The Long-Shining Waters

by Sosin, Danielle

  There aren’t any stations on the radio. None. The land is mountainous and the sky pristine blue, the sunlight in sheets on the high cliffs, where a thin waterfall is streaming down. Nora cranes her neck to look up through the windshield. It’s like she’s driving through a never-ending postcard. She wishes Nikki were along to see it. She pictures her holding the glass float to her eye, pretending that everything’s underwater.

  There. Water is back on her left again, dark blue and sparkling. A touchstone in the unfamiliar landscape. Yet the water isn’t exactly familiar. It’s hard to believe it is all the same lake.

  The lake shimmers to the horizon. If she could see across the hundreds of miles, she’d probably be looking at the Twin Ports. The sun shines through the green glass float. Home. The water connects this shore to that. To Rose. It touches Janelle and Nikki’s.

  A place with Native pictographs is marked on the map, and Nora needs to find a restroom. She turns off the highway and follows a road that ends in a small gravel lot. As soon as she parks, she feels the quiet. She gets out of the car and stretches her back. There’s no store, bathroom, or building there, just a pickup truck with two girls on the tailgate. Sisters, she thinks, when they smile at her. The kiosk has a box with brochures inside, and a map that shows a path leading down to the lake. She looks at the map and then over to the girls.

  “Did you go down there?” Nora asks.

  “It’s amazing,” says one of them. “I can’t get over it. I mean, how could the paintings last hundreds of years when the Natives made their pigment from powdered rock?” The girl looks at Nora as if she might have an answer. “You’ve got to see it,” the other one says. “The turtle is awesome.” She smiles encouragingly.

  Nora’s footsteps seem loud on the path. She stops, listens, peers through the woods. There are rustling noises on the forest floor. She lights a cigarette, refusing to indulge this new gutlessness that keeps coming over her.

  The path descends between high rock bluffs. She must be close because she can hear rolling waves. Nora walks tentatively between the stone walls, feeling as if someone is watching her. It’s mossy and cool and the air is damp. She could reach out her arms and touch both sides. All she can hear is water dripping. Her own footsteps. The slow waves of the lake. Overhead is an empty strip of blue sky. No one is on the path in either direction, yet she can’t shake the feeling that she is not alone.

  Nora steps onto a ledge that slants precariously into the clear water. The drone of a distant motorboat rings off the cliff as it passes. The cliff on one side, the lake on the other. Extreme Caution, the sign said. A wave rolls lazily halfway up the ledge.

  Someone is watching her. She can feel it at the back of her neck. No one’s around. Just the receding boat. She will absolutely not edge herself along below the cliff. It’s not gutless; it’s common sense. If she fell in there would be no one to help her. The brochure showed the turtle the girl mentioned and stick figures in canoes, but a few faint lines, rust red and grainy, are all that’s visible from where she stands. The lake rolls. She is being watched, she’s certain of it.

  The cliff top is lined with pines. It’s too high and sheer to tell if anyone’s up there. A large crow takes to the air, and the icy lake water is around her ankle. She gasps and the wave rolls back to the lake.

  1902

  The sky is warm white and the water grey, the horizon line long and empty. Berit sits on the slanting rock ledge, staring off across the water, her wood bucket submerged and heavy on the rope. The air is soft and the lake sounds muted—a swash, then a quiet lapping. Berit draws in the line and the bucket rises, breaks the surface, spilling over and dripping. She hauls the bucket up the ledge. Watches the dark water rings expand. With one hand on the handle and one underneath, she slowly tips the bucket over. A clear sheet of water pours back to the lake.

  The air tingles on Berit’s wet cheeks. She wipes the tear streaks with her sleeve, tosses the bucket from the ledge. It’s curious to her, how much she can cry, how the water springs daily from her eyes. The bucket lists on the lake surface. A raven beats the air as it crosses overhead. Berit tugs the rope and the bucket rim tilts, the water instantly claiming the space. The bucket sinks and the rope tightens. She lets the wet fibers slide though her cold hands.

