Water Steps

by A. LaFaye

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  AIR

  WATER

  LAKE

  HOUSE

  FIRE

  FRUIT

  TREES

  TEARS

  SECRETS

  LEAVES

  TEA

  HAIR

  WAVES

  WOODS

  WORRY

  ROCKS

  MEMORY

  STEPS

  CLAN

  GROUND

  STORIES

  PAST

  PROMISE

  SKINNY DIPPERS

  SHOTS

  RESCUE

  LAST STEP

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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  Copyright Page

  Also by A. LaFaye

  The Year of the Sawdust Man

  Nissa’s Place

  Edith Shay

  The Strength of Saints

  Dad, In Spirit

  Worth

  Up River

  Stella Stands Alone

  Strawberry Hill

  To every kid who faces a fear

  and finds a little magic

  Thanks to everyone at Milkweed Editions for bringing this

  book out into the world, to my students at Plattsburgh

  State University who shared the magic of the lake,

  and to God for providing the inspiration for this novel.

  AIR

  Any old dummy can take a digital photograph. But how many kids can take a real old-fashioned shutter shot of a purple hairstreak butterfly in flight? Not too many. That’s how I earned a red ribbon at the Cortland County Fair last year. I could’ve taken the first place blue if it weren’t for Gaylen Parker, the girl with gigabytes for brains.

  She had to enter with her digitally muckety-mucked picture of a Pocono Mountains sunset. No way does nature paint with that kind of a brush, but computers sure do. She can swear to fifty thousand judges that she didn’t fix-up that photograph, but I’m not going to buy it. Thanks to her cheating, pixel tweaking pinkies, I lost the blue.

  “Too bad you can’t get her to spit in water, Kyna,” Pep told me the morning after the fair. He’s always coming up with these wacky Irish traditions no one but the leprechauns have heard of.

  “What good would that do?” I asked, helping him set the table for breakfast.

  He paused, cocked his eyebrows, then said, “Well, some folks say if a liar spits in water it doesn’t float.”

  “Did you pick that up from one of your fairy friends?” I asked. I needed a real solution to my problem, not fairy dust.

  “How many times do I have tell you? Fairies aren’t friendly. They’re pony-riding, baby-stealing little fiends, those fairies.”

  Pep always spoke of the make-believe critters from his Irish homeland as if they were as everyday as the village priest. A running joke he’d played with Mem since the day they adopted me. I tried to tell them I was too old for all their shenanigans, but Pep just told me they’d have to be leprechauns to get up to any, so that was that.

  Coming in from the garden with some nasturtium greens for the salad, Mem said, “All that Parker girl would have to do is eat a bit of salt before she spits, Ronan. You should know the way around that test better than anyone.” Dumping the greens into the bowl next to Pep, she elbowed him, saying, “Mr. ‘I’ve got tickets to see the Chieftains in Dublin.’”

  “I had them. Just couldn’t use them. A bit damp they were.”

  They laughed. I’d heard the story of the soggy concert tickets he found on a rock along the shore a thousand times, how he used the promise of them to get Mem to finally go out with him, then hid them until they’d reached a pretty cove south of Dublin for a moonlit swim. I knew that story word for word, but I still loved the way it made them laugh, then start chattering in Irish, their hands flashing to the rhythm of the memories they told each other.

  They’d smile, fall shoulder to shoulder, then finally remember I was still standing there and one of them would say, “Sorry, sweet, little swim down the memory channel, there.”

  No matter. I’d taken a little trip down memory lane, myself. I prefer land travel. I went back to the day I finally got my shot of the purple hairstreak. I’d been hanging out in the Garrington Gardens on Clark Street for days. My kind of place. In the center of the town of Perryville, high in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, plenty far from the ocean. The park didn’t even have a pond. I spent my days there hovering over flowers, my camera focused and ready for just the right bug to fly into view. I had shot after shot of bees and moths, and I almost caught a hummingbird beak-deep in a honeysuckle, but I sneezed, so all I got was a big blur of a photograph and a bruised eye from where I clonked into the camera.

