The Writing on the Water

The Writing on the Water

The Others would find us out soon enough. At least, that’s what Mother warned in our Final Days. She was getting weak. I knew she wouldn’t make it much longer.

Since I was little, Mother told me of her Dying Rite. She claimed that the Earth never held control over her and that when she died, it mustn’t finally get its way. The water, however, was Savior. For five years now she taught me the signs of her oncoming death, how to get the timing just right. Too soon, and I play God. Too late, the Earth wins. The Earth mustn’t win, and I mustn’t be God.

For fifteen years we have lived. Together, on the edge of the water, in our one bedroom shack. I’ve known since my youth that she wasn’t my real mother. The only story she gave me was that my real mother was the Earth, and she grew sick of my crying and my fleshly needs, so she set me on Mother’s doorstep to bear the burden of my existence. Since then, We have been.

Yes, the time was coming. She warned me that in her final days, her mind will slow. She will confuse sugar and flour and begin to use the bathroom in the house instead of in the water. Mother was mean and always smelled bad, but this time it would be worse. This was phase one.

Phase two, she taught me, will be more physical. Her breathing will become shallow and she will sleep more than she wakes. She will gain tremors in her limbs and no longer tend to her long, silver hair. Her crystals, ever entwined with her soul, will begin to dull and not work as they once did.

Phase three—and I must be quick at this point—she will cry. She will tell me the secrets she never could afford. She will shake and slam her head on the porch steps. I must watch her closely, like a hawk. One time, however, I slipped and used this verbiage. She hit me once, saying to never mistake myself for a Mighty Creature. She will need me most in this phase. And when that time comes, when her breathing stops for seconds at a time and her eyes lose focus on anything but Above, I must feel her skin. As soon as it has gone as cold as the icebox in the corner of the room, I must lead her to the water. I must drown her. Not too early, I am not God. Not too late, the Earth cannot win. I must watch her like a hawk.

Since I was ten, I have been taught her Dying Rite. Five years now. At first I was confused. Lacking wisdom, she claimed. Now I understand her motives all too well and find it selfish. When Mother is gone, I must live with what I have done forevermore.

Mother warns of the Man. Says that He, whoever He is, will realize I am not in school like the other kids. For that reason, I must lie low and learn to grow into myself. One time, when I was eight, I think the Man came. He showed up at the front steps in a suit that looked like the trees and held a long, steel stick. Mother told me it was called a “gun” and it will be the end of Man. As soon as I saw Him, I ran inside and hid beneath our bed. Mother went and talked to Him. He said He was looking for bucks, which I knew to be deer, and that He saw a child playing. He wanted to see if the child would be willing to help Him carry the bucks, since He was old in age, for $10 a day. His voice came to me under the bed in a soft manner and I believed Him to be kind. Mother told Him I was lame and wouldn’t be much help, but offered Him a rest on the porch and some bread and jam. When He was gone, Mother read tarot cards on the table as I shook beneath the bed. She pulled The Hanged Man and breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, the Man was foolish. Never once did she consider the Hanged Man to be us.

I learned Mother was bad in the fall of my 12th year of life. I needed to go, to see the Others, if only for a second. I told her I would like to spend the day being guided to another body of water. She resisted, saying our water gives us more than we need, but finally let me go. I walked until the sun started to lose its shine. I found the Others. In a big store full of books, I saw my first one. A woman, young. She asked my name. She asked me questions. She was nice. I ran.

After this, I would try at least once a week to go on my quest. I grew smart. I knew the steps it took to get to the gray grass. When I reached it, I would follow until what I learned was a ‘car’ would pick me up. There is a price with everything, Mother always said. I learned this with the cars. Sometimes the Others would take me to town for free. Sometimes I had to pay in ways I didn’t want. Nevertheless, I made it to town each time.

Somehow, I always knew that Mother knew where I was. She was magic; she was fear. Her eyes followed me, and she told me in the night that if her eyes ever found mine with one of the Others, their eyes would be ripped out.

