Treachery Runs Deeps

The moon and stars littered the sky so completely, it almost felt like day. That was good. There were times when the trek was pitch black that it took ages to get ten feet. Not that the light changed that much; even with the ground visible beneath him, it was unnerving being that far out on the lake.

Josiah slid along, refusing to set his weight too completely on any one step. It felt sure, but he knew better. Mr. McPherson cautioned every young boy in school, that even when the lake was frozen ten feet down, it was still dangerous. Treacherous, he called it.

But something had been calling Josiah out there, night after night, for weeks now. Often times he’d awake at midnight, his eyes drawn immediately to the view of the lake through his window. It loomed there, frozen over, covered in a frost, as though it were an intruding visitor waiting to make his acquaintance. Before he knew it, he was up, dressing his warmest and sneaking out the window to greet her.

Why had he just thought of the lake as a her? He didn’t know, but he always did. Wasn’t it a tradition to name ships female names? Maybe it was like that. Either way, it felt like he hadn’t really gotten to meet her yet. Not as she was insisting.

But tonight, was different. He felt it in his bones. Tonight was the night.

Josiah bent over and fumbled with the laces of his boots. He’d gotten them for his birthday yesterday and they made the trek so much easier on him. That and his double lined jacket. His mother hadn’t known why a fourteen-year-old had asked for such serious equipment but seeing as they lived in one of the coldest places in the northwest, she’d indulged him.

This was as far as he’d been. He could still see his footprints from the night before where he’d decided to turn around. And he could see the reason why he’d turned around too. It had freaked him out then and it freaked him out now.

A dark black line jagged across the ice--several feet wide and heaven knows how long--plunging deep into the lake below. Or so he assumed. He hadn’t examined the crack last night. He hadn’t had the courage. It felt unnatural; not a normal crack made by weight or instability, but one of intentionality. As though it had opened from below, not above.

Hadn’t Mr. McPherson had said the lake was frozen ten feet down?

What, or who, had chiseled this line deep into the ice?

What was this inkling in the back of his head, calling him forward yet again?

All these thoughts competed within; fact and fear and faith vying for supremacy. And in the end, one claimed its prize.

Josiah decidedly crossed to the edge of the crack, trailing beside it for several paces. It seemed to grow wider and wider as he followed it along, until at one point he was staring into nearly a ten-foot-wide gap in the ice. He could see the water at the bottom of a cavernous hole that was deeper than his father was tall.

Peering over the edge, he found himself wondering why no one else had noticed this phenomenon. Stranger still, he began to notice other things; the sides of the fissure weren’t smooth, but jagged and populated with small ledges. They almost looked like steps from the water up to the surface. That thought sent a chill down his spine.

“Quit spooking yourself,” he said, just to hear his own voice. The effect wasn’t as comforting as he hoped, and he looked around to check he was still alone. Then his eyes snapped back to examine the crack in the ice.

That’s when he saw her. At first it was just two large eyes hovering beneath the water, but soon enough, a full face emerged: hair, black as a raven, skin as white as the moon.

All manner of automatic responses seized Josiah’s body and mind. First, surprise and fear at seeing a face appear from the depths of the cavern. He nearly screamed like his little sister Lily and ran for his life. But then he realized the girl had probably fallen in, and a new level of panic seized him.

“Hold on! Hold on! I’m coming to help!” he yelled down to her, looking to the side of the fissure to find a ledge. His new boots gripped the ice well as he began to lower himself down, two, then three ledges. It wasn’t until he’d made it nearly halfway down that he turned to check on the girl again.

His limbs froze mid-descent as he searched the surface of the water. She wasn’t there. For a moment he thought he was too late, but then, the corner of his eye caught a black dot against the white ice wall across from him.

Heart beating fast, he made himself turn and look. There the girl sat, perched on one of the ledges. Her large black eyes stared at him, and her skin seemed to glimmer in the moonlight. She smiled at him.

There was something terrifying and also intensely beautiful about her. Her large eyes held his captive, her dark hair nearly as long as she was. The skin on her arms and legs reflected the light of the sky, appearing as scales on a fish, but scales so close you wouldn’t have noticed unless she moved.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Who are you?” she responded. Her voice was thick, and deep, like the gurgling of a brook.

“Josiah,” he answered, hardly able to help himself.

She tilted her head and repeated his name.

“Josiah.”

The lilt in her tone was so alluring that he felt his cheeks go flush. He knew he should’ve been running. Yelling for help. But he also knew something else.

“It’s you, isn’t it? You’ve been calling me.”

The girl stared at him for a long time.

“Yes,” she said finally.

“Why?”

“For that answer, you must finish your descent.”

