Beneath the Still Water

CONTENT ADVISORY: (SPOILER ALERT!) This story includes sensitive themes—suicide, infant loss, mental health, violence. Reader discretion advised.

The old sycamore still stood as a gnarled gatehouse to the family cabin deep in the Carolina woods. Our cinnamon hair licked our cheeks when the stifling summer wind blew past, as if hurrying us along. Ahead, the cabin rested atop its slope, just as gloriously moody as the smoky wooded backdrop surrounding it, with moss and vine creeping between base and gable—the forest’s way of reclaiming what was owed.

Paving the winding path were stacked stone talismans we’d offered to the woodland gods as girls. I loved it here. It felt like a witch’s cottage and home.

“Dani, help with the fire,” Lorna called from the cabin. Even our voices were identical.

“I’ll do the fire—” my grin turned impish, “if you clean out the spiders.”

Lorna’s face whitened like freshly bleached linen. “You’re so mean, Dani.”

“What are twins for?” I smirked. “Remember, it’s us—you and me—”

“Against the world,” she finished in an exasperated grumble.

“And don’t forget it,” I winked, heading inside to the hearth. While Lorna clattered around in the kitchen, I slipped down the hall, forced my swimsuit over my baby bump, and ducked out the back door as silent as a summer breeze.

Giddiness bubbled inside me as I neared the willow, weeping over the lake. Its lowest branches kissed the water, framing the old tire swing swaying inside the leafy veil like it was summoning me closer. Who was I to argue with the willow?

“Dani!” Lorna called from the porch, our mother’s old apron clinging to her like a melancholy hug. “Cam texted. He’ll be here for supper. Are you going to help with the food? He’s your fiancé!”

I sighed into the whispers the willow leaves made as they rustled together. “In a few minutes. I want to take a dip first!”

Lorna crossed her arms. “You shouldn’t be swinging on that old thing. What if the rope snaps?”

“Worry witch!” I called towards the cabin.

Lorna folded our heart shaped lips into a frown. “Wild witch! Don’t take too long. You’re eating for two now. And NO diving!”

I rolled my eyes, but my hand reached instinctively for my belly.

“Three months to go little Lila,” I whispered, pressing gently until the baby shifted. “Want to go for a swim with mommy?”

I hopped awkwardly off the swing and walked to my favorite diving spot by the cattails, taking careful steps on the steep embankment.

“Auntie Lorna is such a worry wort,” I crooned, snapping on my swim cap and nose plugs. I dove off the edge, my body slipping under the dark surface as I’d done hundreds of times before. But this time, the extra baby weight propelled me further than I’d ever descended.

The last thing I saw before oblivion took me was the jagged rocks at the bottom of the lake, welcoming me home.

*****

“Cam.” I nudged his shoulder. Cam groaned and rolled over. I pressed him harder this time. “Cam! Is she being too quiet?”

“Go back to sleep, Lorna. The baby’s fine,” he muttered.

I leaned closer to the baby monitor, craning my ears for any sound through the static. “I’m just going to go check.”

“Knock yourself out.”

I crept along the newly carpeted hallway towards the nursery, the hair on my arm rising as I neared the door. It was a familiar feeling, a habit born from a growing sense of unease I’d brought upon myself.

When Dani drowned five years ago, I was left with the shadow of her absence, and her fiancé. Cam stayed with me because I wore my twin’s face remarkably well, and I stayed because being with him helped keep her alive. I knew it. He knew it.

We never talked about it.

Just one more crack we’d cover with duct tape and never mention again.

When Layla was born, it was like an invisible hand ripped off the tape, revealing fissures that had been growing, unnoticed, deep and dark and ravenous. An empty pit inside of me that no amount of pretending could fill.

Moving to the old family cabin had been my idea. “A peaceful and educational place to raise little Layla,” I’d said. “A fresh start.”

