The cove was smooth and calm in the early hours of morning, and the sun lazily lifted its head over the eastern horizon. A small disturbance rippled out across the otherwise glassy lake as the young girl's feet dangled in the wonderfully cool water and a quiet breeze ruffled her dark hair. Lidi gazed at the rising sun and allowed her eyes to gently close.
As she opened them again, she saw that the sky had suddenly become dark and ominous. The air was growing chilly and the light breeze had turned to a frightening gale. Lidi heard her father's voice, barking orders across the deck of the tiny sailboat. "Get the sails down!," he cried, his voice edged with urgency. Lidi ran across the deck towards her mother, who was struggling with a winch, trying to lose sail, as the first few raindrops spattered on the deck. The strong winds made it nearly impossible, and the boom swung wildly, jibing from one side of the vessel to the other. Lidi cautiously ducked her head to avoid being knocked overboard as she stumbled across the deck. She glanced back at her father struggling at the helm in a futile attempt to keep the boat on course. Suddenly, the sky was illuminated, a brilliant flash of white, snaking down through the dark sky. A loud splintering followed the crash of thunder. The smell of charred and burning wood hung in the air. When Lidi turned, the once proud mast was parted down the middle, blackened from top to bottom, and lying split across the boat. She gasped looked around at the damage and realized her mother could not be seen. "Mom? Mom!" she cried, her throat choked with fear and her breath ragged, "Mom, where are you?" Another bolt of lightning flashed, nearly blinding her, and she closed her eyes.
When she opened them, the skies were clear and blue, and a gentle breeze blew across the lake as the sun rose gracefully. Lidi looked around, forcing herself to calm down. Four years, she thought. Four years, and I can still see it so clearly. Tears made their way to the corners of her eyes, and down her face. She stood on the small wooden dock in the private cove, and turned her head to be sure she knew where she was. Behind her, everything was as it should have been. The cabins, the rental canoes, and the big wooden sign above the path to the dock that read "Welcome to Lady of the Lake Resort." Lidi sighed and wiped her eyes, and walked slowly up the path to her aunt's office. The pine needles and sharp twigs scratched against her bare feet, but she paid them no attention. As Lidi reached the office, her aunt stepped outside, surprising her.
"Lidi?," she asked, as she looked into Lidi's reddening eyes, "Are you all right?" Lidi could sense the worried tone in her aunt's voice.
"Just something stuck in my eye," Lidi lied, "That's all."
"Well, why don't you go and get ready for work," said her aunt, her voice wavering slightly, still somewhat alarmed. Lidi nodded and headed for her cabin.
Aunt Robin has a right to worry about me, Lidi thought. It had taken Lidi almost a year to talk her aunt into allowing her to stay in her own cabin instead of in the main lodge the other staff members, to convince her that everything would be all right, that she was all right. The nightmares, if you can call them nightmares, had started three years ago. Lidi preferred to be alone afterwards to sort things out, and the cabin provided the solitude that she needed. They were all too real. She never slept without the nightmares. Lidi reached her cabin and walked inside. She dug a pair of shoes out of her closet and sat down on her bed to put them on. As she was tying the laces, her eyes fell upon a picture resting on the table next to the bed. A handsome, young man, maybe 30, with sandy, brown hair, blue eyes, and a smile only partly hidden by a beard. He had his arm around a beautiful young woman. She had hazel eyes, and her jet black hair billowed out from beneath a floppy straw sunhat. Her lips were turned up in a shy smile. Both were wearing bathing suits, the man's, a pale blue shorts style, and the woman's, a bright yellow bikini. In front of the two adults was a little girl, no more than 12, with her mother's raven hair, and her father's piercing eyes, a playful grin on her tanned face. The three stood against a background of sea blue, the waves rising and falling behind them, and on the water to their right, a small, but sturdy-looking boat. Only the bow of the boat could be seen in the picture, just enough to see the name, painted in gold letters, on its hull. "Wanderer."
Lidi reached out and picked up the picture, staring at the smiling family captured within its silver-plated frame. To her surprise, a tear appeared on the happy little girl's cheek, and Lidi realized she was crying again. She put the picture down and wiped her red, puffy eyes, and thought back to a day four years ago. The sky had been a beautiful pale blue, with white fluffy clouds floating aimlessly on the horizon. The sea was calm and sparkly, and it was a beautiful, mid-summer, California day as Lidi and her parents walked down the long, wooden dock. Lidi was shaken from her thoughts by a knock on the door.
"Lidi?" called her aunt's voice. "Are you coming to work?" Her voice was muffled and distant through the thick wood.
