The Witch in the Lake

Anna Fienberg grew up in a house filled with books, where what they would read next was just as important as what was for lunch! She writes for a wide range of readers, from preschoolers to teenagers (and adults!). She composes all the time in her head: "If I hear something interesting, I underline it in my mind and put exclamation marks around it."

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Chapter One

"Leo, come back! You're going too close -- are you crazy? Leo!"

Merilee's heart pounded. She peered through the branches of the tree they'd been climbing. There was the small stick figure of Leo. He was waving his arms, yelling something, marching towards the lake. In the distance he could have been a toy soldier, set to face the enemy.

The ground looked so far away. "We're on top of the world!" Leo had cried only a moment ago -- until he'd turned suddenly and whooshed down the tree as if a hurricane were blowing.

Merilee watched the shadows creeping, dark webbed fingers growing longer and thinner as the sun slid down the sky behind her. "The light's nearly gone," she called. "Stupido! Do you want the witch to get you?"

Merilee scrambled down the tree. The breath in her throat was fast and sharp. It almost hurt. In her head there was the song they'd sung since they were babies:

All the village children knew that song. If you sang it loud enough, played games -- "you be the witch and I'll be the child" -- if you made jokes about it, why, maybe you'd never meet the witch in real life. Because just to see the witch in the lake, just to glance at her, was enough to steal the power of speech from a grown man.

Merilee ran to the edge of the forest. Her bare feet felt the soft pine needles give way to the pebbly shore. And there was Leo, his toes nearly in the water.

"Leo Pericolo, I could kill you. Mamma mia, what do you think you're doing?"

How could he? Ever since they were babies, the mothers in the village had warned them. "Don't go near the lake, little ones -- she waits there, under the water. When the sky is dark and the moon is full, the witch will come creeping, up, up out of the lake..." and they would cover their mouths and shake their heads at the horror.

Merilee closed her eyes. "See," she remembered her grandmother's whispering, "see how dark with your lids squeezed tight? That's what it's like at the bottom of the lake. So don't go there, whatever you do."

Merilee stared out at the lake. She thought it must be deeper and darker than any in the world. It lay at the foot of the village like a dirty black stain. No fish flashed through its murky valleys. No sunlight dripped through its greasy folds. The lake smelled of dead things.

Leo hated water. Always had. Merilee knew he had nightmares. The lake dripped through his dreams like ink. But for her (and everyone else she knew), the lake was just simply out of bounds, like poisonous plants or deadly fungi. The lake was one of those forbidden and dangerous things, and she accepted that as she knew the sun would rise every day and the moon was too far away to touch. But Leo -- well, he'd always been different.

A cool wind sprang up and ruffled the leaves. She saw the shadows tremble on the shore.

"It'll be dark soon, Leo. Please come back, please!"

"Look, Meri," Leo called back. "I think I just saw something. See over to the right, is that something stirring, or is it just the wind making waves?"

Merilee's heart began to race. Her skin felt tingly all over her back and shoulders. "I can't see anything --"

Leo was staring at the water. Then he did something that made Merilee gasp.

"You maggoty old hag," he yelled at the lake, "why don't you come and get me if you're so b-a-a-a-d!"

"Leo!" whispered Merilee.

Leo shook his fist at the lake and its evil ghost.

"Come on," he shouted, "you festering old toad!"

"Stop it!" Merilee raced towards Leo. She tried to grab the hem of his tunic but he was dancing away in the shallows, splashing and punching the air.

"Try and get me, you slimy drop of nose ooze, you weeping sore on the face of humanity -- why don't you burst out of there?"

Merilee slapped her hand to her mouth in horror. Far out, past Leo's wicked words, across the dead body of the lake, she saw a silver light rim the horizon. It grew steadily sending a small ladder across the water.

"Leo, the moon is rising!"

Leo turned towards her. He stopped dancing. "So? It's not full tonight, is it?" For the first time, there was a slight quiver in his voice.

Typical, thought Merilee. He's always in such a rush, so carried away by some feeling or invention, that he never stops to check the details. Little details, like a full moon, down by the lake!

Fear and fury made her want to shake him.

"I don't know. But we're not allowed to be here anyway. You know the law against being away from the village after sunset. It was made to protect us, for heaven's sake, and here you are, trying to get us killed!"

Merilee suddenly saw the families of her village, all gathered safely together behind barred doors. The lamps would be ]it, the fires glowing brightly. Oh, how she longed to be there, cooking with her mother, helping to roll out the dough for the night's pasta.

The lake was such a desolate place. Travelers always kept to the high road, never daring to come down to water their horses or rest their legs. Even in the daytime, no one came here. There were no summer picnics on the shore, no afternoon strolls. And when the moon was round as a coin in the sky, people drew their curtains against the light, as if the witch's power could ride in on the moonlight and snatch them all away.

Leo never closed the curtains. He would fling open the window and stare out at the twinkling light frosting the leaves of the forest. "I dare you!" he'd shout into the wind. "Show yourself, you warty old witch, and I'll turn you into a worm!"

They both glanced back at the water. Merilee's legs suddenly felt leaden. The wet gritty sand under her feet seemed to suck her down. They watched, stuck like figures in a painting, as the moon rose above the horizon, a perfect, shining circle.

"There!" whispered Leo, and he pointed towards the middle of the lake.

They peered into the dusk. Merilee stopped breathing. A small cut was opening in the surface of the water, as if some invisible hand were making an incision in a body. The water peeled back, like the lips of an ugly wound, and a shape was forming in between, rising up. A moan, like the hungry sound of all lost things, flew on the wind.

