Abbarent Waters

If I'm lost please don't find me,
If I jump let me sink



When I reached the sandy path that led to the lake, my brother was nowhere in sight. I knew he was probably waiting somewhere, in the hopes of ambushing me. So I walked slowly and savored the feeling of the grainy multi-colored particles between my toes and smiled absentmindedly, thinking about the summers at the beach.

There were few bushes, their naked limbs twisted in odd ways, holding each other in an unnatural embrace. A few sticks protruded from underneath the sand, trying to jab me. I looked up at the sky, which had seemingly grown even darker.

“Gotcha!”

I jumped slightly when Jackson attacked me, my heart rate accelerating too fast to be healthy. I just knew he would cause me to have a heart attack one day. Even though I expected him to scare me, it didn’t surprise me any less when he did. Jackson knew when to scare someone. He knew when it would surprise them the most. He tackled me to the ground and startled tickling me all over. I simply threw him off and stood to my feet, and brushed my clothing off.

He looked crestfallen when I continued walking down the path, remaining indifferent to him.

I pushed a strand of hair behind my ear and yawned when I reached the moss and algae infested shore. Jackson came up behind me and I sidestepped so as not to give him the chance to push me into the water. I didn’t particularly feel like freezing to death today. Jackson snickered and looked up at me questioningly. I glared. “I know what you were thinking,” I informed him.

He frowned and spread his legs open. “No you don’t. You can’t read my mind.”

“Yeah, but I know you.”

He rolled his eyes in response and leaned over to touch his toes; after doing so, he stood straight up, breathed in, and did it again multiple times. I wasn’t sure why it irritated me, but it did. Maybe I just wanted him to be still for once. “Stop,” I said, abruptly. He looked at me strangely before continuing his little cycle. I left him and walked along the shore by myself, gazing at the surrounding grass and trees that were on the other side of the shore. Their branches arched over the water, and the moss hung leisurely. I kicked sand into the murky water and watched it float down until I could no longer see it. I came upon a small boat, hid close to the grass, and not particularly easy to see from where I was moments ago. The white paint on it was chipped and faded, revealing the gray texture of the wood. It was flipped upside down, and there were foot prints in front of it; footprints that seemed to be fresh. They looked small, so I figured maybe a child had hid under there while playing hide-and-go-seek. I kneeled down and was about to look underneath it when my brother called to me.

“Elena!”

I sighed and stood up to my feet. I returned to him and watched uninterestedly as he leaned over the water, his face full of wonder and excitement. He leaned over further, his nose nearly touching the surface of the calm water. I grabbed him quickly and pulled him back. He frowned up at me and made a break for the water once more. I simply held him in my arms, unfazed by his efforts to escape.

“Elena,” he whined.

“Jackson,” I said. “I can’t have you falling in.”

He sighed heavily and slumped in my arms, so that he slid down to his feet, making it hard for me to hold on to him. “But I saw something,” he said.

“Oh yeah? And what was that?” I asked, kneeling down behind him. I pulled him close to me and inhaled the smell of cinnamon from his hair. “I don’t know,” was his reply. He got still and we stared into the water for a while. I felt very comfortable in that moment, sitting there with my brother. “Elena,” he said.

“Yeah?” I asked, leaning my chin on the top of his head. He leaned back into me and everything grew deathly quiet for a moment. I didn’t hear a single thing but his breathing. I couldn’t hear my own, but I felt sure that was because our breathing had become in-sync with one another, from sitting still like that.

“Why didn’t dad come with us?”

I sighed. “He had work to do.”

“But mom’s pregnant.”

My eyes wondered to the water as I thought up an appropriate response for the lack of my father’s presence. And I saw a flicker of something white shoot across the water. It happened so quickly I thought I had been mistaken. I felt sure I had been imagining things until I saw it once more. There were a few ripples that appeared on the surface. They disappeared as quickly as they had come.

I stood, and pulled Jackson up with me. He watched me with interest as I stood over the shore and looked in earnest for whatever it was I had seen. “What is it, Elena?” Jackson asked. I noted his voice sounded muffled and turned to see that his face was red and blotchy. I looked back at the water, hesitantly, and unwilling.

I watched for a few more moments, suddenly entranced and very much intent on seeing that thing again. My common sense was telling me that it was a fish. Fish swam close to the surface all the time and then disappeared. It probably found some food or was coming up for air. But I was entranced by the rhythmical movement of the water as it moved with the current, lightly sloshing up against the shore and washing up moss. Occasionally the water would hit my feet and cause a shiver to go down my spine.

I felt a longing to dive down into the water and go to the bottom. It was so overwhelming that I began teetering back and forth on my feet. The water rapidly began coming closer to my face, and I could hear the faint call of my brother as I fell in. My breath was taken away from me and no clear thoughts could process themselves in my mind. I was frozen in the chilling water.

