But what kid listened to that advice when the river was so close and offered so much?

  I got out a few feet, where I could no longer touch the muddy bottom, and turned over to float on my back. The sun glinted down, hot, and the water buoyed me up like a cork. This is a little bit of heaven. I lifted my head to scream, “Get in here!” to Jeb.

  It didn’t take a lot of convincing.

  Before the sun even hit high noon, we were on Harker Island, alone and exploring the lean-to camps boaters had created on its shores for fishing, impromptu barbeques and beer busts. Sometimes, we’d find leftover cans of beer or discarded condoms.

  As we rested, panting, on a patch of grass, Jeb turned to me, “You know I really love you.”

  I thought the sun had nothing on the warmth it emitted when compared to Jeb’s simple, yet complex, declaration.

  I peered into his green eyes, lit up even more by the July sun. I saw only affection and truth there. “I love you too. And I always will.”

  After we’d been on the island for an hour or so, clouds moved in to the east—they were dark, foreboding, hanging low on the horizon. The ozone smell of imminent rain arose. We decided we’d better head back. “The last thing we need is to get caught in the middle of the river with lightning striking. Jesus.”

  We hurried to the river’s edge and hoped we’d have time to make it back to shore before the rain started—or the storm took hold.

  A flash of heat lightning, white, lit up the dark clouds in the distance. The air grew cooler. Thunder grumbled.

  “Wait.” I stopped in my tracks. There it was, hanging on the lowest branch of a tree. A silver chain, cheap, with a small piece of violet quartz attached as a pendant. It swung in the breeze that was rapidly becoming a gust. Amethyst. I recognized the quartz stone from the geology portion of science class last year. I was pretty sure amethyst, according to Mr. Pletcher, our science teacher, had protective qualities.

  And I wanted, more than anything, to protect Jeb as we made our journey across the river.

  He was ahead of me, already knee deep in the water. In a moment, he’d be in up to his waist and would move his arms above his head to dive in, gracefully parting the greenish brown water.

  I grabbed the pendant from the branch and hurried toward him. Once I could, I threw the chain over his head, almost like a lasso. It settled around his neck and hung down just below his collarbone. I kissed the back of his neck.

  He turned to me in surprise, one hand touching the purple stone. “What’s this?”

  “I just found it. Hanging there on that tree. Finders keepers, right?” I turned to point and then turned back. “I was meant to give it to you.” I grinned. “For protection.”

  His eyes grew misty, soft, reminding me of the color of moss. “But what will protect you?”

  “You, of course. Now let’s get going. Those clouds are getting blacker, and I think there’s more than just a shower on the way.”

  We both hurried into the river, whose surface was now rippled by the wind, as gray as the sky above.

  Wordlessly, we raced each other back to shore.

  III

  St. Clair was a town of only ten thousand souls, but you wouldn’t know it from their annual fireworks display. Shot off from a barge in the Ohio River, the night sky lit up in brilliant blooms of color for more than twenty minutes every July Fourth. Town roads were filled with potholes. The downtown was a sad conglomeration of boarded-up storefronts for businesses that had thrived, petered out, and died, especially when the steel mill just east of us on the Pennsylvania border closed, back when Mom was a girl. But the town’s poverty didn’t stop St. Clair from putting on an awesome Independence Day celebration every year. Somehow, they found the funds for an extended, loud, and patriotic display.

  Mom and I had our secret spot for viewing. Each year, we were amazed that no one else had discovered it, because the viewpoint had to be the best in town.

  Mom had known about it since she was a little girl and her father would take her hiking in the hilly wilderness bordering the town, looking for mushrooms. Off Acton Road, there was a dirt driveway to an abandoned house, which, to be honest, looked like something out of a horror movie. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Leatherface himself, or maybe Michael Myers, emerge from behind its peeling, rusty-hinged front door. Weathered gray wood, falling-down gutters, a weed-infested yard filled with decaying auto parts, and broken-out windows made for a nightmare-inducing setting. The place had been a mystery for decades—complete with rumors that someone had been murdered in the house—and it was probably the reason no one ever ventured up the steep, blackberry-vine-choked hillside behind it.

