Rabbit Ears Read online

  RABBIT EARS

  MAGGIE DE VRIES

  Dedication

  To sisters and friends.

  In memory of my sister Sarah and my friend Amanda.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  AFTERWORD

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  About the Author

  Praise

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER ONE

  Kaya

  Cities don’t get dark. You thought they did, but they don’t. Not dark like this.

  The blackness excites you, zipping sparks through your arms and legs. And you look up. Up. Up past the trees to the stars. Thousands. Millions. Billions of them. The sparks shoot right into your skull, zap your eye sockets; you suck in air and feel your face open into a massive grin.

  Once you are on the dirt driveway out of sight of the old summer-house, you turn on your light, but it’s still tough picking your way down the slope to the road. It’s pitch-dark here too, on the pavement. No street lights. You’re more likely to be run down than picked up. Still, the grin won’t leave you. The sparks go on zipping away inside.

  Your penlight doesn’t give you much to go by, but you stride along anyway, trusting the pavement to meet your feet, twirling once in a while, stirring up a breeze, breathing in the smell of the trees, the ocean salt and the dark. After a while you hear a car, turn and shine the light on yourself, standing well away from the road. The car flies by. You thrust your fist into the air, shine your little light on it and raise your middle finger, hoping the asshole’s looking in his rear-view mirror. And on you stride. You’ll walk all the way if you have to.

  Another car. This one slows down beside you, and stops.

  You walk over and lean in the open window. The driver flips on the inside light, and your grin drops from your face. A white-haired man is alone in the car, hunched over the steering wheel, like it’s attached to him or something. A comb-over flops across his forehead. For a second you think … but no. Still, you step back. Your blood has stopped burning. Your body has stopped vibrating. You do not want a ride from this man. He leans just a little in your direction, a kind of furrowed smile on his face.

  “Where are you off to, young lady?” he says.

  You tell the truth. “Big Tribune.”

  “All on your own?”

  “I’m meeting friends.” Forget the truth. “They … they’ll be along any minute.”

  He squints as he peers up at you, but you turn the flashlight off so that he is looking from light into dark.

  “All right, then,” he says at last. “I hope you’ll be careful.”

  “I always am,” you say, letting him see your best copy of a smile.

  As he pulls away, you breathe relief.

  You walk on. You’re not going back to that house. You won’t. Your blood stays cool, though. You shiver, even with the sweater. Your flip-flops wear away at your toes.

  Beth

  Despite the sputtering fan, it’s hot in the room at the top of the ramshackle house, but I don’t care. Sweat trickles down the back of my neck; my T-shirt sticks to my back, but it doesn’t matter. I love it here. Later, when my light is out and all the bats are asleep in the rafters, I’ll open the floor-to-ceiling window and fall asleep in the late-August midnight breeze. For now, my light is on. I am arranging my beach glass on the windowsill.

  I turn the newest piece over and over. I love its dull smoothness, all its shine and sharp edges worn away by the sea. This one is pale pink; its ridges once formed part of a letter. An a maybe. I settle it into its spot and crab-crawl back across my mattress to sit with my back flat to the wall. Sabriel lies spine up, pages splayed, on the bed beside me, but I don’t feel like reading.

  I look at my watch. 10:14. Mom is probably asleep. And Kaya too, I guess. I was worried about Kaya and the island nights. Petrified, actually. I know what goes on here, the raves and things, and she’s just barely thirteen. The first few nights, I stayed up late, and even after I went to bed, I slipped back down, over and over, and peeked into her room. She was always snug in bed by ten. You’d never know she’s the kind of kid to get in so much trouble.

  Kaya

  You are out of the trees when the next car comes by, and the moon is lighting up the horizon, just getting ready to rise. The car pulls to a stop, laughter pouring from its open windows. It’s full of girls. Jammed.

  “You off to Big Trib?” one shouts at you, much too loud with the car pulled up close.

  “Course she is,” another voice shouts as the back door swings open. “Hop in.”

  And you do, fitting yourself into a sliver of space after the girl who opened the door shifts onto a nearby lap.

  At first the talk and laughter flow over you. You give short answers to one or two questions, but in your head you’re still out there on the road, shivering and sore.

  “You’re a bit of a downer,” one of them says. “Here, have a swig of this.”

  She’s reaching around from the front seat, holding out a mickey. Just the sight of it warms you up, starting in your gut.

  You take a swig and sputter. “What the hell is this?”

  “Bit of this, bit of that,” the girl next to you says.

  “Well, it’s disgusting,” you say as it snugs into a cozy, warm ball in your chest. You take another gulp.

  “Hey, leave some for the rest of us!” the lap-rider shouts, and you pass it along, but the gross concoction has done its job. The sparks are back.

  They have to park a long way from the beach, and they have a lot of stuff to carry. “Thanks for the ride,” you say as they unpack the car. “I’m just going to—”

  “What? You’re going to take off on us? Come on! At least you can carry one end of the cooler.”

  “You might not like the beach on your own,” hop-in girl says.

  “Oh, I’ll be all right,” you say. “I’m meeting some people. Thanks again.” You take several steps backward into the dark.

