Breaking the Surface
Written by Rebecca Carlyle
The fire crackled and hissed at her from across the room, the orange light flickering upon the stone walls. She arrived late in the evening a week ago; it was too dark to take in her surroundings. A friend of hers had asked her to look after their cousin’s cabin for two weeks, and she jumped at the opportunity to get out of town—a break from the hustle and bustle of city life was much needed.
Unsure of what to pack for her extended stay away from home, she stuffed her duffle bag with everything she thought she could possibly need. Warm clothes to cool clothes, sunscreen and bug spray, toothpaste and shampoo, she wanted to be prepared for anything. She nabbed a shower towel and a pillow from the house, raided the PopTarts and some chips from the pantry, and loaded her bags into the trunk of her Silk Blue Metallic Jetta before setting off on her journey.
The drive lasted three hours into the mountains, weaving her through the pine trees and down roads she never knew existed. She rolled down the window to enjoy the fresh air. Although she had never been up this way herself, she did recognize a few pull-over spots from her friend's Facebook. About a third of the way through there was the mom-and-pop BBQ house they always stopped at for lunch, and about an hour after that was the Starbucks they always used for bathroom breaks.
About two hours into the drive, she lost all cell reception, forcing her to pull over and retrieve a paper map from the glove compartment, a gift from her chronically over-prepared parents. She thought her parents silly when they had given it to her, thinking she would never need it. The city was a grid, and the only place you would lose cell service is the underground parking garages. Her mother’s face popped into her mind as she unfolded the crisp paper and tried to figure out which way she was supposed to hold it. It took her awhile to find where she was currently parked among the tangles of so many different colored lines.
Once she found where she was on the map it was pretty simple to figure out where to turn off and which long, winding driveway to take. However, she didn’t turn her music back up and she frequently checked where she was in relation to where she needed to go. The last few roads had no streetlights on them and she had to drive with her cab light on in order to read the map that she held flush to the steering wheel. When she arrived at the single story—possibly one room—wood paneled cabin, the brass key was exactly where she was told it would be: under a loose stone from the peony-lined walkway.
The first night was cold, and she didn’t know where anything was in the dark. Of course the one thing she forgot to pack in her bags was a flashlight. She thought of using the flashlight app on her phone, but she had killed the battery letting her phone search for service. She fumbled through the rooms, letting her hands run along the walls, feeling for the switches that never announced their presence to her fingers. She finally found the bed, collapsing on top of the blankets, wafts of dust drifting around her and letting herself succumb to sleep.
From the depths of her slumber, her mind felt weighted down, burdened with all the stress she had been feeling lately. She swam through them, pricking each stress bubble with a needle and listening to them as they hissed, losing pressure. She began floating, as if the air she released had filled her up like a balloon. Weightless and relaxed, she felt the tension leave her and let the ebbing of her mind swirl her around.
The next morning, she woke refreshed and decided to start by exploring the four-room cabin: bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room. It was small, with barely the basics stocked. The fireplace had a stack of logs ready to light—one or two would easily warm the small space. The kitchen window looked out into the backyard which butted against an incredibly blue lake. Throughout the day she found herself drawn to the window, gazing at it. It reminded her of a sapphire as it sparkled in the light of the clear sun. Her grandmother always had sea glass hanging in the windows and they glinted when the sun hit them just right.
Looking about herself, she wondered when was the last time that the cabin had housed anyone. She decided to get a fire going so that she wouldn’t have to learn how to do so after the heat of the day had disappeared. It took awhile as she had to hunt down the matches first. They were hidden in a kitchen drawer. Feeling the heat on her fingertips when striking the matches made her flinch. She understood she wasn’t going to spontaneously catch fire, but the irrational fear remained causing her heart to leap when she struck a match. She grew up with a gas fireplace and had never needed to start an actual fire, besides using a lighter to start the pilot.
A seemingly long time later, a small flame finally caught and she carefully placed the screen back in front of the fireplace. She expected it to roar into life like it did in the movies, but merely crackled quietly.
Consistently for four nights she awoke before the sun to find that she was absolutely frigid. At first she tried to sleep through it, merely rolling over and burrowing her face in her pillow from home. She learned to prep herself by wearing sweats, a thermal shirt, and two layers of socks to bed. Even so, she awoke shivering. On the fifth night, she crept out into the kitchen to make herself some scaldingly hot tea and perched herself by the fireplace. Although the flames were gone, it still put off some warmth. She eventually fell asleep on the hearth, waking the next morning with stiff muscles. She had originally decided not to dig through too many of their personal belongings, feeling uncomfortable with going through their effects. However, her chilled skin and achy neck persuaded her it was necessary to go through the closets looking for extra blankets. She found a thick wool blanket in the back of the bedroom closet, behind musty winter coats and placed it on the foot of the bed.
