Below

by Meg McKinlay

  Was it really a stick?

  I leaned farther forward.

  It wasn’t that far away. It wasn’t in the middle of the lake or anything. Maybe three hundred feet?

  Three hundred feet there, check out the whatever-it-was, three hundred feet back.

  Not even six laps.

  Easy.

  It was deep out there, of course. Deeper than here. And here was deeper than where I normally swam. When I stretched a leg down, a foot, then a toe, as far as it could go, I still couldn’t touch the bottom.

  But that didn’t matter.

  I’d never understood the big deal about deep water. If you can swim, you can swim. It doesn’t matter what’s underneath as long as you can get to the other side.

  I put my head down and set off, breathing and stroking, breathing and stroking.

  After a couple of minutes, I looked up. I figured I must be just about on top of the thing, and I didn’t want to crash into it, especially if it was a sword that was going to give me dominion over many lands.

  Except . . . where was it?

  I swiveled my head. Had I swum off course? I should have thought of that. It was easy to do in open water. Mr. Henshall had warned us about it, said we should always line ourselves up with something and keep checking our direction.

  That’s what the stick thing was for, if only I could find it.

  There was something over there, but that couldn’t be it. It didn’t seem any bigger, any closer at all.

  But it must be that. What else could it be, this far out? It just didn’t seem to be getting any closer, even though I’d swum all this way.

  How far had I come, actually?

  That was something else that was hard to measure without flags and black marks and people whacking you randomly with tennis balls.

  I looked back toward the shore, then out at the stick thing.

  Okay, so it was more than three hundred feet. It would still be all right. I had probably been doing way more than that the last few weeks. I felt good. I felt strong.

  I kept going, lifting my head every few strokes to stay in line with the stick.

  It was getting bigger now, definitely.

  Slowly, though. More slowly than I’d expected.

  Too slowly.

  When I started thinking about it — how far I’d come, how far I might have to go — I felt a familiar tightening in my chest. My breath started coming in short, ragged bites.

  With every stroke, Mr. Henshall was in my head. Don’t try to judge distances in open water. Line yourself up with something. Don’t overestimate your ability. Stroke-stroke-breathe, stroke-stroke-breathe.

  I swam the last few feet, which was probably more like sixty, in a grandma breaststroke.

  Partly it was so I could keep my eyes locked onto the stick thing, so it wouldn’t disappear.

  Mostly it was because I was exhausted.

  I was past the point of digging in.

  And I was remembering, all of a sudden, the crucial thing about deep water. That it doesn’t matter as long as you can get to the other side. But there was no other side here, not that I could reach, and depth was, in fact, quite important when you’ve grossly underestimated distance and need somewhere to reach down to with a leg, a foot, a toe.

  Because there’s nothing to hang on to. Nothing but water and sky and something you haven’t quite managed to identify yet.

  There it was, right in front of me.

  It was indeed sticky. It was indeed a stick thing.

  For a second I stopped, imagining the hand holding it up, the arm reaching all the way from the bottom of the lake.

  Then I shook my head.

  Because I was an idiot.

  It was a stick thing in its natural habitat. In the middle of a lake, yes. But also at the top of a tree.

  And a tree was something to hold on to for a little while. A tree might have a branch where you could perch and wait for a bit, gathering yourself for the much-longer-than-expected swim back.

  My toe brushed something, and I jumped. Then I sent my toe back down again for another feel, because this was what I was after, wasn’t it — a branch, something I could stand on?

  A wide, flat branch, even. A branch wider and flatter, in fact, than any branch ever before found in nature.

  Which was weird until I realized:

  Not a branch, but a platform.

  A platform at the top of the tallest tree in Old Lower Grange, in the whole county. A platform with a peg ladder spiraling below it all the way down to the silty mud.

  The fire tree!

  I felt around with my toes. It was definitely a platform, going right around the trunk. The wood was rotting and falling away, but the metal frame was still there, and it was enough for me to rest my feet on so I could lean back against the tree and close my eyes, just for a second, and rest and breathe.

  I was here. I was somewhere.

  When my breathing had slowed, I took a long look around me. I inched around the metal frame with my toes, felt the slippery bark around the trunk with my fingers.

  The fire tree! How did it get here? I mean, not how did it get here. That was quite possibly the world’s dumbest question. Obviously, it had been here all along, for hundreds of years, in fact, growing and growing and slowly leaving behind everything around it while it reached for the sky.

  But still, how did it get here?

  Up into the actual sky above the water? And how had I never noticed it before?

  I looked back the way I had come, across to the shoreline, where my orange towel sat flapping on a low-hanging tree branch.

  And I saw something. A dark stain around the lake, a line along the water’s edge like you see at the ocean when the tide has gone out.

  Except that there were no tides at the lake.

  My eyes flicked from the water to my towel and back again, from the water to the tree line and back again.

  And then I realized.

  Something that should have been obvious days ago, maybe even weeks ago.

  The water level was going down. It had been a dry winter, a dry few years, and now summer was sinking its teeth in, and the lake was, well, sinking.

  It was lower than I’d ever seen it.

