Between the Shores - Chapter One

He was taking too long. He should have been here by now. Cody exhaled and watched his breath smoke the cool pane, pressing his hands against the glass, letting the tip of his nose just barely touch the surface of the window. When the chill crept up to his elbows he took a step back, rubbed his forearms, and looked at the clock on his bedside table. 8:31. Half an hour gone, already. He turned back to the window. Just beyond the glass the flakes had slowed to a mere flutter, the languid remains of the storm that had coated the area in a thick coat of wet well-packed snow, deep enough to close businesses, grind local government to a halt, and, most importantly, cancel school.

In the corner of the window Cody saw the garage door of the house next to his open with a barely audible hum. A boy in a blue nylon coat tromped out onto the driveway, taking heavy, important steps through the powder. In a gloved hand he clutched a curved piece of black plastic that gave him control over the tangerine sled he dragged behind him, profanely bright against the newly formed tundra it glided over. In the seat of that sled kneeled a smaller boy wearing a smaller coat, tiny puffs of smoke like word bubbles forming from his lips as he shouted something unheard at his driver. The older boy shouted back. They both grinned. Cody watched them until they reached the corner of the cul-de-sac and turned onto Fullmer, making their way to the makeshift sledding hill at the top of the street. The garage door closed, and all was still again. Snow collected on an overburdened branch. Somewhere the skidding of tires. Cody stepped back from the window and fell onto his bed, bouncing once, the springs and frame squeaking gently beneath his weight. He stared up at the puckered starburst stucco that covered the ceiling. He sat up and looked around the room.

For maybe the second or third time Cody took notice of how clearly divided it was. On the window side it was very much a child’s room. A toy chest sat beneath the window, its cornflower enamel cracked and fading. Squat bookshelves flanked either side, lit up from within by the garish spines of simple novels and childish mysteries whose secrets and twists became somehow less compelling with each new entry. Beside the door, the stout dresser that had been a constant companion since infancy, its surfaces covered in smiley faces and dinosaurs and tiny pieces of fruit whose scent had faded years prior. In the carpet a flotsam of Legos and cheap plastic nothings washed up in every corner and crevice.

The other side, orderly and somber, seemed to belong to an entirely different person. Two slender cabinets held his supplies and a tall stack of sketchpads, yellowing by elevation, filled to bursting with dogs and mountains and dreamt lands desperately committed to paper before the waking world could steal them away. Between the cabinets stood a mahogany drawing table, the bounty of his eleventh and most recent birthday, brought into his room quietly and in secret on the evening between the years. When he rose on that day its shape eluded him, the strains of stained wood nothing more than a dark fog hanging in the long morning shadows. When his pupils expanded and its form became apparent Cody rose from his bed and moved towards the desk with gentle steps, palm down and held out just in front, approaching it the way one would a stray dog with matted fur and mournful eyes. As his fingers grazed the glossy surface he couldn’t help but let out a small laugh, overwhelmed by the realization that it was real, that it was his.

It was only recently that the room had become so split but the lines were already deeply entrenched. Neither side dared to infringe on the other. An uneasy truce. The only items that seemed out of place were the works that hung just above the table, four drawings of his that his mother had saved and framed to present to him as part of his birthday gift. A crude depiction of their home, supposedly his first coherent work. A self-portrait from Kindergarten. A sketch of a Mojave Desert landscape from when they visited his grandmother in Phoenix. A detailed study of the lake at nearby Miller Park that placed first in the eight-to-ten year old division of the local library’s Young Artists competition, which netted him a twenty-five dollar gift certificate that became a box of colored pencils and two chocolate bars the very next day.