She opened the front door and took a step outside. She had been wanting to go exploring through the surrounding forest, but had worried she would get lost. The day before she had lost an unknown amount of time looking out the window, trying to track the pathway from the house to the lake. Maybe today was the day. The crisp morning air wrapped around her small frame, making her very aware of how thin her yoga leggings were and how loosely-knit her sweater was. She immediately retreated inside.
Instead, she meandered into the kitchen and toasted a PopTart. The strawberry jam that oozed between her teeth was a simple pleasure that paired perfectly with sitting at the kitchen window, staring longingly at the water. Her mind wandered, imagining fins slicing through the water playfully spraying the mermaid perched on the dock.
After rinsing the crumbs and a smudge of jam off of her plate, she wandered between the three main rooms aimlessly, looking for anything to do. She walked in circles, her eyes wandering, searching for something to hone in on. The bookcase in the living room was crammed full of cheap pulp mysteries. She could read a book she supposed. She always read the reviews for books in magazines and online articles and would buy them, but never had time to actually read them. She brought a few of them with her with the hopes that she would finally read them, but she wasn’t so sure that was how she wanted to spend her time. Instead, she opted to read the back flaps of the books displayed on the dusty, pinewood case across from the window. As she tipped the books off of their shelves, she wondered if the books had ever been read—some of the bindings were smooth and the pages were unwrinkled.
That night, she found herself going to bed fairly early, not because she was tired, but because she didn’t know what else to do. Her muscles were sore from sitting on the stone floor, slouching over piles of books. As she stood, she tried to brush the floor indents out of her skin. The sun was barely down, but the twin sized bed called her name. Luckily the blanket she had found in the closet earlier was warmer than the old, worn-out quilt she had covering her the night before. She awoke some time later. The silence of the woods was surprisingly loud. Rustling branches, crickets, twigs snapping—all things that put her on edge. She sat up, pulling the sheets and blankets around her shoulders before rising from the creaky mattress. Her socks padded the sound of her feet sliding across the floors throughout the cabin.
Wrapped in blankets, she found herself standing by the window in the kitchen, not quite sure how she had gotten there. The fire had died down, but the embers still cast a glow throughout the room, lending just enough light for her to see. The lake was luminous in the moonlight—serene and picturesque. The water rippled as if something had disturbed the surface. She thought maybe a fallen leaf or a fish from below, but couldn’t help noticing that the rippling moved in time with her breathing. It was like a meditation, watching the water sway back and forth and forth and back. She wasn’t sure if her reflection in the window was just her sleepy mind making everything appear cloudy, and the air seem stale and the walls stifling.
She didn’t remember leaving the kitchen, but by the time her mind had refocused on her surroundings, she was pushing the cabin door open. The blankets and sheets fell from her shoulders, leaving a trail behind her. The wet of dew covered leaves and ground barely perturbed her as she passed by. She pushed branches to the side as she moved through the forest.
She emerged onto the edge of the lake, her body still despite the surrounding cold. The breeze kissed the top of the still water, setting the lake into iridescent waves before her. She felt the impulse to throw herself into the depths, to feel the cool water seep into her skin and fill her with its serenity.
The water beckoned to her, calling her name, with the early morning mist echoing it back. She moved forward onto the short dock, the chipped wood planks almost startling her out of her reverie; but the swaying of the dock beneath her bare feet moved with the rhythm that pulsed in her veins. The wind pulled at her clothes, ushering her even closer to the end and pulling her feet off the edge of the dock. She was weightless for a moment before plunging feet-first into cold silence.
The air pummeled from her lungs, escaping in large bubbles about her face. Still, she continued to descend further, deeper, her eyelids refusing to open. Her body felt frantic without air, craving it. Her cotton pajama pants and thermal top were heavy and weighed her down, making it difficult to move her legs through the water. She was torn. Despite her body begging for the surface, something told her to go deeper, pulling her to the bottom of the lake.
This was real silence, unlike the city where it was always buzzing outside and unlike the woods where there was always buzzing in her mind. Everything was quiet, muted, soft. The lake water caressed her skin and sunk into her pores. She let the lake push her body around, swaying in a way that felt like an up and down motion, even though she was sinking.
She continued to descend until her feet hit the bottom, her soles settling among the lakeweeds onto smooth, algal rocks. Her eyes opened—everything was dark. Although the moon created some light to see by up above, here beneath the water was nothing. Her lungs burned but she didn’t push off the ground. She felt her toes take root around the rocks, anchoring her there. Her hair flowed all about her, and her weightless arms floated in front of her. The pressure in her lungs faded and she closed her eyes once more, her heartbeat slowing to pulse in time with the swaying, silent lake.
