The Lady of Dark Lake

by Raven Snow

  Pretty was an understatement. Lady walked forward, through the open gates and down the narrow path that led to the library. She paused to touch the cool gray stone that made up the walls. It felt so old, from a time long past, a time when building codes were less strict.

  “Go on,” Otsuya urged.

  “Oh, right.” Lady drew her hand from the stone to let it hover over the door. “Do I knock?”

  “Why would you knock? It’s a public library. Go on in!”

  The door was unlocked but heavy. Lady had to put her shoulder into it to get the thing open. As soon as she had though… “Wow.” Lady stood in the entrance and marveled at just how many books there were. There were rows upon rows of wooden shelves with a stairway at the end of the room that led up to another level of books. The whole place was bathed in orange light from the stained glass. “It’s so gorgeous,” Lady breathed.

  “Out!” shouted a voice. A figure had stepped out from the shadows beside the staircase. He snapped shut a book he was holding, the noise becoming loud and startling as it bounced off the high ceiling.

  Lady jumped at the noise and then at what he had said. She glanced back at the door. “I’m sorry; I’m sorry.” Her own voice echoed. “I thought this was a public library. I-”

  “No, no, no.” The figure hurried across the floor when Lady began speaking. As he got closer, she saw that it was Crispin. He was wearing a gray vest, and there was ink on his fingers. The initial anger Lady had heard seemed to have evaporated from him. He smiled at her, dipping his head in an apologetic manner. “Not you. You’re right. This absolutely is a public library.” A frown crept across his soft features as he pointed to Otsuya. “But it’s not open to her. She’s banned.”

  Otsuya glared at Crispin, her top lip curling. “You can’t ban someone from a public library.”

  “I absolutely can. Now, get out.” It was surprising really. Crispin hadn’t struck Lady as the sort of man to have such an angry side.

  “Whatever.” Otsuya rolled her eyes like none of this mattered to her. “You stay and ask him to show you what I was talking about,” she added when Lady started to follow her.

  Lady glanced back at Crispin and felt uncertain. This was awkward. Super, super awkward. “Um,” she began only to jump again when the door to the outside banged shut. She was officially alone with Crispin.

  “Sorry about that.” Crispin smiled like he sensed her discomfort. “I don’t like being confrontational, but I don’t like her in here. She steals books.”

  “Ah.” Lady didn’t have any trouble believing that. “She did have a lot of books in her room.”

  Crispin sighed and nodded. “I guarantee you only about three of them are genuinely hers. “

  “So, she’s kind of a klepto, huh?” That wasn’t a deal breaker for Lady in a friend, but it did make her curious as to whether or not Otsuya had acquired all she had for Lion in a legal way.

  “Not so much anymore. My aunt gives her spending money when she needs her help with something.”

  “I didn’t know she worked for Ms. Poole too.”

  “Off and on.” Crispin changed the subject. “So, what book do you need?”

  “I don’t know what specific book it was. Otsuya didn’t really tell me the title.” She glanced back toward the door. “Something about Scottish… kelp?”

  Crispin raised his eyebrows like he was making an effort not to laugh at how much she had just puzzled him. “Scottish kelp?” he repeated. “I can’t imagine Otsuya ever having a book on Scottish kelp, but I’m sure I have something on marine biology. Maybe-”

  “It’s also a…” Lady trailed off. She really didn’t want to say the next part. “It’s a folklore thing, I think. Like a shapeshifter or something.”

  The smile on Crispin’s face broadened. “I thought it was more likely something along those lines. I think what you’re looking for is information on kelpies. Does that sound right?”

  “That’s right.” Hearing the word jogged Lady’s memory. “That sounds right, anyway.”

  “I’m sure I have something on that.” Crispin turned and headed down the center aisle. Lady followed. “What do you know about kelpies?”

  “Um.” The way he had said that made it sound like kelpies should be common knowledge. Otsuya had sounded that way too. “I think maybe I’ve heard the word before. Before Otsuya mentioned it, I mean. They’re like… in the water.”