I don’t know if I’d meant it or if I’d really cared. All I knew was that I was incomplete. A broken half to a shattered whole. At my core, I was an endless scream demanding to be near her again, to find a way to feed the aching void that had moved in, the day Dani left.

The hinges on the nursery door creaked softly as I inched it open. Layla was sleeping with an angelic expression on her perfect little face. I placed a hand on my baby’s chest, allowing my anxiety to slink back to its dark corner with every rise and fall. Layla’s chin quivered in some wordless protest at my touch. My lips pressed gently against her tiny forehead, and I stooped to pick up her hand-quilted baby blanket that had slipped to the floor.

My heart stopped.

“What the hell,” I breathed, pressing into the soggy carpet. It sunk with my weight, water squeezing between my toes. I stifled a gasp, scanning the darkness. Silvery moonlight slipped through the window, revealing a trail of shimmery, wet footprints.

It was happening again.

I scooped up little Layla, eyes darting around the room, looking for anything amiss. Nothing moved, save for the lazy flutter of the curtain as the cool night breeze wafted in to ripple gooseflesh across my bare arms.

“D-Dani?”

Silence smiled back at me.

“Dani?” My whisper didn’t falter this time as my feet carried me across the nursery to where the moonlight beckoned. “Is that you?”

The woods outside were still. No breeze rustled the cattails. No crickets sang their mournful melodies to a listless night. No comforting glow of fireflies blinking in the dark.

Nothing.

Except the willow branches, swaying with the motion of the old tire swing moving back and forth.

My nose touched cool glass, my breath fogging my view, making me question what my senses knew. I swiped a quivering hand across the condensation, wetness lingering on my palm.

The tire swing was as still as the night surrounding it.

I edged away from the window, cold threading its way up my spine.

A grunting coo startled me into subconscious action. I gently bobbed little Layla, patting her back with soothing motions. Her eyelids drooped closed and her restless movements stilled.

Just like the old tire swing.

A creak in the corner signaled movement as the rocking chair started to sway.

“Dani… is that you?” My voice wobbled as I lowered Layla into the crib. “Seriously, Dani. You’re scaring me. Why won’t you just answer? Can you not talk?” I rolled my eyes. “Of course you can’t talk. This whole thing is nuts… Maybe Cam was right.”

The rocker glided back and forth.

I took a breath and stared right at it. “You can’t do that again, Dani. You could’ve drowned her—”

Unnatural wind ripped through the room, knocking frames off the wall. I shielded Layla in my arms as the rocker slammed backwards into the drywall. Once. Twice.

“Dani, stop!” I cried, as another gust caught my hair, lashing it across my face. “I’m sorry!”

As suddenly as it started, the wind calmed, leaving only the wild thumping of my heart and the steady, rhythmic glide of the rocking chair. I sank down against the opposite wall, watching its movements. “So… you can’t talk. But you can still listen.” A grin tugged at my lips. “For once.”

I talked to my sister until the crickets stopped chirping and my voice was gone. When I finally drifted to sleep, it was to the gentle sway of the rocker.

“What are you doing, Lorna?”

Cam’s voice jerked me out of some troubled slumber. I winced at the sunlight streaming through the window. “I must’ve… fallen asleep—”

Layla’s cry cut me off as Cam grabbed her from the crib. My insides twisted.

“Cam, the footprints are back.”

Cam’s face hardened into something indiscernibly cold. “I don’t know what you want me to say to that, Lorna.”

“Feel the carpet. That blanket. They’re soaked!”

He didn’t move. “This obsession isn’t healthy.”

“It’s her, Cam!” frustration bubbled in my gut as I reached for Layla. “It’s Dani!”

“I can’t listen to this again.” Cam snapped, handing the baby over. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing with this shit, but it ends now, Lorna.”

“It’s not me!”

“We both know you get off pretending you’re Dani,” he snapped, then flinched.

