Abigail and the Seamonster, pt. 7

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

Finally done. There's a lot I'm not happy with, so let me know what you think. The ending in particular needs a lot of work, but if I waited till it was perfect it'd never get done. I'm interested in any serious, in-depth critiques of the story, whatever they may be. I've lost all perspective on the story at this point, so some good objective insight are more than welcome. Enjoy.

(and Sean, if you could hold off on showing this one to the kiddos until the birthday party I'd appreciate it)

ALTHOUGH SHE WAS AFRAID that it would be a long time before she saw the seamonster again, it turned out that Abigail spent a lot of time with him during the next few weeks. The next morning she went down and called for him, and he raised up out of the water immediately, as if he'd been waiting for her. He took her on another trip through the lake, showing her all kinds of fish and animals she'd never dreamed existed. A few days later they met and didn't go under the lake, but rather spent the day looking for shells together. She walked along the edge of the shore while he swam along near her. They spent the day talking, and every so often he would burrow his head under the water and bring up an interesting shell or stick or rock that she never could have gotten to from the shore. Her collection grew so quickly that her father had to build her another shelf to put all the shells on. One day she went down to the shore while it was raining, a sad steady rain, and called for him. He came after a little while and they went for a ride in the lake. Looking up at the rain from beneath all she could see were countless numbers of the tiny circles the raindrops made on the lake's surface expanding into each other, constantly moving in a pattern that she felt she could almost understand. She thought that if she could see music it would look something like the rain from underneath. Another time the seamonster took her to the bottom of the lake and let her walk around on her own, feeling the soft, cold mud sink up past her ankles.

But after several weeks the seamonster stopped coming when she called. An entire week went by without her seeing him, and she began to be afraid he wouldn't come back. She told her mother this fear, but her mother said, "Honey, he told you there would be times he didn't come right away."

"But it's been a week!" she said. It felt like a year. It felt like her entire life had only begun when she first met the seamonster. Everything before that seemed like a dim dream she could only halfway remember.

The next morning after breakfast she went down to the lake and called for the seamonster for a little while, then sat down on the shore of the lake with her head in her hands. The day had already grown very warm; the air was hot and moist and seemed to buzz in her ears. When she looked out over the water for the seamonster the reflection of the sun hurt her eyes, so she couldn't look very far. She felt like crying.

After awhile she thought of the dock. It stuck out a couple of hundred feet into the lake. Maybe she could see further from the end. She got up and dusted the gravel from her shorts, then walked out onto the dock, holding onto the worn wooden rail as she did. The boards creaked beneath her feet and she could hear the water sloshing against the posts that held the dock up out of the water. She looked down through a crack in the boards; under the dock it looked cool and dark. It would be the same under the lake, but without the seamonster she was stuck out here in the hot sunlight, sweating through her shirt, and she hadn't talked to him for a week. Thinking about the hot sun and the cool lake, she suddenly knew that he had forgotten her. She was certain of it. There was no way he would let her sit out in the sun like this, worrying about where he was. Her stomach began to hurt. She could feel it twisting inside her as she thought about the seamonster out there, swimming, not even remembering her or the fun times they had had together.

Then she thought of her father's boat. It was tied to the end of the dock beside her. The oars were laying in the bottom. She knew how to row the boat, although she wasn't big enough to do it very well. Her father sometimes let her help him row on the way back from fishing. But she thought she could do it if she needed to. Maybe she could row out to meet the seamonster! She caught her breath at the thought. He'd be proud of her for coming out to see him, for rowing the boat all by herself. But he had told her to always ask her parents before coming with him, and she knew what her mother would say if she asked to go out in the boat alone. She'd say Of course not, Abigail. You know better than that. She knew that the seamonster wouldn't want her to disobey her parents. But with every moment that passed she wanted more and more to take the boat out to see him, so she tried not to think about what he had said about telling them first and to imagine instead that he would say Good job, Abigail! when he saw her. Her stomach still felt funny, but whereas before it had felt all jumbled and twisted now it felt as though it were pulling in two different directions, one that wanted to obey and the other that wanted to take the boat out.

