Pearl

Pearl Wilson was twelve years old when she saw Mary Weaver drown.

Pearl was a gangly thing who was just at the cusp of womanhood. Her shirts were fitting tighter at the bust and her skirts were too snug at the hips. She didn't really understand what was happening to her body and when she asked her momma what she should do, her momma laughed in her face and told her to go down to the lake and take off all her clothes. Told her to wade around and she would understand.

And that's what she did. She walked down to the the golden lake in the middle of summer. The day was hot and muggy and she was sweating by the time she reached the edge of water. She slid off her pale blue dress and meticulously folded her undergarments on the gravelly dirt. Pearl slowly walked into the water and she felt the small bumps on her chest float up and she was shocked. She realized she resembled her older sister, Claire. Claire was beautiful, and curvy, and a woman.

And Pearl realized that she was a woman too. Her hands wandered on her skin and she was reveling in her new discovery when she heard a violent scream at the other side of the lake. She looked up to see a head fiercely bobbing up and down in the water.

"No! Wenny, no!" the struggling mass wailed in between guttural cries.

This was when Pearl noticed a figure above the drowning woman. He was a tall and spindly thing. He didn't say anything or make any move to help the flailing victim in the water. Pearl just crouched in the blue lake, trying to hide the fact that she was naked in every possible way.

But the male figure did not move, he just watched at the foot of water, at the woman thrashing about. Pearl didn't move either, she only held her breath and watched in horror.

The bobbing ceased and the woman sunk for a second and then floated up to the surface, her body faced down in a sickening way and the boy just watched. So did Pearl. She just watched. She ducked down and stared at the surviving boy. He stood there for a long, long time with an awestruck expression, like he couldn't believe it had really happened. Then there was a flicker of movement in his body and he struggled to walk away, his knees were shaking and he seemed to be wiping at his eyes.

Pearl sat in the water for hours. She was in the same water as a dead woman, she was in the same water as a dead woman. There was nothing that had ever terrified her more.The sun was already beginning to hide behind a canvas of pink and orange sky when she finally unhinged her joints and stood up. Her skin was wrinkled and prune-like from being in the water for so long. Somehow she managed to slowly put her clothes on and walk back home.

Pearl's momma berated her for being late and wet, two things that annoyed her more than anything. And Pearl merely shut the memory away under lock and key as if it had never, ever happened.

It was a week later when the body washed up onto the shore of the lake. People called it an accident. Poor Mary Weaver. She had left a son and a daughter behind. Poor Owen and Olive Weaver.

It was only at the public memorial service that Pearl saw the Weaver children. They were both older teenagers that were extremely tall and extremely pale with blue eyes that pierced the soul and that seemed to violently express their sadness.

But Pearl took a closer look, a closer look at Owen Weaver. A white hot dart of realization seared her chest. And she knew that he had been there too. He had watched his mother die.

She sat in a comatose state for the rest of the service. Her fingers played with the hem of her black dress and Momma kept shooting her inconspicuous dark looks for looking so strange.

Pearl never spoke of Mary Weaver again. Owen and Olive were sent to live with their aunt and uncle in Nashville.

It was five years later, when Pearl was a real woman, that she felt that same horrible white hot dart of realization once more. She reverted back to being a scared and helpless twelve year old.

Because it was five years later that Owen and Olive Weaver returned.