Something in me unhinged along with my jaw.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that—”

“You really want to get into which one of us pretends I’m Dani more?” I hissed, wishing the venom in my tone was a tangible thing I could fling at him.

Cam’s face mottled with angry streaks of red. “Don’t be stupid. You’re nothing like Dani.”

The words hit like a slap.

Cam’s face smoothed into the mask of careful indifference he wore so well. “I’m going to make some coffee.”

The finality of his statement rang in my head like a warning. I wanted to argue more, but the hint of revulsion coloring the lines of his mouth clamped my own shut.

Cam paused at the door. “We’ll talk about this later.”

By nightfall, the silence between us was suffocating. Across the table, Cam wouldn’t even look at me. “Are we just not going to talk about it?”

My fingers curled around my fork. I forced my voice steady. “Talk about what?”

He slammed a fist on the table. “You think I didn’t notice you were in the nursery all night talking to that rocking chair like a—” Cam cut himself off, face twisting with the effort.

“Like a what? Say it!” I shouted.

“LIKE A FUCKING CRAZY PERSON!”

His outburst hung in the air like static. Cam rubbed his jaw, groaning into his hands. “What you’re doing isn’t natural, Lorna. You’re not acting right. And frankly—” he shifted in his chair. “I’m worried about the baby.”

I wanted to scream that he was the one being obtuse and blind to the miracle that was happening here, but my mouth had gone dry.

“I miss Dani too.” Cam’s voice was as drawn and thin as an evening shadow. “But this has to stop.”

I bristled as he touched my hand, yanking it back. His eyes hardened. “Stop this, Lorna. It’s not normal. If you don’t—” His jaw clenched. “I’m going to have to do something about it.”

Pinpricks of pain sprouted in my palm as my nails dug deep little trenches of pressure. “What’s that supposed to mean, Cameron.”

“You know what it means. I don’t want to have to do this—but the baby cam recorded you last night. It doesn’t look good. Any judge would agree.”

The world dropped from underneath my feet, cold and fast, threatening to send me on an endless spiral into that gaping hole inside me. “How could you? Doesn’t our marriage mean anything to you?!”

Cam’s fists balled. “Of course it does. But Layla’s safety comes first. Don’t force my hand. Stop with the Dani stuff. Stop talking to shit that isn’t there… just, stop. Please.”

His chair scraped as Cam got up, his expression softening as tears slipped down my cheeks.

“You have to let her go, Lorna.”

I sat, still as a stone talisman, while Cam’s threats billowed around me. I didn’t remember getting up or going about the motions of my day. A frosty haze swirled over my thoughts as I rocked Layla to sleep and shut off the nursery light.

When I slid under the covers, Cam’s body warmed the sheets, but the heat didn’t touch the ice gripping me. The cold didn’t leave when I closed my eyes. It settled over my subconscious like an ancient curse, whispering twisted truths that echoed into the void.

He’ll take the baby away. Cam will take Layla from you.

The wails sounded garbled through the monitor, but I jolted awake and hurried for the nursery.

The blood in my face fled.

Layla was lying on the floor, tangled in a puddle of soggy carpet and twisted bedding as she writhed and yowled.

I rushed to pick her up, pressing trembling fingers over her blue lips. “Shhh!” I snatched the closest blanket, bundling the infant tightly and pleading for her to quiet her cries before Cam came to investigate.

“This is not okay, Dani!” I hissed my rebuke to the mockingly empty walls. “You can’t take her out of the crib without me there!”

Silence met my anger with another one of her twisted sneers.

I narrowed my eyes at the rocker, matching its sway with my body until Layla quieted into a fussy sleep. I placed her in her crib, then switched off the baby cam.

“Dani, are you there?” My voice was barely a whisper. “Cam’s threatening to take her away from us. He thinks I’m crazy. I can see it in his eyes when he looks at me… I could really use my sister right now. I need you, Dani.”

I waited a long moment, listening to the nocturnal chorus accompanying the deep woods for something other.