Then she remembered the paddle boat they had seen below the lake, the one with the moss growing all over it and the rotted pictures inside. She thought about her father's boat laying beside that one, rotting and covered in green plants, and the thought scared her almost enough to make her walk back down the dock and up to her house. But then she remembered what the seamonster had said--I saved some of them. Suddenly she realized that he must have only saved some of them because there were too many people. But if she were the only one in her boat then of course he would save her. And if he came for the people in the big boat then he would come for her. A wave of relief passed over her. She could take the boat out after all. Abby climbed down into the boat and began to untie the rope that held it to the dock. In the back of her head she could hear a little voice reminding her that the seamonster had told her not to do this, but she ignored this voice by thinking about how much she wanted to see him.

Rowing was harder than Abigail remembered. After she took the oars out of the bottom of the boat and hung them over the side she sat down in the bench where her father always sat to row, but because she was short she had to reach over her head to move them, and couldn't make them row that way. She tried it several times, but couldn't make the boat move, so finally she stood up so she could make the oars go into the water. She stood facing backwards, like her father did when he rowed, towards the dock and her house up on the hill. Her face was already wet with sweat, and the first pull back on the oars was hard, as hard as if she were pulling her bed across her room. The boat inched away from the dock. She pulled on the oars again, gritting her teeth, and the boat moved another foot or two in the water. After several tugs on the oars she stopped to gasp for breath. It was so hard, and the sun felt like a clothes iron pressed to the top of her head. There was no way she could make it out into the lake. Her face wrinkled up, as though she were about to cry, but she remembered the seamonster, cool beneath the water. He wouldn't want her to give. She ignored the part of her mind that wondered if maybe he would want her to give up, if maybe she shouldn't be doing this in the first place. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and started to row again.

It took her forever to move away from the dock, but after she had been rowing for awhile she didn't notice as much how hard it was to row, or how hot she was. The hardest thing was that she was always facing back towards her house getting smaller and smaller on the hill. It looked so lonely and small under the hazy blue sky. To distract her mind she started thinking about the things she and the seamonster would do under the lake. She would ask him if they could walk around on the bottom of the lake again; the cool mud would feel good on her feet after standing on the hard hot bottom of the boat for such a long time. She drifted off, daydreaming, for a long time, lost in her thoughts while she pulled back stroke after hard stroke.

She startled back into reality when a fish jumped right next to the boat. She screamed a little before she recognized it, then felt a strange twist of sadness inside her when she realized it wasn't the seamonster coming to meet her. She looked back towards her house and was shocked to realize how far she'd come. She couldn't see her house at all; the hill it stood on was just a distant green rise on the edge of the lake. A cooler wind was blowing from that direction, rippling the water, and the sky had begun to fill with big mashed potato clouds. When one of the clouds moved across the sun, blocking out the glaring heat, she suddenly realized how exhausted she felt. The muscles in her arms and legs felt like limp old rubber bands. She let go of the oars and sat down on the bench to rest a little while.

The clouds were darker than she had first thought, and the wind was blowing a little faster. She looked out over the water for the seamonster, but didn't see anything other than rippling waves. Abby sighed. When she had set out the sun had been only halfway up the sky, but just now before the clouds came it had been directly overhead. She had been rowing for several hours, and realized how thirsty she was. She hadn't thought to bring any water or food, but was thirsty enough to drink from the lake. Her mother didn't like her to--she said all the fish used it as a toilet, which was gross but made Abby giggle. It also kept her from drinking the lake water, usually, but now she was too thirsty to care.

She leaned over the side of the boat and reached her hand down to scoop water out of the lake. The first taste was delicious. She leaned further over and sucked a couple more mouthfuls of water from her hand. She had never been so thirsty. Just then one of the waves that had been getting bigger jostled the boat and knocked her over the side.

She wasn't expecting it, and started to scream as she fell into the lake. Her scream was only halfway out when she went under and she breathed in a lungful of water. She started to cough and flail, trying to get her head back out of the lake. She knew how to swim, but her clothes weighed her down and her arms were already so tired. By the time she burst back out of the lake the boat had begun to drift away. She coughed and swam for it. The water was cold and dark around her feet; she could feel the entire lake stretching out beneath her, deep and dangerous. She remembered the trunks of the dead trees that she and the seamonster had seen. From beneath they had been beautiful and mysterious, covered in sea moss and stretching up towards the light, but now when she thought of them they seemed like wet, bony fingers reaching up through the water to touch her feet. She panicked and swam faster towards the boat, as if to escape them. She reached over the side of the boat and pulled herself up over. For a moment she didn't think her tired arms could do it, and then the boat tilted towards her weight so that she thought the boat would tip over, but she strained and tumbled over inside. The boat rocked back and forth and she lay in the bottom, catching her breath, trying not to think about the trees that she knew were down there, reaching up towards her and her tiny boat.