  The lake appears grey and opaque, but if she looks carefully at its wavering surface she can see a thousand clear eyes of water, blinking under sky-hooded lids. The rope goes slack. The bucket sits on the lake bed. When she leans forward the lake holds her face. The dark circle of the bucket below. The stone ship is in her mind. As a child she’d spent many an afternoon there. One long leap from land to the craggy boulder, where she’d lay studying her face in the water, the rocks below, maybe a fish, the sky and the clouds around her head. Or else she’d sit scout, her eyes keen, searching for a smudge on the horizon that might become a sail, the possibility of a mast. She’d take herself to her stone ship when she was angry at her parents. Take herself there when she was sad, knowing that when she stared at the water, its beauty would eventually soothe her and her feelings would dissolve into calm.

  Hand over hand, Berit draws in the rope, and the bucket rises toward the surface. When she gets hold of the handle she tips it over, pours it back to the lake in a long thick arc. A scavenging gull lands nearby, paddles back and forth as it turns its white head. The empty bucket lands in the water with a splash. All her life, most everything has come and gone by the water—ships filled with provisions, new settlers with their trunks. Always the possibility of something she desired—confections, glue, a new hair ribbon, pencils. And ships left, their holds filled with copper or fish. The old schoolteacher, waving good-bye from the deck.

  Gunnar. He came and left by the water.

  Berit pulls the rope up a distance. The taut fibers wet and rough. Then lets it slide bit by bit through her hands, the bucket dropping back down to the lake bed. The white-grey horizon holds little promise. She can’t imagine any object aboard a ship that could spark an interest, touch a desire. Even the lake’s ability to soothe her has waned. It’s simply too small for the enormity of her feelings.

  She should make herself some food, split more wood. Berit hauls in the rope and lifts the bucket from the water. It’s queer how she moves through her days—one foot following the next, one breath, one drawing, one stitch.

  Berit balances the bucket on the ledge, the spilled water darkening the grey rock, and cups a handful to her mouth. Again and again she scoops and sips. Thirsty. She hadn’t realized how thirsty. She lifts the bucket to her lips and gulps, the icy water spilling down her neck. No matter, it is one thing she won’t run out of. She has been drinking the lake her entire life, could drink it forever and not make a dent.

  Berit lowers the bucket as the thought surfaces. Could it be so base? Simply primal? Is it raw instinct that causes her to gaze at the water? Merely her body as it recognizes the promise of its own continuing?

  If she stopped drinking the lake, she’d be dead within weeks.

  2000

  The bay is a wide horseshoe, enormous, with sheer cliffs on one side. And the lake is royal blue, filled with little coins of light that scatter constantly, rearranging themselves. Nora positions her shoe to dry in the sun. Only some of the images are recognizable inside the pictograph brochure—an odd looking lynx, a deer, bears, a long wavy snake with horns. Other figures are abstract, just circles with dots, lines.

  Good grief. That water about gave her a heart attack. She digs for the pretzels in the gas-mart bag. Down by the shore, a couple boys are playing catch. She hears the lazy thwap of the ball hitting in the mitt.

  Thwap. The water surface jumps with light. Thwap. Something white, maybe a gull, is crossing in front of the huge cliffs. She follows it for a while, but it’s hard to say what it is. It’s just a small spot of white drifting across the dark rock.

  Nora yawns and rubs her eyes. Splotches of light float behind her lids. She feels like she’s been riding a fi
ercely painted horse, up and down, on an emotional carousel—from the spineless way she felt at the gas mart to the pristine beauty of the drive, and then from the eerie pictograph place to this perfectly calm sunny beach. She’d always thought of herself as the painted sleigh type, moving evenly along while other people rode the horses. And each extreme is vivid and consuming, so where is her true self in that?

  Nora closes her eyes, her face to the sun. Thwap. If she had a lawn chair, she’d sleep for a week. Thwap. The warmth seeps into her skin. Her cheeks. Thwap. Her eyelids. Her neck.

