The Final Pirate King

As kids, we spent so much time around the lake that I never imagined it might be dangerous. It was our playground, and you don't realise that a playground could be dangerous until one of two things happen: You can get old enough that you see all of the possible splinters and the places where, should a child slip, they could break their bones. Or you can tumble yourself and have the whole event come crashing home at once.

Technically, my great uncle owned the lake house, but the whole extended family used it. So my cousins were all there on when it happened. If only they hadn't been. We were playing pirates, hauling our little boats out to the lake in order to conquer the sea.

At the center of the lake, a raft bobbed on the water. Deep down at the lake's murky bottom, something anchored it in place. A long chain connected the bottom of the wooden raft to the lake like a long, metallic strand of seaweed. For us pirates, the raft was an island fortress, even though it was only four-feet to a side. We wrestled on the the wooden boards because pirate law dictated that whoever had been on the raft for the longest was the pirate king.

Steph was pirate king on the morning we discovered the lake could be dangerous.

"Pirate queen!" Leroy said. "You're a girl, so you have to be pirate queen!"

She grabbed him by the armpits and chucked him into the lake. He squealed as he hit the water. When his head bobbed up through the surface, and he spat out dark water and stared, she planted her hands on her hips. "Pirate king."

Drew, Leroy's older brother, made a push for the crown. He grappled with Steph, but they were about the same size, and she was the better wrestler. She wanted it more than the rest of us, and she fought all-out to protect her crown.

"Help me, Jack! C'mon!" Drew said as Steph forced him back towards the edge of the island fortress.

Between grunts, Steph said, "You would need help to beat me."

"Jack! Jack!"

He could call my name as many times as he wanted, but I wasn't going to do anything. I had been in Steph's boat when we sailed out to the island, so she was my pirate captain. Besides, if she got thrown off the island, I would become pirate king and someone would want to get rid of me.

Drew plopped into the water with a louder and higher-pitched squeal than his brother. The pair of them bobbed in the water, staring up at those of us on the pirate fortress.

Steph stood on the edge of the raft. It wobbled, anchored to the lake's bottom but pivoting as weight shifted on the boards.

"Before you can come back up, you have to say that I'm the pirate king."

The sun was setting, but that wasn't unusual for us. We could play out on the lake until the stars were the only lights we could see, and our parents never worried. Seems strange to say that now, doesn't it? But at the time, that was just our lives. Our parents were back at the lake house, cracking open some beers or assembling a puzzle, and they would throw food in front of us whenever we stumbled through the door.

Drew tried to scramble onto the pirate fortress, and Steph stomped at his toes. He let go at the last second, screaming, "No fair!"

"C'mon, Steph. Let us up!" Leroy begged.

"Say it."

"But--"

"Say it."

The pair of them looked at each other, grimacing. The water was getting cold, and we all knew it. Leroy was shivering.

"You're the pirate..."

"Yes?"

Leroy let out a snorting giggle. "Queen."

"You're not coming up."

Drew screamed and flailed for the pirate fortress, but Steph stopped him. He stared up at her, his eyes wide, and something flipped inside me. His eyes said that this wasn't just a game anymore. "Something touched my leg."

"Uh-huh."

"Something--"

Steph stomped towards his hands again, and screamed, "Pirate king, pirate king, pirate king!"

Steph stepped aside, and he scrambled up onto the boards. He flipped around, facing his brother out in the water. "Leroy, get over here."

"He can't come up."

"Steph--"

"Not until he says it."

We all turned to face Leroy.

He was smiling at that last moment, swirling his hands in the water to keep afloat. He opened his mouth, and from his shit-eating grin, we all knew he was going to go through his pirate queen routine again. But before he could make a sound his face contorted. He squealed. He flailed. His head disappeared under the surface of the water, then his arms, and finally his hands. Bubbles churned where he had been before.

"Leroy!" Drew shouted.

But even then, even as it was unfolding, I noticed that Drew didn't jump in after his little brother. He clutched the edge of the raft and stared out at the spot where Leroy had been, and he waited. He looked like a running locked into the starting blocks.

