Mavey's Love Affair

Mavey looked forward to Saturdays in the summer. It was the day that the trio; Mavey, her older sister Grace and the oldest sister Elisabeth, would venture down to the edge of the south field and towards the pond at the border of their farm. It wasn’t a true pond as there was a tributary on the north end that allowed water from the river to ‘chill’ before exiting the at south end of the retention area and into a narrower river. The exit river was more active as it was being pushed by the water from the pond. It was like watching a stampede of wild horses coming into a field to rest before once again racing back through a narrow pass in a mad dash to somewhere.

The stilled water in the pond was always cool, possibly from a spring and it was a refreshing break from what Elisabeth called the afternoon ‘burn’ of an August day. The youngest girls would follow Elisabeth, who was sixteen, down to the water’s edge through a well-worn path in the shoulder high grass, creating a sense of ‘safari’ in their trek. Grace was second in line at fifteen, their father called them the Irish twins of the family. Maevy followed at thirteen, almost an afterthought. Her mother liked to call her State Fair as she was certain the conception occurred after they were celebrating winning the grand prize for the Limosine bull they had entered. But while the oldest two followed the family line of rules and boundaries, Maevy was different.

While the older girls were more refined and cautious, Maevy was from a different mold. Limits were just a word to her. The only bounds she recognized were the borders that physics applied. As a young girl, Maevy would play on the swingset for hours, struggling to get as high as she could. She would get to the limit of the swing chains until her body would hold boundless in the air, her body physically leaving the seat, if only for a moment. She craved the rush of adrenaline from being left untethered in the air, floating, until gravity returned and pulled her back into her seat with a crash, only to release her again on the next revolution, That moment of freedom she felt, if even for a second, fueled the adrenalin rush from daring the rules and the need for ‘more’.

Elisabeth knew to keep an eye on Maevy. As her parents worked the farm, she had filled their oversight role many times. Even for school, Elisabeth made sure Maevy was organized, complete, and at least had the physical appearance of a child that had been ‘kept’. Which is why on swimming afternoons, Elisabeth was very vigilant, even passing some of the monitoring over to Grace while she enjoyed the water. ‘Whatever you do.’ Elisabeth had said to both Grace and the clearly annoyed, and distant, Maevy, ‘we need to stay together’.

On this day, the three girls, dressed in gym shorts and t-shirts, as their mother would not allow them to wear their good bathing suits in muddy ‘wash’ water for fear of ruining them, slowly slipped off their worn and tattered Converse gym shoes and slowly began to make their way towards the water’s edge. Grace and Elisabeth held hands as they slowly slipped their feet into the water, only to be passed by Maevy who attacked the water with two huge jumps followed by a body splash as she entered the pond.

The two oldest shielded their faces from the cool water of the splash, looking at Maevy through separated fingers, clearly annoyed at having their presentation disturbed while Maevy swam further out to the middle. However, soon all three were splashing wildly in the pond, pulling energy from the coolness of the water.

After about an hour, Maevy said she had to go to the bathroom, and exited the water. She wiped the mud off her feet with a quick swipe of her hand and slipped into her gym shoes. She had another motive, however, and as she approached the path to return to the house, she gazed behind her at her sisters, who were close to each other discussing some sort of social contradiction concerning their friends. Maevy walked a few feet into the path, then veered to the side, following the edge of the pond until she could hear the roar of the rapids at the water’s exit. It was only a few hundred yards away and it was a path she had chosen before, although she was careful to pick a different direction so as not to leave a trail in the grass. This was her solemn journey, she felt. Her own pilgrimage to the water around her.

At a certain spot, she crossed towards the river, the sound now much louder as the water was near. Very quickly she was at the water and she could see the river’s rage as it went over the rocks and around the stumps of the trees. To her left, there was a six-foot weir, constructed to slow the water down, helping to deepen the pond. But as the water flowed over it, pushed by the influx of the upstream current, the water seemed angry, almost violent at having its path impeded. On the shore there was a large limestone ledge which jutted out and it was here she liked to sit and watch the constant motion all around her.

She never stayed for long, as to be absent for too long would spark the curiosity of her sisters, but the turning and soft swells of the current were appealing and the urge to have them swell over her skin was drawing her ever closer to the river’s edge. The water curled in the eddies like fingers on a hand beckoning her forward, encouraging her to slip into the water and allow them to bring her to the opposite shore. But she knew they were lying, she had been warned. Somewhere below was a dark cavernous abyss where young girls are pulled down into and they never return. Was this the siren sound sailors had always told stories of? Instead of a voice, was it just motion, a movement of the spirit in the water itself, welcoming the young and innocent into its lair. Trapping them until their lifeblood turned cold, the corpse to rest in the deep recess of the river, its essence drained, its body warmth now cold and stiff. The body slowly traveling from one current to another, like a trinket passed from generation to generation.

