Ashore

The most eventful season was the Winter. When the water turned to cold, soul-less glass, and made staring to the depths of the lake just that much harder. It sings, you know. The Depths.

I’m not sure what keeps me here, between the mountains. I’m much farther north than I’d like, as my family took a home in Denmark to get out of the States. It wasn’t long after that I decided to strike out on my own. Find my own home, you know? Settle down, maybe. But at that time, that drive had been to maybe find a husband or wife. Maybe a home. Not this. Not this cursed lake.

Every morning it is the same. I wake up, my mind foggy with the peculiar dreams that held my attention in some span of the night. I used to keep a journal, but it became too cursed and wretched that I had to throw it into the lake. I go to the mirror and shave. Sometimes there’s a little, sometimes there’s a lot, but it always makes me think of awful gripping legs, like those of a terrible spider. So I stay clean-shaven. Usually, I go into town for food, sometimes for favor from the locals. You know, I once ate free an entire week because Ms. Lucretia would offer me pies? That was before she realized what slept in the lake. What the Depths were. Before she heard the singing. I miss that.

Where was I?

Right, so I go in for favors or food. The local grocer’s is well-stocked, though the shipments have become rarer and rarer. Magellegot’s, the shipping folk, they’re none too fond of this town. What was once a week turned to once per two. Then once per month. Then once per six months. Nowadays, they only come when the last supply runs out. They leave us mostly canned stuff, so it’ll survive as long as possible. I get me food, I come back to the house, I sit and I write. Or maybe I talk to a visitor or two like you, lass. Can’t say we get many reporters, but we get lots of “explorers”. They used to come for the lake, like it was calling to them. I used to let them stay here, I used to give them a bed and shelter. But one man was a little too nice to me when he didn’t come back. Hurt too much. So now I only make friends with those who want naught to do with the water.

Sometimes, while I’m down there, I get some good coin from Mr. Gremmish, the Pastor. Hey? Ekström? Has he married? No? Doesn’t matter. The Pastor, whoever he be, gives me coin from time to time for my work up here on the hill. For keepin’ swimmers and sailors and would-be adventurers away. We as a town work mighty hard to convince people the lake is nothing but rumor and superstition. Can’t stop the determined ones, though. It’s funny, but you’d never find their bodies in the water. Especially not during the day.

At night? Oh, at night they invite me. Beck n’ call they think I am! Armies of them, every time another goes missing. I remember the nights I could see the stars in the water behind them. But there’s too many now. Far too many. And they’re scary, oh for certain they’re scary. There was that one, a Professor he said he was, studying the realms beyond. His neck was broken on a rock west of the lake. So that’s all I see. That’s all he was before the Depth took him. But that’s not what scares me the most. Not their mutilated bodies, not their haunted appearance, not the fact that I haven’t the damndest idea what commands them. No.

What scares me is when I got here there was one. And the sea had been calling me for years, certainly others, and yet it only showed me one. Are these meant for me, and me alone? Do the others, before they drown, see different crowds? Different people? Is it just me? Will they vanish when I’m gone?

I don’t know. Maybe I knew, but I don’t remember. I don’t know what’s out there, but I.. I think I’ve had enough waiting. This conversation, I think I should go out on the water. Say, midnight. Twenty minutes from now, yeah? That’s when they usually arrive. Oh, yes, you’re welcome to join me. I’m sure you’ve heard it too. But leave your notebook here when you’re done. Wouldn’t want you to dive traceless.