The Wicked Deep

by Shea Ernshaw

If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. —Loren Eiseley

“No thinking, just doing. When you think about things too long, you just talk yourself out of them.”

I have this sense that someday we won’t even remember why we were friends in the first place. She will float away like a brightly colored bird living in the wrong part of the world, and I will stay behind, gray-feathered and sodden and wingless.

“Once a Swan sister has whispered into your ear, promised the touch of her skin, you can’t resist her. She will lure you into the water then pull you under until the life spills out of you.”

Perhaps we all have some oddity, some strangeness we keep hidden along our edges, things we see that we can’t explain, things we wish for, things we run from.

“There’re always reasons to stay,” he says. “You just need to find one reason to leave.”

I take him from her, and he lets me. He kisses me like he wants me more than he’s ever wanted anything. And for a second, none of it feels real. I am not swimming in the harbor, wrapped in Bo’s arms, his mouth sweeping over mine, my heart pattering wildly against the cage of my chest. We are somewhere else, far away from here, coiled against each other under a warm sun with warm sand at our backs and warm breath on our lips. Two bodies bound together. Fearing nothing.

Love is an enchantress—devious and wild. It sneaks up behind you, soft and gentle and quiet, just before it slits your throat.

I might love him. And it has tilted my universe off center, the frayed edges of my life starting to unravel. Loving someone is dangerous. It gives you something to lose.

I stop at the old oak tree at the center of the grove—the ghost tree, its leaves shivering in the wind. I press my palm against the heart carved into the trunk. I stare up through the limbs, a theater of stars blinking back at me. It reminds me of the night so many years ago, lying beneath this tree with the boy I once loved: Owen Clement. He held a knife in his hand and carved the heart there to mark our place in the world. Our hearts bound together. Eternity pumping through our veins. It was on that same night that he asked me to marry him. He had no ring or money or anything to offer except himself. But I said yes. A week later my sisters and I were drowned in the harbor.

If only love were so easily conjured, there wouldn’t be so many broken hearts,

I know there is more meaning in his answer than what he’s willing to reveal. But my head still feels foggy, my body wanting to drag me back into my dreams. So I ask one more question before I drift off. “What happened to you?” “I lost someone I loved.”