None of us jumped in after him. The water was dark, and any one of the particularly dark patches around us could be Leroy or just an illusion from the lake's rippling surface.

"Leroy! C'mon man, just..."

And we stared some more. My damp skin grew cold. Something wasn't right, and we all knew it. I still don't know how. Maybe it was the sudden smell in the air that brought a bit too much sulphur. Or maybe it was the fact that Leroy hadn't bobbed under the surface--he'd clearly been pulled. He disappeared all in one horrible flash. Here one second, and then just gone. Or maybe it was just that the panic in Drew's voice spread to all of us. He had authority, after all. He had been the first person to touch it.

None of us said anything for long seconds. Drew whimpered, and the rest of us stared, and Steph--our unquestioned pirate king--just stood there, as dumbstruck as the rest of us.

"We have to get help," Jenny said.

Jenny was the smallest cousin, and she followed Steph like a member of the paparazzi. Usually she didn't make statements; she just asked questions. But with her hands up by her mouth and her eyes as wide as the rest of ours, she said, "Someone should get dad."

"Leroy?" Drew asked.

"What touched you?" Steph said.

"Huh?"

"You said something touched you. What touched you?"

Drew looked back to the water. He clearly thought for a long moment. Then he said, "I don't know."

"Get in the boats. We'll stay here and watch for him. You take Jenny back to the shore and get help, okay? Go. Fast!"

And I breathed a little easier. There it was: our pirate king was in action, finally.

So Drew grabbed Jenny, and the pair of them pushed out from the pirate fortress. The stretch of water that separated us from the shore was wide, but they could cross it in a couple minutes if they were lucky. Drew had an oar, and even though his hands were shaking he pushed and pushed and pushed, all the while muttering--either to himself or to Jenny--that everything would be okay.

Then the oar snagged on something.

Drew yelped. He let go of the oar, and it disappeared into the dark water. He turned back and faced us. And in the second that he made eye-contact I knew it was over. Before his yelp could really turn into a scream, the boat flipped. It was strangely peaceful, bobbing there on the surface of the water like a lizard sunning itself, but I pissed myself anyways. Even though I couldn't see it, I knew that under the water's surface, something had Drew. It was the same thing that had Leroy, the same thing that had Jenny. Maybe they were struggling, kicking and screaming. Or maybe something had snapped their spines, forcing the life out of their flesh.

It didn't matter.

They were gone.

I looked up at Steph, then we looked back to the water.

What was it that preyed on us? A fish? A squid? A fresh-water shark?

Steph held both of her hands over her mouth, and she no longer looked like a guardian or a protector. In my eyes, she'd always seemed so strong and bold, but now I saw her as a kid. We were kids who had stood on the playground and watched another kid fall, smashing their head against the playground's structures. We were children in the center of a dark pool of water, and our parents were a long way away, and something swirled under the surface of that water with malevolent grace.

We were kids, and we were alone.

I cried.

I cried until our parents came to get us, and I cried all through the explanation, and I cried as locals came out with boats and big lights to try to fish out the bodies. I cried through the funerals, and I cried through the memorial services, and I cried through the years of therapy that followed. I cried when they said there was no monster, and I cried when they said that we must have been roughhousing and it got out of hand, and I cried for years to come whenever I remembered sitting out on the raft, feeling completely helpless in the face of a dark pool of water full of secrets I was never meant to know.

Not Steph, though. Not our pirate king.

They asked her the same question again and again in a dozen different ways: why didn't you jump in and save Leroy? Why didn't you save Jenny? Sure, Drew was a big kid, but Leroy and Jenny weren't. They were just little kids. So why did you stay on the raft, Steph? Why didn't you help?

She didn't cry, and she barely answered the question.

When our parents came to rescue us, they grabbed me first. Steph was the last person to get off that dock, dumbstruck and silent. We never returned to the lake. The house sold, and I can't even dip my head under water without terror returning to me.

So in the end, Steph won the game. For now and forever, she'll always be the final pirate king.