Rachel Alone In The Deep

No matter how long you linger, you never forget the moment of your death. At least, I haven’t. It stays strong in your memory: clear, distinct, sharp. You imagine that you remember the feelings of that moment. The burning cold enveloping your limbs, the burning beneath your breast as you gasp for the breath that will never again come, the sight of the light of day above your head — glimmering, wavering, fading.



He is there again. I see him above me through ice that is thick as the width of an oar blade as if it was not there. I hear his murmuring through the ice. He stands upon the dock as he’s done every year, the old man who was once the boy who tried to save my life. When he was still young enough that he would rather hold a cold frog than the warm hand of a girl like me. Now he tips the bottle that he held at his side, spilling the deep red wine, splashing and gurgling, onto the ice. It leaps and creeps across the ice like a wound and I know what he says, as he always says, year after cold year, “I’m sorry. So sorry. Forgive me.”

Sometimes I sleep. Sometimes I forget. And sometimes I remember.

Sometimes I remember.



My mother brought me to this lake when I was a very young girl, younger than the old man was when my fingers slipped from his. She taught me the ritual then, just as her mother had taught her. Grandma had been taught, I had been told, by an ancient Huron woman whose ancestors had enacted the ritual since their people had first arrived here and discovered the necessity. So my mother taught me the offerings, the supplications, the cycles. She did not do it for herself, as I did not, but we did it for all the other people. All of them, the young and the old. Even the young boys.

There were five boys there that day. They should have been in school, but new snow and youth and fun were in their blood, and they came creeping and giggling upon me while I sat on the dock, cross-legged, in touch with the earth and water but unaware of the malice and prejudice behind me until it was too late. Then I turned and saw them — their faces — grinning. Not evil, though I thought so at the time, when I still lived.  Now I have seen the face of evil and I know it. I would soon see its face reflected in the faces of most of those same boys as they passed me, pulled down, deeper. But the boys rest now, peacefully, though I do not.

Why can I not find peace? Do I owe some penance? Am I guilty of some crime for which I must make amends? Yes, I am now. But not then, when I lived. Then I was innocent. I loved all things under the water and on the earth and in the sky. Even the boys. Even the Spirit in the lake? Even It?

Mother called it Manitou, one of the spirits that occupy all things in nature. Everything has its manitou, each rock and tree and stream and cave and flower and lake. Most lie quiet, oblivious. Some become aware. And some of those become evil. Mother said this one always has been, longer than people have lived near the lake. It was not aroused by them — It is not an avenging force of nature. But soon people learned to appease It. It was the women, who did not challenge It to battle or throw themselves into Its depths to seek Its heart and destroy It. The women stayed and watched their loved ones taken or leap to their own deaths and learned and said, “This cannot be killed. It seeks lives, but has no life of It’s own. The lives It seeks cannot be ours anymore. Not our sons' or daughters' or husbands' or fathers'. We will give It lives, and keep our own.” Then they began the supplication, the sacrifices of blood and alcohol, grain and meat, prayers and charms. So It rested, and brooded, but rested nonetheless.

Now It does not rest. The sacrifices are forsaken. I gave It the last sacrifices when I lived, though I was not yet into my seventeenth year. I lived alone in the little turf-roofed cabin where my mother brought me, where we lived together until my fourteenth year, where she died in my arms, and where I buried her. But I stayed and continued what she taught me. The invocations: the fresh egg, wild-caught, that is the life. The wine that is the blood and fire and passion of humanity. The cuttings of hair and nails that is the body of humanity. The little flame, that most powerful force controlled by humanity, snuffed out by It. When I lived, that is what contented It. Then It had more. It had me. Then more, and more, and even more. If I could weep for them I would, even as I would weep for myself.



She is there, too, with him! She has come to the dock! She puts her arm through the arm of the old man, snuggles against his broad, stooped shoulder. He takes his hand from his pocket and wraps his arm around her slim shoulders, holding her tight. I try to shout to him, “Do not let her go! It is here. It wants her! It has tasted your daughter and now it wants the daughter of your daughter.” The girl, who is no more than twenty years old looks down at the ice. I feel that our eyes meet, and I remember when she was a baby looking up at me, her face and eyes unfocused in the water. I want to hold her again, hold anyone. I want to reach up, slip through the ice, climb upon that dock and hold them both; the man who tried to save my life and the girl whose life I saved. Then she shivers and stares. Does she see me? She looks up at her grandfather, tugs his arm and points towards me, looks again. Her eyes roam the ice, searching. I want to cry, “I am here! Do you remember me?” But he takes her hand, holds it, shakes his head. She protests but he shakes his head again, and putting his arm around her they turn and walk off the dock to the cabin where he has lived all his long life. I am glad they are safe for It is near. It is hungry. I leave this place and, though It hates me, It leaves me alone. I am alone. I have held the girl-baby in my arms, but now I am alone.