He hated having them there. From above the table they seemed to sit in scrutiny of his every movement, whispering amongst themselves, just loud enough for Cody to hear their clucking tongues and the declarations of oh, that’s not very good at all, is it? You’d think he’d improve over time. More than once he had wanted to tear them from the wall and stuff them in the bottom of the closet in order to muffle their judgments. It was the thought of what her mother would do on seeing that bare wall that prevented him from doing so. He had never seen her so happy as the day when she revealed her efforts, made known the patience, thought and caring put into her gift. If he were to ask he knew she would do it for him but he also knew that she’d be able to mask her disappointment. But there’d be that one instant, a twitch, a half-frown, a tic imperceptible to anyone else that kept Cody from asking. If it had been his father - well, he’d deal with that whenever his dad came up with a gesture thoughtful enough to give him pause. He did go in on the table. At least, his mom said he did.

Cody looked at the self-portrait, oddly accurate and insightful for the work of a five-year-old. Cyan eyes stared back at him, set in a beaming milk-pale face topped by a neat bowl of sunflower-blond hair. Not much had changed since then. His hair had darkened a few shades and been allowed to creep down beneath his ears. The more ridiculous facial features - the gap-toothed smile, the oversized ears, the puffy, flush cheeks - had faded or at least softened since then. Still, not much had changed. The portrait’s presence bothered him far more than that of the other three works. Every time he looked up from his desk that boy would be there to meet him, always smiling, never missing an opportunity to remind him of how alike they were.

Cody looked at the clock. 8:39.

He sighed. He turned and reached for his sketchpad but stopped when a noise came from downstairs, a squeak so low that he wasn’t even sure he had heard it. He sat up and stared through his open doorway, ears perked, eyes wide. Silence.

“Jake?”

Two more squeaks, quick and sharp, then nothing. Cody swallowed, rose from his bed, and stepped out of the room. When he reached the top of the stairs he put a hand on the banister and caught his breath, stopped by the sight of the front door hanging open, pushed back from the entryway by the bare winter wind. A snowflake fluttered into the foyer and died on the worn hardwood, melting beside a thin slate splatter that trailed towards the kitchen.

“Is anybody there?”

Nothing. Cody shivered.

Lifetimes passed before he could force himself to move. With soft steps, halfway tiptoe, he inched down the stairs, wincing at the groans his weight squeezed from the creaking wooden steps. To him they may as well have been the pointed directions of a co-conspirator. Hey!, each one seemed to shout. The only thing stopping you from robbing the place blind is over here, on the steps! Hurry it up! He reached the bottom stair and stopped. His heartbeat grew rapid and painful.

“Okay.” He breathed. “You just gotta make it to Mrs. Henderson’s house. Grab the key from under the mat, go inside and call the police. Easy. Easy.”

He exhaled, and breathed in again. He put a foot on the floor and held his arm out in front of him, fingers moving of their own mind, body tensed to the point of strain.

“One…two…three!”

He took off. Not an instant later Cody was grabbed from behind, arms forcing themselves beneath his, pulling them back, lifting him up, stopping him where he stood. He cried out and kicked his legs in the air but no amount of struggle would weaken the grip. Cody was on the verge of screaming when he felt his attacker’s hands press against the back of his head. He suddenly grew still and quiet.

“Jake?”

Cody could hear the grin.

“You moron!” He laughed. His flailing began new, albeit with less urgency. “Let go of me!”

“Struggle all you like.” His attacker growled. “There’s no escaping the masterlock!”

He dragged his victim back into the room from where he had sprung his attack, jerking him from side to side with every step. Cody wriggled and writhed. The hold was in too deep.

“Okay!” He cried. “I give up!”

“What’s that? I couldn’t hear you.”

“I give!”

“You gotta tap out. That’s how it works.”

Cody managed to tap the side of his head with the tips of his outstretched fingers and was immediately released. He took a moment to catch his breath before whirling and slugging his attacker in the arm.

“Oww.” Jake smiled and rubbed the spot where he was struck. “That hurt.”

Cody sighed. It wasn’t any use being mad at him. He’d just laugh it off anyway.

“You’re late.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jake sighed. “I had to convince my mom and dad that they could leave me home alone. Can you believe that? Twelve years old and I still have to convince them that I don’t need a babysitter. I wished they trusted me like your mom trusts you.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t tell him that trust had nothing to do with it.

