Page 2 of It's One of Us
Did he?
Into the water. He needs to weigh her down, but how? Options parade through his mind, none good. He knows she will rise eventually. He can only hope that with enough time in the water, any evidence of him will sluice away.
What has he done?
Can he be blamed?
The idea of it has consumed him, and now...
Corrosive fear, day after day. He cannot eat. He loses weight. He dreams of her there. Alone.
But she is not alone. Not really.
Her terrestrial family worry, then panic, then grieve, then come to uneasy terms with her loss. They hold out hope that she is still alive while knowing in their hearts that she is gone. A light dimmed in the foyer the night she went missing, and her mother, ever attuned to her daughter’s soul light, knew something was dreadfully wrong. It was then she sent the first text. A reply was started, but nothing ever materialized.
Hours later, the mother called the police. Days later, weeks later, months later, there is still no word. Only those three small dots flickering on her screen, haunting the mother’s every waking moment.
What was her daughter trying to say?
The police search, diligently, in all the wrong places.
They follow dead-end leads. They interview everyone who knew her, and many who didn’t.
They lose sleep, are barked at by superiors, fight back the urge to quit this job, this daily devastation.
They drink too much. They rail against an unjust God. They get up with the sunrise and do it all again.
They search, and search, and search.
They do not find her until it is too late.
Despite the despair, or perhaps because of it, he visits. Often.
The lake is almost always calm, serene. It is used to keeping secrets. It has held his for weeks. The idea of her there, her many parts quiet now, fills him, with joy or fear or pleasure, he is not certain. He just knows he is better when he is near, and when he is apart from her, he can only remember her in pieces. Remember the moment she was his no longer.
A noon sun shines on the lake’s glossy surface, reflecting into the leaves, making their undersides gleam and shine. He’s learned the paths, the vantage points. He knows what lies beneath that murky water, imagines her decay. He walks for hours, circling her, drawing an invisible target for them to find.
Some days, he is happy. Some days, he is sad. Some days, he is afraid.
Some days, he brings his fishing gear, and casts, again and again, not sure what he is trying to catch.
When the police come, at last, searching, searching, he pants with the effort to keep himself still, to not run away screaming. He can’t risk drawing attention to himself.
Will they find her today? Will she rise at last?
Every day, every visit, always the same irrational concerns.
What if her blood is still on him? What bits of her cling to his clothes, his skin?
And what of him resides in her?
And when they find her, what then? What happens?
He walks the path around the lake like all the others to make sure he’s not noticed, and remembers.
Her screams bleed away. The scuffle has ended. Silence now. Nothing but the breeze, rustling the early fall leaves, urging them toward their own death. The creatures of the forest are still, waiting, watching, to see what he will do.
He waits with them, quiet, calming himself. Looking at her. As the initial disgust wanes, he is suffused with curiosity.
