Girls Will Swim by Angel Worth

Leaves crunched beneath her boots as Anya hurried through the woods. A faint sliver of light from the setting sun provided enough illumination for her to make out the trees and foliage surrounding her.

A sharp gust of freezing wind cut through her clothes and whipped her hair wildly across her face, obscuring her vision for a moment. She stopped to tuck the length of it into the back of her sweater and yanked up her hood.

A branch snapped right behind her, and she pivoted, already crouched in a defensive stance. She stood as still as a statue, but nothing moved in the shadows.

“Anya,” a familiar voice called out from behind her.

She turned and glimpsed a dark mass move just on the other side of the tree line. The need to reach it propelled her to keep going, despite the burning in her legs.

Rushing forward, she let out a loud gasp as frigid water seeped into her boots. It surrounded her on all sides, an endless black sea that came out of nowhere and made no sound. It lie motionless other than the thick clouds of fog bellowing toward her.

She tried to step back, but her boots stuck in the muck, and she fell to her hands and knees, stagnant water splashing her face. Panicking, she jerked to her knees, trying to stand up.

Screams escaped her lips as a white hand shot out of the water and grabbed her hand with an inhuman strength.

“Anya!”

Her eyes flew open, and she blinked several times, her ragged breathing the only sound in the otherwise silent room. Her sister stood a few feet away, a pained expression on her aging face. One of her hands gripped the other so hard that Anya felt a twinge of guilt at the sight of her sister’s white knuckles.

“What do you want, Marina?” she asked.

“You were screaming,” Marina hesitated before continuing, “for Ellie.”

Anya turned away, glaring at the wall. Anya could feel her older sibling’s bright blue eyes piercing into her.

“You almost threw yourself out of bed,” Marina persisted in a gentle tone. “I’m worried about you. You need to talk to someone.”

It was more of a statement than a question, so Anya didn’t respond. Marina made no move to leave the room, so Anya huffed and turned to face her.

Lines creased her eyes that Anya didn’t recall being present before. Marina’s mouth was set in its typical frown. Anya sat up and threw the covers to the foot of the bed. She took deliberate steps toward the closet, eyeing her sister.

“I’m fine. I don’t need anything. Can you please give me some privacy so I can get dressed?”

Marina sighed and nodded, shuffling toward the doorway. “You need to call Detective Myers, Anya.”

“Why? I said I’m not interested in him, and I mean it.”

“A letter came for Ellie.”

A sharp pain shot through her chest, and the shirt in her hand fell to the floor. Anya stared at the silky blue material, unable to formulate words. The muscles in her arms twitched, eager to smooth out the wrinkles in the fabric, but she couldn’t move.

“What?”

“It doesn’t have a return address or anything. I think Detective Myers needs to be the one to open it,” Marina insisted.

Anya took a deep breath and nodded. Her sister must have taken that as a sufficient response, because she left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

Anya stood there for several moments before she bent down to retrieve her shirt. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror as she undressed. Icy, cobalt eyes met her gaze, as full of rage as the sea during a hurricane.

Her skin no longer glowed from the summer sun, shining instead like a porcelain sheet of fresh snow. It would take hours to brush through the tangles in her thick, platinum hair. Every one of her ribs could be counted and traced. Kicking her pajamas aside, she slipped on a pair of jeans and the chosen blouse.

She grabbed her cellphone from the nightstand and hurried down the hallway, where she found Marina standing at the kitchen sink. The air caught in her throat when she spotted the white envelope on the counter.

“Is that it?” Anya managed to whisper.

On the front of the envelope, a sticker with typewritten letters bore the name Eleanor Standish.

Marina nodded, her face devoid of expression.

“There’s no address on it.”

The elder sister grimaced, wringing her hands. “It was hand-delivered.”

Anya muttered an unintelligible response and dialed the only phone number she knew by heart besides her direct family members. It rang three times before a gruff voice answered.

“Hello. Anya. Is everything okay?”

“Detective Myers,” Anya breathed. “Actually, no. I need you to come over right away. We, um, we—“

“What happened?” he urged when she didn’t continue.

“A l-letter came,” she stammered.

“A letter?” he repeated patiently.

“Addressed to my daughter.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he assured her. “Stay in the house, okay?”

Anya muttered an uncommitted response and slid the cellphone into her pocket after ending the call.

“He’s on his way,” she told Marina. “Where’s Rob?”

“Out chopping wood.”

Anya already held the doorknob in her hand. She ignored whatever her sister said next and closed the door mid-sentence. The cool autumn wind blew through her clothing, but she ignored the chill and set off at a brisk pace across the yard.

The crunching of leaves beneath her boots made her stop abruptly as she rounded the corner beside the shed, recalling her dream from the previous night. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, and goosebumps formed on her forearms, a chill running down her spine.

