The River's Green Scrawl

The air over the Red River carried the undeniable tang of thawing earth, a smell Patti had learned to associate with a specific kind of tired hope. March had finally decided to release its grip, though patches of dirty snow still clung stubbornly to the shaded sides of the old warehouses that lined the riverbank. She sat on an overturned crate, her sketchbook open on her knees, charcoal smudging the ball of her hand. Her gaze drifted from the skeletal branches of the elm trees, their buds still tight little knots, to the restless, muddy churning of the water below. It wasn't the kind of vista that drew tourists, all postcard beauty. This was Winnipeg, raw and unvarnished, a city that wore its history in peeling paint and crumbling brick. And in the stubborn way life found its way back each spring, pushing through cracks in the pavement, a defiant whisper.

A smudge of emerald caught her eye, not on her page, but in the distance, upstream. It wasn't the dull, algae-green of the river. This was deeper, impossibly vibrant, like stained glass catching sunlight from an impossible angle. It shivered, a fleeting distortion in the air above the water, then vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving only the usual grey-brown. Patti blinked, then rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand. Too much screen time, probably. Or maybe the chill, seeping through her worn jeans, was playing tricks. She focused on the rough texture of the brick wall across the way, sketching a familiar crack that looked like a lightning bolt. It was easier to draw what she knew, what was tangible.

The crunch of gravel announced Mateo's approach before she even looked up. He walked with a slouch that hinted at both indifference and a readiness to bolt, hands shoved deep into the pockets of a hoodie that had seen better days. His dark hair, perpetually falling into his eyes, was a shade darker from the damp.

"Still out here freezing your… extremities off?" Mateo asked, his voice a low rumble, a faint rasp to it. He kicked a loose pebble, sending it skittering towards the water. He didn't wait for an answer, just dropped onto the crate beside her, pulling his knees up to his chest. The old wood groaned under his weight.

Patti shrugged, not looking up from her sketch. "Someone's gotta document the… thaw." She traced a line, then another, the charcoal rasping against the paper. "It's not freezing."

"Could've fooled me." He pulled out his phone, screen already cracked in one corner, and started scrolling. The faint hum of it was a familiar background noise. "Got a message from Jay. Said the spot near the old rail yards is open again."

Patti paused, charcoal hovering. "Open? I thought… after the last time."

Mateo let out a short, humourless laugh. "Yeah, well. Some things just don't stay locked up, do they? Or clean. He said some kid tried to tag over Sal's mural. Didn't end well."

"Sal's work is… sacred," Patti murmured, a flicker of indignation in her voice. Sal, a legendary, anonymous street artist, had left a sprawling, vibrant mural on the side of a derelict grain elevator downriver. It depicted a blooming prairie rose intertwined with gears and circuits, a blend of nature and industry, a symbol of the city's tenacious spirit. Anyone who tried to deface it was asking for trouble, not from Sal, but from the unspoken rules of the community.

"Tell that to the wannabes." Mateo scrolled through an image. "Looks like Jay did a quick repair. But he wants to hit it up again, make a statement. Says he needs more… vision." He glanced at Patti's sketchbook. "You got any vision these days?"

Patti looked at her drawing – the lightning bolt crack, the harsh lines of the brick. It felt flat, devoid of the vibrant, impossible green she'd just seen. "Maybe. Depends what kind of statement."

He grunted, then tossed his phone onto the crate between them. "Anything to get out of… whatever." He gestured vaguely at the river, the city, the grey sky. "This."

Patti knew "whatever" meant the suffocating quiet of his apartment, his mumbling aunt, the absence of his older brother who'd left for some oil rig job up north months ago and hadn't called back in weeks. Loss, in its many forms, hung heavy in the Winnipeg air, as palpable as the spring damp. But it was rarely spoken of directly, especially between teenagers who prided themselves on their carefully constructed apathy.

Mateo shifted, his gaze now fixed on the swirling river water, no longer scrolling. "Did you see that?"

Patti looked up sharply. "See what?"

"A flash. Like… green light. Down there." He pointed a finger, still half-believing he was imagining it. "Thought it was just reflections off the oil slick or something."

Patti felt a jolt of recognition. "I saw it too. Earlier. Just a second. Like… a ripple."

Mateo scoffed. "A ripple of what? Swamp gas?" But his eyes remained fixed on the water, a glint of genuine curiosity, or maybe unease, replacing his usual bored detachment. The impossible green had reappeared, not a reflection this time, but a shimmering, almost liquid light just beneath the surface, tracing an erratic path against the murky currents. It pulsed, slow and rhythmic, like a hidden heart.