  That meant water restrictions over the summer. It meant watering one day a week and Mom sticking an egg timer in the shower.

  But it meant something else, too.

  It meant this tree, the old fire tree — the stuff of photos and stories and a hundred crayon drawings — was suddenly reaching up from the deep with its spindly fingers.

  I stared down through the water at my feet, at the platform, at the pegs that spiraled down and down into the dark.

  Old Lower Grange was down there. It had always been there, but now it was right below me. Now I was standing on something that was actually connected to it, something I had seen in photos and heard about in stories, and there was a road, right here, leading down, saying, Come on.

  How deep could it be?

  How far could it be?

  How far?

  A thought lodged in my throat like a stone.

  I looked out across the water, all the way to the shoreline, and my heart sank.

  It was so far. It seemed obvious now. Maybe it was because I’d already swum it once. Maybe it was because the shore was bigger and wider and made it easier to get a sense of things.

  It didn’t matter why. It was a long way. Just getting here I’d probably swum farther than I ever had before.

  But I didn’t feel like patting myself on the back for that.

  I was bigger now and stronger, but I was still an idiot.

  I was in Old Lower Grange, where the water was dropping to meet the town. I was on top of the fire tree. From here, I could dive down into my own secret Atlantis.

  But right now, all I could think about was how I was going to make it back to shore.

  It was getting late. I needed to be over there. I needed to be on the shore, pulling on m
y socks and my shoes, bumping my way back down the hill.

  It would be easier this time, I told myself. It was always easier on the way back, when you knew you didn’t have to turn around and do the whole thing again.

  I would breaststroke it. Maybe some sidestroke. Survival strokes, Mr. Henshall called them.

  That seemed like a goal worth aiming for — survival.

  I would keep my head up and my stroke long and slow and relaxed. I would have Mr. Henshall in my head and my eyes fixed on my bright-orange towel, all the way over there in the distance, and I would swim absolutely straight, adding not one extra foot to the left or right.

  I pushed off from the tree.

  The tiredness returned almost immediately — not the welcome buzzing in my limbs I felt after a good, hard swim, but a deadening heaviness.

  I put it out of my mind.

  I would think about something else. My arms and legs knew what to do all on their own. So I would take my mind somewhere else, and before I knew it, I’d be all the way over there.

  Old Lower Grange. That was it. I would swim it as if I were walking the streets of the old town, and they would carry me out.

  I called up the mosaic, the maps piled in layers in the box under my bed.

  The fire tree behind me, the shore ahead. And the sun — which way was the sun? That put the dam wall to the east, the bike path to the south.

  In my head, the map spun and turned, roads and buildings bumping from slot to slot. It was a puzzle — that was it — one of those frames with the little plastic tiles you move around piece by piece until the picture snaps into focus.

  New Lower Grange southeast, to the right of the hill. The fire tree kind of north.

  And me, swimming south. South-ish.

  So that would put me somewhere near the bakery, Il Panino. If I turned right, I’d be heading toward school. Left, and I’d hit the old sawmill.

  Straight ahead, and I’d pass through the playground and the second bakery whose name I always forgot and the barber’s.

  I floated over the top of them all, heading for the town square, seeing it laid out below me in a thousand colorful pieces.

  Long and slow and relaxed.

  Just head for the orange.

  Past the town square now, over the clock tower, where I would not think about fiery crashes and tiny Liam in the backseat, all curled-up fingers and toes, not knowing that everything in his brand-new world was already about to change. On up to the rambling old house that would become Country Crafts, where his father would one day grip my wrist so tightly it hurt. Then down Main Street to where bakery number three would soon make way for our sparkling, safe, and Band-Aid-filled pool.

  How far was that now? Half the town? I looked out to the shore and then back at the tree. My heart lifted. More than halfway. Maybe three-quarters.

  But it was so slow, this grandma breaststroke. I was getting cold and tired.

  I had to get there.

  I nodded to myself. I would swim the rest. I would keep my head down and get it over and done with quickly. A few more minutes and I’d be there.

  I kicked off and reached back for the first stroke. Long and easy, I began. Long and —

  Suddenly, my breath caught in my throat. There was a sharp pain in my thigh, as if something had grabbed it. It stopped kicking, wouldn’t do what I told it. It hung there flapping, wooden and sluggish and throbbing with pain.

  I was so heavy all of a sudden, so useless. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get a breath. Which side was I turning? Which way?

  I turned my head, flailing, and sucked in a deep gulp, but it was water I got instead of sky, instead of air.

  I was going under, felt myself start to go, my leg dragging me down, and I waited, reaching for something, anything, with my good leg and my foot and the ends of my toes.

  But there was nothing. It was too deep, and my head was going under, the water closing, knitting itself back together above me. And I was an idiot, because for a second I thought I saw someone running, waving, coming across the water, mouth open, shouting.

  But there was no one, and I knew that. People don’t run, don’t wave, don’t make their way to you across the water.

  I was under, and my mouth was open, taking in great gulps of lake like it was oxygen, and I thought, Oh, a pool is good; it’s safe and convenient; it has lifeguards. And then, Work, leg, work, but it wouldn’t, and if Mr. Henshall had been there, it would have listened, because everyone listens to him, even when he doesn’t make any kind of sense.