Squinting, she scanned the tree line. The feeling of déjà vu crept over her. Someone or something in those woods was watching her.

She pushed the unease to the back of her mind and continued along the worn path to the place she visited every morning since her daughter disappeared. The long leaves of the majestic willow tree at the top of the hill blew in the wind, reminding her of her mother’s wavy hair. Tears filled her eyes causing everything to blur, but it didn’t matter. She could have walked that path blindfolded.

When Marina and Rob first moved here, Anya brought her daughter for a visit. Ellie loved it here, admiring the many drastic differences in the landscape from their home in Arizona.

She loved the trees, the flowers, and most especially, the ocean. She had been drawn to it like a paper clip to a magnet, quickly abandoning her exploration of the house and yard to ask her aunt how to get to the beach.

Anya followed her down the trail after Marina and Rob urged them to go see it. Marina couldn’t make the walk at the time, having just suffered a miscarriage, but they gushed about the beauty of the water and the rocks lining the shore.

Ellie hooted with excitement when she saw the picturesque willow tree, releasing her mom’s hand to run up and touch it.

“Mom, look at this tree!” she exclaimed. “I’ve never seen a tree like this before.”

“It’s called a weeping willow,” Anya told her. “Your grandma used to love them. She had a painting of one in the living room. She always said they’re a sign of hope.”

“I want to paint one when we get home!”

“Okay, baby,” Anya chuckled.

“I can hear the water,” Ellie said quietly.

“The ocean is very loud,” Anya told her gently, “and dangerous. It has a powerful current that can pull you under the waves if you try to go in it. You must never come down here without an adult, okay?”

“Okay, Mom,” Ellie smiled at her.

Her hair blew slightly in the light breeze as they continued down the path and rounded the final bend. Ellie’s beautiful aqua eyes opened wide when she saw the beach appear in front of her and the endless sea of blue water. She gazed at it in pure amazement.

“Oh,” she breathed. “It’s so big.”

Anya laughed, and hand-in-hand, they crossed the sand walked along the water.

Glaring at it now, Anya felt a surge of emotions threaten to overwhelm her. Her baby was gone because of this place, and now, she could never leave. She could never be whole again.

Grey waves crashed in the distance and fog rolled in thick clouds toward the coast. Anya stared at them, fury consuming every fabric of her being. If she could smite it into oblivion, drain it into the depths of Hell, or set it ablaze with a thousand fires of infernal rage like a giant sea of gasoline, it would only convey the beginning of how much hate she felt for that water.

Anya took a deep breath of the coastal air, letting that hate and fury consume her until she felt a guttural scream rise in her chest. For a fraction of a moment, she forgot everything except for that anger, then she exhaled and sank to her knees in the sand with her shoulders slumped forward.

She didn’t care that the ends of her hair drug through the sand or small bugs climbed her as if she were a lifeless landmark. She ignored everything, reaching into the void that she had learned to find when she reached the point of giving up. She nearly threw herself to the mercy of the waves when a body had washed up on shore and the forensics team said that despite the decomposition, they believe it to be Eleanor.

She drowned in the water, with no one to help her.

Anya forced away all thoughts, focusing on the feel of the sand. She grabbed fistfuls of it, watching as it spilled out between her fingers. Opening her hands, she let the wind blow the rest of the sand away. Then she interlaced her fingers and placed her hands in her lap.

After several minutes of watching the water smashing against the rocks, she rose to leave, casting one final glare at the sea. It churned, rising and falling endlessly, eroding and destroying anything it could touch without a single care.

Something made a soft thud behind her, and Anya turned to see her phone lying in the sand. She bent to pick it up, her brow furrowing as she spotted something shiny in the sand next to it. Slipping the phone back into her pocket, she plucked a chain out of the sand.

Oxygen turned into a brick in her throat, and a strangled sound escaped her lips. Attached to the end of the chain, a rhinestone butterfly with purple and gold wings sparkled in the morning sunlight. The whole world tilted as a storm erupted within her chest, and blackness shrouded her vision.

The sound of a horn jerked her back into reality. Anya realized that she was being jostled around when her head smacked against something hard.

“Sorry,” a deep voice murmured near her ear.

Her eyes flew open. She recognized the voice but didn’t understand why she felt so dizzy. She saw her sister’s house just ahead and what she knew to be an unmarked police car pulling down the long driveway. Anya wiggled and protested, but the grip around her only tightened.

The door opened, and Marina bustled across the back porch and down the steps yelling frantically. “Rob! What happened? Anya?”

The door to the sedan opened, and a handsome man with short, dark brown hair and a grey shirt hurried out, crossing the distance to them in record time.

“I heard screaming,” Rob responded. “I followed the sound to the beach and found her unconscious in the sand.”