  “That’s where they live, yes.” Crispin didn’t sound judgmental, even if he had perhaps expected more information from her. “Let’s see what I can find.” He turned down a row of shelves and frowned at the books, his eyes moving across the spines.

  “So… you like to read, I guess?” Lady felt stupid as soon as the question came out of her mouth. Stupid brain. It just had to fill the silence with something.

  Crispin glanced away from the books, putting on a smile again. “I love to read. This would be a pretty lousy job if I didn’t. What about you?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Lady turned to the books and pretended to be interested in the titles. “I really just read fiction, though… Not nonfiction… or folklore.” She wasn’t quite sure what to classify kelpies under. Folklore was sort of like nonfiction, wasn’t it? Nonfiction about fiction?

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Crispin said brightly. “Though, if you want to start, I can send you home with a few books to get you started. It’s never too late to try something new! Just… don’t let Otsuya get her hands on them.”

  “I really don’t think I’m going to be here long enough to finish any books, but thanks.”

  “You said something about that before.” Crispin was pulling a ladder from one end of the shelves. It squeaked as it moved along its tracks. “Why haven’t you left yet?” Crispin cleared his throat. Lady saw him adjust his glasses, leaving a smudge of ink on the slope of his nose. “Not that I’m in any hurry for you to leave. It’s nice having someone new in town.”

  Lady made a point to throw a smile his way. He was awkward which was cute. “I had an accident down at the lake. It was stupid. I ended up spending another night. I’m hoping to leave tonight… or tomorrow, I guess. Leaving tonight isn’t really looking realistic.” She needed to find more out about what had happened to her, and that would involve a few more stops after the library.

  “Ah, well, whatever you decide.” Crispin climbed to the top of the ladder. He was pretty quick for such an unathletic looking guy. “You know, my aunt talked to me about you.”

  “Ms. Poole?” Lady found herself instantly intrigued. “Seriously? What did she say?”

  “She said you seemed like a very promising young woman.”

  “Promising? What the heck does that mean?” It sounded kind of ominous to Lady.

  Crispin laughed. “I don’t know. That’s just how she talks. She also called you rash and ill-mannered.”

  “Well, I’m definitely those last two things.”

  “She loves your cat. She didn’t have a single bad thing to say about your cat.”

  “Who would? He’s a very promising cat.”

  Crispin tucked two books under one arm. No, not books. They were more like tomes, thick and large, edges frayed by the number of hands that must have opened it over the ages. Crispin paused and plucked a third volume from the shelf and then, as if as an afterthought, a fourth. He couldn’t carry those in just one arm.

  “Be careful,” Lady called up to him as he hugged all four tomes to his chest. “You can toss a couple down to me.”

  “Toss a couple—No.” Crispin sounded scandalized by the idea. He turned away from the bookshelves and descended the ladder at an awkward but efficient sort of trot. “Let’s go somewhere where it will be easier to spread these out.”

  Lady followed Crispin as he headed for the staircase. Did he run this library all by himself? The place certainly was quiet enough. “Are you the only person who works here?”

  Crispin laughed. “Of course not! I couldn’t manage this place on
my own.” He paused, both in speech and in movement. “Though, I guess it is mostly just me… But I love the job! I asked for it, so I really don’t mind.”

  “That’s good.” Lady forced a smile. She didn’t want to pry anymore. It seemed like it was making Crispin uncomfortable. “Are we going over there?” She nodded to the right of the staircase, where several tables and lamps sat in rows. “Here. Those look pretty heavy.” She took a couple of the books from Crispin and led the way to the nearest table. They were heavy. Heavier than she had expected. She had to fake it pretty hard and walk fast to keep up the appearance that it wasn’t a strain. Crispin was clearly protective of his books. She wondered what he would do if she dropped one.

  “Okay, let’s see what we have here.” Crispin sat his books down beside the ones Lady had carried. He didn’t take a seat beside her, instead opting to stand in such a way that allowed him to take in all the books at once. “I think these are the ones I wanted.”