The Unfurling of Spring

The emerald light grew brighter, pushing against the river’s brown skin. It didn’t illuminate anything around it, didn’t cast shadows. Instead, it seemed to absorb the light of the late afternoon, sucking it into its impossible depth. The air around them grew cooler, despite the sun trying its best to break through the cloud cover. A strange, resonant hum vibrated through the crate they sat on, a sound that wasn’t quite a sound, more a feeling in their teeth. Patti instinctively reached out, her fingers brushing the rough wood, as if to confirm its solidity.

"Okay," Mateo said, his voice a little strained. "That's… new." He stood up, slowly, his movements clumsy as his legs protested the cold. He moved closer to the river's edge, peering down, a cautious fascination replacing his usual cynicism. His breath hitched, not in fear, but in a sudden intake of chill air. The green light intensified, shaping itself into something more distinct, a spiral of pure emerald energy twisting gently below the current.

Patti joined him, her sketchbook forgotten on the crate. The hum grew louder, a deep resonance that seemed to bypass her ears and settle directly in her chest. She could feel the vibration in her bones. The river water, usually a torrent of spring run-off, seemed to eddy unnaturally around the green spiral, as if hesitant to touch it, or perhaps, drawn into its strange dance. The smell of damp moss and rotting pine needles was suddenly overwhelmed by a scent she couldn't place – fresh, metallic, and impossibly ancient, like ozone after a lightning strike, but laced with something else, something green and growing.

"It's like… a wormhole," Mateo muttered, his eyes wide. He reached out a hesitant hand, then pulled it back, shivering. "You think it's… dangerous?"

"Everything's dangerous if you think about it," Patti replied, her voice soft, almost a whisper. She knelt, closer to the water, her gaze fixed on the impossible green. Her artistic mind, usually so intent on capturing reality, was now trying to decipher this anomaly, to understand its impossible colours and light. It wasn't just light; it was a presence, a hum of energy she hadn't known existed. It felt… old. Older than the river, older than the city, older than the very concept of time.

A small twig, recently broken from a budding branch, floated past, caught in the river's current. As it neared the green spiral, it didn’t just float by. It paused, hesitated, then slowly, impossibly, began to rotate against the current. The tight, dormant buds along its length swelled, then burst open, not into the muted greens of new leaves, but into miniature, impossibly intricate emerald blossoms that unfurled in moments. The twig, now a vibrant, flowering branchlet, spun once more, then was sucked down into the heart of the green light, vanishing without a ripple.

Mateo stumbled back, his hoodie strings catching on a stray branch. "Did you… did you just see that? It bloomed! Like… magic." The word felt foreign and clumsy in his mouth, out of place among the concrete and diesel fumes.

Patti said nothing, but her eyes, wide and unblinking, confirmed it. The phenomenon was real. The green spiral began to recede, sinking deeper into the river, its light dimming, pulling that inexplicable cold and ancient scent with it. But before it fully vanished, a faint, almost invisible shimmer remained, coalescing directly above the spot where the twig had disappeared. It hovered, translucent, like heat rising from pavement on a summer day, but instead of heat, it radiated a cool, steady pulse.

Mateo pulled his phone out again, fumbling with the camera. "I gotta get a photo of this. No one's gonna believe us." But the shimmer was too faint, too ephemeral to be captured by the phone's lens. He sighed, frustrated, then shoved the device back into his pocket. His voice cracked slightly when he spoke again. "What was that? Really?"

Patti finally tore her gaze from the spot. "I don't know." She looked around, at the graffiti-scarred concrete, the industrial grit, the ordinary, indifferent city. It all seemed subtly shifted, subtly different. As if the green light had left a residue, a faint memory of another reality. "But it felt… like something new."

Mateo scuffed the toe of his worn sneaker against the gravel. "New and weird. Real weird." He glanced at her, a strange mix of fear and excitement in his eyes. "So, what? We just… ignore it? Pretend it didn't happen?"

"Could we?" Patti picked up her sketchbook, flipping pages, but her hands trembled slightly. The ordinary lines and shading now seemed dull, inadequate. The green was branded onto her vision. "It felt like… a doorway."

They stood there for a long time, the setting sun painting the clouds in bruised purples and oranges, the river flowing on, seemingly normal. But it wasn't normal. Not anymore. The air, still carrying the faint, unidentifiable scent, prickled with an unspoken potential. The hum had faded, but the memory of its vibration lingered in their bones.

