Lake Palace

Just a little bit further, We’ll stop on top of the next hill, I thought to myself I’ve just got to know what it looks like at the top! Of course, I’d been repeating this refrain to myself for the last twenty minutes, and so far I’d been unable to resist the seduction of the next hill, and the next one... Someone like me didn’t need a will-o’-the-wisp to lure me on, my own curiosity would do just fine. This tendency often led to long, strenuous days, but just as often I’d find myself in places that felt as if you could count on one hand how many pairs of human eyes had gazed upon them in the last century.

As I crested the top, a pleasant breeze brushed my face and snapped me back to reality. I glanced behind me, worried that my friends might not be as enthused about the next hill as I was. But they weren’t far behind and they both looked up and met my eyes. Robin smiled big, their mouth open slightly as they breathed with the exertion. They crested the top a few moments after me and I could see their big eyes twinkling.

“This is awesome!” Shouted Amanda, “Wait up, I’m taking a picture at the top!”

It was the middle of the week in the dead of summer. We’d driven up to the mountains to get away from the oppressive heat of the city for a few days. We were delighted to have the forest to ourselves, which is exactly why we’d come up during the work week. This was our last day and we’d decided to spend it exploring. After a short walk through a wooded area, we’d come to a clearing full of rolling hills that seemed to stretch for miles and miles before, in the distance, the forest took over again. In the middle of the vast clearing we saw a patch of trees sprouting out of nowhere, they were orange, yellow, and red, as if autumn had come early to this strange grove.

“I wonder what’s going on over there?” I mused, feeling that familiar yearning kicking in.

“That’s where the forest witches meet for seances,” Robin said matter-of-factly. Amanda smiled in the middle of sipping on her camelback.

I chuckled, “Oh 100%…I wonder if there’s a spring or something bubbling up over there?”

“That makes a lot of sense,” said Amanda, “sure looks pretty.”

“Sure does…” I sighed.

The trail curved back into the wooded area after poking out into the clearing, but all three of us stayed rooted to the spot, gazing at that strange patch of autumn in the sea of green hills. A gust of wind rushed through the clearing, sending the grasses rolling. Each hill seemed to shiver like the fur of a cat after you stroke its spine, one after another, until the grass at the edge of the trail blew around our ankles and the wind flung our hair out behind us. I breathed in the brisk air as I enjoyed the sensation of the soft grass tickling my shins. I looked down to see one frond had wrapped itself completely around my ankle. I imagined it was beckoning me. I looked over to Robin and Amanda as they looked at me, and our eyes all seemed to ask the same question.

“Call me crazy, but what if we go that way? Maybe we won’t make it the orange patch, but we could get closer” I suggested.

Amanda squinted up at the sun and then let her gaze fall back on the patch of orange, “it’s hard to tell how far away it is, but it’s not even noon yet, we’ve got plenty of daylight.”

“We’ve got a lot of water and food, but what if we get lost?” said Robin, their gaze still trained on the thicket despite these misgivings, “going off trail is kinda risky, isn’t it?”

“You’re right, we have to make sure we can find our way back to this trail,” I said as I unclipped my backpack and swung it around so I was wearing it backwards. “I’ve got this red handkerchief in here somewhere”

I pulled it out and tied it as far up the nearest tree as I could reach, “Ok, now every hundred meters or so we’ve gotta turn around and make sure we can still see it, otherwise we’ll need to make another landmark. Y’all feel good about this?”

There were a few beats as we all looked at the red handkerchief, and then longingly back to the red in the distance.

“I’m in,” said Amanda, grinning with a nervous excitement.

“Let’s do it!” Robin bobbed their head excitedly.

And so we’d found ourselves walking through the soft grasses, rising and falling with the landscape. Anytime we crested a hill, we’d look back and ensure we could spot the red handkerchief, and slowly but surely, that red spot receded while the red thicket got closer.

Just one more hill, just one more hill…

I’d expected my friends’ wanderlust to wane long before we reached the bright thicket, but they seemed to be just as entranced as I was. Soon, we could count the number of hills between us and our thicket, and finally, we summited the last hill.

We all gasped in unison as we looked down to see the vibrant trees clustered around a shimmering lake. It was a deep turquoise, which suggested a surprising depth for such a small lake, it was maybe fifty feet in diameter. Excitedly, we all ran down the last hill into the grove of orange and red. When we reached the shade of the grove, we gasped again as a little white cat appeared from behind a tree, her soft body hugging the trunk of the tree as she peered out at us, one foot poised in the air. A wind blew through the thicket, breaking the shocked stillness and sending delicate ripples across the surface of the lake. We stepped forward and the cat leapt away from the tree, retreating from us down the shore. She lingered there, seeming to peer into the water, before looking over her shoulder at us again. We moved gingerly towards her, but in the blink of an eye she was gone, bounding off through the thicket and over a hill on the other side.