I go down, deep, to the place where she that is I lie. If I had sight, then the spot would be too dark to find. But I know where it is. Where she is. I am aware of her. I have spent much time here. At first, I remember, I stayed near her. How long? Years? When I first became aware of her, when I still felt she was me, she was so beautiful, peaceful, as if she was resting. Her long pale hair lay spread above the silt framing her white face; her eyes gazed upwards towards the light that was barely able to illuminate them. Her mouth was slightly open, almost inviting me to return. Her long sweater undulated lightly in the water like a jellyfish. She wore no coat — it had been a warm, late-winter day. Her arms were spread wide, resting gently on the silken mud. And one leg was bent hard under the other, jammed there when it had won the race to the lakebed, aided by the great stone tied to it.

But too soon, It came to gloat, and I was afraid, and wanted to flee, but I could not leave her. Then the fish came to harvest her, and I was horrified. I tried to scare them, to drive them away. At first they did shy away, not knowing what frightened them, but frightened nonetheless. But each time they fled less far, until a flicker of the tail was all that showed that they were aware of my presence. Then I could do nothing but watch her slowly dissolve — morsel by morsel — the white of her skin giving way to the grayness beneath, then the white again. I wanted to weep — would have given anything to weep. It sensed this and gloated all the more. It hated me because I had bound It, but now It knew that the bonds would break and It’s mirth and malice soon filled the water, and the sky darkened, and lightning jabbed the air. But now my anger was roused and I rose up, casting my spirit against It. It remembered my power over It and recoiled before me, leaving me alone; alone, with her.

Now she is all white. A little fish has found a place to rest within the opening between the jaws and I am happy that she can still give of herself. Then I see that the silt and mud are trying to take her again, drawing at her heels and hips and ribs and shoulders. I gather myself and wave at the silt. It shifts, but only slightly. I try harder, waving furiously, wanting to cry out with frustration, and the little fish darts from the open mouth. The silt shifts more, but I am exhausted, and it settles back. I must rest.

I have seen where the boys rest, the three that were never found. The first is near the centre of the lake where It likes to lurk. I saw him in a canoe with his father some summer after my end. I was still angry (he laughed, and watched, and did nothing!), and I goaded It until, in It’s fury, the canoe tipped and the boy was taken. I did not see him go, but watched the father swim back and forth, calling for him. But when It turned It’s attention to him, he suddenly gave up the search and swam for shore and safety.

The second was easy: swimming peacefully in the water, strong easy strokes cutting gracefully through the waves, then plucked from below. As he was dragged down past me he saw me, and his terror of me added to his terror of It. I do not think he lived long enough to drown. But my thirst for vengeance was unabated.

The third was harder. It was winter, and the surface of the lake was frozen. I had to goad and push It, teasing and flattering and belittling It until It threw It’s strength against the ice, slashing and battering until the thick ceiling shattered. As this one passed, I gathered myself and thrust my face — a mask of hate — into his. The bubbles arose from his mouth, each carrying a tiny part of his scream to the surface where, with a pop, it was swept up by the wind.

The last happened the next summer. I had waited longest for him. It was he that I reserved my greatest malice for. It was he that had called me witch, he that was not content with teasing and name-calling. He had roused the boys, told them of the old test for a witch. “Dunk her!” he had called, and they had all taken up that call. He had tied my foot to the rock that the other boys brought to him, those that now held my hands to my sides. They all knew that the lakebed dropped away under the dock, but no one knew how deep. Then they all called me ‘witch’ and threatened and threatened. But for the smallest boy. The old man. A tag-along, somebody’s little brother. He was silent, looking from me to the circle of older boys. He seemed to want to say something but he was afraid to contradict the boys and their threats. Idle threats, I knew, but they threw my offerings into the lake. Clouds rolled across the sky. I did not move, waiting for the thrill to leave them. Then they stopped, not knowing what to do, like a dog finding that it had actually caught a car. That was when he had done the awful thing. He stood before me, hesitating, then raised his hand fast, slid it between two buttons of my sweater, squeezed. The others were silent, mouths agape, their hold on my hands loosened. Scared, excited, not daring to leave or protest or look or look away. I struggled, pushed against him, backed away and tripped over the stone, fell hard off the dock to the ice and pulled the stone after me. The breath was knocked from me and the stone landed upon the ice with a deep crack.