  And it’s crazy the things you see, you think, when you’re going under, because there was someone and Mr. Henshall and Work, leg, work, but it wouldn’t. And as the water folded me down into itself, there were flashes of color, of blue or maybe green or maybe a kind of greeny-blue, and what do you call that in-between color, anyway? And a mosaic with jagged edges — should have trimmed them, careless. And I wondered if this is what you see, if this is what you think when you’re sinking, when you’re going under all the way down into the silty dark, and how I wish, I wish I had a sword that gave me dominion over the lands.

  Or even just a stick.

  A stick.

  Oh, a stick, up there in the light.

  The good light.

  Following me down.

  My fingers, finding it.

  That voice yelling, that mouth open, rushing toward me.

  A platform up above me, something to grab on to, something to clamber onto, something to be safe.

  So I tried, dragging my traitor leg behind me like a broken wing, and he leaned out toward me, held the stick, said, holdonjustholdonthat’sall; said, Stay back, Cassie. I’m serious. Don’t make me break your nose.

  That was from Mr. Henshall as well.

  Don’t get too close, he always said. Don’t let a drowning person drag you down with them.

  It was most important to secure your own safety at all times. It was reach to rescue and defensive posture and break their nose if you have to (don’t quote me on this).

  I held on to the stick, on to the branch, and I didn’t grab on to the platform, which was a raft, of sorts. I let myself be dragged through the water, and then we were in the shallows, and he was hauling me in, all the way to the good solid ground — the voice, the mouth, the someone.

  Liam.

  I sat in the mud while he pulled the raft up onto the bank.

  What are you doing here? I wanted to ask, and How did you get here? and Where did you get that raft thing? But I couldn’t say anything just yet, could only focus on getting air in and out, in and out.

  “Are you okay?” Liam sat down near me at the water’s edge.

  I nodded. I didn’t feel okay — not yet — but I knew I would soon. Eventually. Because even though my leg was still wood and there was lake in my throat, I was out now and there wasn’t any farther to sink.

  “Thanks,” I said finally. “My leg — it . . .” I made claws of my hands, gritting my teeth.

  “Cramp. I had that in the pool once. The wall was right there, and I thought I wasn’t going to make it back. Pretty scary.”

  “Yeah.” I ran one hand cautiously down my leg, probing for the pain.

  Cramp? Was that it? Nothing to do with my lungs or digging in, but just a normal cramp, like anyone could get.

  Any idiot who tried to swim out into the middle of the lake after a stick, that is.

  “You probably just went too far,” Liam said. “What were you doing out there?” He peered out across the lake. “What’s that thing?”

  “The fire tree,” I said. “That’s where I went.”

  “The fire tree?” He turned back to me quickly. “Seriously? How far is that?”

  “I don’t know. A long way.”

  He gave a low whistle. “You’re crazy. I mean, I know you’re better and everything, but . . .”

  I leaned back on my elbows. “I thought it was closer. I thought I could get there. I did get there. Then I had to get back.”
I shot him a quick look. “How long have you been here, anyway?”

  “I only saw you just there.” He pointed to a spot about halfway between the shore and the tree. “You were doing the breaststroke. You looked okay. Lucky I had the raft, though.”

  I stared up the bank. His so-called raft was a row of planks bound together with rotting string and tied to the top of some rusty metal drums.

  “Where did you get that thing?” I said. “What are you even doing here?”

  Liam pulled at his shorts. From one edge, a thick, raised scar tracked down his leg like a centipede.

  “I knew you were swimming somewhere,” he said. “That day near the pool . . . your hair was wet.” He picked up a stone and skimmed it out across the water. It skipped once, twice, then sank.

  “Dad made the raft,” he said after a while. “We used to come up here all the time.”

  “Your dad made that?”

  Liam’s face clouded. “He’s not stupid. He’s just —”

  “I didn’t mean that,” I said quickly. “I meant I didn’t know you came up here. You and him.”

  “Oh.” Liam picked up a leaf and tore down the center along its knobbly spine. “Well, we don’t anymore. Mom said it was better not to remind him. He gets . . . worked up.”

  I followed his gaze out to the lake, to where the clock tower would be if the map in my head was right.

  Liam crushed the leaf in his hand, releasing the sharp smell of eucalyptus, and stood up.

  “I’d better go. Mom likes me to stop in, see how he’s doing.”

  “Yeah. I should get back.” I rocked forward into a squat, then creaked slowly to my feet.

  While I pulled my clothes on, Liam dragged the raft behind a tree a little farther along the shoreline.

  “I can’t believe this is still in one piece,” he said. “Sort of.” He grinned as a chunk of rotting wood broke off one side. “I forgot how much I like it here. The pool gets so crowded.”

  I nodded. “Tell me about it.”

  He scratched at the ground with the rescue stick, dragging a long wavy line through the dirt. For a moment, I thought he was going to say something, but then he shrugged. He gathered his shorts around him, and I followed him up through the trees toward the fence, where his bike lay, resting against mine.