We approached the lake’s edge and Amanda knelt down to splash her face.

“The water feels so perfect, I’m surprised it’s not colder!” She said.

I took off my shoes and waded out, feeling the soft round pebbles of the receding bank shift under my feet. I looked back to see Robin and Amanda wading as well, already knee deep. First the thicket, and now the lake beckoned us. Robin and Amanda stopped when they were alongside me in the water, it seemed like the bottom dropped off much more drastically after this point.

“The water really is perfect.” Robin agreed.

We all stood still and gazed into the water, and after a while, the disturbance from our movements calmed so that the surface of the water was nearly glassy smooth.

That was when we saw it. A glint of gold shining through the clear water from the bottom of the lake. It really was a long way down. Probably twice as deep as the pool I used to swim at with the high dive. We all must have seen it at the same time because we grabbed each other’s hands and leaned forward in unison. There at the bottom was a circular golden grate. It looked small from up here, but I imagined that it was large enough for a person to swim through. The existence of this grate suggested a cavern beneath, reaching even deeper into the earth. I shivered.

Suddenly, the yearning to know what lay beyond hit me in a powerful wave, stronger than I’d ever experienced before, it was almost supernatural. I felt Robin’s grip on my hand tighten, and I could feel the yearning passing between the three of us like a current.

“We’re going down there aren’t we?” My question sounded more like a statement.

“Yep.” Replied Amanda.

I could feel Robin’s nod through their hand.

We got out to strip down to our underwear, and I, being the strongest swimmer, dove in first. The grate seemed impossibly far away, but I swam down nonetheless. Less than a third of the way down my breath ran out and I had to turn back. I tried again and failed, surfacing frustrated. I knew we had to get down there, but how? I waded back out to shore to find Robin standing in the water, Amanda was kneeling with her face under, as if she was snorkeling. As I sloshed up to them, panting and discouraged, she lifted her head out of the water with a strange look on her face.

“I…you’re not gonna believe this..uh. Let me try something.”

And without another word, she dove in.

We watched in awe as, in one breathe, she swam around aimlessly at first, almost as if taking in the scenery, and then swam down to the grate far below. Through the rippling water, we could see her peering through the grate, studying something below before turning back. Amanda surfaced, seeming hardly taxed at all. If anything, she seemed utterly relaxed, and when she could stand, she looked at us with soft eyes and waded leisurely our way.

“Amazing…so beautiful” she muttered, almost to herself, then more lucidly, looking at us, “There’s more down there, but you need a key to unlock that grate..I know I saw some flowers around here somewhere.”

“What? How?” Stammered Robin.

Open mouthed, we watched Amanda stroll out of the lake, singleminded, and pluck some flowers near the water’s edge. She lifted them to her nose as she waded back into the water. When she was waist deep, she put the stems in her mouth to free her hands, shot us both a sleepy smile over her shoulder, and dove under once more.

“What is she, half fish?”

But even as Robin said this something began to shift. We both felt the strange logic of the grove settling in. As we watched Amanda swimming down, down, until she reached the grate again, it didn’t seem so strange after all. She placed the flowers on the grate and from the surface we imagined we saw it glow for just a moment, but perhaps it was a trick of the sunlight on the water. Then, Amanda pushed it inward and disappeared below.

An impossibly long time later, she appeared through the grate and swam up to the surface to rejoin us. When her head broke the surface, she seemed wholly content, as if she had just awoken from the perfect nap.

“The next grate needs autumn leaves.” Amanda said, looking sleepily at Robin, “you’re gonna love this.” Then she flopped down on the shore to soak up the afternoon sun.

Robin blinked, grabbed a handful of leaves, waded out, looked back to give me a shrug, then slipped under the water. I looked over to see Amanda peacefully dozing in the sunshine, so I settled down to await Robin’s return, letting the trancelike serenity of the autumn grove soothe me.

After quite a while, Robin resurfaced and walked up to me as I stood to greet them. They rubbed their eyes with the palms of their hands as if rubbing off sleep, then met my eyes, their wet lashes sticking together.

“You’re gonna need a handful of pebbles.” Robin told me casually, before joining Amanda on the sunny shore.

I knew it was my turn. I shoved a handful of pebbles into my bra and waded out. Taking a deep breath, I dove in.

