Magdalena

For as long as I can remember, I've been drawn to the water. I couldn't explain why it was so appealing. Perhaps it was the fact that I wasn't allowed to go near it. Maybe there was an allure in the forbidden. As a small child I thought perhaps it was because my parents couldn't swim. Maybe they were worried I'd get too deep and drown, and they wouldn't be able to save me. However, as I got older I started to realize that no one in my small village went near the water. No one went to the ocean, no one went to the beach. As I started going to school I had even more people warning me away from the water. Teachers told us not to even step foot on the beach. Most people listened to the warnings and didn't question it, but I needed to know why. I couldn't understand it. I'd sit on the hill overlooking the beach, and I would read or draw while I watched the waves crash. Then I'd go home and ask my parents why I couldn't go on the beach. They'd say there were too many rip tides and I'd be snatched out to sea, unable to ever come back. That didn't make sense though, so I'd go to school and question the teachers. Then I'd get in trouble for not "falling in line like everyone else." I'd ask neighbors on the street, and they'd say it was because of an oil spill from long ago that never got cleaned up. I'd ask the grocer and the baker, and they'd say it was from some big company dumping toxic waste and killing everything; poisoning the water. That was why there was never any fish, and the next town over was so far away that it wasn't worth travelling to get any.

I was around ten when I finally started to realize the adults in my village were keeping a secret. I knew they were lying about why we couldn't go in the water. I was sitting on the hill drawing the ocean in front of me and imagining myself playing in the water when I saw her. There was a girl playing in the sand. From a distance, she looked to be around my age, and had long black hair reaching just past her waist. Her skin looked the same color as the sand. "Hey!" I called out to her. She turned to look at me. "Don't you know we're not supposed to be on the beach?"

Her mouth broke into a wide grin. She waved at me, seemingly ignoring my words.

"Why are you on the beach?" I called out to her again.

She got up from the sand and walked towards me. As she got closer I was able to observe her other features. Everything about her face was slim and angular. Her eyes were a pale grey, almost as if the ocean had dripped water into them to give them their color. "Its fun." She held her hand up towards me, "Come down and join me."

I hesitated for a moment, "I don't know. My parents..."

"Its fun, trust me."

I stood up and looked around, making sure no one was watching me. My hill was secluded, far enough away from the center of the village where no one could see me so that I wouldn't get in trouble. I had to check first though to be safe, then I started climbing down the rocks. "I'm Nina," I told the girl, "What's your name?"

"Magdalena. Come on, let's go play!" She took my hand and we took off running towards the water. It felt like the sand was slowing me down, so I stopped to take off my shoes and stockings. Feeling the sand between my toes for the first time brought me more joy than I could've imagined it would. "Lets build a sandcastle," she told me, plopping down in the sand and pushing handfuls of it into a mound.

Magdalena became my best friend after that day. I'd meet her after school and on the weekends. We'd run and play on the sand. I was always careful not to get caught though.

It wasn't long after that though when it all came crashing down. Months after she and I had met, I was playing with her on the beach when she started towards the ocean. "Wait!" I shouted, "You can't go in there! It's dangerous." I looked around, ensuring no one was going to catch us.

"It's okay," she reassured me, stepping into the water. "It's fun, trust me." She held out her hand, just like she had that first day when I met her. I watched her for a moment. The waves crashed behind her, the water swirling around her feet for a moment before being pulled back out to sea. "Come on," she urged.

I was nervous, but I desperately wanted to know what it felt like to have the waves breaking around me, the water rushing over me. I reached out to take her hand, but before I could do anything, I was being scooped up. "Nina, no!" I was thrown over my dad's shoulders. I was being carried back across the beach towards the hill. I watched as Magdalena shrunk in the distance, just standing there at the edge of the water.

That night dinner was quiet. My parents didn't speak to me, but I could tell they were disappointed I had broken the rules. I didn't eat, I kept thinking of Magdalena standing at the edge of the water, getting left behind. I didn't touch my chicken. I pushed my veggies around my plate, not caring to eat them. "Nina, eat your food." My mother's voice was quiet and strained.

