Excerpt from Jane
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The clock read 3:33 when I woke up again. B.D. was lying next to me. Her eyes were open, and she was
staring at the ceiling. Hannah was sleeping on the other side of the bed. She was sleeping on her back
with her mouth open. She must have been dreaming because every once in a while I heard her mutter
something.
I heard a thump against the window.
“It’s storming pretty bad out there,” B.D. whispered. I could hear the rain, thunder, lightning, and the
wind.
I felt B.D.’s warmth against me.
“I didn’t want you to get scared,” B.D. said.
I nodded although I didn’t think she could see me in the dark.
“I didn’t want Mrs. Paine to scare you.” She rolled over carefully and slowly to face me. “She gets crazy
sometimes.”
“Sometimes, she’s right,” I whispered.
“Most of the time, she is wrong.”
I smiled.
B.D. closed her eyes. “Go to sleep, Jane. I’ll be right here.”
She patted me on the arm.
“B.D.,” I whispered, “Do you know who raped me?”
B.D. opened her eyes.
I didn’t know why I asked her. It just seemed like the only chance I might have to get B.D. alone when
she wasn’t being tough.
She sighed. “What does it matter, Jane? You’re better now.”
“But, shouldn’t I know?”
“It wouldn’t change it.”
“But, what if he wants to hurt me again?”
“He’s not going to hurt you again.” She closed her eyes again. I knew she wasn’t going to talk about it
anymore, and she wanted me to just forget about it.
I heard a whistling sound outside. It was far in the distance, and I listened to it. It sounded like someone
was whistling for me. I thought about my dad whistling. I tried to picture my dad, but all I could think
about was the tattoo. What did it mean to me? What did it mean to Mary Alice? I tried to think about
Mary Alice. But, she was just a dead girl. A ghost like Brandon said.
“What is that whistling noise?” B.D said as she got out of bed. Her hair was all tangled. She was
wearing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. There was no body paint on her, and she wasn’t wearing any beads
either.
Earlier, she had refused both, but she had danced with Hannah when we danced around the living room
to Mrs. Paine’s favorite song, “The way you do the things you do” by the Temptations. She had an old
record that sounded scratchy, but we loved to play it on our mom’s record player. Mrs. Paine owned a
lot of great records. She always made us listen to Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, and hundreds of old
country songs. Earlier that night when I watched B.D. dancing, I was surprised at how easily she
danced. It was smooth and soft, not tough and determined the way B.D. usually was. She’d even laughed
a few times, and I couldn’t remember when I had seen B.D. laugh. She was always barking orders and
making sure everything got done.
“What the hell is that whistling noise?” she said again angrily like I had caused it.
“I don’t know,” I said.
The whistling noise got louder.
“Well, we should go downstairs and see what it is,” she muttered.
I followed her downstairs. B.D. walked over to the door and looked out at the window. Her breath
steamed up the window.
“I can’t see a thing,” she said.
She put her hand on the doorknob.
“Don’t, B.D.,” I said, grabbing her arm.
“Stop being a baby,” she said.
She flung the door open. At first, we didn’t see anything except darkness and rain, then lightning
flashed, and we saw the bridge above our house crumbling.
“Did you see that?” B.D. said, stepping out onto the porch.
I grabbed the back of her shirt, but she pulled free.
The lightning was flashing rapidly now, and it was like daylight outside. The whistling sound was
deafening now like a train coming at us full speed. We watched as a wall of water came rushing toward
us pushing down trees and riding up over the riverbank. It was heading toward us.
“Shit!” B.D. shouted, and then the water hit me. I felt it push the breath out of me. I gasped and at first
there was air, and then there was water. One of mom’s wind chimes hit the side of my face, and I was
flying through the air, riding on top the wave of water. I could hear our house breaking apart behind
me, and I thought about my sisters, Mrs. Paine, Pepper. I thought about Bella and the locket. I thought
of the Falling Tower card as I fell into the water hard. It was like doing a belly flop in the water but ten
times harder and faster. I gasped as the breath was taken from me again.
Suddenly, I was on the bottom of the swirling water. I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel things in the
water around me and covering me. I knew I had to get to the surface, but I wasn’t sure where the surface
was. The water was moving so hard and so fast that I knew I couldn’t swim up to the surface or out to the
riverbank. And, where was the riverbank now? Just as my mouth and nose were filling with the black
water, something pushed me up. When I realized that I was in the air, I took a few gasping breathes
before I was pushed under again. This happened over and over again. Going under and tasting and
swallowing the black water, coming up and gasping for air. Everything hurt, and I was becoming
exhausted. I was sure that I was bleeding from being hit with the wind chime because I could taste blood.
On one of the trips to the top, I realized that I was naked except for my underwear and one sock. On one
of the trips down, I saw Pepper. His eyes and mouth were open. I knew he was dead, but I tugged on his
collar. It snapped in my hand when a large piece of the bridge slammed against me and pushed to the
surface. Desperately, I held onto the collar and clung to the piece of the bridge. It seemed to carry me
over the surface of the water, and I thought I was safe, but I soon realized that it was too heavy to float,
and I sunk to the bottom again.
I had to find something that floated. Terrified, I realized that all the stuff that had been moving through
the water was now stacking into a big pile, temporary blocking the water and nearly crushing me. I had
to get out of there before the water pushed everything apart again, or I was crushed. I struggled through
the wood, furniture, trees, dirt, pieces of houses until I reached the top of the pile. The rain was still
coming down hard, but something had caught fire, and it was light again. I could see the water building
up behind the pile. Quickly, I scrambled across the top of pile. A few times, I almost slipped and fell
down. I was terrified, but I had to keep going. I reached a tree, but I realized it was still too close to the
water. I slowly climbed from one tree to another tree.
Sometimes, I had to climb down and walk across a house roof or a piece of furniture. Sometimes, I had to
climb up into the tree limbs and carefully move from tree to tree. I was so tired, and I didn’t seem to be
getting anywhere.
When I heard the pile start to break apart, I was near the bottom making my way across a desk that was
bobbing in the water. I shoved Pepper’s collar into my underwear and lay face down on the desk
gripping both sides tightly.
When the wall of water hit me again, the desk began to spin. I could taste air and water, air and water. I
was scared and thought of my mother. As the desk spun wildly through the water, I thought of my rape,
and I saw my rapist’s face plain as if he were there, and I realized that I did not know who he was. I
knew what he looked like, but I did not know him or I could not remember him. The desk slammed into a
pile of stuff and broke apart under me. I knew that I was going to die then, and I would never get to tell
anyone ever.
Suddenly, a hand reached for me, and I grabbed it. I felt myself being pulled up through a tree. I had no
idea who had grabbed me, but at this point, I did not care. I just wanted to be out of the water.
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