  She’s working alone and the bar is busy. She’s holding a pint glass under the tap. When she pulls it, foam sputters out. The storeroom is five blocks away and she simply doesn’t have the time; two new tables just walked in, and she has burgers on the grill. She rushes down the sidewalk, has to wait to cross the street. She’s pushing the keg on a dolly, across a dry lake bed. It’s hot, and sandy fish are lying around; they aren’t dead, but they don’t move. The dolly maneuvers easily around discarded cans and ropes of seaweed. The distance seems endless. She has to get back. Finally, she pushes through the door. The crowd has doubled. She hooks up the keg. There isn’t any glassware behind the bar.

  The afternoon has grown sullen and drizzly, the road having taken a long swing inland. Nora takes her foot off the gas to let the logging truck gain distance again and give herself a break from the wood chips bouncing back. Her neck is sore from the way she’d slept sitting up. It’s disturbing to think she’d napped in public, not knowing what had been going on around her.

  She passes whole hillsides filled with dead trees, birch and spindly balsam, bald rock showing through. She yawns and looks down at the map. Napping has made her disoriented, and she probably shouldn’t be driving. She cracks the window for air, but flecks of water come in.

  It’s been raining hard enough for lights and steady wipers. She’s going to have to stop soon. Nora spots another of the rock figures above the road. They’ve grown comforting, little guides to show her the way. She lifts the map to check on her options for stopping. It shows a few towns after the road finally swings back to the lake.

  She sets the map down and then grabs it up again. Her notebook isn’t on the seat. Nora veers onto the shoulder, rocks sliding under her tires. It’s not on the floor. It’s not wedged against the car door. It has to be in the gas-mart bag. She reaches back and drags the bag over the seat. The pretzels are there, her halfeaten sandwich, a can of Coke. No way. Impossible. Rain pelts the roof of her car. She stretches her arm beneath the seats.

  Nora gets on her knees and leans into the back, pops her suitcase open and rifles around. She tilts Rose’s painting to look behind it, but she can already see the notebook where she left it. Hours back. On the bench. At the horseshoe bay.

  She can’t drive back, not all that distance, and in the rain this late with nowhere to stay. She pictures the notebook lying open on the bench, all the pages soaked and wavy, the ink blurred.

  1622

  It’s dark. Grey Rabbit can hear the rushing water, and then the entreating words of prayer. She can feel the words; they touch her like sunlight. She feels them as she feels the ground beneath her body, as she smells the thick sweetness of burning tobacco. A face below a short crest of feathers floats in and out of view. A face as creased as an old hickory nut. And faded eyes, one smaller than the other. A long thin mouth intoning. Grey Rabbit’s eyelids flutter shut.

  A rattle is shaking, small pebbles to wood. The sound comes from one side and then the other, comes from two directions at once. And a song. A reedy cracking voice. Words punctuated by the shaking rattle. A song to spirit, from the thin mouth, asking for her health and long life. Grey Rabbit feels heat rise to her face, feels the shifting air as the rattle moves over her. The rattle and the song. The words and the heat.

  With gentle hands, her head is turned to the side, and she feels a sharp cut at her temple. She flinches with each small incision to her skin. Then a smooth round rim is laid against her head. There’s a sucking sound, as the circle of skin pulls.

  The prayer song mingles with new smells, broken root and herbs, and she hears the sound of mixing. Wood scraping against wood. Something soft moves over her cuts, and a warm wet sensation seeps into her temple.

  Her head is being lifted and turned the other way.

  From the lightless depths I hear birds. There is the first to sound. The following others. A squawk and cackle that moves throat to throat.

  Open beaks and necks exerting. I see the call pass through the forest. A westward wave. Cresting overhead. Cleaving at the eastern rim of the lake.

  I see the night water, silky against the shore. The grains of sand beneath the black air grow discernable in the faint shift.

  And the eye of the Great Lake turns toward the sun.

  In the final hush. The surface of the water greys. The solid mass of the woods begins to separate. Bough from trunk. Log from forest floor.