A Different Current

Days later, the inexplicable green event was a constant hum beneath the surface of their mundane lives. Patti found herself drifting through her art classes, sketching spiralling patterns on the margins of her notes, patterns that mirrored the strange light in the river. She walked through the familiar streets of the North End, past the old storefronts and community centres, but her eyes were always searching for that faint shimmer, that unusual colour. She found small things, almost imperceptible: a patch of grass in a derelict lot that was too green, impossibly vibrant, refusing to be dulled by the urban sprawl. A forgotten dandelion, blooming in late March, its petals a blinding, unnerving gold.

Mateo, usually withdrawn, seemed to gravitate towards her more often. He would show up unannounced, leaning against the fence outside her school, or waiting on the porch of her small, brick house. He’d kick a loose stone, or tap a restless rhythm on his phone, and then, almost casually, bring it up. "Any more… swamp gas sightings?"

Patti would shake her head, a small smile playing on her lips. "Not yet. But I feel it, don't you?"

He would grunt, shrugging, but his eyes betrayed him. They were always scanning, always looking. He started taking longer routes home, ostensibly to avoid a certain street, but Patti knew he was walking the riverbanks, checking the spot where the emerald light had appeared. He didn't want to miss it again.

One afternoon, Mateo found her at the local library, huddled in a corner, poring over old books about local history, searching for anything that might explain what they’d witnessed. She’d tried the science section first – optics, rare atmospheric phenomena, geology. Nothing came close. Now she was desperate, looking for forgotten myths, local legends, anything fantastical that might connect to the grit and stone of Winnipeg. The library was quiet, smelling of old paper and the accumulated stillness of decades.

"What are you doing?" he asked, nudging a stack of books with his foot. He looked out of place, all restless energy, in the hushed reverence of the library.

"Research," Patti said, pushing a thick, leather-bound book towards him. It had faded sketches of early Winnipeg, Indigenous pictographs, and strange, archaic maps. "Just… looking for anything weird that people wrote down. Before this city was fully formed, you know?"

Mateo squinted at a grainy photograph of Main Street from a century ago. "Looks pretty much the same. Just with more horse poop."

"Look at this." Patti pointed to a section of an old city plan. It showed the Red River, but superimposed over it, almost ghost-like, were faint, glowing lines, intricate geometric patterns that seemed to shift and pulse. The caption, in faded, spidery script, spoke of "The Veins of the Land," and "Spring's Verdant Awakening." But it wasn't clear what they represented. The text was archaic, full of flowery language that made little sense.

Mateo traced one of the glowing lines with his finger. "Looks like a circuit board. Or… something." He frowned. "Is this a fantasy novel or history?"

"I don't know," Patti admitted, leaning closer. "The author, a cartographer from the 1800s, speaks of sensing 'undercurrents' and 'a vibrant energy' beneath the earth, especially during the spring thaw. Says the river is a… conduit."

He snorted. "A conduit for what? Old man's delusions?" But he didn't pull away. He was hooked, just as she was. His eyes scanned the archaic script, his lips moving silently as he tried to decipher the dense prose.

Patti found another passage, further down. It described a specific location, a "nexus point," where these "veins" converged. The description was vague, referencing an "old heart," a "place of silent growth," near where "the three currents meet."

"Three currents," Mateo repeated, his brow furrowed. "The Red. The Assiniboine. That's two. What's the third?"

Patti’s finger hovered over a tiny, almost imperceptible symbol on the old map, near the confluence of the two rivers. It was a stylised image of a blooming sprig, not a prairie rose, but something else, something with long, elegant petals that seemed to unfurl in an impossible way. And within the heart of the blossom, a single, pulsating emerald point.

Her heart hammered. It was almost exactly what they had seen in the river.

"This author," she breathed, "he wasn't just a cartographer. He saw something."

Mateo looked up, his eyes suddenly sharp, cutting through his usual laid-back facade. "So, what? We find this 'nexus point'? This 'old heart'?" His voice held a challenging edge, a dare wrapped in curiosity. He was ready to stop wondering and start doing.

Patti looked at the map again, then at Mateo's eager, slightly scared face. The air in the library, once thick with the smell of old paper, now seemed charged, electric. The mundane hum of the city outside – distant sirens, the rumble of a bus – felt miles away, belonging to a different world. This was their world, now. The world of impossible green and ancient currents.

"We have to," Patti said, closing the book with a soft thud that echoed in the quiet space. A new kind of hope, bright and terrifying, bloomed in her chest. A path had unfurled before them, one not sketched in charcoal, but in an ethereal, vibrant green.