Eventually, the book woman told me her name. However, I forgot it. Mother says names of the Others are in vain. Without practicing her name, I lost it. But I didn’t forget her eyes—she smiled in them! She smelled like roses. She showed me books with pictures in them and didn’t become upset when I wouldn’t speak. On the day I finally told her my name, she smiled big and held me close. It made me cry. Then, through watery vision, I saw red and blue lights outside. She had betrayed me, and like all the Others, was surely evil. I ran as fast as I could out of town and hid in a dry creek bed until the lights and the dogs and the Man were quiet. Then I ran home and didn’t return for weeks. When I finally did, a different Other was working at the counter. I snuck in and asked for the pretty lady. He had a sad look in his eyes. She was no longer there.

The day I believed in Mother was peculiar. We had our evening rituals—We would go down to the water and bathe in the green air. As she got older and weaker, I had to bathe her. It was one of these nights, cold in the water and sticky in the air, that she made me believe her.

“I want to tell you something, child.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Listen to me. Look at me.” Looking into the eyes was hard for me. I tried my best, though doing so always shifted something deep inside of me.

“I have told you of the writing on the wall. From the Old Book, during the party of King Nebuchadnezzar. The mighty hand came and wrote on the wall, four words, terrifying all of the guests. Some died from fright right there.” I nodded my head, remembering. “What did these four words mean?”

“I don’t remember what they were.”

“What they were is not important. What did they mean, child?”

I thought long and hard. Despite my anger towards Mother, I always longed to make her proud.

“The four words meant that the kingdom would fall that night. That the Others would invade and kill them all.”

“Good girl.” She did not smile, simply lay her head back, waist deep in the water, showing it was time to wash. I took her coarse hair and twisted it around my hand in the water, running it through my fingers. She let her feet go from the bottom and floated up, pulling her head into the water. I scrubbed the hair around her face, silver in the full moon. She was surely magical.

I wondered why she told me of something I already knew. Mother tested me often, but this time felt different. As she closed her eyes, just a head above the water with her body now bent beneath her, I held the sides of her face. I thought of the dreadful day I must hold her under. I wished she would always stay. I wished she would leave.

Her emerald eyes opened, and she stared straight at me from the water. Cold bumps rose along my naked arms.

“Another writing will come in our time.”

I couldn’t speak, just saw her head. Her eyes. Black water was shifting around her as her hair floated upwards to meet her face. “This time, there will be writing on the water. Our water. Right here. And if you wait too late, if you see the writing before I am gone, you will fall that night.”

She rose, rung out her hair, and walked naked back to the house. I lowered into the water and hugged myself. The cold on my flesh matched the cold in my lungs. When she reached the wooden porch, she stood still. Then she faced me. Her body, grey and frail and so much different from mine, glowed underneath the moon.

“You don’t believe me.”

I shook my wet head wildly. Mother knew.

“Watch this, child.” She stood silent. Then, she hummed. Slow at first and under her breath. It grew louder. Then louder. Then loud, loud, loud! I covered my ears as it turned to a scream. A high pitch witch of a noise, her head flung back and her mouth a black O, not moving as the sound escaped. I couldn’t even see her teeth. The scream stopped yet her mouth stayed open. Then, all was still. The crickets even hushed. I was biting my fingers and very afraid.

Right then, from the trees, he came. A great black bear. He walked up to Mother, and I couldn’t breathe. She pet him between his circled ears and laughed, then pointed to me.

No Mother, no.

The great black bear walked towards me—to the water—in a clumsy gait that made him look stupid and powerful all the same. I covered my body, ashamed he would see me. When he reached the water, he walked upon it and I couldn’t believe my eyes. He came, standing over me, and blew hot, rotten air in my face. I closed my eyes at the force and when I opened them, he was gone. Mother laughed. She turned and walked inside.

I stood for a while that night, caressed by the dirty water, eyes shifting back and forth to find the bear because I couldn’t seem to move my head. My chest hurt. I was alone, and all was still. When my legs were so cold that they turned hot and I knew I must go, I began to walk. Once I did, I noticed the blood. In the water, all around me, a sick coppery smell. I didn’t scream, just waited to die. Now it was my time, and I bet Mother never even planned for it, so focused on her own time she was. I left the water to check myself, and found the blood coming from between my legs. I was terrified. I read in a book from the Book Lady that women do this, but Mother always swore we were different. My stomach ached. I went inside and couldn’t bear to lay next to her for my shame. I slept by the furnace instead.