  No one, that is, except my family.

  Once we hiked our way up that challenging rise, we were rewarded—big time. At the top of the hill was a path that ran along a steep drop-off in the direction of the river. Looking down from its height, you could see the whole valley open up—the brownish curving snake of the Ohio, Harker Island, barges making slow progress on the muddy water, the houses and small businesses rising along both tree-covered hillsides on the Ohio side and the northern panhandle of West Virginia side. It was glorious and breathtaking, even without the promise of fireworks.

  We headed up there now. Mom, Jeb, and I lugged a cooler filled with pop, Mom’s egg-salad sandwiches, chips, and my favorite—chocolate cupcakes with maple frosting.

  The day was winding down into dusk and the sunlight was a perfect peach-c0l0red hue at the edge of the horizon. Below us, traffic along Route 7 slowed, some of the cars even pulled over on the side of the road to watch the fireworks. A crowd also gathered at the wharf just off of downtown. Some of them were on foot, but many idled in small motor boats. There were even a few jet skis circling in the dark water.

  Distant music drifted up to us. I could make out Madonna singing, ‘Papa, Don’t Preach,’ the Pet Shop Boys with ‘West End Girls,’ and Steve Winwood wanting someone to bring him a higher love.

  As we settled, the sky morphed from blue to orange, lavender, and gray.

  This is going to be a perfect night. Stars began to wink in the darkening sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight.

  Mom opened up the cooler and picnic hamper while Jeb and I spread out the large quilt we’d brought, digging its corners down into the soft, grassy earth at our feet. All the while, our dog, Vanilla, a white terrier mix, danced around us, yapping, tail wagging. I’m sure she was hopeful that some of the food we’d brought would come her way. “Don’t you worry,” I told her, “We have cookies for you, too.”

  I met Jeb’s gaze once we sat. I’d told him earlier in the day that I wanted to let Mom know about my feelings for him. “She’d get it. She really would. I know her. She’s not a judger.”

  “No, no, and again, no.” Jeb made his feelings clear. Even though I assured him that the conversation would go no further than the three of us, he was terrified that my outing myself to the one person I loved most in the world (besides Jeb, himself, of course) would somehow jeopardize his own closely guarded public image. Jeb played football at East Junior and, in the summer, baseball. His dad came to all the games. Girls loved him. No one suspected him of being gay. Not like they did bookish, quiet, and movie-musical-adoring me.

  I didn’t even bother to try to hide it.

  I knew Jeb wasn’t ready, but that didn’t stop me from being impatient. At least he’d agreed to spend the night at our house. I wouldn’t force anything, of course, but my fantasies had been in high gear all day.

  IV

  The fireworks weren’t a disappointment.

  The display lasted even longer than usual. The grand finale came close to inducing serious hearing loss. All of us loved it, even our weirdo dog, Vanilla, who had never been one of those canines who cower at loud noises like thunder and, well, fireworks. She lay calmly beside me the whole time, occasionally glancing up at the sky, cocking her head. She had a Nylabone to chew on and my comforting hand scratching behind her ears to keep her settled. As long as she was with us, she was happy.

  And so was I.

  Once the pyrotechnics show was over and the crowds near the river below us dispersed and when the wind washed away the gunpowder scent, we began to gather our things up.

  Jeb whispered to me, “Can we hurry? I really gotta pee.”

  I snorted. “So? Go take a piss.” I wiggled my eyebrows at him. “You want me to hold it for you?”

  “Shut up.” He eyed my mom. “What about her?”

  “She’s not allowed to hold it for you.”

  He blew out a big sigh. “You’re hopeless, man. Someone should lock you up.”