I floated freely, my head occasionally turning. My eyes opened and I looked at the blackish green water. My body was telling me something that my mind didn’t know. I ignored it and looked harder, trying to concentrate. I saw the white flash again. Excitement filled me and I made an attempt to swim forward. But I couldn’t. I was moving upwards.

It was almost as if my body was saying, “You obviously don’t know what’s going on, so let me help you.”

It pushed itself forward without my permission and then my face was in the sand, and breathing came in gasps. “Elena,” Jackson said, leaning down beside me. I looked up at him and smiled. His face was so angelic and welcoming, that for a moment, I thought I had died.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I was disappointed, knowing if I had in fact died, that an angel would not ask me if I was okay. It would be absurd. And I was disappointed I didn’t get to see what that white flash was. Jackson turned me over with force much greater than his eight years, his eyes blazing angrily, looking like our father.

“Are you okay?” he asked again. I laughed and when I did so, my chest heaved angrily and I suddenly sat straight at attention, water pouring out of my mouth. I coughed a few times and fell back down on my back, now breathless.

He stood up to his feet and took my hands into his own, worry in his eyes. I helped myself up, painfully, and let my brother lead me back down the path. It was only halfway through that I noticed my flip-flops were gone. That gave me a pretty good laugh. “Come on,” Jackson told me, patiently. I sighed as he took my arm and threw it over his shoulder. It made me embarrassed, yet it filled me with pride.

A boy coming our way stopped and looked at us. I was way too far out of it to answer any of his questions. “Are you okay?” he asked.

I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I couldn’t form any words. I was even more embarrassed than I had been in the first place. The boy was tall, with brown ringlets and hazel eyes. He was pale, but I suppose that was understandable when one lived in a place like this. There was something that struck me odd about him. He looked awkward and even though the clothing he wore fit him perfectly, there was something not right about it. His skin had an odd tint to it. Maybe it was because I’d just fallen into the water and hadn’t gained my wits about me, but it almost looked… Green. I had to blink my eyes a few times to focus and when I did, his skin seemed normal.

“Yeah, she’s fine,” my brother answered for me. He led me away from the boy and kept offering me comforting words. I turned my head over my shoulder to take another look at the boy. He was gone.

When we got to the house, Jackson opened the door for me and assisted me inside. We both stood in the doorway for a moment, watching mom take things out of boxes and curse angrily every few seconds. She stopped, as if finally sensing our presence – or maybe she finally heard the dripping of water coming from me – and turned to us.

She looked at me, and at first her face was blank, and then it turned to shock, and then anger. “What happened?” she demanded. She came over to me and grabbed me by my arms. “Oh my God,” she screeched. “You’re freezing.”

She turned angrily to Jackson. “Did you do this?”

Jackson’s mouth fell agape. “No Ma’am,” he answered immediately. She glared at him angrily and took me into her arms.

“You better not be lying.”

He shook his head in agreement and mom looked into my eyes, worry written all over her face. “Elena,” she said, starting to freak out. “Are you okay?”

I couldn’t find any words to say. The thought of speaking seemed impossible. The only thing I could manage to do was staring at her and shivering. Her eyes flickered angrily past me. “What’s wrong with her?”

“I don’t know,” he said, nervously.

Mom took my hand and led me through the house. “Jackson, get me some towels and a blow dryer,” she ordered. She took me to my room and started undressing me. I wanted to protest. I had been dressing and undressing myself since I was four. I felt like I had just been reduced down to a child.

She laid me down on my mattress and sat down beside me, rubbing my hands in between her own furiously. It made me even colder. All I could do was stare up at her kind, worried face and wait for it to pass. Jackson came in momentarily, with a stack of towels and the blow dryer. “Get out,” she ordered, covering me up.

He obeyed without hesitation and shut the door behind him.

“Did he push you in?” she asked.

I stared up at her blankly, eyeing the towels. I could only think about them, and the coldness that I felt.

“Elena.”

I looked back up at her and shook my head, tears falling down my face. She smiled grimly and wiped them away before lifting up my head and drying my hair vigorously with one of the towels. She cast it aside and wrapped a fresh one around my head before doing the same thing to the rest of my body. I could only watch, feeling powerless. She plugged the blow dryer in and turned it on. She started blowing it all over me, obviously growing even more worried when I continued shivering even more. I just couldn’t find the will to stop. My teeth chattered endlessly and I bit my tongue a few times before she ever got finished. She helped me get dressed in dry clothes, and then put as many comforters over me as possible.

After all of this, she kissed my forehead and I could hear her swallow hard. She looked at me through teary eyes and stood up to her feet. “Go to sleep.” And then she walked out and left the door ajar, like she used to when I was a child.

I may sometimes fear my mother, but sleep certainly doesn't. It didn't listen to her.