Cody rotated his hyper-extended shoulders and looked at his friend. The two of them could hardly have been more different. Jake had half a head on him and was clearly older, though most would probably guess that the difference was more than the mere eight months that stood between them - that’s if they were to even take notice of Cody at all. His slight stature and soft features gave him a tendency to fade into the background, especially when he stood next to Jake and had to compete with his olive skin, curly chestnut hair, and dark smiling eyes.

The differences were more than skin-deep, though. Jake’s attitude was such that Cody wasn’t at all surprised that his parents had problems with leaving him home alone. He couldn’t even be trusted to complete his homework or clean his room with any regularity, offenses that would have earned Cody any one of a litany of punishments but only garnered Jake a wagging of the finger and a fresh serving of empty threats. Simple chores that Cody had been doing with little prompting since he was eight seemed to elude Jake at twelve.

“How’d you manage to sneak up on me like that?” Cody asked.

Jake grinned and motioned behind him.

“This room’s connected to the kitchen.” He explained. “So I left a trail to distract you, took my boots off, snuck in here, then waited behind that wall for you to walk by.”

“You went through a lot of trouble just to scare me.”

“Worked, didn’t it?”

Cody rolled his eyes.

“How’d you get in here in the first place?”

Jake reached into his coat pocket and handed over a key.

“Your mom needs to do a better job of hiding this thing. That fake rock stands out like a sore thumb.”

“I told her that, too.” Cody turned it over in his palm, the glinting copper cool against his skin. He pocketed it and motioned towards the kitchen. “Grab a rag and clean up the mess you left. I’ve gotta go upstairs and get my hat and coat.”

“Aw, c’mon.”

“Stop whining. I’m not going to get in trouble just ‘cause you wanted to scare me.”

Cody didn’t wait for a response before turning and bounding up the stairs to his room. He knew that when he asked Jake to do something it was as good as done, no matter how much of a hassle he made it seem. After putting on his winter gear he grabbed his sketchpad and threw it and a handful of colored pencils in a messenger bag, strapping it across his body as he closed the door behind him. When he came back out down the stairs Jake was standing at the landing, the trail gone, his boots sitting on the welcome mat near Cody’s. He looked at the bag.

“You’re bringing your sketchbook?”

“Yeah.”

A moment passed.

“Can I use it later?”

“Yeah.” Cody said. “If you want.”

Jake nodded. No matter how often he asked - and recently, it seemed like it happened every time they got together - he always seemed embarrassed to do so. It might have been because his drawings weren’t very good. But Cody didn’t think that was the case anymore. Certainly, at first he felt that might have been the reason, since Jake would go so far as to stop drawing and snap the pad shut if Cody were to look over his shoulder. After a while, though, he realized that Jake would always leave his work behind when he finished. If he were embarrassed, surely he’d have torn it out. But all he’d do is give the sketchpad back to Cody and then they’d go do something else, as though he never had it in the first place. It wouldn’t be until he returned home that he was able to see what Jake had drawn - usually a landscape of where they had sat while he drew. From the school playground came the adjacent woods in turning autumn colors. From the hill overlooking the community pool a study of giddy young freedom on a blistering summer day.

Cody didn’t know what to make of it. He was sure that Jake wanted him to see his work. But whenever he tried to bring it up, Jake would immediately change the subject. Compliments and criticism were evenly ignored. Eventually Cody stopped trying even though it ate at him to do so. Every day he wanted to tell Jake how much better he had gotten. Though his style was still crude, with each new drawing it somehow became a little bit cleaner, a little more coherent. As though his subjects were being brought into focus by a photographer’s patient, exacting hand. Not quite there, yet.

“What’d you want to do today?” Cody asked as he pulled on his boots. “Art and Randy left to go sledding a little while ago.”

“Yeah?”