  “Go over there.” I pointed to a copse of maple and pine trees. “Mom’s not going to give a frig if you take a leak out here. What? You think she’d torture you? Make you wait until we drove home? For what? Good manners?”

  He trudged away. Trees and shadows swallowed him up. Watching him vanish into the darkness gave me a little chill, despite the warm night air. I shivered.

  As we packed up the cooler and picnic basket, Mom said, “I owe you an apology.”

  “For what?”

  “For the things I said yesterday about Jeb. It wasn’t fair. It was beneath him and it was beneath me. He’s a nice boy and you’re lucky to have him as your friend.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” I eyed the darkness he’d vanished into. I leaned close to her and, without letting my little ineffectual and annoying inner censor interfere, I blurted the truth out. “He’s more than a friend.” I laughed. “I love him.”

  She touched my face for a moment. “Oh, honey, I could see that. But I needed you to say it first. So thank you for sharing that with me. It’s all good, my sweetie.”

  “He wouldn’t want you to know, so, for now, could we keep this just between us? Please.”

  She made the universal sign for zipping her lips shut. “Not a word. You let me know when you’re ready. I wouldn’t dream of saying anything, especially if Jeb isn’t in a good place to come to grips with the truth.” She glanced toward the woods. I turned my head, expected to see him emerge, but there was only the dark and the wind.

  I peered closer, worried Jeb would have overheard us. It was paranoid, I know. But I wasn’t sure how he’d react. He wouldn’t be happy, that’s for sure. And believe me, making him happy was top on my agenda for tonight. I could just about see him, in his faded cut-offs and Cleveland Browns T-shirt, coming back while zipping his fly.

  But the image was a figment of my imagination.

  All of a sudden, it got quiet—even the wind stilled. Vanilla slumbered on the folded up blanket, paws outstretched. The sound of car and boat horns was completely gone. After the moment of silence, the leaves rustled in the trees, sounding sand-papery and ghostly.

  How long has it been? Why’s it taking him so long?

  Mom glanced toward the woodsy area where Jeb had gone to take a leak. “I’d ask if he fell in, but that doesn’t apply.” She let out a half-hearted chuckle. Despite the snort of laughter, her expression revealed a smidge of worry. It had been too long. But what explanation could there be?

  He’d been gone now, I was sure, for fifteen minutes or so. A nagging sense of worry crept up, tickling the base of my spine. What’s taking him so long?

  Mom tapped me on the shoulder. She was now standing. “Go check on him, okay? I have to get home and get to bed. Tomorrow’s a workday, you know. I don’t get to sleep in until noon like some people.”

  “Sure.” I wandered toward the woods and noticed for the first time how eerie it was. Once under the canopy of trees, it was very still—and utterly dark—pitch black. Like you-can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face dark.

  “Jeb?”

  Only the wind answered, and then the hoot of an owl. My skin crawled. I took a few more steps into the darkness. “Jeb? C’mon, man, this isn’t funny. My ma wants to get home.”

  There was nowhere for him to go. This place, really, was nothing more than a cliff at the top of a hillside. The woods around me bordered the valley, but didn’t lead to anywhere significant—certainly no place like a road. The only way out was the way we’d come up.

  Or that’s what I believed, anyway.

  Of course, there was another way out, through the horror-movie-scary woods running in the opposite direction, but I didn’t find this out until much later.

  The alternative was to think that Jeb finally got cold feet about me, about our budding relationship. In a fit of shame or remorse, maybe he used having to pee as an excuse to slip away. I suppose he could have braved the darkness and descended the hillside without using the main in-out route. It made some sense because what lay ahead would be our first night together. The image of his worried face popped into memory when I told him we’d have to share my full-size bed, with what was probably a leer.

  Yet I couldn’t believe he’d be so cruel as to just leave me here, worrying not only me, but my mom. Jeb was a lot of things, but one of them was not a prankster. Nor was he the kind of person to just ditch other people without an explanation. No, he was kind to a fault and hiding like this, scaring us, wouldn’t occur to him. I knew that much for sure. It wasn’t in the makeup of the boy I thought I knew so well.