I didn't look up from my plate, "Why did you leave her there?" I asked.

"Leave who where?" my father asked.

"Magdalena. Why did you leave her on the beach? Why didn't you take her too?"

"I don't know who you're talking about," my father said, "Eat your food."

"Magdalena," I repeated. "She's a little girl, just like me. My friend I was playing with. You left her in the water."

"There was no one there," he stated, "Just you. You must have imagined her. Now either eat your food, or go to bed."

I jumped up from the table, fighting the urge to cry until I had gotten to my room. I jumped onto my bed and wrapped my arms around my pillow crying. My best friend, my only friend, was left behind in the water, and I had no way of knowing if she was okay.

Many years passed, and I never saw Magdalena again. Not on the beach, not around town, nowhere. I thought about her constantly. I didn't believe I had made her up. She felt too real to be imaginary. Now I was an adult, and I was determined to discover the truth, about the water and Magdalena.

I had quietly bought a rowboat from another town, and hidden it in the woods just outside of the village. When the sun went down, and I was able to sneak out onto the water without attracting attention, I did. I tossed the oars inside, along with my backpack and began pushing it out of the trees and across the sand. Once the boat was mostly in the water, I climbed inside and used the oar to push the boat further into the water.

It was strange hearing the water lap at the sides of the boat, but I rowed out to sea regardless, determined to find a good spot to experiment. I opened my backpack, pulling out my notebook and little vials to collect water in. As I was putting on my gloves, I heard a hard thud against the bottom of the boat. Maybe it was a dolphin, or a shark. I turned and looked out at the water around me, checking on all sides of the boat for any sign of a sea creature. Then I heard a splash behind me. I turned and looked, peering over the edge of my boat, staring into the inky blackness of the water.

Slowly a face began to emerge from the surface. My breath caught in my throat and my eyes widened. For a moment, it felt as if my brain had shut off. I stopped thinking, my body froze, I didn't react at all as I stared back into the pale grey eyes. "Magdalena?" I whispered.

It couldn't be her, there was no way. Why was she out here? In the water? Swimming? A wide grin spread across her face, "Nina." Her voice was different. She had gotten older and her voice was no longer the melodic voice of a child, now it was darker, and sounded like a sharp whisper. She drew out the last syllable of my name as she said it.

"What are you doing out here?" I asked, "I've been so worried about you."

She grinned again. There was something different about that too. It wasn't the same as when we were kids, now it looked sinister, and her teeth seemed sharper. I was starting to realize Magdalena wasn't human.

"Come on Nina," she whispered again, "It's fun." She stretched out her bare arm towards me, holding out her hand. As children, her arms had always been covered by her long dress; now I could see the patches of scales and the fins that ran along the outside of her forearm.

"I don't know," I told her, starting to scoot back into the boat.

"Come on, it's fun," she repeated, gripping the edge of the boat, and pulling herself up. As she climbed into the boat I could see that her whole body was covered in scaly patches and fins ran down the sides of her legs. Seaweed wrapped around her torso, replacing the long dress I was used to seeing her wear as a child. What kind of monster had I spent my childhood playing with. Did my father recognize that Magdalena wasn't human? Is that why he had tried to convince me she wasn't real?

I sat there, cowering in the boat as she stood over me "Come on, Nina, let's play, just like we used to. It's fun. Trust me."

I had no escape. I reached out and took her hand. Before my mind even had a chance to register what was happening, she lept from the boat, taking me with her. She kicked her legs, pulling me deeper and deeper into the water. I tried to tell her I couldn't swim, but water filled my mouth and lungs until my chest burnt. All I could see was her, and the dark water swirling around her.

In the morning my empty boat washed up on the shore. The villagers found my backpack, along with my notebook, filled with drawings of Magdalena and I playing, swimming in the water, and building sandcastles. My body never did though. What's left of it is in the bottom of the ocean, and I'm nothing more than a warning to the new generations to stay out of the water.