Before I was even one third of the way down, I was desperate for air. In sheer determination I pushed on but must have fainted, because I suddenly came to underwater, feeling perfectly calm as the turquoise bath rocked me. I realized I was breathing, but felt no surprise. Looking down, I saw the golden grate and remembered my mission. A soft yellow dust emanated from below it. I felt the pebbles, still tucked in my bra, and swam towards the grate, pulling myself beneath it and into the chamber below.

It was beautiful there, just as light as it was at the surface, despite being so deep. Flowers drifted languidly, suspended in water that shimmered with their pollen. Wide eyed, I looked down and saw a second grate, identical to the first, beckoning from below.

I swam down through the flower chamber, taking only small breaths of water when needed. I still found it hard to trust that I could breathe under here. This made me light headed, which enhanced the dream-like quality of the strange lake.

I reached the second grate and entered the second chamber, a space still surprisingly illuminated, but with the soft light of an overcast day. Autumn leaves fluttered in this chamber, their brilliant warmth nearly glowing in the low light. I looked around me in delight as I swam downward to the third grate with my offering of pebbles, still breathing only tentatively.

I reached the third grate and placed the pebbles on it. It glowed briefly, as if activated, before returning to normal. I applied a slight pressure and the grate opened inward, so that my pebbles fell into the third chamber.

The third chamber was more dimly lit. Like dusty windows permitting light into a cavernous old room. My hand in front of me shimmered blue in the sparse and delicate lighting. At the bottom, I could see thousands of pebbles upon the floor of the chamber, some piercing through the gloom with vibrant colors, others twinkling with quartz bands.

As I approached the bottom, the size of the chamber seemed to swallow me until the pebbled floor stretched out around me as large as a soccer field. I had seen the fourth grate from about halfway down and had directed my descent towards it. This grate could not be opened until the fourth key was offered. I grabbed onto it, pulling my face down to peer through into whatever lay beneath.

Through the gaps, I saw on the floor of the fourth chamber below an enormous mosaic depicting a white cat. Now I knew what, or who, the fourth key was, so I turned around and began my way back up to fresh air. Swimming through the pretty gloom of the pebble chamber, I grasped the opened grate, and pulled myself through into the autumn chamber, decaying leaves brushing my face. Swimming up, I passed through the second opening into the flower chamber, sparkling with pollen. The petals fluttered against my lips as I breathed shallowly, still cautious, pollen filling my mouth and lungs with each sip. I pulled myself up through the first grate and could see the surface of the water dancing above me, distorting the images of my friends.

At last I surfaced and breathed a delicious gasp of fresh, real air. Sloshing back to shore through the shallows, I shivered delightedly as a breeze touched my wet skin. I looked into my friends’ eyes and found an unspoken knowing there—we didn’t need to put into words how astonishing this day had become. An unspoken question passed between us too, only I knew the answer.

“The cat!” I sputtered, speaking aloud felt clumsy after steeping so long in the wonders below.

“Remember the little white cat? She’s the fourth key.”

“How can we get her back?” Asked Amanda.

“We call her.” Said Robin, with conviction.

Before thinking about it too hard, I closed my eyes and spoke the first phrase that popped into my head:

“Come little white cat, it’s time to go home!”

I opened my eyes, feeling a little silly. I turned around to look in the direction we’d last seen her run off, and there, on a grassy hillside far away, glimpsed through the trees, I saw a little white cat running. She was scampering towards us as if she’d heard a food sound. Before long, she was at my feet, rubbing against my ankles.

I was the one who had called her, so I would shepherd this small white cat to the fourth grate. I scooped her up, she was one of those cats who was content to be held. Only when I waded into the lake did she look at me with pause in her feline eyes. I soothed her with my hands and voice and suddenly we were in the water!

She struggled gently as we descended towards the flower grate, and I felt bad about it as I held fast to her and clasped her paws to my chest so as to avoid being scratched. I breathed deeply of the water, exaggerating so she could feel me breathing against her, then I exhaled softly in her face.

By the time we reached the first grate, the little white cat seemed perfectly at ease in her new surroundings, as if breathing underwater were her second nature. Maybe it ran in the family.

Down we went, this time I breathed almost normally, being more comfortable with the novel act. The pollen sparkled around us. Then we passed through the autumn gate and ever downward until we landed hard, my toes clutching the pebbles adorning the floor for balance. I stood upon the pebbled bottom, the weight of all that water above me holding me fast. Crouching, I placed the little white cat upon the fourth grate. Her light fur seeming to glow in the delicate gloom. The grate glowed along with her for just a moment, and then she disappeared.