  “Let her go,” another girl says. “Some people are just ungrateful.”

  “Hey, I said thanks,” you say, but by then the dark has swallowed you. You turn and walk a long way down the road before you flip on your light.

  It takes a while to find the short bit of trail that leads out onto the sand, and you listen for those girls catching up. There’s something about girls all together like that. You’ll take a bunch of guys any day. At last an entwined couple stumbles onto the road right in front of you. They can only have come along the trail. You’ve found it. Light aimed at the ground, you pick your way through the narrow band of trees. Sound reaches you first: a rumble of voices punctuated by roars and shouts; the crackling of the nearest fires; the swooshing of waves washing high on the beach. You come out of the trees and stop.

  The beach is nothing like it was in the afternoon. The tide has consumed it, all but the heaps of driftwood that line the beach above the tide-line. The wood makes ghostly shapes in the dark, and moonlight makes a white stripe across the expanse of water, ending right at your feet. Along the water’s edge to your left and all the way down to the dark cliffs at the other end of the beach: orange-red flames and the dark shadows of partiers.

  Excitement licks at you as you
remember Adam from the afternoon, the tilt of his grin, the tattooed ring around his upper arm, the sand dried into his hair.

  A fire would be great. Your thin sweater is not keeping out the midnight chill. But the water calls to you too. The water and the moon.

  After all, tomorrow morning you are leaving the island, heading home, back to dry land, dry life.

  You thought today’s afternoon swim was your last. This afternoon you dove deep, but your life followed you. Your life reached down, down, down into the water of the bay, grasped you in one grimy paw, squeezed your mouth open with the other, and shoved itself right down your throat.

  Furious, you surfaced and gasped for air, stood in the shallows staring at a round red umbrella. You couldn’t see her from that distance, but you knew your mother was there. She had brought you to this island to keep you safe, but tomorrow she was taking you home. Not just home … to school. High school.

  You stumbled onto the shore, heading away from the families to the part of the beach where the leftover hippies hang out.

  It’s 1997; flower power is long gone, but some of these people haven’t heard.

  Now, in the moonlit night, you are in need of one last Hornby Island swim. Adam will just have to wait.

  Instead of turning left toward the beach, you turn right, away from the line of fires, and pick your way along the shore toward the point. No sand here, just rock, and water has overrun almost all of it, so you are alone. The moon lights your way, and, after a bit, you reach a jutting rock almost in the shadow of the trees. You sit. The moon has followed you and you look up at it, wondering. It is a little more than half of itself, a sort of oblong lump. But still. The moon’s the moon.

  The water makes peaceful lapping sounds right near your toes. The fires and the partiers seem far away. The humid air feels warm, suddenly; you stop shivering and gaze at the calm water, at the boats that float mirage-like near where you swam in the afternoon.

  You push off your flip-flops first. Then you stand and let the damp cool of the stone sink into your soles, smooth and delicious. Just in case the tide isn’t done rising, you put your shoes side by side, up high where you have been sitting. You take off your sweater, ball it up and tuck your bag in the middle. That goes on top of the shoes. Your dress comes next.

  For a moment you stand naked in the moonlight.

  Then you walk into the water, feet certain on the stone.

  The water has barely reached your thighs when you crouch, lean forward and tip yourself in. In the water you change. You become a creature of the sea. Your skin is as slick as a seal’s pelt; your feet, as flexible as flippers; your legs and torso, designed for the deeps.

  The water is very cold, but that hardly bothers you at all. Eyes wide, you swim every which way, following the sparkling light as it tries to reach the bottom of the sea. Then, still deep down, you flip onto your back, look up and see the moon itself.

  You’re under water on earth, you think, and you’re looking at the moon. It occurs to you to fill yourself up with water, to draw it deep into your lungs, weigh yourself down with it, so that your body sinks and you lie forever on the ocean floor gazing up at the moon, at the stars, at the sun, through unblinking eyes, as time passes on and on in the dry-land world, as nights turn to days and to nights again. You would never have to be that girl again.

  You part your lips and feel the water on your tongue. Releasing a string of bubbles as you go, you shoot to the surface for some air. The cold is getting the better of you. You need one of those roaring fires right about now.

  Moments later, standing full out of the water with the moonlight at your back, you see two figures sitting right where your clothes are supposed to be.

  “I told you she’d be naked,” one of them says.

  Beth

  The heat wakes me up, and I roll over on the hard bed and toss the sheet off. It’s all tangled up with my ankles and I sit up to get it free. Sweat dribbles—actually dribbles—out of my hair and down my neck. I swipe at it and stare out into the black. The air in the room is heavy and still. Bats will be tucked up in the rafters by now, and I decide to take my chances with the mosquitoes. Time to let the outside in.

  Without switching on the light, I feel my way to the window latch, careful not to mess with my bits of glass. Window open, I let that cool air wash over me, take a deep breath, heave myself to my feet and head for the door. I need to pee.

  On the landing, one floor down, I stop. The door to Kaya’s room is ajar. A familiar fear ripples through my rib cage and into my belly. She must have left the door open to let in some air. Seconds tick by as I listen for the sound of some nice deep-sleep breathing. The silence hurts my head. I could just carry on to the bathroom and go back to bed.