That had happened long ago, above me, straight above me. The dock, the old man’s dock. The boy’s dock. He fell to his belly on the edge of the dock while the others were frozen, reached for me. Our fingers twined for a moment, not quite grabbing hands. Then the ice popped and the rock plunged through and I was whipped down after it. I clung to his fingertips as if they were a ledge on a cliff face, then the full weight on the rope overwhelmed my grip. For a moment, as I slipped into the burning cold darkness I could see his face, mouth opening into a scream, through the wavering water and the forest of my long hair. The other boys did nothing.

The manitou and I took the awful boy on the north side of the lake, where he waded among the shallows in the reeds and rushes. The reeds twined about him, his hands sunk in the muck. He struggled, flailing, squealing foam into the muck. The water was so shallow that the back of his head was still dry. I screamed at him, struck him, not even realizing that I had gathered myself. The marsh birds fled from us with a clatter of beating wings. He struggled for less than a minute, then he was still. I did not stop screaming at him though, not for a long time. Then the rushes, snapping back and forth in a breeze that was not there, calmed and finally came to rest. It was done.

That was when he came: the little boy. He stumbled through the rushes, sobbing, calling “Tim! Tim!”  When he saw the older boy’s body he fell to his knees with a splash, crying aloud, trying to drag the body from the water, trying to turn him over. I had not wanted to hurt the little boy. Not him. I remembered the feeling of our fingers twined together, the last time I felt the warmth of human contact. The older boy had touched me as well and for that he died. I wanted to go, to think, to escape. I could not look at the cold dripping body anymore.

Then It felt the boy’s presence. It wanted another. I was frightened for him and tried to coax It away, bully It, rouse It to pursue me. But It knew what I was trying to do, to save the boy’s life. That made It want him even more and It began to draw Itself closer to the boy. I had to save him, as he had tried to save me. But he had failed. I could not.

I gathered myself. I was exhausted from my assault on the older boy, but I summoned all of my energy, more than I thought I had, and he saw me. His eyes opened wide and a small noise fell from his throat, like the squeaking of a mouse. A dark stain spread across the front of his trousers. I raised my arm and pointed to the shore, the dry land. Safety. But he did not move, except for the small flutterings of his pale hands. Then he looked beyond me, into the water. Into It. He did not see It for there was no physical form to see, but he saw the shadow of It, the evil presence that slid just beneath the surface of the lake, moving inexorably closer through the reeds, over and under and through the older boy, and It touched the little boy.

For just a moment I thought It had him, then a scream of absolute terror burst from his throat and he threw himself back, scrambling and crashing through the rushes that burst and snowed down a blizzard of fluff with the violence of his passage. He reached the shore safely but did not stop running. He left behind only one small black rubber boot, half buried in the muck and filled with foul water. And the older boy, Tim, speckled with the fluff from the bull rushes.

He ran, but he did not leave. Ever. In the years to come he stayed in the cabin up the path from the dock. He grew and grew, and became the master of the house when his parents passed away to their rest. He brought a wife, and she gave him a daughter then grew old and went away to her rest. The daughter grew up and left, then returned with her baby girl, Lucy. Little Lucy that I held in my arms. I could not feel her when I held her, not physically. There was no warmth from her tiny body. No milky breath brushed against my face. There was no sweet baby smell of soap and powder. But I held her close, sang to her as I rushed her up, to the air and ice and wind, then I watched her mother die.

I did not kill her mother. After the little boy almost died, I killed no more. I wanted to go away, but I was bound there, as surely as I had bound It. I tried to leave the lake, but I could not. So I went down to where she that was once I lay, as if her peace could spread to me. I wrapped myself around her like a shroud and slept, and slept, and slept while the sun rose and fell and the seasons came and went, and It hunted for a prey that would no longer come into the water.

I rested and woke and wandered and rested again. I wanted to never awake again, but I always did. And when I wandered, I invariably found myself beneath the dock. Then I saw the boy become a man, then a father, then a grandfather, then a widower. He never came into the water, and his daughter never entered past her ankles. Even that drew It’s attention, but I would not allow It near her. I protected her, and my task filled me with joy. I had found a way to repay the man for taking his friends and kin. I even thought that I may now find eternal peace, but that still did not come.



