When the Water is Hungry

Normally, he loved the lake. It was where he went swimming & fishing with his friends. The summer camp they attended was just down the path. It was where they gathered on the weekends, building bonfires, eating & drinking, laughing & telling stories.

It was also where they had first met, just over a year ago. That night she had taken his hand as she listened to the story. She was new blood to their Friday night gathering & that meant there had to be a telling. The evening’s rendering was particularly good, eliciting both chills & nervous laughter, even from those most familiar with it. She had hung on every word, so much so that he couldn’t be sure whether she held his hand because she liked him or because she simply needed something to grip.

When the telling was over, & as the circle broke into laughter filled with praise for the fine performance, she had turned to him. She studied his face for a long time, searching his eyes for something he feared she would not find. Then, without a word, she had drawn him to his feet & led him into the dark. They wandered, still holding hands, until she found the trail she had noticed earlier. She’d laughed as she coaxed him up the path toward the open space of gentle grass beyond the trees. She’d held him there, her arm draped ever so casually around his waist, as they gazed across the waters, glistening beneath a rising moon nearly full.

That night had taken his breath away—from the touch of her hand to the playful climb, the incredible view, & the simple bliss of being there with her. Just the memory of her arm wrapping around him was so exquisite as to make him feel slightly faint.

Over the past year, they’d spent hours sitting on this bluff looking over the lake. It was their spot. When they were there, they talked about everything. They shared their stories & their dreams for the future. They made each other laugh. It was where they began to imagine a lifetime together.

It was quite naturally where they shared their first kiss.

Normally, he loved the lake. But this was different. It was no longer July when the nights remained sultry. This was mid-September when the evenings brought a chill to the air even after warm days. That had never been a problem when they were dressed for it. Heck, they’d frequented the bluff all through winter. But tonight, all he had were the things he’d been wearing when it happened. His swim trunks & t-shirt had dried, but they offered little comfort against the night air.

He rubbed his arms with his hands to warm them, but still he shivered. There was no moon casting its light upon the water, nor campfires on the far shore, nor stars he could see in the sky. There was fog—not the hazy mists you might find on a crisp morning, but a heavy fog filled with ethereal textures wafting on the breezes all around him. The effect was both whelming & hypnotic, frequently compelling him to look down & touch the grass just to regain his bearings.

Far beneath he could hear the water lapping at the shore. For over a year their gentle rhythms had evoked a kind of Pavlovian response from him. He imagined them as the lake wetting its lips, preparing for a kiss. As he surrendered to their gentle persuasion, he would find himself licking his own, then stealing glances for any sign that she felt it too.

Tonight, it felt different. The lake still licked its lips, but not for a kiss. It was something more ominous, like the telling of a story that sinks into your bones, dragging you down to a place from which you might never rise again. It felt like the story closing in around him, swallowing him whole.

The story—told so often over the years in so many different ways, taking new form with every telling, every teller, & the peculiarities of the night in which it was told. But all shared the same refrain, a kind of chant or incantation:

What should you do when the waters are hungry,

& nothing will slake their thirst?

Run, my child, & don’t look back.

Just run & keep on running.

And if for you there is nowhere to run,

but down its maw you helpless stare,

Then we shall sing & pray for you,

drowned in the water’s snare.

The story had become something akin to the old joke, “The Aristocrats,” though usually without the vulgarity. Tellers would compete to see who could spin the best tale, with those gathered round chanting the refrain like a sinister nursery rhyme from some ancient coven. Many of the best offered direction, cuing their listeners for pace, volume, tone & sometimes even tune in their recitations.

The heart of the story was the lake itself. The water was deep. In the middle, no one knew exactly how deep. The Army Corps of Engineers had surveyed decades ago but never found the bottom. What they had found was a type of algae they had never seen before, one that wanted no light yet only thrived in warm water. They couldn’t determine whether it was floating or attached to the lake’s bed. They could never get through it. And once they had determined it posed no threat &, since it didn’t affect their work, they abandoned the search. They did, however, share a few of their findings.

There were unusual currents in the lake, mostly subtle, all fairly stable. The bed was dotted with fissures of varying size, either drawing or at least allowing cold water to pass through to somewhere below. Where the algae had bloomed there was a much stronger current of warm water flowing upward. Rising several hundred meters to the surface, this water remained somewhat focused, never measuring more than seventy-five meters in diameter. If you were out on the lake, or if you had a good eye from the shore, you could see the rim, a slight rise & disturbance in the water.