"Yes, I'm coming," was Lidi's reply. She went into the bathroom to splash some cold water on her face. As she lifted the water from the sink with her hands, she found herself looking down at the thin ridges on her wrists. She had memorized their shape and texture. They were long and narrow, traveling across both wrists on the undersides criss-crossing the network of veins, pale blue under her flesh. They rose only slightly above the rest of her skin, and though they looked rough, they were actually quite smooth to the touch. She saw how the ridges arched a bit as they rounded the curve of the joint between her palm and arm, giving them a crescent shape. She reached out absently and touched the line across her right wrist. The water, by now, had drained from her fingers and back into the sink. Lidi sighed thoughtfully. She looked away from her wrists, and smeared cool water on her face, dried her skin on a towel, and walked out the door.
As she stepped outdoors, she felt the warm sun on her skin, and noticed that while she had been inside, the summer air was already heating up, although it was still very early. The heavy humidity made her thin cotton shirt stick to her back. The sun was barely visible above the trees surrounding the resort, but Lidi could already tell that it was going to be uncomfortably hot today.
She decided to skip breakfast, and walked back down the trail to the boat dock, admiring the stubby clover and tiny wildflowers that grew over the edges of the shaded path along the way. The dock came into sight around a curve in the path, and as she did every morning, Lidi studied its familiar structure. An old, worn, wooden platform with an aluminum roof, supported by thick metal poles. It was floating on the surface of the lake on styrofoam blocks, some covered in algae, some with grass or stray alyssum blossoms growing in them, pushing up through the spaces between the boards of the dock. Lidi walked down the center of the dock, checking each of the boats in its slips. She did this silently, listening to the striking songs of the small birds that nested on the roof, and the quiet lapping of the waves on the shore. She knew that the rest of the day would be fairly uneventful. Normally, several guests would be here, renting boats, or canoes, or sailboards for the day. It was her job to see that they knew how to use them, instruct the ones that didnŐt, and basically, keep the dock in order. Normally, it was a lot of work, but today, because of the heat, most of the guests would be at the beach, in another cove. Lidi swept the dock and knocked some spider webs off of the boats. She had always been amazed at how quickly a spider could rebuild its home, put its life back together. Almost overnight.
Lidi sat down on the end of the dock and took off her shoes. She let her feet hang in the water, focusing on the tiny ripples they made. The sun shined down on her tanned face, and she felt her eyelids growing heavy, and then closing, and she fell asleep.
Once more, the nightmare came. "Mom? Mom! Where are you?" she called.
Lidi looked around the boat helplessly, tears forming in her eyes, and running down her face to mix with the rain. She saw her father at the helm, fighting against the waves that were already sloshing over the sides of the vessel. She tried to run to him, but stopped dead in her tracks in front of the fallen mast. The lifeless, unseeing eyes, staring up at her, the gaping mouth frozen in a silent scream, a thin trail of blood tricking from its corner. One bloody hand reached out, beckoning. She was frozen, so shocked and afraid, that she neither saw, nor even felt, the wave as it picked her up and tossed her into the relentless ocean. The cold sting of the water brought her to her senses. Lidi struggled to stay at the surface, but a twelve year-old has only so much strength, and she sank below the pounding waves. Her lungs screamed for air, and Lidi thought they would burst, but then, in the silence below the surface, she felt calm as everything around her became fuzzy and soft, soothing. The eerie calmness ended quickly as a strong hand gripped her waist and dragged her upwards. She reached the surface, coughing and gasping, the storm how raging wildly all around her. The rain was so heavy, she felt as if she was still under the water. She turned her head, and looked into her father's face as he wordlessly pushed her back towards the little sailboat that rocked violently back and forth in the squall. At its side, she could see the tiny, yellow raft that she had helped him pack that morning,and her father pushed her into it. Lidi crawled to one end of the raft.
"Hold on Lidi!" he shouted over the roar of the waves. Then he gripped the rope at the raft's side and began to pull himself into it. He was almost in, but suddenly, the sailboat rolled over in the waves. They were too close! The boat came over on top of Lidi's father, and the deafening scream that Lidi could hear, even over the noise of the storm, became nothing but a nearly inaudible gurgling sound, and the silence, as he was plunged back into the cold water. Lidi scrunched herself into a corner of the raft, hugging her knees to her chest, as it shot free of the sailboat, and drifted farther and farther away in the current. She cried out for her father. "Daddy!" but there was no answer.
Lidi awoke from her dream, forcing back tears, willing herself not to scream. She looked around the dock and saw no one. "Why can't I forget?!," she said out loud. She looked once again at the thin ridges on her wrists, remembering the time nearly two years ago when they had been bright red, the time after her nightmares had first started.