  Then comes the sun’s slivered edge. Sandy rays. To copper. Rising carnelian. Iron red.

  Yet here. At the lake basin’s western edge.

  The forest is still cushioned in night.

  I watch a crow in a dead birch. The lake wind riffles its feathers.

  While on the cobble beach below, the waves unfurl in the rhythmic dark.

  The crow senses the advancing call. It composes its wings. Claws the soft wood.

  It cocks its sleek head to the east.

  The night stars still reflected in the bead of its eye.

  2000

  The motel is called the Innland Sea, a huge statue of a voyageur standing out front. “It’s all non-smoking,” the man tells Nora, “but there are chairs on the veranda, if you must.” She doesn’t care, not about anything. She’s absolutely sick about the notebook.

  Nora unwraps a glass from its thin white paper, fills it with ice and cracks the bottle she’d picked up on her way into town. She sits on the edge of the bed with the remote, trying to find the news so she can see about the weather, but the only station that comes in clearly is from Detroit. When they get to the weather forecast with the map of the States, Canada is just a blue blank across the top.

  The “veranda” is the walkway fronting the rooms, lined with white plastic chairs and coffee-can ashtrays. Nora sits smoking, water dripping from the eave, looking at the voyageur’s backside and the red-headed paddle he holds like a staff. The rain has stopped, and in the distance are clouds with fiery gold edges hanging over a thin strip of lake. She can buy another notebook easily enough, it’s the recreating of all the lists. Unbelievable. She heaves out a stream of smoke.

  The door to the room next door clicks open, and a big round woman steps out. She’s carrying a blanket and a grocery bag. “Bon soir,” she says, setting down her bag.

  “Hi,” Nora musters, but doesn’t look over.

  “Hi, all right.” The woman settles into a chair, and fusses a blanket over her legs.

  The clouds turn slowly from gold to orange, then temper to a dark rose.

  “Red sky at night,” the woman says, her English sounding perfectly normal.

  “Let’s hope the driving will be as good as the sailing.”

  “The weather changes all the time around here. I meant to make it to Wawa, but I can’t drive in the rain.”

  The woman’s face is moony and thin skinned, her grey-blond hair tied in a knot on her head. Nora drains her drink, then goes inside for the bottle.

  “Hors d’oeuvre?” the woman asks, reaching over with a tray of crackers covered with spread. “I make the mix myself. Good port is the key to the flavor. I’m Paulette,” she says, nudging the tray closer, “but most call me Tinker, so feel free.”

  “Nora.” She takes a cracker from the tray and leaves it balancing on the arm of the chair while she picks ice from the bucket at her feet. “Do you want a drink?” she asks.

  “Thanks dear, I have everything I need.” The woman pats the brown bag by her leg.
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br />   Everything you need in a brown bag. What does she need—a plan, a life? The notebook’s her only need that would fit in a bag.

  The sunset is over. Their cigarettes glow. Nora shuffles the ice at the bottom of her glass, shining and dark in the low light. She appreciates that the woman isn’t a talker, the kind who barges right in if you open the door a crack.

  “Another?” The woman reaches over with the tray.

  “Thanks, Pauline. They’re good.”

  “It’s Paulette, but like I said, you can call me Tinker.”

  “How did you get Tinker from Paulette?” Nora splashes more vodka in her glass.

  “People have called me that forever. It could be because I’m a whiz at fixing things. Clocks, radios, anything mechanical. It’s hard to remember how it started, though.”

  Nora tries to picture the woman’s pudgy hands working a small screwdriver, or placing tiny springs.

  “And you? Mon Dieu.” Tinker shades her eyes as the lights along the veranda switch on.

  “Oh, I’m not very mechanical.”

  “I’d fix this with a BB gun.” Tinker points to the bare bulb over her head.

  Nora stands and unscrews the bulb.

  “Good girl.” Tinker smiles. “Maybe he’d like your help, too.” She points to the giant voyageur, now lit up from a ring of spots in the ground.

  “Nice sash,” says Nora.