Daughters of the Lake

by Wendy Webb

  “I don’t know for sure, John, but I think I’m looking at a body out in the lake,” he had said.

  With the sheriff and an ambulance on the way, Fred had kicked off his shoes and, despite Sadie’s protests, begun wading into the frigid water. There was an outside chance this person was still alive. He should help. But as he’d moved closer, Fred could see that he was looking at something inanimate, already beyond rescue. Fred had stood ankle deep in the water and watched as she had floated to shore, his dog barking in warning. The sheriff had arrived a few moments later.

  “What’ve we got here . . . ?” Johnny began, but his words stopped short. He wasn’t a praying man, but at that moment, his years of Catholic school kicked in and he crossed himself. Neither man spoke.

  Johnny had been county sheriff for going on twenty-five years and was no stranger to a crime scene, and yet he just stood there, openmouthed, struck mute by the sight of the dead woman before him. He had seen a body or two in his time, but nothing quite like this. Maybe it was the perfection of her skin or the position in which she was lying, one hand grasping at the sand like that. Maybe it was the expression on her face. She just didn’t look dead, Johnny thought. Vision shone from those lifeless eyes . . . or did it?

  His thoughts were hazy and random, and highly inappropriate for a crime scene. Johnny Stratton was thinking about true love. He went from the dead woman’s expression to his ex-wife’s sadly familiar morning sneer and then, more pleasantly, to Mary Carlson, his first love, a sweet-smelling, good-natured redhead he hadn’t seen since high school. Johnny remembered the feel of her thigh pressed against his as they drove around town in his dad’s old Camaro, the softness of her small hand as their fingers intertwined, her apple-scented perfume. He wondered, as he stood there on the lakeshore looking at this dead body, whatever had become of Mary. And then he shook off those thoughts. He was at a crime scene, for goodness’ sake.

  Fred was similarly mesmerized. He was also thinking about his true love, the woman who was, no doubt, doing the breakfast dishes at that moment—his wife of forty-five years, Beverly. He was glad she wasn’t down on the beach to see this.

  Kate broke their reverie.

  She was hurrying down the staircase toward the beach. “Dad?” she called out. Her voice startled the two men; they snapped their heads in her direction. “Dad? I heard Sadie barking, so I came to see if you were . . .” Her words, too, trailed off as she drew closer. Kate took one look at the lifeless face of the woman on the beach and fell to her knees, hands muffling a scream that had no sound.

  “It’s okay, honey.” Fred hurried to her side and put an arm around his daughter. “Johnny’s calling the coroner right now. Right, John? Come on, now. Let’s go back up to the house and let the sheriff do his job.”

  “No!” Kate screamed in a whisper. She threw off her father’s embrace, and before either man could stop her, she lunged toward the woman on the beach and began tearing at her dress. As Johnny and Fred were pulling Kate away from the body, the three of them stopped yet again.

  “Holy Christ,” Johnny whispered.

  Kate’s wail finally found its voice and pierced the morning calm with a sound so fierce that all the animals within earshot fell silent to listen. There, nestled in the folds of the dead woman’s gown, was a baby. The tiny body was serene and still, as though it were sleeping, cradled in its mother’s arms.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Great Bay, 1889

  The morning Addie Cassatt was born, the fog so shrouded the trees, the houses, and the lakeshore itself that her mother, Marie, didn’t dare make the trip to the doctor’s office alone. It wasn’t far into town—the Cassatts lived less than a mile from the main street—but that morning, Marie couldn’t see beyond her own front doorstep. She stared into the dense, white blanket and wasn’t sure what, exactly, to do. Her nearest neighbor’s house had disappeared into the fog, and Marie’s husband was out on the lake fishing, despite the weather and Marie’s delicate condition. There was no one to help her into town or to summon the doctor to come to her. She was alone in the house and, it seemed to Marie, alone in the world. But the puddle of water at her feet told her that, one way or another, she wouldn’t be alone for long. The baby was on its way.