  But there’s something triple-chocolate-cheesecake good about hanging there with my camera ready, the I’m-going-to-get-it-today tension of waiting for just the right shot that can’t be beat. Not with skateboarding or tree climbing or any of the other kooky kid things my classmates are always going on about. I’ll take a camera and a roost on a good rock any day.

  And the gotcha moment makes it worth the leg-cramping wait. After two weeks at my flower post, I snapped the shot just as the purple hairstreak opened its wings a flutter above a yellow rose and I knew I’d caught a miracle right by the antennae. You couldn’t buy that with a zillion dollars or a truckload of blue ribbons.

  And I even got my picture in the paper for all of that hard work. Actually, the whole family is in the picture. Me in the middle with my picture held up, Mem and Pep on either side, squeezing me for pride’s sake. So what if it was only half the size of Gaylen’s and on the fourth page of the family section. This year I’d take a picture no silly computer could touch. They’d pin that pretty blue ribbon on there and we’d have a nice big picture on page one.

  That was the plan until Mem and Pep came up to my room in the attic, looking all “we’ve got something to tell you and you’re not going to like it.” Didn’t matter if I had a summer full of plans. Sure, I wanted to get a shot not even Gaylen Parker could beat. But I also had some great ideas for summer upgrades on my tree fort in the backyard and my best friend Hillary and I planned to start our Get With the Land project for Girl Scouts in the state park by mapping all the walking trails complete with nature guide signs along the way. I even saved up my allowance to buy a compass. I had my whole summer set for great adventure, but no, Mem and Pep had other plans that washed all of mine away.

  They plopped down at the end of my bed, knee to knee, knuckle to knuckle, as they cranked up the smiles.

  “What?” I asked, not wanting to know.

  They put on their fake chipper voices, then Mem said, “We have a plan.”

  Pep must have seen the bury me now look on my face, because he said, “An opportunity, really.”

  “We’ve rented a cabin for the summer.”

  No way would they pull me in with their little bait. I’d just wait for the hook. The hard barby piece of the news I couldn’t swallow.

  “And . . .” Pep couldn’t say it. That spelled bad news to me. I gripped the seat of my chair.

  Mem leaned forward and whispered, “It’s on a lake.”

  Pep jumped in with, “A magical lake with silkies in it.”

  A lake?! Felt like they’d sucked all of the air out of my lungs with straws. I couldn’t live on a lake. I’d rather be chopped up and fed to lions. Live in the middle of the desert in a tin shed. Spend the summer on a
frozen tundra ice floe with a parka and a pick. But not near water. Please, no water.

  WATER

  Water scared me. Freaked me out so much I couldn’t walk through a rain puddle. My bones locked up. My muscles shrank. I turned to stone. The whole world went blue. Water scared me that much and Mem and Pep wanted me to live by a lake for the summer. A magic lake they said. Filled with silkies—the seal folk who take on human form when they leave the water. I didn’t care if the lake itself could fly!

  I didn’t want to live on a lake. I didn’t want to live near a lake. I didn’t want to even see a picture of a lake.

  Moving from the bed to kneel next to me, Pep said, “You don’t have to get in the lake, Kyna. You won’t even be able to see the water from the house. It sits high up on the shore. Nice and dry.”

  “But I’ll know the water’s there, Pep. I’ll hear it,” I said, diving on the bed to roll up in my quilt.

  Kissing me through the quilt, Mem said, “You can’t let your fears grow bigger than you, Kyna. They’ll swallow you up.”

  My fear of water was as big as a lake. And I’d drown in it.

  But I knew the rules. Face your fear one step at a time. Speaking through the quilt, I asked, “I don’t have to go in the water?”

  “Not until you’re ready.” Mem rubbed my back.

  Pep and Mem always said, “Not until you’re ready.”

