Abigail and the Seamonster, pt. 5

Part 1 . Part 2 . Part 3 . Part 4 . Part 5 . Part 6 . Part 7

If things go as planned, this should be the penultimate installation. One more to go. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and the light is purple. Anyhoo, here's Part the Fifth.

The roaring turned to the sound of bubbles as they dove beneath the water. She held her breath and wrapped her arms as tightly as she could around the seamonster's purple neck. How could she breath underwater? She hadn't thought of that, and she realized that she would have to let go and swim to the surface before she drowned. But she wanted to stay under water with seamonster just like in her dream. Her lungs started to burn as they ran out of oxygen, and she was just about to let go when the seamonster's said, "Look over there." His voice was louder than it had been on the shore and so deep she could feel his neck vibrate against her body. It surprised her so much that without thinking she opened her eyes and gave a little scream, breathing in a mouthful of water when she did so. It didn't choke her, though, like it did when she breathed in water while she was swimming. It went into her lungs just like air, except that it felt cooler, and moist, like she was breathing moonlight. Without thinking she yelled, "I can breathe!" and was surprised again to her voice. It sounded like her, only it was wavery from coming through the water.

She felt the seamonster's neck shake again, and realized that was what it felt like when he laughed. "I know you can breath, child. Would I have brought you here if you couldn't?"

Abby didn't know if he would have or not. "I guess not," she said, and noticed that whenever she spoke bubbles spilled out of her mouth and raced upwards. They tickled her lips.

"I wouldn't have," he said, "But you don't know that yet." Abby didn't say anything. It was like he had read her mind and seen that she wasn't sure that he would protect her. She felt ashamed. "It's fine, child," she heard him say. "That's why we came here. Now look over there." She looked. In one place where the floor of the lake sloped down from the shore there were what looked like hundreds of telephone poles growing up from the bottom to the surface. As the seamonster carried her further she could see them more clearly.

"What are they?" she asked.

"The lake used to be much lower than it is now. When it rose it covered part of the forest. Those are pine trees that used to grow to the edge of the lake. People cut them off at the surface so boats could get through. Only fishermen know they're here now." They were very close to the trees. Abby could see them shaggy with water moss. Light from the surface streamed down among them and reflected off fish that darted through the trees. It reminded Abby of the sun coming through the curtains when her mother woke her up in the morning.

The seamonster turned suddenly and left the forest behind. She looked back and saw the trees growing dimmer, turning to a dark blur behind them. She could see down along the seamonster's long neck and his back and see his legs with their broad paddles kicking against the water. His tail trailed after. She faced forward again. They had gone deeper in the lake. It was darker, and the surface was distant above them, like blue glass. From the water rushing past her face she knew they were moving fast. She held tight to the seamonster's neck for awhile, watching the dim water around them without saying anything. Finally she spoke, sending air bubbling up out of her mouth.

"Are you taking me to see the man in the lake?" she asked.

"Who is the man in the lake, child?" he asked.

Abby thought for a minute. "I don't know. But Daddy said there was someone who lived here."

The seamonster laughed. "I think he was talking about me."

"Does he know you?" Abby couldn't believe it.

"Yes, he does. Or I know him, which is the same thing. I want to show you something else."

She could see something large on the lake floor ahead. As they got closer it began to look like a boat. The seamonster swam slowly around it. The boat had been laying on the floor of the lake for a long time. In a few places white paint showed through, but for the most part it was covered in dark green weeds and moss. The large paddlewheel on the back of the boat was brown with rust, and had begun to fall apart. The rails along the side were rotted through, and there was a huge hole in the deck near the stern. Fish swam in and out of this hole, and shells littered the deck. The boat was big enough for hundreds of people.

"What happened to the boat?" she asked the seamonster.

"There was a storm a long time ago," he said. He sounded sad. "The people went out in the boat even though they knew the storm was coming. The waves were too high."