The clouds were definitely getting darker and the wind had begun to blow whitecaps from the tops of the waves. The boat rocked back and forth. She was scared, dripping wet, and suddenly cold after being hot all day. It was about to storm, she realized, and the seamonster wasn't coming. She never should have left the dock. She should start back right now. One oar was laying in the boat where it had fallen when she fell overboard. She looked around for the other and realized with sudden panic that it wasn't in the boat. It must have fallen overboard when she fell out of the boat. She looked around at the heaving lake but didn't see it anywhere. It was gone.

She grabbed the one oar still in the boat and tried to row with it, but with only one the boat began to travel in a circle. She tried to point the boat back towards the shore but it kept veering off to one side or the other. The wind, now blowing hard enough to whip her wet hair around her head, was blowing the boat away from the shore. The sky had grown dark, and little bursts of rain skittered across the surface of the lake. She couldn't see the shore any more.

Lightning cracked directly overheard like a gunshot going off, and the rain began to pour down. Abby screamed and hunkered down in the bottom of the boat. She was sobbing in terror. The boat pitched back and forth, tossed by the waves and the wild wind. Thunder was breaking all around, and the flashes of lightning lit up the rain, coming down in sheets. She remembered the paddle boat under the lake, and knew that her little boat was about to go under. The waves were breaking over the sides now, soaking her even more. She hid her head under her arms and lay crying in the bottom of the boat which had begun to fill up with water.

One wave raised the boat up higher than ever. Her stomach knotted as the boat slid down the back of the wave, but as she came down the wave another one caught the boat at an angle, thumping it so hard it felt like the boat was about to fall apart. The impact threw her out of the boat as if she'd been kicked out. She fell again into the lake and began flailing crazily, trying to get her head back above water, but every time she did another wave came down on top of her and pushed her back under. She couldn't see the boat. Her arms were weak; another wave shoved her under the surface of the lake, and when she tried to swim up her arms couldn't move. She stared up towards the surface, moving her arms weakly, certain she was about to drown.

Suddenly she felt something wrap around her waist and jerk her towards the surface. She burst from the lake, coughing and gasping down air. She was being carried high in the air, above the waves. The rain pelted her from all sides. She looked down and saw the boat, then looked back and saw a long purple tail holding her up, wrapped around her waist. It was the seamonster!

His tail lowered her carefully into the boat and then disappeared back into water. She clung to the sides of the boat, looking around for him. Had he gone again? The boat still rolled up and down with the waves, which were fierce as before, but wasn't jerking side to side like it had been. She peeked over the edge of the boat, careful not to fall out, and saw the outline of the seamonster's head just beneath the water, under the boat. He was steadying the boat with his head, swimming just below her. All the terror washed out of her body, as if driven away by some enormous, invisible wave larger than any the storm could raise.

The boat turned in the direction of shore and began to push through the waves breaking over the bow. Abby grabbed the sides and held on, closing her eyes whenever the water came over. She was shivering now and drenched, but no longer afraid, not even when the thunder cracked overhead. The seamonster was pushing her in the boat towards shore much faster than she could've rowed. His head butted against the bottom of the boat, shuddering the wood ever so slightly as they tilted up and down with the waves.

All of a sudden the rain stopped. She looked back over her shoulder and saw the edge of the rain falling behind, like a gray curtain. The waves began to grow smaller, though they still jostled her back and forth inside the boat. The sky was dark, but Abby thought it might be growing a little lighter.

"Child, do you remember what I said to you?"

Abby stifled a scream. The seamonster had raised his head to the side of the boat without her noticing it--he had startled her. He was pushing the boat with his tail now that the rain had passed, and his enormous blue eye was no more than a foot away from her face. He seemed sad. "Do you remember?" he asked again.

She suddenly felt awful. She remembered everything he had told her--not to go out on the lake by herself, to always tell her parents. "I thought you'd come to see me," she mumbled, looking down into the bottom of the boat away from his face. There was an inch or two of water in the bottom from the storm.