  After too many minutes of standing helpless in the pitch darkness and after too long listening to the wind and hoping for a voice or a footfall, I gave up.

  He wasn’t here.

  My eyes had adjusted to the dark and, other than the far-off scurrying of some animal in the underbrush and the occasional hoot of an owl, it was silent. I’d gone in fairly deep and there was no one human here, I thought, other than myself.

  I called out for him one more time, hoping against hope he’d answer, but my rational mind taunted me. I knew, with deep-down certainty, he was no longer here. The thought made me sick to my stomach. Where could he have gone?

  I emerged out of the woods to find Mom waiting, holding Vanilla in her arms like a baby. She cocked her head, her eyebrows coming together in confusion when she saw I was alone. “Sammy? What’s going on? Is he okay?”

  It took me a moment to find my voice. “He’s not there.”

  “Wait. What? I don’t get it.” She took a few steps toward the entrance to the woods.

  “Mom. I said he isn’t there.”

  “He’s gotta be. Where could he go?” She handed me Vanilla, sighing with impatience. “You stay here.” She marched off into the woods with a determination that screamed Let Mom take care of things. Because, obviously, her boy wasn’t capable.

  For once, I hoped she was right.

  I listened as she made her way into the woods, the crunching of leaves underfoot, a small gasp when she must have run headlong into a tree trunk.

  She emerged ten minutes or so later, her face a mask of worry and confusion. There were scratches on her forehead. There wasn’t much power behind her voice as she said, “You’re right. He’s not there. No one is.”

  I felt a lump the size of a tangerine in my throat, the stinging burn of tears in my eyes. “What could have happened? Where could he be?”

  Mom shook her head. “I don’t know, honey. I don’t know. I wish I did.” She stared off for a moment into the shadows. Then she looked at me. “We need to get home.”

  “We can’t just leave without him.”

  “Sweetie, you looked. I searched. We both know he isn’t there.” She glanced down at her watch. “It’s been, like, a half hour, maybe more, since he wandered off.”

  “Maybe he’s lost?”

  “Oh Sammy, I don’t think so. He said he was going to use the bathroom. Why wouldn’t he just do that and come back?”

  I had no answer.

  She took a step closer. “We need to get home so we can call his family and the cops.” She shook her head and my own fear and terror were reflected in her own eyes. “There’s probably going to be a rational explanation. We’ll laugh about this tomorrow.”

  I didn’t think so. In fact, I wondered, in that moment, with the smell of fireworks still lingering in the close night air, if I’d ever laugh again.

  V

  We didn’t laugh about his disappearance the next day, nor the next, nor the one after that.

  We never laughed, because Jeb never came back.

  Over the course of July, the whole town united to do everything they could to find him. Our small local police force went above and beyond in their search, organizing volunteer groups to literally beat the bushes in the fields and woods surrounding our small town. Grids were set up; search dogs were deployed. Divers came in from Pittsburgh and dragged the Ohio and a couple of nearby lakes. A tip line was established. Flyers plastered the town—shop windows, telephone poles, and on any surface that could be used as a bulletin board.

  For a while, it was all anyone talked about—how the Kleber boy vanished into thin air just after the bursting lights and booms of a Fourth of July fireworks display.

  Jeb’s parents, distraught, went on three local network news stations to make tearful, impassioned pleas for the return of their son. I watched them on the little portable Mom kept on the kitchen counter, so she could view her soaps while she washed dishes or made supper. Jeb’s mom looked tired—dark bags under her eyes, her platinum-dyed hair greasy and plastered to her head. Her eyes shone with tears ready to fall. His dad was a scarecrow—emaciated in a faded red and black plaid flannel shirt too warm for summer—with about as much emotion. His eyes were dark and dead.

  Callers deluged the tip lines in the early days with sightings.

  Jeb was with an older man with a shaved head in a black Lincoln Continental.