The Night the River Wept by Lo Patrick

Author:Lo Patrick [Patrick, Lo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks

Natalie Wright’s Journal

November 29, 1983

The worst thing ever has happened. I can hardly write this. My hands have been shaking for days. Somebody killed the boys. Cedar, Colton, and Chase—all of them except Carter. My mom says I have to call them by their names now. We have to have some respect. They all suffocated. The police think it was a poison. They closed school, and all sorts of people are keeping their kids locked up in their houses. Somebody found the boys out by Deck River a couple nights ago, lying there by the road. Nobody knows what happened to them, but Mitchell got picked up. Claire too. They had to go to jail, but they let them out after a few hours. I guess Claire said she wanted to talk to a different person than was talking to Mitchell, which my dad says is really bad, like she’s being sneaky or something. My dad’s already calling her a liar, and I don’t even know if she’s said anything to anybody. He has always hated Claire. It’s even worse now though.

Mr. Pendley is the detective, and he’s the one who talked to Mitchell but not Claire. He’s one of my dad’s friends, because of his pool. My dad’s been his pool guy for years. My dad keeps saying that, like if Mr. Pendley would just realize that my dad is his pool guy, everything would be okay.

It’s like a hurricane in our house, because no one can figure out what’s going on, and the phone keeps ringing over and over again. There have been so many people over acting like they want to help, but people don’t really care about those kids, they just care about gossip. Alaina has been staying with us, but my dad said she needed to go. We just had Thanksgiving; we were eating leftovers when Mitchell called us to say what happened. He was at our house that night, the night the boys were killed. With me. I wish he’d just stayed at our house. I don’t know why he always thinks he needs to go back to Claire. She’s never home anyway.

They took him and Claire in not long after that. It was the middle of the night. My parents didn’t sleep; they just sat up in the living room, staring at each other. My mom went to get Lucy when Mitchell said the police were taking them in. Lucy was asleep when they got back to our house. My mom left her in her car seat.

Claire brought Carter with her to the police station. I swear he’s attached, like a backpack that got sewn on to her. Lucy she leaves everywhere; Lucy is definitely not sewn on.

My mom keeps crying; she says it’s because of the kids, but I know it’s because of Mitchell. She told Alaina the other day that Claire ruined his life. “Ruined it!” she kept saying. I’m like a ghost in the house. No one even knows I’m there.

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