"Child," he said, "you knew coming out here was wrong."

She suddenly started to cry. "I thought you were never coming back," she sobbed. "I missed you. I'm sorry."

He looked at her steadily. "Why did you think I wasn't coming back?"

She sniffed. "I--don't know." Now that he asked her, she really didn't know why she had ever thought that. She tried to remember what she had been thinking just a few hours earlier--it seemed like years ago, like she had been much younger just that morning.

The seamonster began to laugh softly. "Child, if you had believed me you would have obeyed me. Do you trust me?"

Abby nodded. "Yes sir." This was one of the strangest conversations she had ever had with the seamonster.

"Why do you trust me, Abigail?"

She thought about this but couldn't come up with a reason. "Is it because you love me?" she finally asked, uncertain.

The seamonster burst out laughing. "Child, I have no idea why you trust me. Only you know that. But you're right--I do love you, and that's probably a better answer to my question than you realize." Abby didn't understand what he was talking about. He must have read her mind, or seen her confusion in her face, because he added, "You'll understand this when you're older."

"Okay," she said. "I'm sorry that I came out on the lake today."

"I forgive you, child," the seamonster said. "Wait for me next time."

Abby nodded, then looked up ahead. They were almost home! While she and the seamonster were talking they had come almost up to the shore. She could see her house at the top of the hill, and the bright sky behind where the clouds were beginning to clear. Her parents stood at the edge of the lake, watching her and the seamonster come in. Her father had his arm around her mother, who had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. When they saw her they started to wave. She could hear them calling for her and she called back.

When the lake became too shallow for the seamonster to guide the boat anymore he took his head out of the water and gave the boat a hard push from behind with his nose. Abby fell back into the boat from the force of the push, and by the time she scrambled back up from the floor the boat was scratching against the shells at the edge of the lake. Before she could even climb out her father was at the boat. He grabbed her under her arms and pulled her out, then held her tightly for a long time. She thought she was in trouble, but he didn't seem mad at all from the way he was holding her. Her mother was there too, hugging her and her father all at once, crying.

"Abby, we were so scared."

All of a sudden Abby started crying too. She didn't know why. "I was scared too, mama. I thought I was going to drown." Her father sat her down and she hugged her mother around her waist, sobbing.

When she looked up her father was standing out in the lake before the seamonster, who had his head and neck stretched up towards the shore. Her father's pants were wet almost up to his waist. He was listening with his head bowed while the seamonster said something to him, quietly, so she couldn't hear it. Her mother patted Abby on the head and whispered "Wait here, honey." She waded out into the lake beside her husband and bowed her head along with him. Abby could tell she was saying something to the seamonster, but couldn't tell what it was. She thought about wading out next to her parents, but had the feeling that this was a grown-up conversation, even if the seamonster wasn't really a grown-up. She sat down in the gritty sand and watched them talk, her clothes still dripping water. Finally her parents turned and waded back towards her. The seamonster turned away as if to swim back out into the lake. She stood up and began jumping up and down, waving to get his attention. "Seamonster, wait!" she called.

He looked back towards her and bellowed, "Abigail! Do you trust me?"

"Yes!" she yelled back.

"Then you will see me again," he said, and disappeared into the lake with a rush of water. She stood with her mouth open. She had wanted to say goodbye. Her father came up behind and put his arm around her.

"Daddy, I wanted to say goodbye," she said.

"Don't worry, honey. He knows that."

She looked up at her father. "Will I see him again?" He looked down at her and smiled.

"Do you trust him, Abby?"

She thought for a moment. "I think so."

Her father laughed. "That's a grown-up answer, honey. You'll see him again." He took her hand and they began to walk back up the hill to the house. Her mother came up and took her other hand. Halfway up the hill she thought of something.

"Am I in trouble?" she asked, looking from her mother to her father and back again. They smiled at her.

"What do you think, Abby?" asked her father

"Um…no," she guessed.

"Why wouldn't you be in trouble?" asked her mother.

She thought. "Because I've learned my lesson and was really, really scared and now you're so happy to see me?"

Her mother laughed and picked her up. "I don't think so, silly. Of course you're in trouble. But we'll talk about that after dinner."

"Oh," Abby said.

# posted by Daniel at 6:53 PM.

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