m not getting arrested because of you, and do not leave my sight being near water in your state.”

“Ugh fine. Isn’t Kenz supposed to be the rules one?”

Technically true; Kenzie is his legal guardian now—she’s been doing a pretty good job at it too the past couple months, even if she has been a little lax on some rules. Like with the alcohol.

I buckle into the driver’s seat and slowly back the car out of its spot. I hate using it—the only thing left of our parents after all. But Derek will not be dissuaded, and driving feels safer than walking this late at night, even in a sleepy town like Olive Grove.

The streetlamps flicker overhead as we drive down the empty street towards the bridge connecting the north and south parts of town. There’s a small footpath down to the river’s edge there, and the riverbank is pretty flat and easily traversed at that point. It’s probably the best spot to check out this rumor.

“We need to go further up the river! She’s seen where it ends!” My little brother whines as I pull over.

“You’ll just have to put up with this. If we hear the singing, we can follow it there, but I’m not driving gravel roads in the middle of the night in a 15-year-old beater.” But we’re not going to hear anything, because whatever creature these rumors are trying to invoke an image of doesn’t exist.

It can’t exist, right?

None of the paranormal sightings have been proven real—most people think they’re diversions created by the cult to keep eyes off them, and now that the cult is gone, most of the sightings have stopped. This was probably just another one of those stories.

Ghost stories.

As I slip through these comforting thoughts, Derek saunters on up ahead, slowly getting sulkier and sulkier the further he goes without hearing anything but the crickets chirping, frogs groaning, and the occasional owl somewhere in the distance. The mud squishes beneath his no-longer-white sneakers, and the light of the full moon overhead and streetlights on the bridge light up his auburn hair and the water to his right, giving the entire scene a haunted appearance. Why is he insisting on doing this? Everything, especially running water, is so much more dangerous at night. A good older brother would have shut it down before we left, but I was too concerned with being right…

Something moves in the corner of my eye, and I whip around to look at the river’s surface.

“What is it?” Derek comes running, noticing my reaction and getting excited.

“I thought I saw something, probably just a frog or a fish. Whatever it was, all that’s left now are ripples,” I reply, and notice that I very much sound like I’m trying to convince myself more than him. The time of night and the glow of the moon around us has me spooked more than I’d like to admit.

And then a soft sound, sweet and gentle as wind through the branches of a willow, rings out over the water’s surface.

“You heard it too!” Derek exclaims, seeing the shock in my face. “C’mon!” He takes off sprinting through the mud towards the pond at the end of the river just outside of town, flinging mud and God knows what else behind him with every step. I remain frozen in place, not sure what to trust. I swear I heard a woman asking—begging—me to listen to her, but I can’t hear her anymore. I want to, and so I stand still as I can, close my eyes, and listen. But the voice doesn’t come. All I can hear is Derek’s footsteps as they fade away, and I briefly feel anger at him for interrupting the beautiful sound of the woman.

But then I can’t hear him anymore.

Come to think of it, I don’t hear anything anymore.

The birds, crickets, and frogs that are normally so plentiful around the river at night have fallen eerily silent. That snaps me back to reality. If nothing feels safe making a sound, then we’re in danger, and I need to get my little brother back. I take off running after him.

The mud squelches beneath my feet as the water gently laps at the shore, feeling like it’s inching further up the bank and closer to me with every step. Why was I so content to stand there and listen while my baby brother took off into the night? And if it has something to do with the voice, why didn’t he react the same way?

My chest starts to feel tight the further I run, and I can’t seem to catch my breath. I slow down, and then a silvery voice on the wind echoes clearer than before in my ears:

“Listen.”

My feet root to the spot, almst pitching me forward into the mud with the sudden halt in momentum, and I instinctively close my eyes to focus on the noises around me. Somewhere in the back of my mind is the nagging feeling that there’s something more important that I need to be doing, but I can’t quite recall what that is. I just want to listen to the sounds of the night and that beautiful voice. But it doesn’t come again, and all at once the nagging feeling becomes a remembering: Derek is what, or rather who, I was after. The night is still eerily silent, and I don’t know what the hell I was listening for, but clearly something isn’t right.

I start forward again, but more cautiously this time. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know it isn’t good. I don’t like this strange voice, or the power it seems to have over me, but my God if it isn’t beautiful…

I see a flash of light just up ahead as Derek holds his phone out in front of him, facing the river. I assume he’s getting a video of whatever is happening. A pit forms in my stomach as he inches closer to the water’s edge; a silvery snake wrapping around the safety of the mud and grass beneath our feet, waiting to pull him under just like the woman in his story.