  Marie’s husband, Marcus, and his brother, Gene, were sons and grandsons of men who had fished in these waters since before anyone could remember, and a little fog (let alone a very pregnant Marie) wasn’t about to prevent them from a day’s work. Most of the other fishermen in town thought the Cassatts were fools to go out on a day such as this one. But Marcus and Gene knew the fish liked the velvety fog. The brothers had, more than once, seen schools of them poking their faces above the surface on foggy mornings, just to get a taste of it.

  None of that mattered to Marie as she lay down alone in her bed, tossing and turning from the pain that signaled the coming of her first child. Town wasn’t so far away, she kept telling herself as each contraction eased. She walked that dirt road every day with the dogs and knew every dip and turn intimately. Surely she could get there on her own now. Or at least manage to make it to a neighbor’s house, at least that. Come on, now, Marie, it’s just a little fog, she thought. Get up. Get help. This child is on its way.

  She tried to rise from her bed, but the pain intensified. She groaned as she laid her head back down onto her pillow. Marie began to swim in a strange sense of vagueness as her body became the river that her baby would cross between another world and this one.

  Her thoughts weren’t her own. She could see only blinding white outside her bedside window. She couldn’t be sure the school, the grocer, the post office, or any of the town buildings hadn’t been literally swallowed up. Was anything there? Did the world still exist? Marie was terrified of that white, dense, living thing. She believed that, if she ventured outside, it would turn her around and force her into the thick woods beyond town, and she would be wandering, lost, when the baby came. The fact that Polar and Lucy were barking into the whiteness in the backyard, down toward the lake, further unsettled her.

  Help me, Mother was the last rational thought that went through her mind before the contractions took over her body.

  Just down the shoreline, Marie’s neighbor, Ruby Thompson, was twisting her apron into knots. She knew that fool Marcus had gone out on the lake, leaving his wife alone on such a day, with the baby so near. Fog or no fog, she was going to make sure Marie was all right.

  She wrapped up one of the pies she had baked that morning and walked out into the whiteness to the long row of pines that stood between their two houses. She touched each one, inching along blindly until another tree materialized before her. Being out there, enveloped by the fog, reminded Ruby of one childhood winter day when she had been caught outside during a blizzard. Several people in her tiny community had died that day, taken by the sudden storm. Young Ruby had been walking home from school when the snow began to come down, and just like today, she had crept along from tree to tree to find her way. Now, she felt a chill just thinking about that day. It wasn’t so different from this one. She shuddered with relief when she finally reached the Cassatt home.

  Ruby stood knocking at Marie’s front door. Why wasn’t she answering? Lord, thought Ruby, she might be having that baby right now. Ruby tried the door and, finding it open, walked inside.

  “Marie!” she called, but there was no reply. Where is she? Where are those damned dogs? Ruby began searching the house, becoming more and more frantic with every empty room. Something was not right. When Ruby found the kitchen door open to the backyard, she flew through it, heedless of the blinding fog. Ruby knew her way from this kitchen down to the lakeshore and could walk it blindly, if necessary. It was necessary now.

  Ruby hurried down the path, stumbling on tree roots and stones—Why didn’t Marcus properly clear this path, the lazy sod—until she reached the lakeshore. She could see only a few inches in front of her. Which way to go? She turned to the left and began running down the shoreline, c
alling her friend’s name.

  It wasn’t long before Marie floated out of the fog, almost at Ruby’s feet. She was lying in the shallow water, unconscious or asleep or dead, her dress entangled around her legs. There was no sign of the baby.

  Ruby’s shrieks brought everyone in earshot running. Her husband, Thomas, first; then came Otto and Betsy Lund. By the time the men had carried Marie back up to the house, allowed Ruby to get her into a dry nightgown, and laid her on the bed, she had awakened from whatever it was that had entranced her.

  “Where have you taken her?” Marie cried in her delirium. “Where is my baby?”

  Nobody asked why she had gone to the lakeshore. Nobody said anything at all other than, “You rest now, Marie,” and, “You’ve been through quite an ordeal,” and, “There, there, now.”

