Lake Serena’s Siren
by Katie Schwab
My favorite memory from the night I died is the great, big splash!
I’d spent six summers at Lake Serena, just a stone’s throw from the sleepy mountain town I’d sprouted from. Close enough that Pa could spare the gas without sighing, but far enough to wish summer was forever.
Sixteen had been stormy, much like the years before it, but I could always count on Serena to lift my spirits. In the woods, I found peace. In the cabins, I found girlhood. At camp, I found me.
And in the water, on the first night of my seventh summer, I found him.
It was obvious, once I had saved him, that he’d been putting on a show. Splashing and shouting, luring me from the shore, straight to him.
“That was a nasty trick,” I said, panting, star-fished on the sand.
He smiled at me, then, a cat with the canary he caught, and simply said, “I heard you singing.” And, well. My fate was good as sealed.
Soon, those waters were ours. Every night, sneaking from our bunks, we’d swim. Or swear. Or sweat. As summer’s end neared, we grew more inseparable. We, and the slight swell of my stomach, which we were both ignoring.
“A parting gift,” he said, our last sunset of the season, “for my songbird.” He took the pendant he always wore—his shining Sisyphus signet—and slipped it over my head.
I smiled. “My sweet.”
My mistake.
That night, he rowed us out to the middle of Serena as I sang, practicing my song for the final showcase.
I don’t think about the worst memory—when he wound his string round my neck and pulled—for it hurt very much. But after he sent me overboard, meeting the water with that great, big splash! I sank into the safest place I’ve ever known.
Serena, my home, forevermore.
And now, seventy summers a spirit, I swim, and I sing.
The other boys, they’re accidents—I swear it. I forget when they can see me but cannot swim like me.
Except this summer, there’s a boy in a boat. His eyes are seafoam, and his hair, sunlight.
“What a beautiful song,” he says, as they always do. But there, resting against his chest, is some sort of pendant. Silver. Familiar.
“Strange,” I say, circling. “What is that symbol?”
Sweet, shy, he softly touches his heart. “My family crest.”
I smile. “Say, how ‘bout a swim?”
Katie Schwab is a writer, editor, and unreliable narrator from Southern California. She has a BA in Theatre, an MS in Publishing, and a spiritual PhD in Make Believe.