The ice groans, dully, high above me. There is someone upon it. I ascend, looking for the light, then I realize that night has fallen while I rested. But I see that someone is there, walking slowly, aimlessly. It is her! The girl. Lucy. She wanders back and forth around the foot of the dock, looking down at the ice, through the ice. Her voice is small and tentative.

“Hello? Are you there? I saw you. I think I…I remember you.”

She is on her knees now, pressing her palms to the ice. I rush up, wanting to reach for her, at least wanting to touch her hand through the ice. I want so badly to hold her again. I want to cry out to her. Then, she gasps and pushes back from the ice. She is looking right at me. She sees me!

“You’re her, aren’t you? The girl in the water, when I lost my mom. I remember you. You…sang to me.”

She does remember. Yet she was so young, just a baby. Her mother was skating with her, twirling with her at arm’s length, both giggling. The woman was fast, swooping in long circles, graceful curves, harrowing sprints. Her blades scratched and scored the ice. The sound lanced through the water and I rose to it, but I realized they were not alone. Beneath her, like a shadow, curve for curve and sprint for sprint, It followed. Every scar the skate blades pressed into the ice was matched exactly by one gouged beneath. Soon the under side of the ice was a crisscrossed map of her every move. Then she placed little Lucy on the ice where she rocked gently on her thickly padded bum. Her mother, leaning over and holding her hands, started skating a tight circle around her. Lucy giggled madly, spinning and blinking against the cold wind. And below them, the circle was driven over and over into the underside of the ice, scraping and grating. First a hail of icy snow disappeared into the water then crystalline chunks began to crack off the ice. I saw what was happening and I cast myself against It, trying to drive It away. But It was voracious, and It parried my every attempt. Now the ice groaned and popped as the weight above strained the scarred ice below. Lucy’s mother stopped suddenly, arms outstretched as for balance, listening, staring. Then she stepped back, grabbed too late for Lucy, and screamed as the baby plunged into the icy water below. I was aware of It’s rapture as It took the little baby down, to destroy her in her innocence. Above me, her mother knelt beside the hole in the ice, rocked back and forth, cried “No! No! Lucy! Not my baby! Take me — bring back my little Lucy!” I rushed down, saw the baby in It’s grasp, heard the bubbles rise from her mouth, then I was in It, rending It in my fury, tearing It’s spirit from the little baby and, gathering myself, grabbed the baby and ascended. She was quiet as I sang, blinking serenely against the bitterly cold water, as the life drifted from her. Then I was at the surface, and I rose still further, holding the baby before me. I did not remember how exhausting it was to gather myself thus, to stretch the bonds that held me in this lake. Lucy’s mother recoiled, wanting her baby but terrified of me. Then, the fear left her eyes and she saw me for who I was, what I was. She took Lucy and said, “Thank you.” I was aware of the old man and his wife hurrying across the ice, but still far away. Then lassitude overtook me and I faded, unable to intervene as It rushed past me and plucked the woman from the ice.

The old man’s wife took little Lucy from where her mother had dropped her, bundled in her own coat, back to the cabin.  But the old man only stared into the dark water in the hole in the ice that was already starting to crust over. Tears crystallized on his cheeks as he spoke, “Why? Why her? How many must die for my mistake? Is it me you want?” For a moment I thought that he would throw himself into the hole. I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t me that took her; that he was forgiven.

He turned on his heel and left.



Now Lucy is there again, above me on the ice. Alive. Her attentions draw me, gather me, with no effort of my own. Never have I felt this bond, not since my death. I reach my hand up to the underside of the ice, and her gloved hand mirrors it above. Barely above a whisper, she speaks to me. “What happened to you? Do you know? Do you know that you are…?” There was no fear, only pity and sorrow. I nod my head, beginning to sob, partly from anguish and partly from unendurable elation. She knows me, sees me, cares for me! There is no fear. She is talking to me! I feel myself drawing together, almost feeling the roughness of the ice, the stinging cold of the water, the gentle tugging of the current. “Is it you that grandpa pours the wine to?” I shake my head, no. A tiny bubble drifts up from my mouth. From my mouth.

I watch the bubble probe the bottom of the ice, searching for a way up. It wanders, splits and reforms, wanders again. It came from my mouth. I dare not open my mouth again, for fear of seeing nothing more, but I do. I open my mouth. I speak.

“Lucy.”

It is no more than a whisper. Another bubble, smaller than the first, darts up to the underside of the ice. I say it again.