  “I don’t know how you can tell,” Lady muttered, looking at each book in turn. She couldn’t read the covers they were so worn.

  “Stickers on the spines. There’s a system.”

  Lady tilted her head to look at the spine as Crispin thumbed through one of the books. There was a small white laminated label on the side. It was cramped with numbers, letters, and several indecipherable symbols. “Okay,” she said slowly.

  “Here,” Crispin said triumphantly, tapping a finger on the page. He slid the book in front of Lady and went about thumbing through another.

  The font was alarmingly small. The book was huge and it still needed tiny print? Not cool. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the only picture on the page. There was a rather simplistic drawing of a horse. It was underwater, she decided, judging from the waves above it and the wavy plants curling around the horse’s hooves. She brought her eyes back to the text. It took a few tries to read through a single sentence. The language used was antiquated. Her brain needed a moment to adjust. Thankfully it did adjust and she was able to get the gist of the page.

  “I think I’ve heard about something like this before.” She skimmed over an example of folklore about the kelpie. “Some kid thought he was petting a normal horse but then it transformed into a creepy monster horse and tried to drown him. He had to use a knife to cut himself free before the kelpie dragged him into the water.”

  Crispin nodded. “That’s one legend, one of the more popular ones.”

  Lady looked up from her book. “Yeah, like I said, it sounded familiar.”

  “I’m not surprised. They’re a creature that has turned up a lot in media over the years.” He slid a new book in front of Lady and pointed to a picture there. It was a woman. She was naked, with pale skin and soft curves. “They’re shapeshifters, though. Keep that in mind. They can take the shape of most anything.”

  Lady wasn’t sure she liked the way Crispin was talking. He sounded like Otsuya, like he really believed in the nonsense he was spouting. Then again, she was the one here to research a fictional creature like learning more about it would help her come to a decision about her near death experience. She leaned to read the new book Crispin was indicating. The text was handwritten. At first Lady thought it was chicken scratch, lousy handwriting that had only grown more illegible over the years. After a few more seconds, she realized the page wasn’t written in English at all but what appeared to be Japanese. “I can’t read this.”

  “That’s all right. I was just showing you the picture. There’s a few more on the next few pages that can show you other forms a kelpie can take.”

  Lady flipped through the rest of the pages. The page most filled with pictures had been covered up with some kind of protective sheet. It looked like pictures had been pasted to the page, warping it some. “Can you read Japanese?” From the corner of one eye, Lady saw Crispin blush.

  “I can read a little. I’m not fluent or anything. It’s just that we get a lot of donations and some of them aren’t in English. I’m not one to turn down a book, so…” He gestured vaguely at the book. “That one’s good. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to translate it. It was one of the first books ever donated to me when I took over here.”

  “Who donated it?”

  “Otsuya, actually.”

  “Really?” That was the last name Lady had expected to hear. It seemed mean to kick her out of the library when she was someone donating books to it. “That isn’t the book she was missing was it?” Lady supposed you couldn’t really donate something to someone and then take it right back, but still.

  “Hmm?” Crispin looked up from the book. “Oh, no. She doesn’t want this or any of the other books she donated. Her Japanese has gotten rusty, and… It’s this whole thing. She doesn’t like to look at them.”

  Lady didn’t want to pry… Well, she did, but that seemed like it would be in bad form. Instead she watched while Crispin flipped open more books. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be getting out of all of this. There was no denying that the books were pretty, but they weren’t particularly helpful. She still didn’t believe in any of this stuff.

  Finished pointing out all the relevant information, Crispin stepped back. “So, what happened to you out by the lake?”

  Lady wished she hadn’t said anything about the stupid lake. She didn’t want to explain what she had seen and sound insane. Alternatively, she didn’t want Crispin to turn out to be as loopy as just about everyone else in the town seemed to be. “I tried to save some guy I thought was out there.” Lady tried to keep things short and simple. “I went under, thought I saw something, and… I don’t know. I must have gotten caught in an undertow or something. That lake is super murky.”

