Unfortunately there wasn’t I could do. As I said, we didn’t have many possessions and the things I loved most were books that mama read to me when papa wasn’t looking but I couldn’t read yet. So I settled for licorice. I knew it was hidden in the washbasin on the highest shelf.
I brought out the chair from underneath the table and began to push it toward the shelf when I heard a peculiar sound. A giggle.
I stopped and looked around. I was alone in the house, I knew that. Yet there it was again. A light laugh. It was girlish and airy and sparkled in the breeze.
I forgot all about the sweets and walked over to the front door. I paused before I put my hand on the knob, listening again for the laugh. Now, there it was. It was definitely coming from outside, definitely not my mother. Nor a neighbor for I had never seen any children around except for the boy at the goat farm my mother was on her way to.
I felt a strange cool feeling travel down my spine. It made me wince and I began to second guess going outside to investigate but I still did. My hand turned the knob like it did every day and I stepped outside into our yard.
Our house may have been small but our yard was bigger. It stretched all the way down to the lake’s edge where dull brown sand mixed with skinny weeds. Today the water lapped noisily at the shore in a hurried manner, like it was rushing to get somewhere. Perhaps the house. Perhaps me.
I shook such foolish thoughts out of my head and tried not to think about the giant fish woman my mother told me lived in the lake. I faced the trees that bordered the grassy yard and watched as they swayed against each other, their bright leaves glinting in the soft light.
The giggle resounded again. This time it was coming from behind the house where my mother kept a vegetable garden and a small root cellar for preserving over the winter.
I crept along the side of the house, grateful that my tiny leather shoes were worn and didn’t squeak. When I reached the edge of the building, I slowly inched my head around and looked at the garden.
I didn’t move but my breath left me.
In the garden, behind the tomato plants that were snaking up a knotted wood plank, was a girl. She was maybe a year older than me, about the same height. She had the blondest hair I had ever seen, a sharp contrast to my mass of dark waves. She was wearing a red dress that fell in a straight line, free of the bunching I was used to wearing, and shiny white shoes.
She was hiding behind that plant. And she was watching me.
There was no use in me ducking behind the wall. I had been seen and from the strange look in the girls aqua eyes, it looked like I had been expected.
I cleared my throat and tried to speak but all speech had left me. I tried again, worried that something bad would happen if I didn’t say something and finally my tongue worked.
“I’m Pippa Lindstrom,” I said, keeping most of my body out of her sight. “What’s your name?”
I expected a response. Even for a little girl, it was a straight forward question. But the blonde one just lifted her finger to lips, a skinny pale thing I glimpsed through the tomatoes. Her eyes flashed wide and shot to a place over my head.
I followed her gaze.
Behind me, near the start of the path that led into the woods, was a tall, dark man. He was only darkness. I know this doesn’t make much sense but I could barely make out any of his features, anything that made him human. Everything about him was shadows and black and emptiness. He was dressed in a black cloak, black shoes and pants and his bare skin, his neck and face, looked as if he was standing in the shade of a dense tree.
Only he wasn’t. The sun was directly on him but it didn’t…reach him. It was if the light couldn’t even illuminate a single cell on his body.
My blood froze like a winter lake. I looked back at the girl behind the tomato plant and she was still there with her finger to her mouth, her eyes pleading with me not to say anything.
So I didn’t. I didn’t even nod in fear of giving her away. I just calmly looked back at the man as if he was the only person I saw outside my house.
The man stared at me. I don’t know how I knew this because I couldn’t see his eyes, even if he had eyes. But he was staring and in that way the owl does before he decides to bite the head off a mouse. It was predatory.
Then he turned and walked into the woods. Maybe he floated, my memory is a bit fuzzy. If I recall correctly, I think he just disappeared into the bark of the trees. But he was there one minute and the next he was gone.
Sure that the black man had vanished, I stepped around the house and walked toward the girl. She stumbled back a few feet, looking scared. I noticed how white her shoes stayed, despite the layer of mud in the garden from yesterday’s rain. It was strange. But what wasn’t?
“Who are you?” I asked, wanting an answer this time. “Where do you live?”
“I live in the lake,” she said.
I giggled and put my hands on my hips. “You’re a liar. No one lives in the lake.”
Not even monsters, I thought. That was make believe.
She shook her head and began to walk through the mud. Her feet never left any footprints.
Was this make believe too?
“Where do you live?” I asked again as she skirted past me and walked faster, heading for the side of the house. I followed after her, my eyes glued to her feet that never got dirty, that never made a mark.
“I live in the lake,” she said again, as if I didn’t hear her.
As she reached the front and the lake loomed before us, the water calmed instantaneously. Like there was a switch that made the currents move and stop.
I knew the girl didn’t live in the lake, but I also knew not to argue with her. She was the first girl my age that I had ever talked to. I wanted her to stay around and play with me. I wanted to give her licorice from the washbasin and ask her to stay for cake but I quickly realized the lake was the only thing she aware of now.
“Don’t go,” I cried out after her, my long legs catching up. “Please.”
“I have to go home now. He’ll find me here.”
“Who?” I asked. I was walking beside her now and struggling to keep up. Though I was tall, she was a bit taller, older and more determined. Her fair hair bounced around her face and her aqua eyes were focused on the water. She didn’t blink at all.
“Where are you going?” I asked, stopping just as my own shoes almost met the shoreline.
She didn’t answer and she didn’t stop. She walked straight into the lake, effortlessly, as if the water were just air. Her clothes didn’t even soak in the liquid. The water slid around her like a shiny curtain and within seconds her head disappeared. She was in the lake.