The trio followed a trail known only to Gavain. This marked the first time he had taken them to his special spot. He retreated there to read, and think, be by himself, away from his brothers and the responsibilities of them. Though they only lived two miles from the park, Gavain had deemed his brothers too young to make the trip before; now they walked along the creek bed, its low flow revealed slippery rocks under the late afternoon sun.
Across from the Indianapolis Colts training facility, Eagle Creek Park, a national reserve spread out in open invitation. A brief traipse through the woods allowed the boys to bypass both the main gate (with its honor box: fifty cents for walk-in visitors to the park) and the ranger stations along the main roads (police, even wanna-be police, was still police). When they reached the old rusted-out fence, he knew that they neared their final destination. Long gashes, wounds of age and curious teenagers, marred the evenness of the links. Gavain pushed back the torn bit of fence barring their path. Flecks of rust painted his hand orange as he pushed through the low- lying branches occluding the dirt-worn and matted grass that served as their walkway.
His spot was a natural alcove of shore and trees, as if a giant mouth had taken a bite out of the park forest and backwashed sand. Dark sand, far from sunbleached, lined the small inlet as waves lapped against it. The tree line dropped off sharply at the water, skeins of roots revealed by erosion. A tire on a rope hung in forlorn innocence from an old tree whose branches shaded a good chunk of their spot. Constructed to launch canoes before it dawned on the bureaucrats running the park to do so near the main beach and charge people for the privilege, the rickety boat launch bobbed on tires. Testing its mildewed boards, Gavain imagined himself walking the plank of a dilapidated pirate ship. The sun glinted from the water, its shards of light held Gary and Rath in rapt attention.
'You sure it's all right to be here?' Gary asked in an almost awe-struck whisper. 'We didn't bring any clothes to swim in. Or towels.'
'Damn, fool. You know momma wouldn't let us go swimming,' Rath said.
'Just swim in your underwear. It'll dry out on the way home,' Gavain reassured him with a smile.
That was all the encouragement the boys needed, shucking their clothes over near the tree roots and running to the water's edge. Warm gusts of wind blew towards them; tiny, lazy waves sloshed against the shoreline. The alcove lay around the bend from the main beach, like a forgotten part of the park, fenced off (or fenced in) to keep people from wandering off. With the occasional boat horn belching in the distance, he knew they weren't alone. On such a beautiful picnicking day, the beach proper had to be crowded and all the shelters full.
However, nary a sound drifted into their alcove.
A strong breeze rushed off the water. It was downright frigid in the shadows where Gavain watched the boys play. They wobbled on slick rocks, their arms flailing to steady their balance as they acted out kung fu movies. Gavain already regretted letting them watch The Five Deadly Venoms. Discarded in their frolic, the branches piled at the dock. He feared that he'd have to confiscate their improvised weapons, especially if it occurred to them to battle any unsuspecting underwater enemies. The last thing he wanted was some sort of lightsaber duel in the water. Their private hideaway did its job, enchanting the boys. It wasn't often that they played near anything that wasn't concrete or plastic. They had some relatives that owned a farm or something down in Jeffersonville, but they were their father's side of the family. Momma never quite fit in with the family.
The innocuous chattering of the boys strained Gavain's nerves, but only in a bemused-by-the-familiar sort of way. The boys beamed, amusing themselves, and that gave him time to read. He pulled a tattered copy of Danny Dunn and the Smallifying Machine from his back pocket, surprised by how much he enjoyed the ludicrous series. There was a quaintness to them that he liked.
Then something at the back of his mind nagged him, an unscratched itch. He searched for a word to describe the feeling. The water mesmerized him. Breathing in the loamy smell of leaves, the stiffness of the breeze, he realized what the feeling was that he couldn't shake. The weight of eyes followed his every movement. Someone watched him, exactly the way the little Korean beauty salon owners watched him when he bought stuff for momma. Someone on a rock down the beach, barely within sight: a body, light as bleached bark, nearly white in the furtive sun and slight of build, a woman perhaps, watched them.