Abby's eyes were wide. "What happened to the people?"

"I saved some of them," he said. She could see through the holes where the windows had been. There were mirrors on the walls, and lots of fancy-looking picture frames with paintings that had all been ruined by the water. She couldn't tell what any of them were. The seamonster turned from the boat and began to swim away. "It's time for you to go home, child. Your mother will wonder where you've been."

Abby realized that she hadn't thought of her mother since she'd walked into the lake. She thought now about her mother looking out over the lake from the kitchen window, wondering where her daughter was. She suddenly wanted to be home more than she wanted anything, even more than she wanted to see the rest of the lake. She looked over the top of the seamonster's head, staring into the dim distance of the lake, towards what she hoped was the way home. She was thinking about her mother. She wondered if it was time for her afternoon snack, and if her mother was worried about her. She started sniffing, trying not to cry. She wondered what would happen to her tears if she cried in the lake. Would they run down her face or would they float off in the water?

"Look, child." The seamonster was talking to her. She looked up, and realized they were swimming up towards the surface of the lake. The seamonster was moving faster than he had yet. The blue light streaked down around them through the water, glittering off of millions of silver fish racing past above them. Abby caught her breath. They were going right through the school of fish! The seamonster carried them straight into the school. Abby didn't even have time to be afraid of getting knocked off his neck, or bitten by a fish, or any of the other things she would have normally been afraid of. As they entered the school she had a sense of bright, darting things streaking past them. Several times fish swam past her, inches from her face, and she almost screamed, but they never collided. One time a long time ago her daddy had woken her up in the middle of the night and carried her outside to watch falling stars. He had called it a meteor shower. While they stood on the hill above their house and watched stars fall like bright rain her daddy explained to her that the earth was moving through a bunch of rocks that floated in space, and that the atmosphere would protect them. It felt then like it felt now, on the seamonster's back, with silver fish streaking around her like falling stars.

Suddenly they were through the fish. Abby looked back and saw the school slipping away into the lake like a silver dream. She turned forward just in time to see the surface of the lake rushing towards them. The light was so bright it hurt her eyes. They burst out of the lake in a rush of water. The seamonster's body arced high above the lake, and Abby screamed with excitement, but the sound of her voice was lost in the seamonster's roar. Abby felt the roar shaking in his neck as she squeezed it tightly. From behind his head, before they fell back into the lake, she looked out over the water and gasped. She couldn't see land anywhere, except for a faint smudge of green on the horizon back in the direction they had come from. She had never dreamed the lake was this big.

They splashed back into the water and it took Abby a moment to remember she could breathe under here, too. After the seamonster began to swim quickly back towards what she assumed was the land where her house was, she leaned forward as far as she could and asked, "How far does the lake go?"

The seamonster chuckled again. "That depends, child."

"What does it depend on?"

"Well, to me it doesn't seem to go on very far at all, but of course it's my lake. To you it would seem to go on forever."

"How long does it take to get to the other side?" she asked. The seamonster wasn't being very helpful.

"That also depends. If you were swimming you would never get there. If you were in a boat you still probably wouldn't get there"--his voice sounded sad when he said this--she thought he was thinking about the sunken boat they had seen-- "but if you did it would take a long, long time. If you were with me it wouldn't take very long at all."

"How many hours would it take?"

The seamonster burst out laughing at this. She could feel the laughs moving up and down his throat like waves. "Child, you can't measure everything in numbers."

"Why not?" she asked. She suspected he was teasing her.

The seamonster was silent for a moment, then he asked her, "Abigail, do you know how to spell your name?"

"Of course," she said. She had learned that in Kindergarten, but she didn't know what her name had to do with crossing the lake.

"What numbers do you use to spell your name? When you can tell me that, I'll tell you how many hours it takes to cross the lake."

She started to answer, then began giggling. "You don't use numbers to spell things."

"Exactly," said the seamonster.

# posted by Daniel at 11:23 PM.

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