Her time was coming. I needed to know my duties. Needed to know to read the stars and listen to the fish and harness the crystals. What would I do when she was gone? For a while I hoped for the Book Lady, but ever since her betrayal, I knew it was no use. I began to watch Mother closer than ever. Not only to read her body, but to know how she did it. How she survived so long out here, alone at first and then with a child. I watched her shoulders when she chopped wood. I watched her fingers when she put berries in jars, some that we could eat and some that we couldn’t, saved away for the Others. I watched her eyes when she would float in the water and stare up at the sky, lifting a slim, dripping finger above her face and tasting the water.

New England. That is where we lived. I saw a little paper in the Book Store once that said “New England” in big letters. I looked into the flimsy paper, folded like a book. I saw so much water, so much land. So many Others. When Mother died, maybe I could leave New England. Maybe go to Old England, who knows. The world would be mine, and it filled me with a sick joy. I just had to beware of the Others.

Mother said the Others burned all of her women once in the middle of the town. She said they made a show of it, and sometimes at night, when she goes to the water alone, she gets to see her women once more. She says they’re still burning but no longer in pain. I have never seen them, but I’ve seen her back to me as she sits in the mud and talks to the air. She talks sweeter to them than she ever has to me.

One day in the Spring, I wanted to try. I went to the water’s edge. I put my toes in. I tried to talk to the women who were burning. I tried to call for the bear. I tried to see the things Mother speaks of in her sleep, the visions from the other worlds. I saw nothing but a full moon on the water and a black snake gliding by. I watched the snake, that beautiful wicked thing. I knew not to get too close, but I wanted to see. The snake must have been ill, because behind him a film of black slime stayed on the water top. A curve, a line, a circle. The snake went under and I pulled my toes out. Standing up to go, I saw the writing on the water.

“Your Mother Earth Weeps.”

The door fell off the hinges when I slammed inside the house. Mother, Mother, I cried. And there she lay, on the bed . . . purple. I put my head on her chest—nothing. I felt her flesh—icebox. I drug her from the bed. I was too late, I was too late! The Earth had won her, and now we will never know peace!

I drug her down the steps, winced as her head hit each plank. My back screamed as I pulled her through the mud, into the water. It’s not too late. It’s not too late!

When she was finally fully in the water, I washed her hair once more. She floated all on her own. The moon and the stars went away that night, and everything grew quiet. I saw the snake on the shore. I cursed him, yet he didn’t move. He just watched. Then I heard it.

The hum, then the scream. The same from before. Loud, louder, loudest. In my Mother’s dead voice. I looked to the shore and there they came, the Great Bear and the Burning Women, walking onto the water to stand around us. I screamed. No, no, no! I screamed and screamed and hit the water with my fist—I was too late!

Then I saw a boot come up from the water. A suit that looked like trees. The Man! He was purple and floated on His own too with jam around his mouth. No, it couldn’t be. Then I saw the Book Lady with her face down in the water. I left Mother and clung to the Book Lady so tight that she bobbled over and when she did, her face didn’t have eyes. Just empty black voids. Her mouth was set in a scream.

I ran from the water, felt the bottom grabbing my feet and pulling me in with Them. Still, I pushed and ran. Reaching the shore, I pulled myself up. I stared at the water. At the Bear, the Burning Women, the Book Lady. Mother. And then…

Finally, Freedom. I laughed. I reached my hands to the Other Worlds and laughed as I never have before. I felt the cool air with the blood returning down my legs as it had every month. My stomach knotted in joy from my laughter. I longed to run. I turned to go, but before I did, I took one last look. Everyone was gone, but Mother remained. All alone. Floating.

Her eyes were open. Her eyes were on me. I froze. Above, a hawk cried. Then, I felt a sting on my ankle. The snake had snuck up in my joy and bitten me and now all I felt was fire.

Mother was right.

I believe her.

I walked slowly back to the water and lay next to her. Me and Mother, all alone. I waited for the venom to take me, not the water. Unlike Mother, the Earth was my mom. I belonged to her. So I let her run her course.