1. What Goes Down

As a young child, he had difficulty leaving his body. That’s where it all started. He had difficulty understanding the universe from any perspective other than his own. To him, the sun had always seemed nothing greater than a ball of light, thrown in a half-circle across the sky, lingering there just before the darkness dipped it gently back to sea.

Once, at the beach with his family, he even cried out, watching the sun sink slowly into the water, terrified that it would drown. His small hands tightened around a toy boat filled with air as his father tried to reassure him that the sun would always come back up. “It’s kind of like your boat, see?” His father placed it on the surface of the water and pushed it underwater six or seven inches, maybe more, then releasing. The miniature ship quickly floated to the top again, rocking slightly from side to side before stabilizing.

Things are different now, but the leaving is still difficult. He lives alone, in a place like a photograph out of a travel brochure, but one that most people wouldn’t call home. They come and go, weekend to weekend. He has too much time and witnesses many things most people don’t. In the evening, he sees the frozen figures posing around the fountain by the garden. He sees the sand sculptures they leave halfway standing by the swimming lake during the day. Lately, he hears the porch people play at midnight again, their song leaking through the cracks between wooden planks and into the next day, and the next day, and the next. He whispers the lyrics under his breath as he works.

He stays by the water for a long time after it is done: lying there, his arms outstretched, hands grabbing at fistfuls of the lake, head swimming, or trying to swim, then relaxing his fingers, letting go of all of it.

When he finally stands, there are marks in the wet sand where his body has been. He lifts a bare foot, intending to rub them out but stops, thinks better of it, slowly lowers his foot back onto the earth. The rain clouds will come in again soon, he thinks, the rain will take care of it.

The walk back to the cabin isn’t long. On the trail, old rainwater has collected outside in the hollowed-out areas made by tire tracks, horses’ hooves, his worn shoes. It is near-dark when he reaches the familiar door.

2. Must Come Back
6-6-7-4-9-1. And with a soft click, the door swung open. The inside of the cabin was warm and bright with sunlight streaming in through the windows. I turned up the A/C until cold air came rushing out the vents like water surrounding my head until I was farther away from home than I’d ever been. But somehow that didn’t seem to matter. Around the kitchen I noticed the same everyday shit, reminders of the life I thought we were trying to escape:

A frozen package of bacon defrosting in the sink.

To the left of it, a drenched blue towel draped across the dish rack.

A refrigerator full of avocados, lined up neatly on the bottom shelf. Three jugs of orange juice, a pitcher of iced tea, several cans of Coke, beer bottles, wine bottles, other bottles. Half empty, half full. Lord knows which description was more accurate.

But then, and this part was strange and unexpected, a note I didn’t remember writing pinned to the refrigerator with a smiley face magnet, a foot or so below eye level. My letters were small but dark and unmistakable, confident of themselves and of the message they carried. EVERYONE IN THIS FAMILY IS GOING TO LOOK UNDER THE TABLE.

A can of pineapples, rivaling the size of a bowling ball, was sitting on the table like a centerpiece, unopened. I could feel the fruit on my tongue: sweet and prickly.

My hand was on the edge of the table. I noticed I was shaking. The wooden legs rattled against the floor. My fingers hit a groove under the table and I realized something had been carved there. The lines were crooked but resembled letters. The first thing I felt was a capital “H.” My body realized it was freezing a split second before I heard footsteps on the stairs up to the porch. Right next to it, an “E.” From the sound, from the glimpse of bare ankles and pale calves in the lower half of the window, I knew it was Shelley before her face appeared in the doorway. After that, an “L.”

“What the hell, Robbie,” her silhouette said. “Our place is colder than a fridge.”

I let go of the table like I’d been burned. Crossed my arms across my chest and shrugged. I could feel the bumps rising on the flesh of my arms.

Shelley didn’t seem too upset by the cold temperature. “Anyway, we’re renting a canoe and taking it out. Care to join?”

“Who’s we?” I asked casually, squinting a little. The sun was very bright behind her.

“Dad and me. They’re intended for three people at a time.” She turned and looked across the lake before facing me again. “Come on, Robbie, all the cool kids are doing it.”

A smile spread across her face then, like a fucking inflatable boat: the warm breath inside searching for boundaries. I took a step toward it.

3. Up

In southeast Texas, near a small town in the middle of nowhere, a beautiful lake resort is haunted by its dark and mysterious history. Once, years ago, when the Liberty Lake Resort still bore its original name, the Circle-O-Lakes Resort, a 13-year-old boy had drowned in one of those lakes. No one seems to have seen the accident with their own eyes or to know exactly how it happened. According to one of the more widely-spread accounts, the boy, along with his father and older sister, had rented a canoe, and the three got into an argument while on the water. Other vacationers in nearby cabins reported hearing an anguished cry, followed shortly by a loud splash. Some claim to have heard a struggle right before the splash, but still others deny it.

While the exact reason for the altercation on the canoe is the subject of much speculation, it is likely that no one will ever know for sure. Similarly, no one knows where the boy’s mother and younger brother were during the whole ordeal or whether they had even been on the trip. The boy’s death was ruled an accident and publicized in the local paper a few days after the incident, leading many to criticize the lake resort for negligence, despite the staff’s best efforts to save the boy. Recording a few hard facts but failing to divulge much additional information or commentary, the succinct article can still be found in the microfiche archives of nearby public libraries.

One detail the article does include, however, is the name of the cabin where the boy and his family were staying for the week: the Lone Star. According to one popular story, the word “hell” has been scratched into the surface under the kitchen table and remains there to this day. Some argue that the letters are simply remnants of a child scratching his or her name—a Mitchell or Rochelle maybe—into the furniture long ago. Others assume a more sinister explanation, but either way there is much discussion, much speculation, regarding the significance of the letters and whether they truly exist.

Despite the contradictory theories, most agree that the ghost of the young boy now resides permanently on the resort property, swimming in the lakes during the day and sleeping on the porches by night. In the evenings, visitors will often report seeing the strange impressions—resembling those made by the shell of a boy’s body, some remark—appear without warning in the damp sand by the swimming lake. Many claim to hear music, a soft hum or whispered words accompanied by drastic temperature changes, out by the water. Rumor has it that by the time you get close enough to make out a specific tune or any exact words, it’s too late. He has you in the palms of his hands, pushing you into the water to drown like he once did. According to the county’s records, no one else has died at the resort since the initial tragedy and the inevitable name change that followed.

Still, you can never be too careful. So if you ever find yourself on vacation or at a retreat, if you’re ever staying in an unknown place, using someone else’s kitchen and living in their space, just imagine this. Maybe you’re opening the refrigerator door one day when an avocado breaks free and rolls under the table. If you’re willing, if you decide to crawl underneath to retrieve it, don’t look up. You never know the story behind what may be written there. You’re probably better off not knowing.