Leona of the Lake

The lake had a way of swallowing sound.

Even the wind seemed to hush when it passed over its glassy surface, as if afraid to disturb whatever slept beneath. Locals said the place had no bottom, that it sank into some ancient chasm too deep for light to touch. I never believed them — not until the summer I met Leona.

I’d rented a cabin on the far side of the shore, away from the little tourist beach. My plan was to work on a backlog of design projects in peace, with nothing but the whisper of pines and the occasional loon to keep me company. The first night was uneventful. The second, too. On the third, just past midnight, I woke to the sound of water dripping inside the cabin.

It wasn’t the rhythmic patter of a leak — it was slower, deliberate. A sound like someone lifting their hand from the surface of a pool and letting the drops fall one by one onto the wood. I followed it to the front door. The lock was still bolted. I opened it.

Moonlight painted the lake silver. And there, at the edge of the dock, stood a woman.

Her hair was the color of the deep itself — black when still, but shifting to silver in the moonlight when she moved. She wore nothing but the lake’s reflection, a glistening second skin that clung to her as if the water didn’t want to let go.

She didn’t run when she saw me. She only tilted her head, the way a bird studies an insect, her eyes catching the moonlight like pale coins.

“Who are you?” I called.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped back into the water, slow and unhurried, until it rose past her waist, her ribs, her shoulders. She sank beneath the surface without a ripple, and the lake returned to its perfect stillness.

I should have been unnerved. Instead, I lay awake until dawn, replaying every detail of her — the impossible smoothness of her skin, the curve of her neck, the way her gaze seemed to press against me from across the dock.

The next day, I told myself it had been a dream. The mind makes strange pictures at night. But when I walked to the dock in the afternoon, I found a single wet footprint on the boards — longer than any woman’s should be, yet delicate in shape, the toes slightly webbed as if carved by some other order of nature.

That night, she came again.

This time she was closer, treading water just off the dock. “You came back,” I said before I could stop myself.

Her lips curved, almost a smile. “I never left.”

Her voice was soft, carrying without effort over the water. It wasn’t just a sound — it was a touch, sliding along the inside of my skull, warm and hypnotic.

“Are you… from around here?”

She laughed — a sound like bubbles rising from the deep. “I’m from here. More than you are. More than anyone is.”

When she swam closer, the moonlight revealed her eyes. They weren’t human. Not entirely. The pupils were vertical slits, like a cat’s, ringed by a shifting halo of silver and green, as though the lake itself had taken root inside her.

“Come in,” she said.

It wasn’t a request.

I hesitated. The water at night was black and cold, and yet… I felt a strange heat spreading through my chest, a tug low in my stomach. It was the kind of pull you feel when you’ve already decided to do something dangerous and are just waiting for your body to catch up.

The moment my feet touched the water, warmth shot through me, banishing the chill. Her eyes never left mine as I waded in. She stayed just far enough that I had to keep going, deeper and deeper, until the bottom dropped away.

She reached out. I took her hand.

It wasn’t like touching human skin. Her fingers were smooth as glass, cool but alive, pulsing faintly under my grip like the skin of a fish. And when she pulled me toward her, I went willingly.

The lake closed around us. The stars above blurred. Her hair spread out in a dark halo, and the water clung to her in trembling beads. She didn’t kiss me — not in the human way. Instead, she moved her face close to mine until our foreheads touched, and in that instant, I felt her inside my head.

Not thoughts — sensations. Memories of swimming through vast caverns lit by green fire. The taste of rain after lightning. The crushing weight of the deep, where no man had ever been, and the endless patience of things that waited there.

When I woke, I was lying on the dock. My clothes were dry. The only proof of her was the faint smell of wet stone on my skin and the deep ache of longing that had settled into my bones.

I told myself to forget it.

I didn’t.
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