Jake seemed to chew on the idea of meeting up with them for far longer than he
would have liked. Cody bit his lip. He didn’t know why he said that. He wasn’t friends with Art and Randy. Not anymore, anyway. Jake had already known them when Cody moved into this house six years ago, and the way he told it, for as long he could remember he was incredibly jealous of Art for having a little brother. When his mother told him that a new boy - a boy younger than him! - had moved into the neighborhood, he didn’t even wait for her to finish talking. He made a beeline for Cody’s house, asked his mother if he could play, and when her son peeked out from behind her legs, Jake stepped uninvited into their foyer and declared that he would be his little brother from then on.

Cody couldn’t really pinpoint when the four of them began to drift apart. Or, more accurately, when Art and Randy drifted apart from him. They grew up and became like Jake - outgoing, athletic, brash. And no matter how much Jake tried to hook Cody into their interests, he remained a boy content to sit in his room by himself and draw. Though the widening gap between them had apparently grown too large for the siblings to cross, the distance didn’t seem to deter Jake at all. If anything, he and Cody had only become closer over the years, even as their differences grew and the idea of being brothers faded away like an imaginary friend.

The four of them still played together every once in a while, but Cody could never be comfortable around Art and Randy. It wasn’t like the siblings went out of their way to isolate him. But every once in a while Cody would catch one of them in the last instant of a sideways stare, a withering look that seemed to say why exactly are you here, anyway? If Jake was aware of the tension between them he didn’t show it. Still, whenever Cody made some excuse to leave a get-together early - and recently, that was the case more often than not - Jake would almost always follow up with an excuse of his own and depart with Cody. Once the brothers were out of sight it was like they had never been a part of their day to begin with.

“Maybe we can meet up with them later.” Jake finally said. Cody exhaled. “There’s something I wanna do before that.”

“Yeah? What’re we doing?”

Jake pulled Cody to his feet.

“Let’s go to the park.”

Miller Park was just a short walk from the cul-de-sac, an easy trip even in the heaping snow. The neighborhood around them had been rendered gingerbread, the yards and trees and squat little Cape Cods smothered by a fresh layer of icing and left to cool. In those yards scores of children gave themselves to the frost, all flushed faces and screaming, trying to make the most out of the unexpected freedom that had been bestowed upon them. Jake and Cody walked straight through the fray, talking, laughing, cracking jokes each intended solely for the other.

“Hey, Jake!”

They looked up to see a boy across the street waving in their direction. Behind him, two others held cocked snowballs in their hands, impatiently abiding by the cease-fire that had been declared. Jake waved back. Cody stopped beside him, put his hands in his pockets, and looked down the street.

“Come on over!” The boy said. He thumbed over his shoulder. “We can do two-on-two.”

The boys in the yard seemed to make a point of not looking at Cody, as though simply refusing to acknowledge his existence would be enough to make him disappear. Jake smiled and shook his head.

“No thanks.” He said. “I’ll see you guys later, all right?”

The boy frowned but didn’t say anything. Jake waved goodbye. They walked on.

Cody knew, without looking, that now that they had turned away the boys had become fixated on him, their eyes cold, analytical, trying without success to figure out why Jake would choose him over them. He didn’t have to see it for himself anymore. He knew when he was being given the look. He knew that Jake knew, too. The look, Jake would allow. But nothing further. That rule had been set down soundlessly on the final day of fourth grade, when one of Jake’s friends - Cody didn’t know his name then, and he didn’t now - came up to him during lunch at the small corner table he and Cody had shared alone since the beginning of the year.

“C’mon, Jake.” He had said as he motioned towards a table full of boys looking in their direction. “Aren’t you going to sit with us even once?”

Jake looked up from his sandwich.

“Is Cody invited?”

The boy glanced at Cody out of the corner of his eye.

“Psh. No.”

“Then no.”

The boy cocked his head.

“Jake, why do you even hang out with this pussy in the first place?”

Jake froze in mid-bite. He swallowed, put his sandwich down, stood up, and socked the boy right in his eye. A bolt went through the cafeteria as he crumpled to the floor. When the shock of the moment had passed the boys from the other table jumped from their seats and rushed to his aid, crowding around him as he lay writhing on the ground, hands pressed to his face, tears flowing down his cheeks. None of them went so far as to even look at Jake, who had returned to his seat and to his sandwich, eating in silence as Cody sat across from him in open-mouthed awe.