No one knew what caused this phenomenon, which allowed for thriving imaginations. Explanations ranged from underwater volcanoes, to swimming dragons which sometimes took to the skies at night, to goblins stoking their furnaces. One young woman claimed it was an adolescent water sprite determined to light his matches in the depths where his parents wouldn’t catch him.

The stories of legend, however, claimed it was the water itself, the lake breathing, pumping its lifeblood through its veins, cultivating its gardens & nurturing its friends. If the lake became sick, it belched malodorously. If the illness was severe, it might become delirious, unpredictable & dangerous, as though rabid with thirst. As it got better, it always became hungry.

The lake becoming hungry was what he was hearing—licking its chops, knife & fork in hand, salivating over him. He heard the growling of its stomach, the ground beneath him trembling, ready to offer him up at any moment. The fog closing in, his head spinning, he squeezed his eyes shut & grabbed the grass beside him, waiting for his world to settle…,

…or to end.

As his stomach churned, he threw up just a little in the back of his throat. He thought for a moment he was on the verge of a full-scale vomit, but then his head cleared. In this brief moment of clarity, he found himself remembering the telling he’d tried so hard to forget.

Usually, tellings were something to be celebrated, eliciting grins & laughter, ooos & ahs, as they were told. This one weighed heavily from the moment it began. The teller was a stranger to them, a bit scruffy, thin & unkempt. He’d come to warm himself by the fire & listened quietly as one teller was putting forth. After a bit, he looked to the shore, lifting his head as though listening, nodding every once in a while with understanding. Someone had just offered him a s’more when he stood up & walked toward the water where he carried on a conversation they couldn’t quite hear.

When he returned, he sat back down in the circle. His collar had been turned up & he held his hands out to warm them. Everyone fell silent, their eyes focused intently upon him. Whoever had been working their story (afterwards, no one could remember who it was), stopped in mid-sentence. The only sounds were the rustling of the breeze, the occasional hoot of a distant owl, the crackling of the fire, & the lapping of the lake upon the shore.

He didn’t look up from the fire when he finally spoke. His words were slow & deliberate, his voice soft & gravelly. “A story gets told over & over again, eventually it becomes true. When told enough, it claims the heart, & what is true becomes what is real.”

No one said a thing, but neither did they turn away as he sat there staring into the fire. At last, he spoke again. “How many times have you told this story, one version or another?”

How do you quantify such a thing? No one knew. Enough for several of the best versions to have been recorded, written up & published in a small booklet. You could find them for sale in many a shop nearby, including the canteen at the camp.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s been enough. The story has become what is true & now what is true is becoming real.”

No one smiled as he spoke. No one laughed. No one moved so much as a muscle. He spoke of things that had been, both familiar to them & not, & he spoke of the present. But mostly he told in the future tense, of things that were yet to be.

“She’s not hungry,” he continued, “but she will be. And she will feast & drink from a meal she has already chosen. She has seen it here upon this shore, around this very fire, becoming part of her story, the story you have told until it became true. A story you are even now making real.”

Then he eased into the refrain. It was the only time in the entire telling. No one else joined him, though some swore they could hear both the fire & the lapping of the waves whispering with every syllable.

There were only eleven of them that night, besides the stranger, but each agreed it was hands down the best & most powerful telling they had ever heard, as did everyone with whom they shared it in the days following.

Yet no one wrote it down. A few tried, but as soon as they put pen to paper (or tried to record it), they couldn’t remember. They still could tell it, however. And as far as he knew, no one, not even the most cynical, ever smiled or laughed with the telling.

He thought he was beginning to understand why. It was what he couldn’t admit, what he refused to believe even now. But he had witnessed, early that afternoon, the telling emerging from the water itself, becoming real, & making the two of them a part of it.

They’d been out on the lake. It was a beautiful afternoon but the weather was supposed to turn cold before the next weekend. This was their last hurrah for swimming & water skiing. They wanted to make the most of it.

They’d been skiing in the middle, right over the thermals. The rush of warm water hitting the surface made things interesting—plus, if you wiped out it was like landing in a slow-churning jacuzzi.

