East Six
Deepest Lagoons
She is life. . . for me. . .
Styx read his phone, then gave me a look. I was starting to recognize it easily now. He was contemplating. The lagoon pool was closed, and I was throwing away the pizza box. After an exhale, I asked, “Going to tell me why you keep studying your phone?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I promised I would.”
My mouth gaped as my air was robbed from me. I barely had enough to say, “Misfits.”
He appeared to hate being the bearer of bad news. “Yeah, I’m sorry, Baby Boy. They are showing signs.” He attempted to explain, “Even though Sea-Dude is gone, my vow still remains—”
Fear rocketed through me like a fire consuming a forest of nature’s animals. My animals. My fellow fosters. My… chosen family. I roared to the high ceiling, “But what is this damn vow?”
Like a bull sure to keep a testosterone-riddled elephant in check, this man roared back, “To protect the gates!”
“What gates?”
“Yours!”
Only our heavy breaths made a peep in the huge room.
Everything else was still, quiet, waiting for me to start to comprehend his meaning.
So far, I had been consumed with worry and selfish needs.
I had realized there was a much bigger universe out there but failed to recognize how much it had to do with me, or what I actually was.
Thinking back to the book, and how the mythical River Styx helps souls cross over after they die, I asked, “I’m the underworld?” not wanting to sound as scared as I suddenly was with such a possibility. Not that I had a clue what it even meant. I just imagined… Hell.
His whole form exhaled, from exhaustion and possibly also confusion of his own, but his answer felt as if he believed it. “No. I think you’re the Boundary.”
As my head drew back and I blinked in dismay, I asked, “Boundary to what?”
He actually smiled; however, it was laced with a magnificent fascination. “That is something you have to tell me someday.” He added, “But I can tell you what I suspect.”
Throughout all these years of my life, the ones after Dad passed, the number of times I felt the earth shift under my feet, it was a miracle I knew how to stand at all.
With an exposed heart and a vulnerable side I didn’t show many, I said, “I would be grateful.”
As he spoke, I could sense his awe. “For me, it starts with the boat. When I first saw the Sea-Dude. At first, he was all I saw. Then fear… for my child.” He inhaled so deeply.
“But after the cut to the arm, I felt all of this knowledge.” His hands raised to either side of his head, then began to widen.
“My perception changed, so epically, it was as if I gained fifty more sets of eyes. For a short amount of time, I was able to see all around me at once. And all that was around me was nothing I had ever thought everything to be.”
His past words, Nothing is as it seems, echoed through my spirit.
“And the thing is, kid, I believe I only touched the mere edge of that knowledge.” He pointed to me.
“Not only do I think you can see way more, when ready, but… I think you are way more.” His hands tried to erase his words as they floated to me.
“Not that that hasn’t been made clear with fangs and all, but…
” His eyes squinted as he stared at the floor between us.
“I think the knowledge, the ‘being’ that knowledge actually is, what it consists of if we tried to imagine it to be physical—which limits the unlimited—” He looked at me and saw my baffled expression.
“I’m starting to sound like Sea-Dude, ain’t I? ”
I nodded.
He chuckled, mumbling to himself, “Now I feel sorry for the scary dude.”
“Styx.”
He shook his head to clear it. “Right.” He stared me in the eyes.
“Anyway, I think you—your kind—are what I am to protect because you are the boundary to such wisdom. I believe the myth calls it the Underworld because it is happening right under humanity’s feet—right in front of their blind eyes.
The blindness is the facade. The worry over trivial matters is the trickery.
It is the pathway of the truth.” He pointed to me again.
Jesus Christ… I stared at my hand that had infected my dear friends. “What have I done, Styx?”
He came to stand in front of me. “Not sure yet, but you never meant them harm. You were trying to give them strength by leaving.”
Ever so slowly, I peered up at my grandfather, then growled, “How do you know that?”
As if happy to have been caught, he smirked. “Silly little rabbit, we have been watching you all along.”
What? Wait… Who is we?
One week later…
We had made so much progress in just days with the tunnel.
We were like coal miners, with shovels, tools, buckets, and wheelbarrows to remove dirt.
Constantly having to stabilize the earth around us so it wouldn’t cave in.
Then we secured the hand-dug walls to add concrete.
Luckily, Gramps was an expert by now; he and Dad had gotten so far.
When we needed breaks, mine was in the ocean with Saleeni. No pun intended, but she was a sponge for knowledge. Absolutely ravenous for more hand signs to learn. Learning to speak continued to piss her off, endlessly, but kissing was still a favorite activity.
