Diana Peterfreund - Rites of Spring (Break)

Don’t get me wrong, I was angry at him. Furious! And every time I thought about those terrified moments on the other island, every time I remembered the feeling of tipping over the side of the boat, every time I recalled the very large suspicion I’d had that I would not be surviving the night, I wanted nothing more than to see him eviscerated. By the press, by large, mangy dogs—whatever.

But looking at him lying there on the other side of the boat, broken, frustrated, desperate…looking at the whole family…He’d already been eviscerated. What more could a juvenile court probation accomplish? I thought about how he was fourteen, and he thought he knew everything. And how I was eight years older than that and I couldn’t even imagine how much I didn’t know.

Darren had been so wrong, but what he’d showed me was that a lot of what we did in Rose & Grave without even thinking about it was every bit as wrong.

“Amy, please. I’m begging you. Reconsider this,” Demetria said.

She could. She could reconsider it, once I told her that Darren had poisoned them as well. I took a few shaky steps past her, to Kurt Gehry, and spoke in low tones. “You’re going to fix this. Whatever it takes.”

“Yes.”

“For real. If you decide to ignore it, forget it…well, I won’t.”

“I understand.” He grabbed my hand as if to seal the bond. “Thank you.” I winced when his fingers closed around raw skin, and he dropped my hand in horror.

“I want to leave.”

Demetria was shaking her head. “Amy, please, please…”

“I want to leave.” I wavered on my feet. “Please.” I looked around the boat at my friends, but their expressions were unsure. Where was Poe? Jamie would help me. Wouldn’t he?

Except, where was he now?

Demetria sighed. “Fine.” She turned to Kadie Myer, still on the dock. “Have you used your shampoo?”

“What?” The older girl’s eyes narrowed. “No. Why?”

“Don’t. I’m buying you a new bottle. Will you take us off this island? Tonight?”

Kadie looked at her husband, who spoke up. “As soon as we can get the boat. Yes. Anyone who wants to go.”

Demetria turned to Jenny. “Can you pack up?”

Jenny nodded. “Absolutely.” She and Odile took off.

I sat down on the deck again and leaned my head back. Good. We were leaving.

“As soon as we get the boat back…” Frank was saying to Clarissa, and in the distance, I heard sirens.

It was over.

But of course, it wasn’t over. I slept through the police boat’s arrival and subsequent dismissal, but from the story that Kevin told me later, they were all too happy to get off Cavador Key as soon as they were told the police call was a misunderstanding, a “boating accident.” “Salt and Gehry put on an Academy Award level performance,” he said. “Quite astounding, really.”

“And the rest of them?”

“Stayed out of it!”

I remember getting on the Myers’ yacht, but not why it took so long, and blessedly, I don’t remember a single moment of the trip back to the mainland.

Somehow, I wound up in a fine hotel suite in town (possibly on Jenny’s dime and Odile’s reputation), cocooned inside a massive white comforter, while my fellow knights debated about whether or not to send me home to Ohio. I remember that conversation for sure. Because I remember sitting up and telling them no.

“I don’t agree with a lot of your judgment calls lately, Amy,” Demetria said.

“I don’t care,” I replied. If I went home now, I didn’t know if I’d ever come back again.

“But, Amy,” Clarissa said, “you have to tell your parents.”

I compromised and told my folks I’d been in that alleged boating accident (true) and got tangled up in some ropes (also true), and was banged up a bit, but was okay now (remained to be seen). My mother started crying, and my father begged me to spend the rest of Spring Break at home, where they could keep an eye on me. I basked in their parental love and concern, but I told them I’d rather go build houses in Louisiana with my friends, as planned.

Within a day—thanks to Odile’s no-fail detox diet—I felt back to normal, with nothing more than the scabs on my wrists and ankles to show what had happened to me. From what I was conscious for, there had been a lot of debate among the other members of the club about whether or not they could pursue a case against Darren Gehry without my consent, or barring that, if they could just leak it to the media.

The oath of fidelity was invoked quite a lot. It was my secret, and they were sworn to keep it. As soon as I felt up to the argument, I told them all about Darren’s confession to me on the island, and explained his strange conviction that everything he was doing was par for the course in society pranks.

“But how could he possibly conflate kidnapping and what we do?” Clarissa asked, baffled.

“What we do?” Demetria said, and I practically saw the bulb light itself over her head. “Like breaking and entering? And robbery?”

“And vandalism,” said Ben.

“And hacking and stalking, and…assault.” Jenny bit her lip, and I could see the figure of Micah Price looming large before all of us. “We’re pretty bad.”

No one wants to be shown just how low their moral high ground really is. After that, most of the others came around to my way of thinking, and those who didn’t at least respected my decision.

It bothered me a lot that Poe never called. I don’t remember seeing him on the dock that night, but then again, I couldn’t remember much beyond the stricken faces of the Gehrys.

I stopped Clarissa the following afternoon. I was sitting on the couch of the suite, pretending to watch videos and veg out while I fretted over the situation. “Do people…know where we are?” I asked.

“Malcolm called yesterday,” she said. “I thought you wouldn’t want visitors yet. He’s going back to Alaska, but I’m sure…”

“No, that’s fine,” I said. Malcolm had called. But what about Poe?

That evening, while we were repacking to leave for Louisiana, Josh and Lydia phoned from Spain. The knights had left him a message earlier, asking about the legal ramifications, and Lydia was frantic to know that I was okay. I allayed their fears and reiterated to Josh that there was no way I was pursuing charges against Darren, but all the while I wondered what our patriarch who was actually in law school thought about the matter.

During the long drive up the Gulf Coast with the other Diggers, I finally got to hear bits and pieces of the story from the others’ point of view.

WHAT I KNOW FOR SURE

1)They hadn’t decided that I’d broken the plates in the tomb that day. In fact, Poe had never even brought it up. They were still blaming the campers on the other island by the time Clarissa and Odile reported that I was missing late that afternoon.

2)In his rush, Darren had left his backpack (name conveniently sewed inside) behind on the beach, along with the bottle of bright blue Gatorade and my flip-flops, which must have fallen off when he dragged me to the boat. Inside the backpack was the empty bottle of ipecac syrup and some broken pieces of china. “Trophies,” Demetria had said with a shudder. [14] The confessor suspects Darren was desperate for recognition of his pranks by the time he resorted to kidnapping.

3)They’d gone to the Gehrys to see if Darren knew where I was, but found the Gehrys had little clue as to their son’s whereabouts, which is when Demetria and Ben put two and two together about the location of the backpack and the missing rowboat.