“I’m fine,” Anya insisted. “Put me down right now.”

Rob hesitated but placed her upright gently after she elbowed him in the ribs. Anya eyed him and scowled. His chiseled jaw clenched, and he ran one hand through his black curls, turning his dark eyes away from her.

She slipped her hand casually into her pocket, depositing the butterfly necklace. Marina’s bright blue eyes fixated on her expectantly, clearly seeking an explanation. Anya ignored her and took a step toward the man in the grey shirt.

“Detective Myers, thank you so much for rushing over,” Anya heard herself say. “The letter is in the house.”

She sensed everyone’s unease and ignored it, walking brusquely toward the house. She held the door open for the others and closed it behind herself once they all entered. She eyed Detective Myers and pointed at the letter on the kitchen cupboard.

“Marina said she found it this morning.”

Detective Myers turned his piercing hazel eyes upon Anya’s sister. “Tell me everything.”

“There’s not much to tell,” Marina shrugged, wrapping her sweater tighter around her thin torso. “Shortly, after I woke up this morning, I walked to the road to check the mail, and this was inside the mailbox.”

Marina reiterated the events surrounding when she found the letter. The detective asked her to narrow down what time she checked the mail, and when she had checked it before that, establishing a time frame that the letter could have been delivered. Next, he asked if any of them noticed any unusual activity in the area lately, such as a delivery person, landscaping company, or utility worker lurking around.

“No,” Marina answered right away.

Anya idly patted her right pocket. “No, nothing.”

“No,” Rob said, shaking his head. “Wait, actually, I did see landscapers working in Mr. Paddock’s front yard when I left for work yesterday.”

“Okay, that’s good. Maybe they happened to see something. Do you remember the name of the company?”

Rob sighed. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall. They had a red truck parked on the street, though.”

“Okay, it’s fine. I’ll talk to Mr. Paddock and your other neighbors to see if they saw anything unusual. One more question for now, Marina, what else was in the mailbox?”

“Oh, just the electric bill and a couple pieces of junk mail,” she told him.

“May I see them please?”

“Of course. The junk mail is in the trash can right there, and the bill is in the study. I’ll go get it.”

“That’s alright, just show me where,” the detective told her.

He collected the items with gloves on and put them into evidence bags, explaining that they would be dusted for fingerprints along with the letter in case the deliverer touched one of the other pieces of mail while placing this one in the mailbox.

He carefully opened the envelope addressed to Ellie with gloved hands while the three others watched in collective silence. Anya took several steps toward him, but Rob grabbed her arm. She spun around, glaring daggers at him. She opened her mouth, but the detective spoke first.

“Anya, I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you,” Detective Myers said. “It’s a printout of a picture of Eleanor. I need you to look at it, whenever you’re ready, and tell me if you recognize anything.”

Anya took a deep breath and nodded. John held up the picture, and her knees nearly gave out.

Her beautiful baby girl stood in the sand, smiling, with the ocean in the background. She wore the pink dress Marina made for her and the side-braid Anya had put in her thick hair the morning she disappeared. She didn’t look hurt or scared.

“Who could have taken that?” she screamed.

“Anya, calm down,” Detective Myers soothed. “I need you to stay rational so we can figure this out.”

“Rational? You want me to be rational! My daughter disappeared, and the only thing you could find to link her to that body was her shoes on the beach. Everyone says she went swimming and drowned, and it’s my fault for not being there with her. Now, a picture of her shows up mysteriously in the mail, and you want me to be rational? Who could have taken this?”

“This changes everything,” the detective said grimly. “We previously believed that Ellie died by accidental drowning and had no reason to suspect foul play. This photograph, however, suggests that some unknown person was with Ellie on the day she died. I believe we are now looking for a person of interest in a homicide.”

A wail escaped Anya’s lips, and strong arms caught her before she hit the floor. She buried her face against his chest, the smell of musky cologne filling her nostrils.

“I’m going to help Anya to her room to lie down for a bit,” he told the couple.

Anya caught a glimpse of her sister’s pinched face before being led out of the room. It burned into her retinas. As soon as they reached the bedroom, Anya closed the door and grabbed the detective’s arm.

“John. She did this,” Anya whispered frantically.

“What? Anya, who did what?”

“My sister!” Anya urged, reaching into her pocket to pull out the necklace. “She drowned Ellie. I know she did. She’s always been jealous that I had a child and she couldn’t. Mom gave this to me for Ellie. It was supposed to go to Marina’s eldest daughter.”

“Anya, we are going to look at every possible suspect and get to the bottom of this.”

“I know you will, John,” Anya told him. “There’s just one other thing I think you should know.”

“What’s that?” he asked, his wide eyes never leaving her face.

“Rob is Ellie’s father.”