From that day on, the look was all he got. What’s more, the incident failed to make so much as a dent in Jake’s popularity. The boy he had struck even came up to him later in the day to make amends. Cody remembered how the flesh around the boy’s eye had become discolored and swollen, a thin slit of visible iris cast towards the ground as he muttered an apology and offered his hand, which Jake gladly shook. Witnessing this only further upset their teacher, a harried frump of a woman who had grown shrill and irritable after years of dealing with overzealous pre-adolescent machismo. Jake, she reasoned, was the one who resorted to violence, and thus was the only one who should apologize. He refused. She threatened summer school. He served his time without complaint. Cody tried to tell Jake how sorry he was for getting him in trouble but the attempt was dismissed with a gesture and no words and the episode was never spoken of again.

The park hadn’t been so much built as spared, the shimmering lake and crescent moon of backing trees the only remnants of the soft rolling forest that had been obliterated in the name of the sub-division. Near the street they had jammed mismatched sets of pastel concrete playground equipment into the dirt, crude and brazen, like a gaudy conical hat strapped to the crown of a castrated circus lion. When Cody and Jake arrived it was empty and judging by the undisturbed snow had been for the entire morning. The lake had vanished overnight, smothered and rendered part of the plain, unmarked save for the mobbing skeleton oaks that crowded thickly at the far edge, their spindling spidervein limbs creating a dark fan against the slow silver sky. Jake stopped, and Cody stopped. Jake unzipped his coat down to the waist, reached in with crossed hands, and pulled out two baseball gloves.

“Pitchers and catchers start today.” He said. “And no sixth grader’s gonna make the team unless they train like a pro.”

Cody didn’t like baseball. But Jake loved baseball. So Cody liked baseball.

Jake handed him a mitt and walked away, putting distance between the two as Cody unhooked the messenger bag from his body and set it on the ground. He wriggled his fingers into the glove and punched the pocket of the leather a few times. It seemed like something he should do. When Jake’s first throw came in it struck the mitt right in the center of that pocket but may as well have been caught barehand for the sting that jolted his palm upon impact. Cody winced.

“Sorry.” Jake called.

“S’okay.”

Cody stepped and hurled the ball back in the arcing rainbow necessary to cover the distance Jake had set. No sound save for the steady slap of rawhide and the soft shifting of snow beneath their feet. Over and over. Arrow, arc. Arrow, arc. Arrow, arc. On the street a pack of small boys went scrambling past them, crying out and falling all over one another like new-eyed puppies at play. Their laughter was high and unstoppable and gave respite to the solemn morning, ringing out through the cold sober air long after they had disappeared from sight. Jake pulled the ball from his glove and turned it over in his hand, watching it intently, studying the seams as though they would lead somewhere new with the next revolution.

“Last week, when they pulled everybody out of fourth period and sent the girls to a different room,” He said, “What do you think they did?”

Cody watched him for a moment. Jake’s eyes were still on the ball.

“Probably the same thing as us. Only, y’know, for girls.”

“What’d you do with the pamphlet they gave us?”

“I dunno. It’s probably still in my binder.” Cody said. “I guess they called to let our parents know since my mom asked me about it as soon as I got home. To see if I had any questions or whatever. She said we could call my dad if I wanted to but I told her it was okay.”

Jake wrenched the ball against the palm of his mitt.

“What’d you do with yours?” Cody asked.

“Burned it.”

“What?”

“Not, like, outside or anything. In the fireplace.”

Cody blinked. Jake shook his head.

“You know Bryan?”

Cody nodded. Jake’s older cousin visited every Christmas and the three of them
usually hung out together on the day after the holiday to show off their presents to one another. He was funny, and nice. Cody liked him. For some reason - he hadn’t thought about it until just now - he hadn’t seen Bryan this year.

