[#008080 “The legend?”] he repeated with a hint of disbelieving amusement coloring tone. [#008080 “Well, it’s right…”] He scanned his corkboard, his pointer finger raised and ready to indicate the famous superstition. But a frown lined the corners of his lips instead. [#008080 “Oh. Huh.”] Son of a gun. Cordelia was right. Despite the dizzying amount of information he’d gathered on the river, there was nothing there on the harrowing tale that surrounded the place. The warnings about the dangerous springtime waters were such common knowledge around town that he supposed he didn’t think it pertinent information to add to the research; it should have been a given. And yet, try as he might, he could not rack his own brain about where the warnings had initially originated. The stories – if any were still told, that is – dated back before his time. What an embarrassing oversight.
Zeke lowered himself onto the floor next to Cordelia as she took out her phone to search for a book on the history of the river as well as the town itself. He craned his neck over her shoulder, gazing at her screen while she scrolled. In retrospect, this was highly impolite, but he was too taken in by the smell of her hair to care much. He smiled and leaned in closer still once she found a book to suit their needs. Her excitement was contagious. Zeke shook his head as she tried to undercut her own findings. [#008080 “Hey, don’t worry about it. This is a really good lead. We can look into it more tomorrow.”]
Although Cordelia seemed deflated that she couldn’t offer him more help, Zeke found that he was constantly impressed and grateful that she was able to offer anything at all. After a year of conducting research on his own, having a sort of partner-in-study was a welcome change of pace. And clearly beneficial; she was already three for three in the course of just one night. Not only had she been the one to suggest they look for clues upstream, but she was also responsible for taking the next steps to research past victims of the river. Now, she discovered this intriguing book which would hopefully help answer more questions. Zeke was beginning to believe she could be his good luck charm. This felt like it was leaps and bounds ahead of where he had ever been in the investigation of this mystery.
The rest of the night was relatively uneventful by comparison. While the two didn’t make any ore progress together, Zeke enjoyed their wandering theories and sidetracked conversations. He sensed it was time for her to leave well before she said anything. It was late and he had kept her from doing anything else for the entire afternoon and evening. He felt selfish about it, but not regretful.
The man stood when she did and offered to walk her part of the way home. The sun had long since made its descent past the horizon and gave way to a dark, starless night. Conway wasn’t a dangerous town by any stretch of the imagination. Well, aside from the river anyways. But Zeke was not naïve about the hazard women faced when walking around alone at night in any place, safe or not. He worried about the pretty young lady traversing the town on her own but did not press the matter when Cordelia said that she’d be fine by herself. Zeke did not want to insinuate anything that would insult her independence. Still, before she left, he insisted that she share her location with him. That way should anything happen, he’d at least have some idea where she, or at the very least her phone, might be. Added to that he also asked that she text him after she arrived safely home. Once she agreed to these terms, the two parted ways with plans to dive deeper into their research the next day. Zeke stayed up until he was sure that Cordelia made it home unscathed. She sent him a very cute picture. He smiled at it then went to sleep with a gentle giddy excitement about whatever lay in store for the pair at the library.
The next day at school, the man showed more interest in the time passing on the clock than his students typically did. He wondered eagerly whether this book could be a key to unlock an element he’d maybe missed in his many days of continuous research. More than that, he was greatly anticipating meeting up with Cordelia again. In the face of Austin’s death, it felt good to be doing something to get to the bottom of it. When he mourned with the rest of the town yesterday, he felt as though he was a long way from feeling anything positive ever again. Yet she’d been there for him, and she made him smile, made him excited. It was difficult to think of anything other than her. Some of that dissipated, however, when he received a text from her that stated that she would be unable to join him at the library. Zeke heaved a heavy sigh at this. He’d continue with the search on his own, of course, but even if he did find something, the thought of not being able to share it with Cordelia immediately left him feeling slightly hollow.
