The wagon was unloaded and horses cared for. Dinner was prepared, eaten, cleaned up. The sun eventually sank over Flickertail in a rosy wash of orange and peach. As though mesmerized, I watched it melt and sizzle into the shimmering blue water; it was not lost on me that this sunset was my last. I listened to the others discuss the trip to St. Paul, Malcolm’s potential whereabouts, and the upcoming funeral for Blythe Tilson. The world grew increasingly surreal. I felt as if I sat watching a muted television screen, attempting to make sense by lip-reading. With each incremental darkening of the air, I grew colder.
Soon.
But wait until they’ve gone to bed.
It’s horrible, what you’re doing. It’s not the answer.
I don’t care anymore…
And so I waited until the household sank to quiet, all lanterns extinguished, all whispered voices hushed. I had been given a bed in the girls’ room; Rose and Ellie talked in quiet murmurs, interspersed with giggles, shifting around their shared bed as I lay flat on my spine in a narrow trundle bed nearby, whispering a response only if addressed. All of my belongings had burned in the fire and both Lorie and Rebecca lent me clothing until new items could be made; and so it was that I would sneak outside to drown myself in a borrowed white nightgown embroidered with daffodils and lilies.
If I thought too much about what I intended to do, I grew frightened.
So I kept all thoughts submerged, save one; I gave over to the memories of Marshall’s face and voice and body, his scent and every last feeling he had ever conjured and inspired and wrought forth from me.
Forgive me, I thought as I slipped from the house with the illumination of nothing but a three-quarters moon. Silver-white light pooling around my shoulders and toes as I crept down the bank toward Flickertail, its windless surface otherworldly in the moonglow, I clung to my image of Marshall. I knew just where the dock would someday jut over the water and stood exactly there, small, jagged pebbles and larger, smoother stones pressing up against my bare feet. The lake was cold around my toes, then my calves. I sucked a sharp breath and kept walking.
Once submerged to my neck, mosquitoes whining around my ears, I retracted my feet from the marshy bottom and kicked forward, toes pointed, angling for the center. It had been a long time since I’d pumped my arms and fluttered my ankles but my limbs had not forgotten the motion of swimming. The nightgown became transparent immediately and I felt a surge of embarrassment over it; I should have dressed to die in something opaque. I swam faster, spurred by the chill water and a notion that I needed to get this over.
It’s time.
Dead center from either shore I ceased my crawl stroke and hung suspended, treading water with legs no longer accustomed to this kind of exertion. The lake might have been suspended on a distant planet, as alien to me as anything I’d ever experienced; the black water continued to ripple in the wake of my passage, shattering apart the moon’s reflection, leading back to the point of no return. I turned in a slow circle, eyes wide, absorbing these last moments of life before whispering, “Forgive me.”
I lifted my arms in a rush, the splash echoing across the silent water, and plunged beneath the surface.
Soon…
It took effort to force my body down when nature insisted I float, but I made sawing motions with each forearm, aiding gravity in this case rather than fighting it, and so I sank, eyes closed, the water temperature dropping along with my body. I opened my mouth and prepared to inhale –
No!
NO!
It happened just as I would have filled my lungs with lakewater. A shift, a pull – and then shrieking, hurtling passage along a space devoid of color and sound and light. I knew this feeling; I’d been sucked through this abyss before. Aware it was happening but helpless to fight it I simply gave up, surrendering to the flow of time that I, for reasons unfathomable and beyond my control, was allowed to traverse. Barriers which kept most people stationary in the timeline to which they were born.
Take me. Go on, take me.
Kill me this time. You almost did the first time.
The motionless motion slammed to a halt with enough force that I was almost knocked unconscious, tumbled end over end. This time, my mouth truly filled with water.
Underwater –
I was still beneath dark, icy water. I thrashed, unable to scream, clumsy in my disorientation. Instinct asserted itself and I kicked, then kicked again, propelling my body toward the murky light wavering in the distance. It may have been up, down, or sideways; I had lost all sense of direction. I rolled and heaved, like a rock in a tumbler.
Air – I need air –
Lungs blazing, I kicked and fought the heavy water, straining for the surface; I broke through with a gasp, thrashing to remain above. A shrill gasping noise, not quite a scream, burst from my lips. Muted voices grew sharp. Frantic and coming closer. A man splashed through the water and grasped my armpits, dragging me from the lake. My unbalanced weight took us both down before we cleared the bank but there was no longer any danger of sinking beneath; we were in the shallows now, close to shore. He braced on both elbows, gasping at the cold, while I tumbled over his chest and fell sideways. A woman splashed to our sides, crying, bending to us and speaking my name, over and over.
She knew me.
I knew her.
Adrenaline pierced my heart.
I tried to speak her name but
