There’s Something in the Water Contest Honorable Mention
The water was cool and inviting. It licked the top of her knees, set her nightgown floating out around her, a beautiful white film atop the water. Her father would’ve killed her had he seen her leave the house wearing it. Sheer, lacy, hiding nothing. He didn’t even know she owned it. Didn’t know she’d worn it, slept in a motel bed wearing it, cradling the figure beside her while his steady breath lulled her to sleep. Laura was not bad; she knew this instinctively. She was not bad in the ways her father made her feel she was – sinful, willful. Bitch. She’d heard him call her that from behind a closed door as he argued with her mother. Her mother had not defended her. The silence from her was almost worse.
The thin fabric did almost nothing to protect her from the elements, but she was lucky enough to have wandered down to the lake on a particularly unseasonable night. It was balmy, the humidity wrapping around her heavy as a blanket. Walking through soup her sister called it.
But the lake had retained that chill, that inviting coldness that numbed her straight through. The hairs on her arms stood on end, and she shivered despite herself. On a normal night she would’ve abandoned this journey, too put off by discomfort to ever endure it. But of course, tonight was not normal, nor was the day that had preceded it. When Laura had woken that morning she knew – the knowledge coming from somewhere deep and primal, tugging at something that felt like it might’ve been her soul, her very essence – she knew that today would be her last.
There was no plan to her movements, no logic. Something had wrapped around her in her sleep the night before that now pulled at her mind, keeping her at a distance from her senses, her emotions. Something that was deep and dark but that had a pearlescent voice, shifting and shimmering at the edges of her. Whatever it was felt like an embrace, a mother’s arms around her, wrapped tight without suffocating.
Now, in the black waters of Lake Tierney, where she had run wild as child, skinning her knees on the rocky shore, tangling her hair with muck, that voice formed edges, took a shape. A shape that she welcomed as if she had seen it all her life. Glittering dress, stiff platinum hair framing brown eyes shining with tears. Her lips arched dramatically; a dark red that looked close to black in the dim light from the moon.
“I’m tired,” Laura’s voice cracked hard, full of a sadness that she didn’t know had been eating at her.
The woman’s eyes, large and kohl-rimmed, softened. She tilted her head as if sympathizing with a small child nursing a minor injury. When she stepped forward, a distant part of Laura told her to step back, but she found that she couldn’t obey it. She also found that she didn’t particularly want to.
The woman’s hand came to rest on her cheek, soft and warm and delicate, “I know, love.”
“My sister…” Laura trailed off, not sure where the non sequitur had come from or where it was going.
“She’ll understand,” the woman was so close to her now, breath right in her ear, lips practically brushing against it.
Laura became dimly aware that the water was now up to her chin. Had she walked so far? She couldn’t remember moving at all since the woman had shimmered into existence beside her. A wave sent water into her nostrils. With it came a moment of clarity, of a bright blue day on the front lawn, music playing softly. Her sister laughed, high and sweet, at something she was reading. She looked up, smile wider than Laura’s own had ever been.
Water was pressing in on her, into her lungs. The image of her sister flickered away, replaced by a blind, burning fear. Panic. Her arms thrashed, pulling her too slowly toward the surface of the water. Something was gripping her leg, she realized. Hard, cold fingers digging into her flesh. She kicked at it hopelessly, black spots swimming into her vision. The veil that had been muffling her mind since that morning was suddenly gone, ripped violently away. But that voice, less lovely now, remained, twisting around her.
Nothing has changed since you stepped in that water.
Laura broke the surface, gasping. Her lungs burned, her mouth was full of grit and sludge. The woman stood in front of her, above her, arms hard on her shoulders.
“Please,” it was a weak word, spoken by a dying girl.
“I’m sorry,” the woman’s eyes were cold now, dull and flat, “But it’s too late for all that.”
Published 8/7/26