Raft of Stars by Andrew Graff (good books for high schoolers .txt) 📕

“It’s Fischer,” Tiffany said.

Miranda could only lift her head enough to nod.

“They’re here. Miranda, we found them.” Tiffany laughed. “We found them!”

Miranda closed her eyes and exhaled rattling breaths through her lips. She patted the sand, lowered her forehead to it.

Tiffany couldn’t wait, but as she stood to search the beach, Miranda reached out and grabbed her ankle. She swallowed heavily before she could speak. “Forgive me,” she whispered, and it was all she could manage to say or do.

Tiffany grinned and clasped Miranda’s hand.

“You stay here,” she said. “We found them. We found them.”

Miranda released her grip, and Tiffany was gone like a shot. The excitement of a search fulfilled, the joy of getting to see that mother wrap her boy in her arms, was too great to contain. Tiffany smiled as she jogged up the sandbar, laughing to herself. Those boys had no idea of the smothering that lay in store for them.

She noticed the tracks led in and out of the water at times, but always moved farther toward shore and a hedge of cattails.

“Fischer!” Tiffany yelled into the night. She ran the beam of her flashlight toward the cattails, out into the water, and back toward the other end of the sandbar. “Fischer! Your mom’s here! Fischer!”

Tiffany jogged again and came across a pile of three or four stacked logs. Amid the logs, the footprints intensified. Bits of rope were strewn about. Tiffany picked up one of the bits and studied it in her light. It’d been cut with a sharp knife. She followed the footprints beyond the pile of logs and noticed that the toes of the shoes faced both ways. The footprints went into the cattails, and while Tiffany shone her light into the shadows and stalks, she could see very clearly where the footprints came back out and headed to the log pile.

She returned, called Fischer’s name again, and then she realized what the boys had done, what they’d built. On a path leading toward the water, the toes of the boys’ shoes dug heavily into the drag marks of logs. In the water itself, the floating mat of pine needles remained parted. Tiffany followed the path with her light. It cut a weaving arc through the slough toward the main channel and disappeared beyond the reaches of her light.

Tiffany pinched the flashlight in her armpit and cupped her hands around her mouth.

“Fischer!” she bellowed into the wet blackness. She inhaled deeply and yelled again, sustaining his name for the entirety of her breath. They’re gone, she thought. Her heart fell, but she knew they were close, and she was determined now to paddle all night, all morning, for the rest of her life if needed.

She heard footfalls approaching her, a panting breath. She turned toward the canoe. “We’ve got to get back in the river, Miranda.” She lifted the light toward where Miranda’s footfalls jogged to a stop. “The boys aren’t here. Theeeeaaahhhhhhhhh! Eeeaaahahhh!”

Tiffany’s mouth screamed. It could do no other. There in the sickening light of her flashlight stood a winded man, hunched over and panting, soaked to the core and filthy. His face was mottled and scratched. A string of red welts ran from his cheek to his ear. Mud was smeared from his forehead to his open mouth. Between panting breaths, he grinned at her, and then lifted his hand and stepped toward her.

Tiffany was done screaming. She gripped the end of the heavy Maglite like a baton and brought an overhand swing down hard on the man’s hat. She felt it connect with a crack and the man stumbled backward. She attacked again, terrified as the whipping baton met the man’s neck and hands and then his huddled spine.

“Tiff, stop!” the man cried out, which for some reason made Tiffany more afraid and hit him even harder.

“How do you know my name!” She landed another crack near his tailbone, and the man howled in untold agony and rage.

He caught the next blow with his hand and wrenched the flashlight free, catching Tiffany by her wrist with his other hand, which pulled her down on top of him. She fought and kicked. She bit a mouthful of shirt.

“Tiff! It’s me—it’s me!”

Tiffany froze. Her breaths came as fast as her heartbeat. She realized she was gripping the man’s shirt with both hands, still biting it too. It smelled of pine and horse and sweat. She looked up at the face in front of her, caught squarely in the beam of the light. Through mud and welts and days of stubble, there was Sheriff Cal, grimacing at her.

“It’s me,” he said.

She held tight to his shirt and felt lost for a moment. There was too much happening. Miranda weeping in the sand, the footprints, and then this attacker—Cal?—this man panting beneath her. She felt the rise and fall of his ribs.

“Oh!” she said. She was trembling. “Cal?” She released his shirt and flattened it against his chest. “Are you hurt?”

Cal winced. “Yes. I am.”

Tiffany remembered she was lying on top of him and scrambled off.

“Cal, I—” She collected his hands in hers and began to help him to his feet. He groaned and she dropped him on the sand, which made him groan even more, for which she apologized.

He sat himself up, looked around for his hat, not yet ready to rise to his feet. Tiffany knelt alongside him.

“Tiffany,” he said, “what are you doing out here?”

“I came with Miranda. We brought a canoe. To look for the boys. And to find your—” She stopped, remembering the bad news she had to tell him about Jacks, which seemed so distant and insignificant now. Nevertheless, she did have to tell him, and had thought through about fifteen different ways to break the news, and now she had to tell him after beating him with a flashlight. And that face of his, that beautiful square face. This forest had been bad to him. But good too.