"Mamma mia, santo dio, run!" screamed Merilee, and she grabbed Leo's hand and pelted up the shore, her feet catching on sharp little rocks and pebbles that she hardly felt. And all the time the moon shone like a beacon over the forest and the moan sang in her ears, the feathery cry of death and lost souls.

"I don't want to hear that, don't let me hear that," panted Merilee as they crashed through the forest, the earth soft and safe beneath them. They whipped their way like snippets of string through the trembling trees, the wind strong at their backs, still carrying the dreadful sound.

"When will it stop? Will they hear it at home? Where will we say we've been?" Merilee still clutched Leo's hand. "They mustn't know we've been together, my mother would go crazy Aunty will beat me!"

Leo grabbed her other hand and yanked her round to face him.

"We can't stop now, come on. We're so late!" Merilee tried to pull her hands away.

"Merilee," said Leo, so close they could feel the pounding of each other's hearts, "something happened tonight. You want to ignore it? Listen --" and the moan sobbed through the dusk. "It's real, isn't it," Leo whispered, as they stood clutched together against the dark.

Leo's breath was warm on her cheek. He smelled of pears and pastry. He was so dear and familiar, like her own brother. She'd known him forever. She knew his pointy chin and strong, brown wood-chopping arms. She knew that amazing head of silver hair, making him look, since the day he was born, like a very wise and ancient child.

But now he was touched by something else, something foreign, and his voice was full of awe.

"It's always been real, silly" Merilee said, trying to bring him back. "So many people -- children! -- have disappeared. That's why there are laws. Your own grandfather saw the witch, and he barely survived."

"Yes, I know," Leo nodded impatiently He'd grown up with that story of old Manton Pericolo, still dreamt of it. Manton had gone into the forest, so the story went, to hunt pheasants with his friend. But they'd been led on, down to the lake, and he'd returned alone, dripping from head to foot. "I could do nothing to save him," he'd wept. Manton was never the same again. His mind had "gone," people said, and he drooled. He was too frightened to swallow, for the rest of his life.

Leo shook the image away. "But all we've ever seen, I mean in our lives, is the fear. We've never seen anything real, until now. You know I've always hated it. 'Be home by sunset, don't go wandering near the lake, don't look at the moon.' Ugh! This damn fear, it's like a wall keeping us out from the rest of the world. It's as if we're in jail here.

"Well, but it's only one place we can't go," Merilee said quickly. "There are plenty of others --"

"Where? Where can we go, since we're not allowed to see each other? Oh, I'm sick of it, Merilee. What if the witch has only ever been a story, you know, the nightmare of a poor madman, and we've all become prisoners of it, making laws to keep it out, keep ourselves safe?" Leo threw up his arms. "I just want to see this thing for myself, Merilee, smash that old hellhag and get free!"

Merilee had a sudden glimpse of herself long ago, running through Leo's house, playing hide and seek. Is he under the bed, in the old chest, behind the big cooking pot? she'd whisper, laughing, her feet clattering on the stone floor, the tension building in her chest so that she could hardly bear it. And then she'd hear Leo's giggle, from somewhere you'd never believe, and there'd be the rush-tumble as they raced towards the safety of the hearth.

But that was years ago, when Laura was still alive, and Merilee had dashed in and out of Leo's place as freely as if it were her own.

"My own sister," she said quietly.

"Oh, Merilee," said Leo, flinging an arm around her shoulders. He stared at the ground. "I'm sorry, I just don't think, do I?" Leo looked up into her face. "But don't you see, all we've ever really known is that Laura disappeared. We don't know that it was the lake, do we? No one saw. Or at least, no one told." Leo frowned.

"Oh, come on, let's go," Merilee said tiredly, pulling away. "I'll probably be skinned alive as it is. Dio, where will we say we've been?"

Leo groaned, but he ran after her, overtaking her, and they crashed through the forest, breaking sticks under their feet and crushing herbs so that the smell of wild mint was everywhere.

When they reached the clearing, where the narrow cobblestone road began, Leo stopped. "I'm sorry Merilee," he said, panting. "I'm so sorry that we're late and I scared you. I didn't mean to, I didn't think, and now you're going to be in trouble." He pulled at his hair, wondering. "Could you say that you were looking for some plant in the forest to make a potion, you know, something useful that your aunt would appreciate like, like --"

"Like deadly hemlock -- I could put it in Aunty's wine!"

Leo gave a crow of laughter. "No, you'd be found out and taken to the gallows and I'd have to come and rescue you, and you know how I'm always late --"

Merilee giggled. Then she held her breath. "Listen," she whispered. "Can you hear anything?"

There was just the dark of the forest behind them and the soft gleam of the polished stones on the road ahead.

"No, it's gone," said Leo. "I'd better leave you here. Good luck, Meri."

"We'll see each other at the tree, Saturday?"

"Surely. You'd better go now. And Meri? Lavender. Say you were collecting lavender."

"Ciao, Leo," said Merilee, feeling lighter, but as she went to kiss his cheek, she suddenly stopped. Little prickles of alarm scurried down her back. Leo's face was shining with energy. She could practically see an idea painting itself in bold passionate colors all over his brain. She turned away and began to run towards home, but his voice carried over the stones, clear as a bell tolling.

"We'll hear it again, Merilee," he called fiercely, "and when we do, I promise you it'll be for the last time!"

It will be, for sure, thought Merilee grimly because no one hears anything ever again from the bottom of the lake. And she shivered deep inside even as she saw the piazza opening like welcoming arms and the church spire shot with moonlight and the warm golden stone of the houses all huddled cozily together. The lake had a voice now, as black and hungry as death, and she could hear it whining pitifully persistently deep in her skull, and now that she'd heard it she knew she would never get it out.

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Excerpted from The Witch in the Lake: A Novel by Anna Fienberg
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