Ellen Booraem - River Magic

The river is wide and calm in front of our house, like it never meant you any harm. But you hear the rapids all the time a quarter mile around the bend. Heres what those rapids are telling you: Do not mess with this river.

Mimthats what we call our momshe wanted to move away from the river after what happened to Annabelle, but we never did it. Annabelle was Mims big sister, always lived in Maineabout always lived with usand she loved this river. Wed be leaving her behind if we ran away.

The river being across the road is why Mim and my dad bought this house in the first place. When my dad leftjust before I was bornAnnabelle moved in to help out, and a few years later she and Mim started ripping stuff down and adding on and you should see it, its amazing, everything built in like its a boat.

Annabelle carved fruits and vegetables and animals in the woodwork, and in surprise places like inside the bookshelf. You pull out Petersons Field Guide to Birds and, whoa, theres a nest of sparrows.

She painted the ceilings: a sunset in the living room, the constellation Ursa Major over my bedthats the one with the Big Dipper, and it glows in the dark. Everywhere you look, theres Annabelle having a blast.

On May 8, eight months after Annabelle drowned, I started hearing her voice in my head.

I got a thirty-six in vocabulary that day, even though I tried real hard, and I was lying on my bed after school all miserable and sorry and listening to the rapids gurgle and sploosh, and I said right out loud, Annabelle, where are you? Because she used to help me study and when that didnt work we made brownies.

I got this buzzy feeling and there was Annabelles voice in my head, almost like it came out of the rapids, except it was sweet and smooth, calm like deep water. Heres what she said: Keep your tools sharp and oiled. Floss your teeth. Hello, Donna.

Annabelle, I whispered. Is this you?

Of course its me. Jeezm, who else?

I almost cried, except I didnt because Id totally lose it once I got started. I miss you. Where are you?

Never mind that. Feeling anxious? Rub lavender oil on your temples.

That last thing was right out of Annabelles Guide to Everyday Household Mechanics. It was a big blue loose-leaf notebook with 278 pagesexcept pages 115 to 118 were missing, which makes 274. Annabelle kept it in the kitchen, and it was full of recipes and instructions and advice, even poetry. I was into the Guide all the time now, trying to do chores Mim didnt have time for.

So I was sure it was my own head talking. Man, I wanted that voice to be Annabelle.

Youre fine. Youre smart. Not everybodys good at language arts. Which Annabelle used to tell me a lot, so those words would be in my head too. Never heard them from anybody elseMim didnt talk about feelings too much and my big sister Janice... she had nothing good to say about me anymore.

Everybody should have an Annabelle. She had bright blue eyes and white hair she got when she was thirty-five, and she was little and sturdy like Mim and me, and gave amazing hugs. She taught me rope knots and knitting and woodworking, also how to get calm by doing stuff with your hands, which is like Mim and now its like me.

Annabelles voice started showing up every night to drift me asleep.

Annabelle, I whispered. Im going to pretend this is really you.

Good plan.

Losing Annabelle changed a lot of things.

When she and Mim were kids, they had to move in with their rich cousin Bettys parents because their dad was let go from his job. Annabelle always said Cousin Betty made them feel small for being poor. After Annabelle died, Mim was in the same situation all over again because of the loans she and Annabelle took out so Mim could leave her desk jobshes a carpenter supervisor up to the university. They wanted to start their own carpentry businesswell, Annabelle did, and she talked Mim into it. They bought tools and a shiny red truck, and I got to help them build a workshop out back. Mim was supposed to quit her job after Labor Day.

But Annabelle died the end of August. Mim already remortgaged the house by then, and even with the extra work she took on there was no way to keep up with all the bills. She even dropped the insurance on the red truck, which meant we couldnt use it anymore

So now Mim wanted to send me to live with Cousin Betty, plus her Evil Boy Twins. For the whole summer. At their ugly house in Southern Maine, on a pond full of leeches.

Every video chat all winter, Cousin Betty kept saying I should come babysit the twins so she could concentrate on her mail-order bug spray business. Mim said sending your kids to live with relatives is what you do when times get tough.

She liked to say she got strong when she was a kid because of Cousin Betty being so mean, and thats why she succeeded in a mans profession. She said Cousin Bettys grown out of her meanness, mostly.

I didnt care. The one time I met Cousin Betty in person, Evil Boy Twin Andrew gave me chocolate that turned out to be Ex-Lax, plus I got a leech on me.

I really needed to stay home.

Okay, so I was hearing my dead aunt in my head. But then things got even weirder, because a lady named Vilma Bliksem moved into Mrs. Wittinghams house uphill from us. She was odd, we could tell from the start. Then she kept getting odder and odder until...

Well, better start at the beginning.

I found out about the new neighbor at breakfast, about a week after I started hearing Annabelles voice. Janice was eating a thing of yogurt and Mim was packing up her briefcase and she said, Dana at the store tells me the Wittingham kids rented their moms house to some lady. Dont know her name. Mrs. Wittingham was old, and she died about a month after Annabelle.