In the water, soft lips on mine fueled me to go back to work.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain to her to swim through it eventually, but hoped Styx would have a plan for that, too.
Like the rope ladder I now used to leave the ocean behind.
It hung over the ledge of the wall and was eight feet long.
Styx thought it best in case a boat was floating by.
I guess seeing a mermaid lifting a young man to the top of a seawall would raise eyebrows.
Not that I needed her to anymore. I was now able to propel myself to the top.
Not exactly sure how; it just came naturally.
After waving goodbye to Saleeni, I’d strip on the way to my bedroom entrance. Waiting for me was a dry towel and fresh clothes. I’d hang everything wet on a portable rack to dry in the sun.
Inside, I grabbed my phone. Since I had stayed true to my word and made no calls, Styx entrusted me with a burner cell. I opened fake social media accounts, hoping to catch a glimpse of my fellow fosters; however, they stayed true to their word, too. Dale hated social media for kids.
This is not to say I didn’t scan the internet for news about them. That’s how I came across a video that had gone viral.
Walking into the Lagoon, AKA the center of the clubhouse, I grumbled, “That fucking piece of shit.”
“What’s going on?” asked Styx while he added beautiful river rock to the inner walls of the pool.
The colors I picked were like Saleeni’s hair —Labradorite blue. I didn’t care how expensive it was. Nor did Styx. He just kept smiling, seeing Dad’s vision coming to fruition.
I walked to the edge, still watching the video. “The lying-murdering-child-molesting pastor.”
Skimming more mortar onto the wall he was working on, he practically cheered, “I will enjoy witnessing his death.”
Feeling so trapped and helpless about his crimes, I yelled to no one in particular, “Damn! I want him dead now!”
Styx simply kept working. “Stop being so anchored to your storm, Silly Rabbit.”
“I am the mother fucking storm, asshole.” I headed to the freezer for nuclear food.
He chuckled. “Said like a true Prez.”
“Stop trying to put me in a good mood.”
He only laughed harder.
After I ate, I put on dirty work boots, and headed into the pool. “Which coal-mining Snow White dwarf will you be today?”
Eyeing a wheelbarrow over his shoulder, he replied, “Sneezy, since Grumpy is already taken.”
My upper lip curled as I entered the tunnel. With it only being four feet tall, I had to stay hunched over for the completed section. Waterproof lights in the ceiling could be set to different colors. We weren’t sure what one Saleeni would prefer.
The part of the tunnel still under construction had temporary hanging lights.
In the dirt, I got to my knees and started tearing at the earth with a pickaxe.
The manual labor helped my mood and kept me busy from overthinking; however, after an hour, Sneezy’s cell rang.
As he left, I heard him answering it, “Talk.”
Back to digging at dirt, I sneered, “Now who’s Grumpy?”
Within minutes, I felt weak, and I swear Sarah blew through me. Dropping the tool, I grabbed my stomach and started making my way back through the tunnel. “Sarah.”
Once clearing the entrance to the pool, I saw Styx’s back, and he was growling into the phone, “She’s elbows deep now—”
“Sarah?”
He spun around, still speaking into the phone. “Get on it.” Sliding his cell into his front pocket, he told me, “Sarah is fine.” Whatever just went down, he was livid. His lips were flat.
I needed him to understand. “But I felt her—”
“I bet you did!” he roared. “How the fuck does she know my name?”
Well, shit.
That night, I stayed clear of Styx, who totally lacked his usual humor, due to my nightmare that revealed his road name-slash-vow name. As I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, exhausted from more than one kind of upheaval, my eyes began to slide shut. I whispered, “Good night, Saleeni.”
The nightmare came fast, and it came hard:
As soon as my eyes open, they begin to water and burn, not wanting to stay open. I’m on the living room floor, right where I had been fighting him. I don’t remember the last hit that knocked me out, but my head hurts so bad I’m sure he used a bat or board of some sort.
My lungs seize as I roll over, choking on smoke—
I bump into what feels like a body to my right. I rush to my knees, and the fire’s glow illuminates my mom, her lifeless—once vivid—blue eyes staring at me.
No! Mom!
I want to scream. I want to roar a promise of revenge but can’t get clean air into my lungs. I can only cough, pitifully.
Now my eyes water for another reason beyond burning furniture and smoke. She must have come to help me… Wait. But then who is hiding with—