  They got this great slogan from Dr. Clark, the therapist they dragged me to every week. Worked just fine for me when it came to being ready to sleep over at a friend’s house or ride my bike downtown, but sometimes Mem and Pep thought I was ready before I really was. Last fall, they wanted me to take a shower. Not a slimy sponge bath in my nice dry bedroom on the third floor, but a shower in the tub that could fill up with water.

  I refused and locked myself in my closet, yelling, “If you make me take a shower, I’ll never bathe again.”

  Speaking through the door, Mem said, “Then you’ll smell so bad animals will roll on you for the scent.”

  Our cat, Kippers, loved to roll on dirty socks and stick her head in my smelly shoes. I imagined myself walking outside, attracting every cat in the neighborhood. They’d rub all over me until I fell into the grass and disappeared under a pile of purring fur.

  But the closet felt too small and dark. I had to open the door.

  Pep gave me a hug and a kiss on the forehead.

  “We’ll be right there with you, Kyna,” he said, already in his swim trunks—the green ones with the dancing sea horses. He has as many swimming trunks as he does pants. But he calls them togs.

  “Can I bring my snorkle?” I held it up. Some kids have a security blanket. I have a breathing device for anything I have to do with water.

  “No.” Mem shook her head. She wore the silver swimsuit that sparkled in the sun like the scales of a fish.

  “But the tub could fill up with water.”

  “The drain’s clear. I checked it just this evening,” Pep said, coming to my other side.

  “It could clog up with hair and soap while we’re in there.”

  “We won’t let it.” Mem gave me a big squeeze. “Come on, you’ll see.”

  They led me into the hall.

  I dragged my feet, shouting, “I’m not ready!”

  “Yes, you are,” Mem said, as she swept my legs out from under me and carried me down the two flights of stairs to the bathroom. The room I hated most of all. The room I enjoyed having two full stories below me because it had water—everywhere. The sink. The toilet. The tub.

  How did she know I was ready? Didn’t she hear me gasping for breath? Feel the cold sweat on my palms? The tight grip I had around her neck? As soon as she set me down and I felt the cool tiles under my feet, my body turned as stiff as those tiles.

  Pep got in the shower. “I’ll show you.” I closed my eyes as he turned on the water. “Look at me, Kyna.”

  I squeezed my eyes tight, so I didn’t have to see the water running over his face, near his mouth and nose, crowding up the spaces where breathing air is supposed to go.

  Mem hugged me from behind and gave me a nudge with her knees. “Look, Kyna.”

  Pep stood in the tub, the water washing over his shoulders, not his face. “See, just a little wetness. A little cool cleanness.” He rubbed the water over his skin.

  “Let’s try it,” Mem said, stepping forward, bumping me ahead of her.

  “Just my hand!” I screamed, putting it out.

  “First your hand,” Mem said.

  Shaking, I closed my eyes and put my hand forward, felt the tiny pat pat of the water. Rain. Rain leads to storms. Storms drown people at sea! I yanked my hand away and buried my face in Mem’s tummy. I’ll take hand sanitizer any day. Thank you very much.

  “Try again, Kyna,” Pep said. “Just think of it as a little wash up in a very big sink.”

  Sink? Huh! No one’s ever drowned in a sink.

  Rubbing my back, Mem turned me around, then said, “Go on, both hands this time around. Then one foot. Little water steps.”

  Water steps. We’d been taking water steps ever since we started visiting Dr. Clark. And sometimes, just sometimes, it made me wish they’d never adopted me.

  Mem made me take my first water step when she put a tiny pool of water on the back of my hand and wouldn’t let me wipe it off. I was only three years old, but I felt sure it would spread and spread until it drowned me. But Mem did it again the next day, then the next and the next until I could look straight at that water touching my skin and not panic.

  That spring, I had to put my whole hand in a bowl of water. When the water slipped over my skin, I felt sure it could pull me in. Had me gasping for breath in seconds. The leaves started to fall from the trees before I could do it without panting.