Josiah looked down to the water, and back up to her.

“But I’ll freeze. I’m not…like you.”

“It is not so cold. See? Even halfway down you’re warmer. Aren’t you?”

Josiah took stock and realized he was warm actually. He began to strip his outer coat and laid it carefully on the ledge.

“I’ve been waiting for you for a long time,” she said, her large black eyes full of hope and wonder. Josiah couldn’t say it, but he felt the same. So, when she asked him again, he didn’t refuse.

“Descend and cross to me.”

Josiah began to lower himself down to the next ledge, and the next, making quick work of the climb. He kept eying the girl on her ledge, fearing that she’d disappear if he didn’t. But she remained where she was, watching him eagerly.

Finally, he made it to the last ledge, hovering a foot above the water. She had asked him to cross, but how? Did she mean for him to go in?

“Do you live in there?” he asked looking up at her.

The girl nodded.

“Do others?”

There was a long pause, but then the girl shook her head.

“How long have you been alone?” he asked, his heart-breaking in a way he’d never experienced.

“Forever,” she said solemnly. She was standing now, waiting for him.

His heart was made up before his mind could fight him. Josiah unlaced his boots and slipped them off. His feet dangled the edge, and his toes felt the water. It was warm!

Delight filled his mind at such a discovery, and he cast a look back at the girl. She was still above him, but was no longer watching. In fact, she seemed to be a couple ledges higher now, and was climbing higher still.

“Wait!” he called, “I’m coming, wait for me.”

She smiled down at him and nodded, pausing for a moment.

“Come quickly,” she said, and then turned and began to climb again.

Almost against his will, he plunged his whole body into the water.

“Wait for me!” he said frantically, as he tried to swim cross the gap. His arms paddled clumsily but he seemed to be losing feeling in his legs the longer he was in there.

It occurred to him in that moment, that the warm water, was no longer warm, but treacherously cold. And the girl was no longer waiting for him, but already at the top of the cavern, staring down. Was she wearing his jacket? His boots?

“Wait!” he called again alarmed for new reasons. He made it to the other side but could not find a ledge to grab a hold of. His mind was going numb from the cold, and still the girl stood above watching him struggle.

And then, just as he was about to sink under the water, he heard a voice call him.

“Josiah!”

It was one he recognized but didn’t expect.

“Josiah, don’t move, I’m coming!”

“It is done, you cannot stop it now,” the gurgling voice of the brook commanded. He could hear it even though she was far away, as though it was coming from the very water around him.

“Take me. You’ve wanted me all these years, haven’t you? I will go.”

Josiah lost the ability to move his limbs and his head sunk under water. In the dark he thought he could see other forms, other faces, but his mind began to fade in the cold as fast as his body was sinking. And in the next moment, all he saw was black.

Next, his eyes were opening, looking at the light of the sun.

“Josiah!”

It was the voice of his mother, she was at his side, covering him with a thick blanket. Paramedics crowded around and lifted him onto a stretcher.

“What on earth were you doing out here? I don’t understand…without a jacket, shoes…did he fall in?” his mother said in a stream of frantic questions to himself and the paramedics.

“I can’t see where he would have fallen in ma’am,” they responded, “the ice is frozen ten-feet deep.”

The words triggered a memory and Josiah sat up straight.

“Mr. McPherson!” he said, looking around, “where is he?”

“What?” his mother asked.

“He was here! He saved me!”

A police officer crossed to Josiah’s side immediately.

“What did you say?”

“Mr. McPherson was here,” Josiah said, “he rescued me from the water…from her…”

It was all coming back, and he had no sense whether anyone would believe him or not. But the look in the officer’s eyes was dark and worried.

“What is it?” his mother asked, noticing this too.

“Jim’s car was at the edge of the lake this morning, but we haven’t been able to find him.”

“You need to search the water,” Josiah insisted, careening over his stretcher to point back to the fissure in the ice.

But when he did, his stomach dropped; the crack was no longer there.

Mr. McPherson’s words played around in his head.

Take me. You’ve wanted me all these years…I’ll go…

The girl. She’d been calling Mr. McPherson too…for years. Maybe even since he was a boy, like Josiah. Did she need someone to go in, so she could leave? Whatever she needed, she’d nearly gotten it with Josiah. But then Mr. McPherson had come. He’d taken his place. He’d saved him.

But where had she gone? Would she return? Were there others? Hadn't he seen others?

All this weighed heavily on him for many reasons, the greatest of which being that he knew no one would ever believe him. That he’d never be able to speak of it.

Not directly.

But he could warn others. He had to. He’d spend his whole life warning others.

Even frozen deep, the lake was treacherous.