The Deeper Water, Chapter Two

Addison Belle dug her fingers in the mud, sifting through the unappetizing, sticky substance until she had closed in on the item she sought. She pulled it out, holding it up so that she and the man hunched over her shoulder would be afforded a better view of it.

"Hmm," he said, pulling the lavender robe closer about himself, "I can't say that I have seen anything quite like- what you're describing."

Addison shrugged. She hid the darkening of her face by peering down at the ground again. The water was shallower here than she remembered it being before. Wondering where the water had gone, she sunk her fingers deeper into the mud than they had been before, relishing the quick suction as she unearthed them.

"I don't think anyone else noticed it," she confided. "I just- I thought maybe you might, seeing as to- you're so different," she trailed off, substituting silence in place of words she no longer seemed able to locate. 

"Tell you what," Jack offered, "if I see anything like- a worm? You say? In a ear? If I see an ear-worm," and although she expected his face to lighten in a tolerant grin, it remained pleasantly solemn, "I will tell you."

"It was a demon, I think," Addison said. His seriousness towards her emboldened her to push on, and she did.

"Not an ear-worm," she informed him. "A demon."

The sun sat in the sky, a distant observer with a white-hot, attentive gaze. That gaze managed to penetrate every crevice, every fold, every waiting inch of the world beneath it; even if Addison had felt the urge to escape it, she would have found herself unable to. The sky was blue frosting and the lake unrolled itself before her gaze.

The preacher had talked about Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee, only then that water had been gripped in the fist of a storm. The disciples had sat in a boat, a similar fist gripping their stomach.

Addison supposed they must have been a little touched in the hand. Addison supposed Jesus must have been down-right mad.

Still, it was a nice story. It was much more pleasant to dwell on than demons and ear-worms and even a strange man in a lavender bathrobe, so the girl rested there, the water ravaging the under-seat of her denim shorts. It lapped against her bare legs and told tales as it did so of fish it had seen and warm bodies it had cradled in its cool depths, and of how many days the sun had burned over its surface and of how many nights the moon had skimmed gently along. It remembered them to her in fond, whispered tones. 

She supposed she must be madder than Jesus, and turned her attention back to Jack. He had hiked up the bath robe around his hairy ankles and further up his legs, coming in further until she was staring at his back.

"They have a mid-week service tomorrow here," Addison Belle informed him. 

"They? A mid-week service?" Jack turned around, his eyebrows querulous.

"The church," she said. "It meets here on Sunday and on Wednesday, and they sing songs and the pastor-"

What did he do? He spoke holy fire, and it baptized the listeners and it made her squirm more than hell-fire might. He forced out demons with a word and shove beneath the waves. With only a sharpened tongue as his weapon, he slipped words in between joints and marrows, eviscerated, unraveled length of intestines and ripped open rib-cage to set the imprisoned heart-bird free.

Addison wasn't sure how to say it, so she shrugged and hoped her silence said all of that. Unless he was as mad as she was, he wouldn't enjoy it very much.

"The pastor pastors, I'm sure," Jack supplied. "And very well if you're into that sort of thing."

"I don't know if I am or not," Addison said. 

The sun seemed to stoop down lower, the snooping, prying animal, hunching over like the Holy Ghost-Dove. It stayed far enough away so as to avoid landing on her shoulder, though, and no holy ghost dusting of feathers brushed against her cheek to disturb her.

She sighed again, attempting to stand. The water beneath her inspired the ground to mimic it. At least, that was where Addison laid the blame as she leaned against the arm Jack offered her.  

"I just thought I'd warn you," Addison said. "I'm not sure what they'd think if they saw a man in a lavender bath-robe hanging around."

"They'd try and baptize me, very likely," Jack said.  

"Well," Addison said, looking behind at the shore. It sat there waiting, quiet and obedient, loyal as a waiting dog. "I should probably go home. Before Mama wonders where I am."

"Right," Jack said. "She's the one with the broomstick."

A small smile lifted the corner of Addison's mouth and lightened her face.

"What would you do if your child brought home a naked stranger?" Addison responded. "I don't blame her."

"Yes, well," he remarked, "all the same she left- quite an impression."

"Where did you come from?" Addison asked.

She had not consciously assembled the question. It had cobbled itself together from curiosity and had ambled, slowly and lazily, from the small corner of her mind where it had been born, to the tip of a tongue that had not been seeking it to begin with. It was a nosy question, it was a prying question, it might have been a personal question. It was also a very good question. People do not, after all, typically appear, apparently from nowhere, naked in a lake.

"Right now, I'd like to keep my little secrets," he said. His eyes were somewhere else; his entire being, for an instant, teetered between here and there, and she was entirely surprised that he did not fall into there so completely so as to no longer be here.

"Okay," she agreed.

Then, supposing it was rude to leave the conversation there and disappear without saying anything to the strange, mysterious man, she added, "See you."

That was on Tuesday; he had washed up on Monday. The next day was, if it went as it usually does, scheduled to be Wednesday- and Addison fell somewhere between apathetic and antipathetic when it came to Wednesdays. 

That night, she listened to her mother snoring- worn out from her latest encounter. He had been so reluctant to leave that Addison had chased him out of the house herself, swinging the same broomstick that her mother had threatened Jack with, and shouting obscenities so lewd and colorful that the older woman seemed to have lost her ability to speak entirely.

"Th-that was-that was-uncalled for and-"

"You chased Jack out with the broom," Addison encountered. "And he didn't do nothin' but ask for some clothes."

"Jack?"

"The one who got your bath-robe," Addison reminded her. "Anyway- what do you go and bring them home for anyway?"

"You watch your mouth," her mother said, and at first she seemed swollen with rage. It filtered out thought, and she returned to normal- a limp, dirty dish-rag of a human being, a passing gust of wind filling up a skin-suit stretched over a skeleton-frame.

Addison went to sleep, and the stretched, gaunt face haunted her all the way there, swinging with more force than any broom-stick had a right to. It chased her all the way into Wednesday.