  “I’m not much of a swimmer.” Crispin lapsed into silence for several long seconds. “So, I take it Otsuya thinks it was a kelpie that dragged you down.”

  “As ridiculous as that sounds, yes.”

  “It doesn’t sound all that ridiculous,” said Crispin, and Lady’s heart sank. “All I mean is that I like to keep an open mind. I don’t necessarily…” He looked at the floor and cleared his throat. He was embarrassed. At least he had the sense to know that what he was saying wasn’t normal. “At the very least, I believe a lot of people around here believe in strange things, and that belief can leave an impression.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t really get it myself either.” Crispin’s face was red again. He stepped back from the table. “Well, I’ve got work to get back to. Stay as long as you like. Just don’t let Otsuya in, and tell me if you need help.”

  Lady nodded and smiled. She didn’t like that he suddenly seemed embarrassed to be around her. “I’ll do that. Thanks for all the help.” She heard him walk away as she turned back to the books. Without him there, she wasn’t quite sure what to do. She didn’t want to read all this crap, but it seemed rude to just leave after Crispin had gone through all the trouble to get the books for her and point out relevant pages.

  Lady pulled her phone out and put it on the table. Fifteen minutes. That was how long she would give herself. Fifteen minutes was a respectable amount of time to pore over the books, right? After that, she could make an excuse about Otsuya waiting outside for her. Lady studied the books, the pictures and the words she could actually read. Aside from one of the books being in Japanese another was what looked like English gibberish. Old English, maybe? She focused mostly on the pictures.

  There were a lot of pictures. Most of them were of horses or women. There were some in color. The women were pale, draped in ragged green cloth if not naked. The horses looked pale or green and rotten. The word Faerie was thrown around a lot in the text, but they definitely didn’t look like any fairies Lady had ever heard about growing up.

  Some of the pictures weren’t of women or horses. They were something else entirely. One looked like a long serpent with rows and rows of sharp teeth. A picture in the Japanese book had a drawing of something humanoid and genderless floating
on its back. It had long-fingered hands folded across its chest, a blank stare, and one of the creepiest smiles Lady had ever seen plastered across its face, all wide and toothy. She shivered and closed that particular book. After a few seconds she nudged it a little ways away from herself, like the proximity of the thing mattered.

  You could capture a kelpie, said one of the texts. You could force it to keep one form and do your bidding. Lady didn’t really see the point in that. It sounded like playing with fire to her. That’s how a bunch of scary stories went, didn’t it? You summoned a demon to do your bidding, and then it dragged you down to Hell.

  Speaking of playing with fire, fire appeared to be one of the things that could kill a kelpie. Well, part of something that could kill a kelpie. You had to heat silver or iron and stab the thing. That sounded tricky. If it was in the water how were you supposed to keep the metal hot? Were you supposed to lure it onto land?

  Lady shook her head. This is all stories, she told herself. Why are you wondering so much about stories?

  The fifteen minutes were about up. Lady glanced in the direction Crispin had gone. She should probably go say her goodbyes to him.

  Crispin was seated at a large desk in the shadows of the stairway. It wasn’t hard to find him. The desk itself was cramped with papers and books and a flat screen computer monitor. He was taking some heavy card stock out of a printer, his back to her when Lady approached. “Hey,” said Lady.

  Crispin jumped and fumbled the card stock. He turned in his ergonomic black chair. “You startled me,” he laughed. “I didn’t think you would be done so soon.” His finger was bleeding. He’d given himself a papercut. Rather than getting blood on the card stock he was holding, he shoved his index finger in his mouth.

  “Yeah. I figure I shouldn’t keep Otsuya waiting too long. I really appreciate you getting those books for me, though. They were super helpful… Are you okay?”

  Crispin removed his finger and groped around until he found a tissue. “Of course.” He laughed, though it sounded more nervous than anything. “Just a flesh wound.” He wrapped his finger in the tissue and then started tearing at the card stock’s perforated edges. “I’m glad you came over here before leaving. I was just making you a library card.”