  The summer before I started school, Mem began to put a glass of water on the table at every meal. Seeing that water just sitting in that glass still as you please set my stomach to sailing on rough seas. That first night, she set it on the far corner, then inched it closer to me each day. Bit by bit, the storm in my stomach lost its steam. When the glass got near enough for me to see the bubbles inside, I had to close my eyes, but I kept the sea calm in my stomach.

  One month we worked on me holding the glass until I could stop shaking, then I had to put my lips on the rim. By the time pre-school started, I could take a sip of water without gagging.

  In kindergarten, I graduated to wet wash cloth wipe downs. Now I can take a short shower if I keep the door open, but that’s not enough for Mem and Pep. They want me to take the next step and live on a lake for a summer. A whole summer. I’d never sleep. As soon as I close my eyes, I’d see myself drowning.

  Drowning is my first memory.

  Water choking me as it filled my nose and mouth, flooding my lungs. I kicked. I coughed. I spun, but I only sank deeper. My whole body aching, the world disappearing into darkness as I sank.

  I remember smooth arms cradling me, the whooshing rush of water pressing against me as we sped to the surface, but the darkness took me before we broke into the night air. To this day, I ache to remember that first breath.

  As Mem tells it, she and Pep hid in a cave on the seashore to wait out a terrible storm. The sea had grown angry while they swam by the shore. It whipped and churned like a sheet held in the hands of many frenzied children, snapping it up and down from all sides. The ships at sea were tossed like so many balls thrown on the sheet—my family’s boat among them.

  The folks around town say my father had been a good seaman who even sailed the treacherous waters of Tierra del Fuego down on the tip of South America—a patch of sea so fierce it’d been sinking boats for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. Seaman or no seaman, he couldn’t navigate that terrible storm off the coast of Maine. The sea had gone to war with the wind. Our boat got caught up in the battle. They tugged and pulled at the boat. The wind pushed it toward the shore. The sea bashed it into the rocks.

  Mem and Pep stood in
the cave, holding each other, praying the boat would survive. But it began to sink. Rushing down the rocks, Mem and Pep dove into the angry sea to rescue my family. They could only save me. The sea swallowed my whole family. My mother, who had wax white skin and red hair. My father, who had a gap in his mustache, right below his nose. My brother, Kenny, who wore a berry blue coat when he went to sea. And even my Grandma Bella, who wore a yellow rubber hat like the deep-sea fisherman you see on the package of fish sticks.

  I hate fish sticks, but I love the box. It makes me think of Grandma Bella. I don’t remember her. I can’t. I was just a toddle-about baby when that boat sank. I only know my family from the pictures—all the pictures that Mem and Pep put in frames for me and spread throughout that narrow little house on Larpin Street in Perryville that’d belonged to Grandma Bella.

  Mem and Pep did everything they could to keep me close to my family—fight for the house our family lived in with Grandma Bella, use all the furniture my family had lived with before the sea took them, and hang every last picture of my family they could find. My family was at sea in so many of those pictures, their faces wide with smiles, the sun forcing them to squint. They loved the sea. I hate it.

  And no matter how many water steps Mem and Pep force me to take, I’ll still hate the sea. Now. Forever. And always. I won’t go live on a lake for the summer. I won’t.

  LAKE

  Mem and Pep had it all rigged. They’d had it rigged for months. I tried to tell them I had to stay home if I ever hoped to take a picture that would earn me a blue ribbon at the Cortland County Fair.

  But they had a defense for that one. “They have a Clinton County Fair in Plattsburgh, New York, not twenty minutes from our lake house,” Pep told me.

  Mem sweetened the pot with, “We’ll even take you to New York City for some great shots in Central Park, if you’re up for it.”

  But I didn’t really even hear her because I couldn’t get over Pep calling it “our lake house,” like we owned it and it wasn’t just a place we rented for the summer.