  No, I could not. I push. The door opens and I slip through. Once in, I know the bed is empty, but I check anyway. Sybilla whines softly and I reach down and stroke her. The dog is curled up right on Kaya’s pillow, even though she’s too big for it, and Kaya is gone.

  I think for the briefest moment about waking Mom, about getting in the car, searching the island, tracking down my wayward sister.

  But letting Mom know seems so awful, so real. And Mom’s jittery weeping—I can’t take another minute of that. How likely is it that we’d find Kaya anyway?

  I go down to the bathroom, pee, come back up and slip into Kaya’s bed, pushing Sybilla down onto the rug.

  I’m going to wait for her right here.

  Kaya

  Your seal’s pelt, your flippers, the wonders of the deep—they all drop away. You stand wet and cold in your human skin; a shiver runs the length of your body and brings your teeth clanking together. Feeling a spurt of rage, you step forward. No one is going to humiliate you.

  “Get away from my clothes,” you say, and take another step.

  You can make out the two boys in the moonlight. Drunk and stupid.

  “I said, step away from my clothes.”

  “Hey, we’ll give you your clothes when we feel like it,” one says, but the other has already sidled off a bit.

  They don’t try to stop you when you walk right up, snatch your dress and put it on. “What are you? Twelve?” you say as you force your wet arms into the sleeves of your sweater. Your bag falls and you have to scramble for it.

  “Fourteen,” the sidler says.

  “Shut up, Justin.” That’s the other one.

  You will your heart to slow down and your body to warm up. You really need one of those fires. And you do not like the clenched teeth in the boy’s voice when he tells his friend to shut up.

  “I’m cold,” you say. “I’m going to find a fire.” Then, “Come if you want.” That way, if they choose to follow, it’s at your invitation. You hope you’ll find the guys who smoked you up before the two dweebs find their friends. You don’t want to deal with a whole pack of boys.

  You walk in the shallows, peering into the gatherings around the fires, searching for anyone familiar. The beach is alive with bodies, with shouts, with laughter and fire, and the heavy smell of smoke. Excitement prickles at you, but you stay well back, for now.

  The girls from the car are the first people you recognize, and you pick up your pace, hoping that Justin and his friend will drop off. These girls seem more their speed. The boys probably haven’t seen many naked girls in their lives, though—maybe you are the first—because they stick to you like pollen on a bee.

  “Where are you going?” Justin asks more than once.

  “You don’t have to come,” you reply.

  You wrung out your annoying quantities of hair before you put on your sweater, but it still sends a river down your back. Your dress clings to your skin. The beach goes on forever. This afternoon the guys with the tokes were at the far end. That’s where they should be now, but it’s hard to tell who’s who in the dark. You don’t want to walk up and peer right into faces.

  “Hey, babe,” a voice shouts from one of the fires, “come have a beer.”


  “No, thanks,” you call back, and walk on.

  As you approach another fire, a figure turns, looks for a moment and stumbles toward the water. “Hey, babe,” he says as he falls into lumbering step beside you.

  What is it with these guys? Is that the only phrase they know? Fear thickens your limbs, dulls the prickles.

  The guy stops dead, half blocking your path. “You’re wet,” he slurs.

  “Yeah,” you say. “And I’m with him.” You grab Justin’s arm and pull him to your side. He looks at you in surprise.

  As soon as you’ve put those guys behind you, you drop Justin’s arm and pick up your pace.

  “We’re, uh … we’re going to head back,” he says when the cliffs at the north end of the beach loom close. The other guy, the gruff one, does not meet your eyes before they turn.

  Well, at least you’re rid of them.

  Feet back on dry sand, you look up the beach toward the last in the long line of fires. It lights a wooden shelter, massive and intricate—a shelter you recognize. You sat there this afternoon, talking to a bunch of hippies while your bikini dried. The sight of the familiar driftwood construction lit by an enormous blaze sends that wild, free feeling through you again, much stronger now. Your whole body tingles.

  You walk closer. “Adam?” you call.

  A man steps away from the group, backlit by the fire, frontlit by the moon.

  “You’re wet,” he says.

  “I went for a swim.”

  “Hey, guys,” he calls over his shoulder, “uh …”

  “Kaya,” you say.

  “Kaya is back.”

  Another guy jumps up and offers you a spot on a log near the fire. Adam puts a beer into your hand and a girl with dreadlocks passes you a fat joint. You take a swig and a toke and hold out your legs toward the flames. Energy courses around the fire, bottles clank and a log collapses, sending a whoosh of flames and sparks into the dark. You breathe the smell of woodsmoke and soak in the warmth. Your face and your shoulders relax.

  Adam sits down beside you and puts his hand on your knee. He lives on the big island and comes over here as much as he can in the summer. He doesn’t really work or go to school; he was a bit vague this afternoon on what he actually does, but so were you. He’s tall and slim but not skinny. His skin is so smooth and kind of gleaming that in the heat of the afternoon, you wanted to run your finger down the centre of his bare chest. He’s clean-shaven and his thick, dark hair is pulled back into a stubby ponytail.