Nightmares. She almost laughed at that thought. She knew they weren't nightmares. She felt a tear run down her cheek, and wiped it away, wincing as her hand slid against her now sunburnt skin.
The hot, summer day dragged on, and Lidi fought against the combined forces of heat and boredom to stay awake. It was nearly lunchtime, and Lidi felt the first pangs of hunger as she walked away from the lake, and into the cooling shade of the maple and pine trees around the resort. She took her time as she wandered up the trail, listening to the constant chattering of squirrels, and the distant hum of outboard motors on the lake behind her, smelling the delicious combination of spruce trees and boat fuel.
She thought of a time when she had loved boats, and being on the water, and when that love had ended. She remembered how her father had introduced her to this fantasy life when she was only five, and how he had called her his little captain when he taught her how to man the helm and trim the sails. They had been best friends, and they were never closer to each other than when they were at sea. But all that had ended long ago, and she desperately missed it. She could remember clearly how she had felt in California when she and her family had gone sailing. Each trip gave her a feeling of immense joy. But those days were gone now, and the thought of never experiencing them again saddened her.
The rest of the day was a blur of sun, heat, and working for people whom she didn't know. By the time the sun grew weary and rested it's head below the horizon, Lidi, too, felt exhausted, although in actuality, she hadn't really done much at all that day. She went back to her cabin, and laid down in bed. It was still early, but she really didn't care. The waves of memories that had been flooding her mind for so long had, by now, taken their toll on both her mind and her body, and the thought of her previous life depressed her further. She had hoped that things would get better with time, but the had only gotten worse. The events that she had relived throughout the day, frightened her almost as much now as they had when they had actually occurred, and she thought, "How can I go on like this?" She let herself drift into an uneasy sleep, and dream.
She was only twelve years old, and alone in the antiseptic closeness of a hospital room. Her skin was raw on her back and legs from rubbing against the rubber of the little raft that had somehow kept her alive. Lidi's face was bright red and blistered from sunburn, and painful to touch, and her body was still weak, though she had slept for three days. She remembered the storm, the scream of her father, her mother's dull, lifeless eyes, and finally, losing sight of the wrecked sailboat as the currents carried her away. After that, her memories blurred to the point where all she could see was the unforgiving sun, as it beat down on her unprotected body, relentlessly torturing her until she lost all sense of time and direction. Finally, she remembered the men as they pulled her under the shaded overhang of a fishing boat, their urgent shouts unintelligible through her fatigue. She chose to ignore them as her mother's smiling face shimmered in front of her eyes and her hand reached out for Lidi's, beckoning for her to come. Lidi reached for the hand, but with each attempt, her mother's caring face moved farther and farther away, until Lidi knew that she would never fell her soft touch again.
An owl's cry jarred Lidi from her dream. She rolled onto her side, not fully awake, and snuggled against her pillows, her mind drifting.
She sat upright in a hospital bed, her wrists heavily bandaged in white gauze. Lidi's head hung sadly, or perhaps shamefully as her aunt spoke with a doctor in inaudible whispers across the room. She couldn't hear them, but knew what they were saying, and it only gave the sadness in her heart more strength. She stared down at the thick white gauze that covered her wrists and most of her hands, a tiny amount of blood seeping through the otherwise clean surface, and thought of the calmness, and nothingness that the sharp edge of a razor had brought to her. She thought of how grateful she was to the razor for the temporary relief, from her year of torture, that it had given her.
The dream had been different that night. She had heard them. They had called to her, begging her to come to them, to sail with them once more. Lidi had tried. She had tried so hard to go to them. Lidi felt the effect of the sedative that a nurse had given her taking effect, and she laid back on the bed, closing her eyes.
When Lidi awoke, she was enveloped in darkness. She groped around her, trying to get a sense of her surroundings, and realized that she was in her cabin. Her hand made its way across the soft bedspread to the nightstand. As Lidi reached for the light on the little table, her arm bumped something, sending it to the floor. The loud clink of metal on tile was accompanied by the shattering of glass. Lidi managed to switch on the light, and looked down at the floor. She was greeted by three smiling faces gazing up at her from behind the jagged edges of the broken glass, surrounded by a silver-plated border. She picked up the shattered picture frame, and looked longingly at the family in it. Her family. The one that had been so violently torn from her grasp so long ago. She had tried to join them once, when the terrible dreams of that day had become too unbearable, but her aunt had stopped her.
She dropped the picture to the floor. She had tried, and she had failed, and as she reached to the floor to pick up the long, slender shard of glass with the razor-sharp edge, she thought "She can't stop me this time," and the sea in the photograph ran red.