“He shows up with my aunt and uncle on Christmas Eve,” Jake began, turning his hands open. “And I swear to God, Cody, when he walked through the front door I barely even recognized him. He grew, like, six inches since the last time I saw him. Pimples all over his face. And he’s got this stupid little mustache that looks like it was drawn in with a pencil.”

Cody would have laughed but the way Jake was speaking made him feel that even a smile would have been inappropriate.

“So he walks into the living room - doesn’t say hi to anybody - sits on the couch and just stares off into space with this dumb look on his face, like he wanted to sneer but gave up halfway. And when I ask him if he wants to come up to my room, he just looks at me like it’s the dumbest thing he’s ever heard anybody say about anything and doesn’t even answer. I look at his parents but they just give me this funny look and go back to talking to my parents and nobody says a word to him the entire night. I don’t…”

He struggled for the words. Cody scrambled for something to say.

“I guess it’s ‘cause he’s a teenager now.” He blurted out. “They’re all idiots. Don’t worry about it.”

Jake shook his head, smiled, and met his friend’s eyes.

“He’s only two years older than me, Cody. Not even. Twenty months.”

In an instant everything came together for Cody and like a slap upside the head he was struck with the notion that there was nothing he could have said at that moment that could have been any worse than what he had offered. And everything he could think of that might be of comfort or clarification felt silly by the time it reached his tongue and died there curdling dry and sour in his mouth. Before the words could come Jake let out a little laugh and waved his hand.

“Forget it.” He said. “Sorry.”

He threw the ball back and when Cody caught it he at once felt utterly useless, his heart heavy with the knowledge that Jake had come to him for his help, only him, and that the opportunity to be of aid had been chased away by the slap of rawhide against leather. Jake had been there for him ever since the two of them wore the same kind of cartoon print underwear and the one time he came to Cody with a problem he only succeeded in making things worse. Guilt welled up in his chest like blood in a suckling tick and he felt that he might cry but the thought of doing so in front of Jake only made him feel worse and for his sake he held it back.

“C’mon, Cody!” Jake called out. “I’m not getting any younger over here!”

Cody swallowed and put as much of the feeling as he could into his throw, a wild toss that flew well over Jake’s head and bounced some twenty feet behind him. Jake turned and gave him a look of mock exasperation. Cody managed a feeble smile and looked at the ground. Jake grinned and rolled his eyes.

“S’alright.” He said. “I got it.”

Jake trotted after the ball. Cody took a deep breath and wiped his eyes, the material of his jacket rough and coarse against his skin. He heard the faint sound of geese and looked up to see a flock passing overhead, beating their wings in the thin air, seemingly unconcerned at seeing that their home was even colder now than on the day they’d left it. Cody’s turned and watch them fly and his ears were filled with the cries they used to herald their arrival, to the point where he almost didn’t hear the two sounds from behind him. The first was slight but sharp, like the cracking of wood beneath an axe. The sound that followed was deeper, fuller, not that of something being cut or split but rather absorbed or overtaken. They came one right after the other and when Cody turned and looked in the direction that Jake had gone he wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere. And right beside where the ball sat a slit had appeared, a tiny sliver cut into the snow, dark and thin like the iris of the boy with the black eye.

Cody didn’t hesitate for an instant. The glove was on the ground and he was gone, running best as he could in his coat and boots, stumbling in the snow, breath between his ears, head and heart pounding in time. As he approached the slit it expanded and became a jagged, imperfect circle, a small navy pool that sat very nearly still inside the ice. A chain of bubbles popped softly at the surface one after the other and when Cody thrust his hands into the lake he grabbed at the water as though he could take hold of that chain and pull him out by the breath in his gloves. The numb overtook his arms in seconds and threatened to consume the rest of his body with the same brutal disregard but still he searched. And as the tears froze on his chin and the bubbles faded away he put his face to the pool and cried Jake’s name, shouting it won’t happen to you, it won’t happen, it won’t, it won’t.