“Do you see anything?” He calls back to me, and before I can reply something swishes stealthily in the deepest part of the river, gently slipping along the surface before disappearing back into the depths, leaving only bubbles behind. I force myself not to jump, that would just send Derek into a frenzy and if something is here, this is the last place I want him to be.

“No,” I lie through gritted teeth, “nothing. Why don’t we call it a night? It’s getting—”

“Listen to me.” The whisper-soft voice commands. This time, instead of silence, a beautiful song fills my ears and carries me away. I try to focus on Derek as he straightens up, staring into the reservoir at the end of the river in front of him, one foot inching closer still to the silvery water. But the world inevitably fades away as I listen to the wordless melody echoing in my ears and forget exactly why I’m here, or who I was supposed to be following. I know I wanted to leave, but now that idea seems ridiculous—why wouldn’t I stay for such a heartfelt performance?

I feel a strange weightlessness and then something hitting my side and cradling my head—did I fall into the mud? It doesn’t hurt like it should, but that’s what the sensation reminds me of. I can’t open my eyes to check, fully engrossed in the beauty of the song that surrounds me so entirely that I start to lose track of where I am.

The edges of my vision begin to darken as bubbles break the water’s surface and the song abruptly ends.

The voice whispers, “sleep now, young one. Sleep, and forget.”

And so I sleep.

***

I try to open my eyes, but the light is too bright. What happened? Where am I? My throat feels like I swallowed razors, and it hurts to breathe.

“Travis?” Someone calls my name, but it’s muffled. The light is making my head hurt.

“Travis, please wake up; look at me” A little bit clearer now, and familiar. I turn my head towards the sound and try to open my eyes again. It’s still too bright, but not looking directly up helps a little. Kenzie is sitting next to me, holding my hand. Her eyes are red and swollen, and her cheeks are stained from tears. The backdrop looks like a hospital room. How did I get here? I try to speak, but a hoarse grumble is all that comes out.

“Don’t,” she says quietly, shaking her head. “You’ll just hurt yourself; the doctors said you must’ve inhaled a lot of silt while you were underwater, your throat’s scratched up pretty bad. Do you remember what happened?”

A simple question, but I can’t answer it. I think as hard as I can, but I don’t remember anything after getting out of the car at the river access point. Derek was walking in front of me and then…

I close my eyes and try to focus on what came next, but swirling darkness is all I see. I shake my head.

“Do you know where Derek is?” That snaps me to full attention. What does she mean? He wasn’t with me?

“I’ll take that as a no. Ms. Crowley was out walking her dogs along the riverbank and saw your hand sticking out of the water, she pulled you out and called 911, did first aid until they got there. But she said you were alone. Your pockets were empty, so the police think you two got mugged, but there’s been no sign of Derek anywhere. I never should have let you two go down there…” her voice breaks, and she begins to sob. I squeeze her hand, but I can feel the tears streaming down my face as well. I want to remember; I want to help find him… but I’m coming up blank. A couple of uniformed officers knock on the open door and ask if it’s a good time, and Kenzie hands me a pen and paper so that I don’t hurt my throat anymore. Not that I’ll be any help…

In the end, the botched mugging is the story the police go with, but I can’t rid myself of the nagging feeling that there’s much more to it then that. If I was in the river, why wouldn’t Derek have been there too? We should have found him by now. The story that he told me rings in my ears over and over again, and I wonder if maybe there’s a hint of truth in any of those words. I wish I could remember. It terrifies me that I can’t, and that he could vanish so completely.

Kenzie and I petition for the river to be searched. When the divers find nothing, we petition for it to be dredged. They don’t find so much as a scrap of clothing. We put up posters in all the towns of the county, pester the police as much as we can, and do everything we can to not sit still and wait for bad news.

As weeks turn to months, we just can’t let him go. I lock our shared room and sleep on the couch to avoid all the reminders of him that we can’t bear to part with, but also can’t bear to see. We try to hold out hope that we’ll find him; that he got mixed up with whoever robbed us and he’ll walk through the door any day. But the police can’t track his phone—can’t even find it on the network, so it’s turned off or dead—and no one in the entire county has seen him anywhere. He’s seemingly disappeared without a trace.

And there’s one more strange thing.

Every night when I close my eyes to go to sleep, all I see is bubbles rising through muddy water, and hear a voice calling, urging me back to the river’s edge.

And I’m afraid that one of these nights, I might listen.