When school let out for the day, Zeke lingered by the entrance with his bike for a while. There was some residual hope that Cordelia would resolve whatever drama had cropped up and still be able to make their date. He waited for a half hour, but it was clear that she would not show. He walked to the nearby library with a little less pep in his step than from when he had started his day.
The library was as familiar to Zeke as it had ever been. He was one of the few patrons who made regular appearances in spite of its uninviting interior. The walls were painted a sickly green, half the tables and chairs were in desperate need of repair, and there was little to no real organization on any of the bookshelves. Still, the elderly librarian at least was a very kind woman. She enjoyed seeing the bespeckled man and always offered him peppermints when he came in. Zeke took them out of politeness although he never consumed them. He wasn’t sure whether or not the hard candy had an expiration date but wanted to err on the side of caution regardless.
Zeke scanned the haphazard shelves in the general area where the online index said the book should be located. It took about ten minutes of searching, but he finally found it some five shelves down and two columns over from where it should have been. [i Conway: Stories and Tales to Tell] was not an impressive book at all. The publication was thin with a faded dull cover of an illustration of City Hall. But Zeke still hoped he’d find what he was looking for within its contents. While he was sure that it wouldn’t be a long read, he settled into a wobbly plastic seat with a cracked back by a nearby window and flipped open the novel to the chapter entitled “Curse of the Rosebell.”
After he finished reading, the man sat back in the chair with his brow furrowed and a frown on his face. He thought that this book might have shined more light on this mystery, maybe led him toward another detail or clue. But it was, in fact, useless. Zeke shut the book with an exasperated snap. The force of it caused the crack at the back of his chair to worsen, so he quickly got up and began walking back to the shelf where he found it. So, the so called ‘legend’ was less that and really more of a fairytale. Beautiful ageless women? Vengeful water spirits? It was too much to be believed. Zeke felt personally affronted that the tale was even included in a nonfiction book; it was laughable. Legends were supposed to spring from truth, not the other way around. How was anyone expected to take this as the cause for all the river incidents at face value?
Zeke shoved the book unceremoniously back on the shelf and made his way to the front desk where the elderly librarian sat thumbing through a houseplant magazine. She looked up as he approached and beamed. [#00CED1 “Find everything alright, dearie?”]
[#008080 “Not exactly. I’m trying to find more information about the origin of the superstition surrounding the Rosebell channel.”]
[#00CED1 “Oh, well, have you tried looking at [i Conway: Stories and Tales to Tell]? If I’m remembering correctly, I believe that should have a decent account of what happened.”]
Zeke scoffed, but quickly covered it with a cough so as to not seem rude. [#008080 “Uh… yeah, I just read it, but there has to be something else, right?”]
The librarian looked thoughtful for a second but shook her head. [#00CED1 “Not that I’m aware of. I’m sorry, dearie.”]
[#008080 “No, no, that’s okay. It was just a little disappointing is all,”] he said dejectedly.
[#00CED1 “Oh? Why’s that?”]
[#008080 “I don’t know. I guess I was expecting more concrete facts, not fairytales.”]
[#00CED1 “Well, the fairytale is the fact, you know.”]
This time Zeke couldn’t help but smirk. [#008080 “You believe that story?”]
[#00CED1 “It’s not just a story, dearie. It happened. As real and true as you and I standing here now.”]
[#008080 “And how do you figure?”] He humored her because he didn’t want to say outright that something like that story couldn’t have happened. People were entitled to their beliefs no matter how delusional.
[#00CED1 “That same spirit that’s in the story took my grandmother, if you can believe it.”] She smiled at the dumbstruck expression on the man’s face. [#00CED1 “That’s right. It was some years ago now. She was by the water with my grandfather and their children one spring day. My grandfather took the three boys further downstream to skip stones in calmer water, but my mom stayed with my grandmother upstream to prepare a picnic for the boys’ return. When they were almost done setting everything out, my grandmother suddenly got up and started walking to the water. My mom said it was like she was dazed, under a spell or something. At first, she thought it was a game, but she saw something in the water that alerted her to something off. A figure’s head bobbing just above the surface. A woman made of water. My mom cried and screamed for her mother to come back, but she went in and was gone. She told people what happened, but everyone assumed she was a child in shock and simply making up stories to explain a suicide.”] The old woman shook her head sadly. [#00CED1 “Terrible, really. A child having to witness something like that. But my mom warned my sister and I growing up about that water. We were never allowed to go near it because of what happened. Because of what [i keeps] happening.”]