  But words such as these cannot comfort a grieving mother. Marie’s eyes darted this way and that as she tried to rise from her bed again and again. “My baby,” she kept repeating. Ruby took her husband by the arm and ushered him outside.

  “Look in the backyard, in the lake, anywhere you can,” she whispered. “That baby’s out there somewhere. Don’t let the wolves get it.” It needs a good Christian burial, she thought, but didn’t voice it aloud. Where is that doctor? He’ll have something to give Marie to quiet her cries.

  Young Jess Stewart didn’t tell his parents, or anyone else, that something had called him down to the lakeshore that morning as clearly as if it had spoken his name.

  He was lying under his bed, staging a battle with the wooden soldiers he had received from his uncle for his fifth birthday, when he heard a noise he had never heard before. He poked his head out from behind the blanket to listen. It sounded like singing, but there were no words. And no tune, really, not like the other songs Jess knew. This was something else. Jess thought it was the most beautiful music he had ever heard. He laid his head on the cool floor, closed his eyes, and let the music wash over him.

  The sound floated into and out of his ears, creating a tapestry of thoughts inside his head. He imagined being out on the lake in a rowboat with a beautiful woman. She wasn’t his mother, but she had long hair like his mother’s, and she looked so kind and loving that he wanted nothing more than to crawl into her lap and go to sleep, the way he had when he was a baby. But he was a big boy now, beyond such babyish things. He opened his eyes, left the soldiers in the middle of their battle, and crept to the window. Maybe he could see something. He just had to know what was making this music.

  But he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Just the fog. He couldn’t quite tell where the singing was coming from, but it sounded to Jess as though it was somewhere by the lake. What was it? Who was it?

  He crept to the back door, put on his jacket, and stole down the hill toward the lake. He didn’t tell his mother where he was going. He knew she wouldn’t let him outside in the fog, and he had some serious investigating to do out there. As he got closer to the lake, Jess found that the fog wasn’t so heavy as it was by the house. He could see a few feet in front of him, but only in the direction of the water.

  Jess stood and stared awhile, trying to see something, anything. Just then, a dark figure popped its head out of the water. It looked a bit like a beaver or an otter, but much larger. Did it have horns? Jess wasn’t certain. He squinted and looked closer. Yes, he thought it might. Were those humps or spikes on its back? Jess was enthralled. He had never seen anything like it. Was this a sea monster?

  Whatever it was, it was staring in his direction, beckoning him closer. He inched toward it, wanting a better look. They locked eyes. It was a defining moment in the life of this young boy, something he’d never forget. It was a moment that, when he was much, much older, he would often talk about with friends over too many drinks in the local tavern, only to be the subject of their good-natured jokes and mocking. But all their ribbing couldn’t convince Jess he was the fool. He knew what he had seen that day. Throughout his youth, he would sit there by the lake often, calling to this strange creature. But it never returned. The memory of it haunted him all his life, its strange song ringing in his ears in the dead of night, when he’d awaken from a dream.

  As a young man, Jess would pore through books about the animals of this region, looking for information about the kinds of creatures that inhabited these shores. But in all those stories and in all those illustrations, he never found any hint of recognition, nothing that reminded him of what he had seen that day. It was as though this strange creature did not exist at all.

  If he had only noticed the ancient pictographs that decorated the caves dotting the shoreline just beyond his boyhood home, Jess would have found a drawing of the very creature he had seen that day. Others had seen it, long ago. That might have led Jess to further exploration of the legends and lore of the region in which he lived. He would have found a story about an ancient, magical creature that existed in these waters, a fearsome spirit that was well known to the ancient peoples there. It was said that this creature was the embodiment of the lake itself, rendering its waters capable of saving or taking the lives of those who ventured on and around it—at its own whim. Legend had it that this creature could take human form at will. Back then, the locals knew the lake played favorites, calming rough waters whenever certain people came near, kicking up sudden storms to capsize the ships of others. They so respected and feared the power of this creature and the lake itself that, before setting out into their canoes, they would first offer gifts of appeasement, hoping to please it into granting them a safe journey.