“Lucy.” She tilts her head, as if listening. Can she hear?

“Lucy!” It feels like a shout, tearing at my throat. Her free hand rises to her mouth in astonishment.

“You know me?”

“Yes”, I say, but it is a whisper, and she does not acknowledge it. I am feeling everything — the cold, the rasping underside of the ice, the tug of the currents on my hair. I have never been so whole since my death. Salt from my eyes mingles with the bitter water. I feel the cold even into my lungs.

Then I am flung aside, and It hurtles past me. The ice explodes, she is launched up into the air, screaming, then is caught neatly as she strikes the water. The violence of It’s passing throws me to and fro. I am lost, disoriented — panic rises in my chest. My world is suddenly one of blackness, blindness, burning cold. Then I see the bubbles rushing past me. I again feel It’s malice, and now It is exultant with It’s victory after so long. I struggle downward, following the bubbles, following the hate. And now It sees me as I have become, one of form and substance. It is unsure, torn between vengeances, the girl in It’s grasp or the one that It has shared It’s haunt with and hated and feared for so many years. 

Now in It’s indecision, I see my chance. I claw down through the water, through It, and wrap myself around Lucy, pressing my lips to her. All that I am, all that I have, I pour into her. And in It’s delight, It begins to devour both of us.

But Lucy, from where she balances on the edge of death, is suddenly aware of me. She returns my grasp, presses her lips back to mine like a virtuous lover’s kiss. Now we are alone, and I am a little girl at my mother’s knee and she is showing me the rituals. And Lucy is in me and with me, a part of me, learning with me, sharing everything. And we are watching the people around us but apart from us, always avoiding us, in the woods and town. My mother is dying in our arms, and we go on. Then the boys are there, and we are sinking, and we watch the boys sink, and Lucy’s mother is sinking, and all the time our grandfather watches and weeps and wants to sacrifice himself but has not the courage to do it. And woven in and out of us, It is there, rending, devouring.

But now Lucy is alone again. Her hands clasp around nothing, clutch tight to her breast, and she chokes anew on the frigid water. She cannot touch me for I am faded to spirit again, but greater than I have ever been, for in our binding she has given something of herself back to me even as I have given to her. A tiny flicker of her flame of life. Now I cast myself against It and It cannot stand against me. It flees, howling for the sport that has been stolen from It and I pursue It, but only for a moment. Lucy is dying again. At once I am back at her side, and even as her flame flickers in me before it is extinguished I gather myself, sweep her up, and burst from the water through the jagged whole it had made. The old man is there, a worn coat covering his pajamas, kneeling, calling for Lucy, and he staggers back as I rear before him. I gently place Lucy’s body in his arms, where she shudders and coughs, quietly. He stumbles, then holds her tight. He looks at me, his mouth hanging open. “Why?”

I feel myself fading, and with a final surge, I hold on to myself, touch his cheek, and say to him, “You are forgiven. You have always been forgiven. I am sorry.” Then I sink beneath the waves, resting as I have never rested in many, many seasons.



I awaken again. I awaken to It’s fury — deep, impotent. The lake itself seems to shudder with It’s rage, once, then again. I rise, feeling a change in my world. There is a hole in the ice and it is daytime. Then a small shape sinks past me. It is an egg, smooth, white, its warmth drawn into the water. There are shapes on the ice, beside the hole. Lucy and her grandfather. His arm is tight around her shoulders as she speaks.

“I give you the blood, that you may want for none.” A dark stain spreads through the water, gurgling from the bottle in her hand. Another shudder jars the lake and the ice as It’s spasms seem to pass right through me. Fear rests on Lucy’s face and her grandfather blanches, but she does not stop.

“I give you the body, that you may want for none.” Tiny crescents of nail clippings wobble down through the water. A clump of long, pale hair drifts above them. Another shudder, and the ice beneath their feet groans. Her voice rises, terrified but determined.

“I give you the power, that you may want for none.” A burning stub of a candle hisses into the water. I wait for another shudder, ready to rush to their aid if their footing should fail. But all is silent. No, not silent. For the wavelets still lap at the jagged edge of the hole, the windblown snow still chatters across the ice. There is not silence, there is serenity. The lake is at peace. I am at peace.

Now she smiles at me, as if she sees me. “Rest,” she says and the old man, unsure, raises his hand in a wave.

I am tired. I think I may rest. I begin to sink, softly to the bottom, to where I already lie. I will rest.



End