The River Boy Read online

river … and disappeared.

  She had such a good time that she forgot how late it was and stayed long and had to run all the way up the mountain to get home before her parents came looking for her. They were waiting impatiently, worried, and they paid more attention to her that evening than usual, wondering if they were neglecting their daughter this summer when she had no friends.

  Her father watched her all that evening and spoke to Ella later when they were alone. "Have you noticed Trish lately? I swear she looks … " He stopped a moment, embarrassed, then went on. " … different."

  "Maybe she's sick."

  "Not sick." He tried to form a mental picture of their daughter but the change was too subtle to see, even in his imagination. "Just … different."

  "She's growing up."

  The next afternoon as Trish strode past, he touched her arm. "It's the sun," he said almost to himself. "Just the sun."

  Ella came by. "She's fine dear." Then, frowning uncertainly, "Maybe you are tired. Stay home today, Trish.

  "I'm not tired."

  Trish pulled her arm free and hurried to her room where she stared at herself in the mirror, shocked and delighted. More than different. Beautiful, and sexy and he deserved someone like her.

  In the following weeks she filled the evenings with talk and her parents never again tried to make her stay in the house.

  When autumn came, she prepared to go away to school because the public school in the nearby small town wasn't good enough to get her into a decent college. Before she'd met the river boy she'd thought boarding school was a good idea. Now huge tears fell down her face as she pleaded with her parents. "I want to stay here. With you."

  "That's not possible."

  She pouted but it did no good. She cried but tears didn't help. Finally she gave up and asked tonelessly, "When?"

  "Next week." And then in choked voices. "We'll miss you."

  She went to her room where she locked her door and stared at herself in the mirror, turning this way and that. She was beautiful and he wanted her but her parents were going to send her away no matter how she protested.

  When she told him he looked at her hard. "I thought we had time." His voice was that of a wounded deer as he molded her body to his. "We can't wait any longer."

  "I have to say good-bye."

  "They'll lock you up and throw away the key."

  "I won't tell them. Just that I love them."

  He looked into her eyes and couldn't deny her anything. "One week."

  It was a strange week. She hugged her parents a lot.

  "She's homesick and she hasn’t even left." Trish's leaving was harder on her mother, on both of them, than either had expected.

  "She'd go to college next year anyway. It's just one year early."

  "I'll call her every single day."

  The morning of her leaving, Trish hadn't come out of her room by the time John and Ella had finished breakfast and got the car packed. John called, but Trish didn't answer. Ella tapped on her door but there was no response. Finally, in frustration John pounded on the door. Then opened it.

  "She's gone."

  Ella looked about. "She must be outside."

  They circled the house and called her name until they ended up at the path to the river, then they looked at each other and Ella said it out loud. "She's at the river."

  John checked his watch. "There's time but she'd better hurry."

  "She never hurries when she's at the river."

  They started down the path as one person. Ran almost. "She'd better be on her way up! We'd better meet her halfway!"

  "Don't be too hard. She loves the river." Truly loved the ribbon of water at the foot of the mountain.

  They were almost at the bottom. They rounded a curve. The sound of the river hit them. "It's like music."

  "It's just a river."

  "Well, it's a beautiful, musical river." Then Ella's voice died as they heard their daughter … and someone else.

  They ran, rounding a last corner to see their daughter standing beside a strange boy on a huge boulder that jutted out over the river.

  John strode across the boulder to confront the stranger holding his daughter in such a possessive way. Then he stopped. And stared. And understood.

  Everything, the whole summer, the trips to the river, only it hadn't been the river at all that had drawn her down the mountain, it had been this boy … this green boy …

  …green as the water flowing past the boulder, green as the moss waving in the current, and looking at Trish as a man looks at a woman, as she looked back at him. A green boy and their daughter.

  The boy gripped Trish's hand hard, pulling her backwards towards the water. John froze in midstride. "Stop! Please!" The river rushed madly around the boulder, inches from their feet.

  They hesitated, caught between the river and the mountain until Trish said, "I'll talk to them."

  The boy didn't hold her back as she ran to her parents and gathered them in the biggest embrace they could remember. "I love you," she said in a choked voice. "But I love him more."

  Then she dropped her hands and stepped backwards until she was at the edge of the boulder and the reaching, emerald current once more.

  "I do love you," she called to them across the boulder.

  "This is insane!" John called.

  "You'll drown!" Ella said.

  "She won't drown," the green boy said. "She'll be with me."

  Then, hand in hand, they stepped backwards off the boulder and into the roiling, green river below … and disappeared.

  The house still sits high and proud with all of its glass walls following the river that snakes around the base of the mountain. When John and Ella showed it to prospective buyers they didn't mention the path down to the river but everyone who saw it knew that it could lead to a few hours of swimming if they had the energy to make the long climb up the mountain afterwards.

  No one looking at the house thought they'd actually make that climb though everyone said they liked the view and they all loved the green river below.

  John and Ella always agreed. It was a lovely, green river. Green as emeralds. Green as moss. Green as the boy who took their only child.

  ###

  About the Author

  Florence Witkop's stories begin as simple tales of contemporary life, often in small towns or the wilderness she knows so well. Where they go from there is what makes them special. Sometimes they cross genres and contain paranormal, sci/fi, or fantasy elements.

  Most of all, there is a story because what Florence does best is tell stories. Well plotted stories that carry the characters towards a logical conclusion.  Stories that shine light on the human condition.  Stories that her readers can relate to.  Stories they remember long after the reading is over.

  She writes about people who are as normal as apple pie (most of them, anyway) who unexpectedly find themselves in the middle of situations ranging from the heartwarming through the difficult and all the way to the horrendous. People who deal with whatever comes their way until they reach a satisfactory resolution. No unhappy endings. Ever.

  Florence was born in the city and has lived in the suburbs, small towns, the country and the wilderness, where she still lives with her husband and a cowardly cat named Smoke.

  At various times in her career she’s been a confession writer, a copywriter, a ghost writer and an editor. She writes short stories, novellas and novels.  Her work has been categorized as romance, science-fiction, fantasy, mainstream and eco-fiction, to name a few genres that it fits beautifully into.

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