  Of course, modern-day folk weren’t given to such superstitions. They had a way of forgetting the past, so intent were they on the future. Legends and lore became nothing more than stories that might entertain guests sitting around the fireplace after a nice dinner. The old beliefs faded as the modern age dawned, but the spirits that inspired those legends remained, kept doing their important work, waiting for someone to believe again.

  But for now, on that foggy day, young Jess Stewart stood on the shore, watching as this strange animal opened its mouth and sang. Something made Jess turn around just then, and that’s when he saw the dogs. Polar and Lucy, the Cassatts’ two Alaskan malamutes. They were staring out into the water, watching something. It was Addie, but he didn’t know her name then. What he saw was a baby floating in the shallow water between two big rocks. When he turned back around, the strange animal was gone. The singing was silent. All that remained was a baby floating in the water.

  Jess called for his parents, knowing this was much more than a five-year-old should handle alone. “Mama! Papa! Come quick!”

  Phil Stewart poked his head out of the back door. Unlike that daft Marcus, he was home that day, like any sensible fisherman would be. “Jess! Get back inside the house!” his father called.

  “But there’s a baby . . .”

  “Get in here, I said!”

  Jess heard the door slam shut. Of course they didn’t believe him about the baby. Parents never believed children when they had something important to say. So he scrambled back up the hill to the house to try again.

  “There is a baby in the lake.” He began crying with the urgency of it all. That got his parents’ attention, just as he knew it would.

  “What do you mean, dear? What kind of baby?” His mother, Jennie, put down her needlepoint and looked her son in the eye.

  “A human baby,” Jess cried, gesturing wildly toward the lakeshore. “You need to come right now.”

  Jennie and Phil exchanged concerned glances. A human baby?

  Phil shook his head and was settling back down with his newspaper, but Jennie knew Marie Cassatt was heavy with child. When that thought overtook her, Jennie’s entire body was filled with the sort of vibrating, humming dread that descends when someone has arrived with very bad news but hasn’t yet said anything. She shot up from her kitchen chair so fast that it fell to the floor. She flew out the door and down to the lake, her husband and son following close behind.r />
  Neither Jennie nor Phil really expected to find a baby alive in the water, let alone floating calmly with one hand in its mouth. But Jess knew that was exactly how she would be, because that was how he left her.

  “I’ll be damned,” Phil said.

  “Run,” Jennie told her son as she scooped the baby out of the water and wrapped the tiny thing in her shawl. “Run down the shoreline to the Cassatts’. Tell them we’re coming.”

  Jennie wasn’t certain this baby was Marie’s, but it was a pretty good bet. She also didn’t know how or why the baby had wound up in the lake. Had Marie tried to drown her? That didn’t seem possible. She knew how excited the Cassatts were about the birth of their first child. Was Marie herself hurt?

  Phil fumbled with his pocketknife as he cut the baby’s umbilical cord, and Jennie tied it off as the placenta floated away. Then the pair hurried through the fog down the lakeshore toward the Cassatt home.

  When they reached the house, Phil pushed open the door, making way for Jennie, who held the baby in her arms. They were greeted with a chorus of gasps from the neighbors still congregated there, hovering around Marie.

  “You folks aren’t going to believe this,” Phil said, with more caring in his voice than anyone had ever heard from him. Marie sat up straight in her bed, wide eyed, silent, not daring to breathe, as Jennie laid the baby in her arms.

  Phil sat down on a straight-backed chair, shaking his head. “The baby was floating in the lake near our place. It was Jess here who found her. When he called out to us that a baby was down by the beach, Jennie and I thought he was just talking crazy. But he made such a fuss about it, we went to see what it was. It was a baby, all right. Clean as a whistle, happy as a clam, floating in the water as if she had been born there, which, I reckon, she was.”

  The neighbors were rapt, but Marie was barely paying attention to Phil’s tale. She was staring into her baby’s violet eyes and thanking the lake for saving her child’s life. She should have known that’s where her daughter would be.