It had rained upstream overnight, and the water was especially turbulent. The depth of the swells around the rocks and debris were unusually deep and instead of the normal pulse of the current, the river appeared to flex its muscles as if bending the debris to its will, the power appealing to her even more.

Deciding to take a risk, she left the stability of the rock and walked down to the muddy bank. There she bent down, her arms covering her knees, and reached into the coolness of the water. The side pool she was at had a slow turn to it, a whirlpool with an endless turning. It seemed to be a encouraging, like a hand reaching out to her, telling her not to be afraid. Suddenly gaining the courage to believe in it, she slipped both feet into the water. It was cold, but refreshing and not sensing any danger, she slipped a little further into the water. She could feel the pull now, as a lover drawing her forward, and she closed her eyes and slipped a little further into the water until it reached her chest. It tugged, like lover pulling her close, then she slipped the rest of the way into the whirlpool letting the water pull her into the center of the pool.

But Maevy believed the lie that it told her, that this water was there to caress and romance her. In reality this was a spring, and springs are endlessly deep and spring water, because it comes from the center of the earth has all of the oxygen taken from it, and because of that, the buoyancy is lost. As she allowed the tendrils of the current to wrap around her and pull her towards the center, she felt an odd sense of loss. She opened her eyes and felt herself slowly beginning to turn like a corkscrew, and like a corkscrew she was slowly beginning to go deeper into the pool. Deciding this was probably not the best idea, she tried to swim closer to the shore, however, the current was now the master, and the more she tried, the more she realized that she was having difficulty keeping her head above water. The water had promised to be her lover and she had accepted that. It was now taking her forever.

She was now splashing, gulping, grasping for air, as her body slowly began to fall deeper into the watery hole. Trying to take one large gulp, she instead swallowed a large amount of water and with that she felt her head slip beneath the surface. Flaying her arms to try and grab for something, she kicked as hard as she could to reach the top, only to fail to break the surface. Her chest was beginning to ache and her lungs were hurting from the water she had swallowed and she kept thrashing and kicking and struggling to push to the surface. But the river had her and wasn’t going to give her back. Through its eternal power, it did not need to fight for her, rather, just continue this slow dance until Maevy was no longer fighting and now deep in its midst.

In a vain attempt, she exhaled all she had in her lungs, fighting the urge to inhale which would collapse her lungs, ending the struggle. But just as she was failing to keep her mouth closed and the water was seeping in, she felt a violent tug on her arm and two strong arms wrap around her chest. Her head broached the surface of the river, and just then she inhaled madly. Coughing out water as she tried to breathe, she struggled on the exhale and rasped on the inhale, her chest heaving, feet kicking as a reflex to get out of the water, shading her eyes from the suddenly intense glare of the sun with her free hand.

“Do you have her!!” she heard Grace yell.

“Yeah!! I got her!!” she heard Elisabeth yell back. Her grip on Maivy’s chest growing tighter with the response as she pulled her sister from the current. Grace’s grasp of her arm had helped stabilize her so Elisabeth could grasp her firmly. Soon, Maevy felt the cool mud on her feet as she was dragged to the bank. She felt another set of hands on her legs and her two sisters dragged her up to the safety of the limestone ledge, where Maevy felt the warmth of the rock on her back. As she lay there, the hard limestone on her shoulders, the sun warming her and the presence of her two sisters nearby, she felt secure and very soon her normal breathing returned.

“Are you okay?” she heard the softness of Grace’s voice ask.

She turned to look at her Grace, her sister’s features suddenly softer, more delicate from concern. “Course.” Maevy said with a light hint of cockiness.

Maevy turned and looked at her older sister whose tight lips and set jaw revealed a less concerning emotion. Visually accepting that Maevy was ok, Elisabeth sighed heavily and stood up on the rock. She knew Maevy would be fine, but any amount of concern towards Maevy and the hope of her learning from this experience was a waste and she knew it. Walking off the rock and back towards the field and to the other end of the lake to retrieve her stuff, Elisabeth uttered only one word.

“Moron.”

Feeling the abandonment of continued concern for Maevy, Grace smiled, shrugged her shoulders, stood, and followed Elisabeth.

Suddenly catching a thought, Maevy blurted out. “Hey wait!!!! How did you know I was here?”

Elisabeth stopped and turned to face her sister. “Because you were gone too long, and I thought the only reason why that would be is that you are doing something a moron would do. And the only place that I know where a moron would go is the worst, more dangerous part of the river where we all know you go. And sure enough, there you were drowning, like a moron.” She then turned and stomped back into the field, Grace looking back slyly, then ran to catch up.

Maevy lay on the rock for a few more minutes, looked back at the river, it’s ceaseless turning and taunting continuing. Swallowing hard one last time, she then smiled a knowing smile. “See ya.” She taunted back.