By the end of the story, Zeke looked as though he’d seen a ghost. All the color had drained from his face, and he felt like there wasn’t any warmth left in his body. Additionally, his chest was collapsing in on itself, squeezing the air from his lungs and crushing his heart. His knees buckled underneath him, and this caused the librarian to hobble out from behind the counter to help steady him.
[#00CED1 “Are you alright, dearie?”] There was intense alarm and concern in her voice. [#00CED1 “Do you need me to call an ambulance?”]
An ambulance? Yeah, that sounded good, Zeke thought. Something to whisk him away, knock him out, have a machine take care of breathing on his behalf instead of facing this impossible reality. But he knew he couldn’t escape it. Not now that this seed was planted in his brain. It would take root and, if he didn’t act on it, it would consume him. [#008080 “No,”] he managed to choke out hoarsely. [#008080 “No, no. I need… I need that book. Check out the book. Got to go.”] The librarian looked at him dubiously, but she hurried off to look for it, nonetheless. Zeke leaned weakly against the counter in her absence. When she returned with the book in hand, he was grateful that she didn’t badger him with more questions. Instead, she scanned the book’s binding, stamped the back cover, and handed it over along with three individually wrapped candy cane-colored peppermints. [#008080 “T-thank you,”] was all he could manage before he stumbled outside.
It felt a million times easier to breathe in the fresh air, but his head still felt like it was ringing. It was as if he had been in too close of proximity to a bomb. It obliterated his senses, and it was difficult to get his bearings. He clutched the book to his chest like it was a life preserver. All around him the world spun on undisturbed. Birds still sang sweetly from above, people milled around casually looking at their phones, and – [i phones.] Zeke shoved his hand into his pocket and gripped his phone tightly before dialing the only number he could think to call at such a time: Cordelia. She had said that she wanted to hear what he found out as soon as possible, after all. It didn’t cross his mind that she was likely too preoccupied in the aforementioned family drama to answer his phone call. And indeed, he received the robotic voice of the answering machine. He tried to dial the number again, but the results were the same. Zeke’s teeth grinded together as he desperately tried to think of how to get in touch with the one person who might be able to help him make sense of all of this. Then, as he stared imploringly at their exchanged messages as if waiting for an answer from that, he noticed that there was an address from Cordelia’s shared location the night before. Without thinking, he leaped onto his bike and pedaled furiously to get to her as quickly as possible.
Zeke rolled up to Cordelia’s address in record time, flinging his bike onto the ground. The book was still clutched tightly to his chest. He charged up the driveway and to the door, smashing his finger into the doorbell. And, for good measure, he banged on the door with a surprising amount of force. [#008080 [i “Cordelia!”]] he called loudly. [#008080 “Cordelia, it’s me! We have to talk. [i Please!”]] This was the most crazed Zeke had ever been. His normal cool and thoughtful composure had vanished and was completely replaced with something else entirely. He felt out of control, out of his mind. Maybe that was the reason that, instead of waiting for an answer, he placed a hand on the door handle and finding that it was unlocked, he burst into the home uninvited.
Zeke had been so focused on Cordelia, that he was under the impression he'd only find her in her home. Instead, he found himself face to face with who he could only assume to be her entire family. It wasn't an ideal first impression. His eyes were wide, his hair was unkept, his glasses were slightly askew, he still held the dingy book, and he could very well be sued for breaking and entering. Well, entering at the very least. He sputtered, his gray eyes searching wildly for the familiar hazel haired woman. [#008080 "I-I'm sorry. I was l-looking for C-C-Cordelia?"]