The Impermanent Surface of Lake Scintillate
by Marie Croke
In the center of our neighborhood, inside the green where the mowers keep the grass trim and the signs say NO BOATS ALLOWED, is our lake. It's a small lake; eight acres, give or take, with crawdad mounds and snails dotting its weathered edge. The surface sparkles at dawn. At dusk. Under moonlight. Under lamplight. Glitter coats its surface, clogs the bank, dots turtle backs, and smears across the grass from bare feet heading home.
For we have an exceptional lake, a beautiful lake, a particular lake. A lake upon which we dance.
Everyone's been there, at some point or another. We all know the rules, as if the moment we call the neighborhood home, they cling to our mind, like the glitter does our toes.
Do not wear your shoes on the lake surface. For the lake wishes to touch the real you, to feel your needs and desires.
Do not pretend to be that which you aren't. For the lake will send a wave to crush you under the weight when it discovers your deception.
And, especially, do not dive. For the lake is shallow, in more ways than one.
Our secret lake is where the light sparkles so deeply, so thoroughly, that we can step our bare feet against the water, dance on its morphing surface, feel it shiver beneath our soles as we play tag. We'll meet once school lets out, our bookbags falling by the wayside, our bikes sagging against the freshly mowed grass, our minds awash in thoughts straining to be our own, but never truly being so.
We'll shout across the water, our voices echoing, echoing, sometimes getting a response, often falling into the wide-mouthed chasm that is the air, swallowed and silenced before anyone has a chance to take up the cry, repeating until the echo reverberates long past when the original shouter has gone home. Other times, the lake is a cacophony of shouts and squeals, none of them truly understandable, yet all of them individual. Or, at least, attempting to be.
The lake is never silent. For even if all are asleep, the echoes murmur on.
Sometimes the glittering surface of the lake is thick, tacky, like molasses or honey coating our feet. Sometimes it's slippery like soap and we slide around, unable to get purchase, but laughing all the same. Some days the water is sharp, each and every spot that glitters like razors slicing across our bare skin.
But we never know what the surface will feel like before we step out onto it. Before we subject ourselves to it.
There exists, within the glitter, a reflective and impressionable glow. Difficult to see during the daylight, this glow is vibrant in the darkness. From it, our bodies leave pathways, frail apparitions that remember where we ran and frolicked, how we twirled or fell. The lake knows our history, it seems to be whispering. For us, it's difficult to tell at times whether we are about to crash into another living soul, or whether it is someone else's phantom coasting across the surface toward us.
Our lake is addictive. When we lay our heads against our pillows at night, we hear the murmur of the shouts and see those phantoms patterning across the lake's scintillating surface, some echoes more prolific than others. Some of us more addicted than others.
It is beautiful, our lake. Our secret that is not so secret.
Everyone wants into our neighborhood so they might dance upon its surface as well. So the boundaries push ever outward. The lake is greedy, making sure to sparkle stronger, even on the moonless nights, even during cloudy days when no fractured glitters should ripple across its surface. Yet, glitter proliferates, as glitter does.
There are times when someone falls through. The surface abruptly not tacky, nor slippery, nor bouncy. Just a gulping swallowing hole that fills as suddenly as it drained.
We don't talk about the one who falls, who gets claimed by the water. The glittering surface is far too bright to peer through, to see what might have happened, whether they struggle, whether they suffocate... or need an escape from the endless shouts, the echoing phantoms, the limited space on the lake's surface that becomes more and more clogged, less and less of us standing out.
It's easy to keep dancing, keep singing, keep playing when it's only one of you who disappears. When the lake distracts us so, sparkling, glittering, shining.
We mourn for a day. Maybe. If we noticed.
Mostly, we forget, their name on the tip of our tongues in the days following the lake swallowing them. Then even that becomes lost. We forget to check to see if they've returned. The pathways of their dancing, their ghostly vigil, fades and fades, overrun by the rest of us crisscrossing the surface of the lake.
Until one day, any evidence that they'd ever been there…is gone.
Marie Croke is a fantasy, science-fiction, and horror writer with over 40 stories in publication. She is a graduate of the Odyssey workshop, first place winner in the Writers of the Future contest, and her work has been published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex Magazine, Diabolical Plots, Zooscape, Fireside and Cast of Wonders among many other fine magazines and anthologies. She has worked as a slush editor for multiple magazines, including khōréō, and has written reviews for Apex Magazine and articles for writers for the SFWA blog. She is also an Acquisitions Editor at Dark Matter INK. She lives in Maryland with her family and enjoys crocheting, kayaking, and aerial dancing in her free time.