I peered into the new opening and saw her descending gracefully through the fourth chamber, buffeted gently every now and again by a current, until she landed upon the large cat mosaic inlaid on the floor, a single pebble making a muted clack as it landed beside her. She looked around, stretched, and settled down for a lick, completely unbothered.

I swam through the fourth opening, and entered a vast and lavish chamber. It was warmly illuminated within, revealing an interior from inside a Rococo palace. It was as enormous as the pebble chamber, with high ceilings. The walls and ceilings were built from a creamy marble, here and there woven with rosy ribbons of stone. Large columns reached to the ceiling, decorated with ornate golden trim at the top and base. This same golden design trimmed the walls at floor and ceiling. The palace pulsed with an ancient silence, so profound it seemed to push in on me.

The small movements of my chest and belly rising and falling with my improbable breathing seemed to send shockwaves through the perfect stillness. I breathed deeply of a pleasantly perfumed air, sending myself deeper and deeper into a dream. My trance was shattered when the little white cat shook herself, stretched again, and marched off past me and down a hallway leading somewhere unknown. Her movement was so sudden and bold against the pervasive tranquility; only a cat could remain so unaffected here.

Still recovering from the shock of movement, my eyes landed upon a flower petal, a brittle orange leaf, and a pebble scattered upon a white cat mosaic. The little white cat had licked the journey off herself before wandering deeper into the dreamy palace. Seeing these relics, I had a far off memory of swimming down through changing light, breathing pollen and carrying a bouquet of flowers…

NO, a soft white cat!

I remembered seeing the little white cat running to me from far away, over green hills that swayed with the same cool breeze that tickled my wet skin and expanded my chest with it’s freshness. The desire to breathe, to really breathe, filled me, and with it, the longing to clasp the hands of my friends and look into their searching eyes as they helped me out of the water.

In slow motion, I turned my face up to look towards the fourth grate, glistening gold in the warm light. I pushed off the bottom and began to swim up. But something was wrong. I kicked my feet and stroked at the water with powerful arms and hands cupped, but it was like the water within the dream palace was thinner, more like air, and who can swim up through air?

I panicked and started to hyperventilate, exerting myself harder to reach the fourth grate. But this seemed to thin the water and weigh me down even more. I dropped to the floor, my toes landing on the cool mosaic tiles. As I looked around me in desperation, I saw the little white cat disappear around the corner at the end of the hallway.

Tears welled in my eyes and I watched in horror as they dropped in slow motion through the air to splash on the mosaic floor. I crouched down in a fetal position and scrunched my eyes shut, holding my breath in defiance and fear alike as I relived my journey down to this lavish prison.

I remembered breathing deeply against the cat’s fearful body, swimming gently down through the flower chamber, caressing her soft fur as we both breathed hungrily of the pollinated water. I remembered gliding down effortlessly through the autumn room, the leaves floating around us and landing in our hair as I filled my lungs to blow out a stream of air, sending them spiraling prettily. Then, after the pebble grate, we dropped down through the third chamber, quickly, almost like two stones ourselves, until I landed on the pebbled bottom, my knees bending slightly with the impact, still clutching the little white cat in my arms. I remembered the fourth grate glowing around the little white cat, opening underfoot and vanishing her, and then me. My tear filled eyes opened to see the cat mosaic through my toes several feet below.

I noticed a pressure in my lungs from holding my breath. The sensation cut through my despair, and I breathed deeply, hoping to find some strength. My lungs filled with air and the mosaic rushed up to meet my feet. I blinked as something clicked.

My second trip into this cavernous lake I’d breathed freely, as much to reassure the little white cat as for my own pleasure. And so I’d been filling myself with this strange world, until finally, at the bottom, in this extravagant marbled room, I had become a part of it. How easily I’d been drawn in, seduced into forgetting the grass, the wind, my friends with their warm hands and smiles. If not for the three keys strewn upon the cat mosaic, I may have lost myself completely in the intoxicating splendor of the lake palace.

I reached out and clasped the pebble in my hand, then I began to hold my breath. As the pressure built in my lungs I began to hover off the lustrous floor. My eyes widened in hope and I looked up to the fourth grate.

I began to swim again. At first it felt like I was flailing in thin air, but as the pressure in my lungs grew, the water around me seemed to thicken and my swimming strokes counted for more.

At last I was pulling myself up and through the opening in the marbled ceiling, entering the soft gloom of the pebble chamber. My feet barely grazed the pebbled bottom as I hovered over it. I dropped the pebble I’d been clutching with desperate determination and watched it clatter to the floor of the chamber, joining countless others. Then I looked up to the third grate shimmering far above me and began to swim steadily up.