Making sure those children didn't cause any trouble, he thought. He'd been on alert for indignant park rangers, full of their authority, coming to scare them off. The possibility of a chase gave him a thrill to look forward to. Not that he expected anyone else to be here: it kind of ruined his illusion that only he knew about the place. The woman stole away into the trees.
'Hey, did you see her?' Gavain asked.
'See who?' The boys answered in unison. Sand somehow managed to dust both of their fresh faces though neither was even up to his knees in the water.
'The woman over by the trees. She was staring at us.'
'Probably a park ranger.' Gary turned from Rath as if the two of them had to caucus before deciding the proper response.
'Then why didn't she come chase us?' Gavain asked.
'Probably one of those sun bathers then.'
'Was she naked?' Rath finally chimed in.
'Don't listen to him. There probably wasn't no woman. He just trying to scare us again.' Gary's eyes widened in a tacit plea to not taunt them anymore.
'I wasn't, but that does remind me of a story.' Gavain squatted over an overturned log, drawing in the sand with a twig, waiting for the boys to come over to him. They did, they always did. 'You remember that nursery rhyme you were singing earlier, Gary? Do you know what it's about?'
'No.' Gary searched for his own twig and began to draw in the sand.
'There was this old witch without a name but folks called the Lady of the Lake.'
'I don't believe in witches,' Gary said, not quite looking into Gavain's eyes.
'Do you want to hear this story or what? Anyway, you see there was a woman who lived by a lake much like this one. One day she goes out for a swim, but the water…' Gavain trailed off, making his voice sound haunted, for good effect, especially if he wanted to frighten the boys into caution around the water. 'Water can be a powerful thing, scary, but they don't make movies about it. It's not something that puts on a mask and chases you through an old house. It's deep. Strong. Mysterious. And things live in it. Things that scientists don't know about or can't explain. Maybe the Lady of the Lake got caught by one of those things. Maybe she became one of them. Maybe she was the mother of all of those creatures. All folks say is that she drowned, but every seven years, she comes back to claim a life, a life that should've been hers. Sort of a guilt offering. She comes for those who wander too close to the water's edge, grabbing their ankles with those long arms of hers, and pulls them to her, draws them to her underwater kingdom. And you don't want to see her in the water. Her skin is slightly blue and puffy from being drowned and all. She has long hair, greenish like it's wrapped in seaweed or somethin'. And she greets them with a kiss, a kiss full of her long sharp teeth. She stares at you with those big dead eyes of hers. She couldn't help herself. It was in her nature. They're the last thing that you see before you take your last breath.
'Boo!' Gavain yelled and jumped suddenly.
The boys reared back and screamed before hitting each other and laughing.
'Bitch done wet hisself,' Rath said.
'Boy, I ain't gonna tell you again.' Gavain tossed his stick at him. 'Watch your mouth.'
The boys scrabbled off, unfazed, splashing into the water.
'You comin' in?' Gary turned and asked. Gary had a way of asking for things that sounded not only like a command, but as if his whole life depended on you giving into him.
'Yeah, in a minute,' Gavain lied. 'Hey, if you can't stand up and be above the water, you need to come back closer.' He didn't want to have to get wet if he could help it. His brothers might have bought the idea of their clothes drying out on the walk home, but the idea of wet, bunched-up underwear rubbing against him for an hour didn't appeal nearly as much to him as it did them. Visions of having to swim after one of the knuckleheads caused his fear of deep water to rear itself again. He wanted to spend more time in the water, but the shore was as close to the water's edge as he dared go. He shielded his eyes with his hand to better study the deceptive calm of the flat surface. Gary jumped into the water. Not used to the acoustics of the woods, Gavain thought he heard a second splash a little further away. It might've just been an echo. He scanned the periphery anyway.
The water exercised a strange fascination over him. He lost track of time, idling his minutes away, not really reading his book but only holding it in front of him while he studied the water. The splashes of his brothers grew faint. The book fell from his limp grasp. The lolling waves lapped against the sheltering embankment. The swishing susurrus made it easy to ignore the rising uneasiness that washed over him. The sobering shimmer of light, the