He had been in the boat recording her on his phone as she skimmed through the water behind them. She was fearless & loved riding the thermals. His father had been piloting while her parents & siblings—one brother & two sisters—watched. Her older sister had her phone out, too.

She had just launched herself over the rim & completed a beautiful flip when something breached the surface right in front of her. There was nothing she could do. She hit it, flew high into the air, losing one shattered ski…,

…& then it happened.

He told himself repeatedly that he could not have seen what he knew he saw. But it was there on his phone, & her sister’s, too. Her sister couldn’t see it, even when he pointed right to it. Neither could either set of parents, or her brother. They all dismissed it as a random swirl in the water & a trick of the light. Only her younger sister thought there could be something to the shadow that appeared for only a moment, just beneath the surface.

She was an excellent swimmer & a competitive diver. He had seen the look on her face as she was blasted toward the sky. The impact had probably broken her leg, yet her face had remained calm, her eyes focused. She knew what she was doing & was still in control as she prepared to enter the water. She was going to be fine.

And then he had seen it, just a shadow, a small whirlpool opening inches before she reached the water. And then there was no splash, as though the lake had simply swallowed her. No splash is what she always wanted when diving. But even he knew she wouldn’t get it with a ski attached, no matter how perfect her form.

His dad had swung the boat around to retrieve her from the water, but something was wrong. He couldn’t find her. She had been wearing her life jacket, so she had to be on the surface somewhere near. But she wasn’t. Worried & frustrated, they had turned on the fish-finder & scanned the entire area. There was nothing, not even fish or debris. And no sign of whatever had taken her down.

Other boats came to help. Someone called 9-1-1. In a state of shock, he had just kept scanning the lake. She had to be there. Emergency responders arrived, asking all sorts of questions before taking their phones for closer study. There were divers in the water, but they couldn’t find a thing.

Of course, they couldn’t. She was an exceptional swimmer. Even with a broken leg, no water could ever take her down. He kept repeating that to himself. He had to believe it was true.

Park rangers combed the shore. Around five, some fishermen found a badly damaged ski floating near the rim. Half an hour later a diver located a mangled life vest matching hers. Just before dark they found another ski, cracked & gouged, bobbing in the water near the shore among a tangle of dead trees. A little after ten the fog had rolled in & they called off the search until morning. Her family had been taken to a ranger station to hold onto whatever hope they could still find.

He had climbed the trail to their spot on the bluff.

He could hear the lake calling, licking her lips, begging for another telling. But he would not sing the refrain for her. He wouldn’t so much as think it. He would not help make it real, not tonight, not ever again. If the lake was to become hungry, she would have to do it on her own. And if she succeeded, he would not run. He would face her. But she would have to come to him.

He would make the story not be true & deny it the opportunity to become real. Then he would create a different telling & make the world anew.

Their hopes, their dreams of a lifetime together…. She had to come. She had to….

She would find him there.

He sat on the edge of the bluff, straining to see anything he could through the fog, softly singing songs of hope & longing. Once, through a crease in the mist, he thought he saw someone on the shore below, their collar turned up, listening to the licking of the water & nodding their head.

In the wee hours of the morning, he saw her face moving with the fog upon the breezes off the lake, her hair trailing in curls of beckoning. He clenched the grass beside him with both fists.

Then he heard her voice in the distance softly singing, calling to him. He slid from the top of the bluff down the embankment, scrambling over rocks he could barely see, falling into the sands so anxious to receive him. He cast about blindly in every direction, crying to her, “Where are you? I cannot find you.”

“Over here,” he heard her say. He felt her hand on his cheek, her arm around his waist. And then she was in front of him, holding both his hands, giggling & dancing as she coaxed him with eager eyes & lips, glistening from some unseen light.

She led him to the water’s edge & laughed as the waves licked at her feet. “Just think of the story you’ll have to tell. No one will beat it. You’ll be published in their little pamphlets for sure.”

She pulled him closer & asked, “Do you trust me?” Without waiting for an answer, she waded in. “Come swim with me. The water’s so nice. By next week it’ll be cold as death. I want to swim tonight, just you & me together.”

He followed her into the water, through the fog & dark, relieved, happy & content. As he slid beneath the surface into the warmth of her embrace, he thought,