Nothing.

My ribs expanded with a shuddering breath. “You have to stop, Dani. I have to stop. I miss you so much it’s killing me, but… I can’t lose Layla. Cam’s right. I have to let you go.”

Tears streamed down my face.

“I want you to leave, Dani. And don’t come back.”

Glass shrieked for a fraction of a second before the window shattered completely, blowing shards inwards into the nursery. I screamed, dropping to my knees and throwing my arms over my head. Layla howled, sending my pulse into a frantic race. Sharp bits ripped into my bare feet leaving crimson footprints on the carpet as I rushed to the crib.

Something warm trickled down the side of my face. I didn’t bother to wipe it. Sweeping little Layla into my bloody arms, I scrubbed at the red contrasting sharply against the baby’s white onesie. I didn’t know if it was her blood or mine.

“Lorna, what the hell?!”

Cam’s voice was laced with panic as he scanned from the bloody floor to me and then the baby. He snatched Layla from me, inspecting her for injuries. My arms instantly ached to hold her again, but shock rooted me in place.

“The window—it just shattered,” I stammered, holding my bloody hands out. “She didn’t mean to—”

“You could’ve killed her, Lorna!”

The emptiness gnawed at my insides like a living breathing thing, wider and deeper and colder than ever before.

“Let me see her, Cam,” I whimpered. “Please.”

Cam’s face twisted with rage and disgust. He took a protective step back. Somewhere deep inside, I felt my fingers shake loose from the ledge I’d been clinging to.

“She didn’t mean it—Dani would never hurt—”

“DANI IS GONE!”

Cold.

It was so cold.

I imagined my fingers growing icicles as I fell deeper into the void.

“Layla and I are leaving. Tomorrow,” Cam said flatly. “I’m done.”

When he carried my baby out, I sank into the rocking chair. One by one I pulled embedded shards of glass from the soles of my feet, dropping the bloodied slivers onto the carpet.

“This is your fault, Dani,” I choked, pressing a hand on the seat beside me. “What are we going to do?”

The hair on my neck prickled as an icy palm stroked the side of my face.

Instead of recoiling, I leaned into it.

“You promised it was us—you and me—against the world. You lied, Dani.” Hot tears melted against my frosty cheeks.

“I’m not whole without you.”

The cold ebbed from my face but deepened in my chest.

“Don’t go!” I shrieked.

The curtains fluttered, then stilled.

“Dani!”

I lunged up as if I could somehow stop her, my hands gripping the ledge of the windowsill. Cut glass dug into my palms as I peered towards the lake’s edge where the tire swing swayed without a breeze. My soul screamed with impossible longing that threatened to rip me in half all over again.

“Take me with you!”

The moment it left my mouth I knew I’d never wanted anything more.

I didn’t remember moving until I was standing in our bedroom. I was in a dream, suspended above myself.

A shard of glass in my palm.

Detached, I watched my bloody arm reach across Cam’s sleeping body. I didn’t flinch as crimson dripped from my hand onto the dark wet pool flowing from his neck. There was only numbness as I stroked little Layla’s head, gently smearing fresh ruby droplets from her soft cheek with my thumb.

I heard myself humming as my bare feet carried us onto the porch, leaving a wet trail of red footprints shimmering in the moonlight. Dewy grass bit into the cuts on my feet as I walked past the willow. Cattails grabbed at my nightdress. Water rose to my waist, then my chest. Layla whimpered at the cold, but I held her tight.

She would never feel cold again, soon enough.

“Hushabye, don’t you cry,” I sang to the whispering willow.

Soon, we’d kiss the water too.

I looked down at the dark surface. Dani smiled up at me, her pale hand reaching out beneath the waves to stroke her infant’s cheek.

It’s us—you and me—against the world.

A tear slid down my cheek. One last remnant of a fractured half, about to be made whole.

I took another step into the void.

“Lay you down evermore, beneath the still water.”