That spring, it was said that the cicadas would burrow upwards from their seventeen-year
long dwelling underground; it was all anyone talked about for a week, at school, on the radio,
even in the grocery line. The local paper wrote a whole article about it, front page, above the
fold. Allegedly, they had been growing and living underground since they had dropped as eggs.
What kind of bugs need 17 years to develop? She turned this over in her mind as she
entered the woods behind her house; it disquieted her, the thought that there were thousands of
bugs embedded in the earth like nuggets of gold waiting to be mined. It sounded a bit unreal, or
fantastical, but stranger things had happened in this world, she supposed.
It was March; the sky, a listless gray, had nothing to say for itself, and the woods were
ghosted over with fog — winter’s last gasp before she, like the cicadas, buried herself into the
ground.
A year ago to this day, the weather had been the opposite: it had been sunny, dazed.
Though she had never been one to go on walks, believing there to be more fruitful means of
exercise, she’d been seized by a sudden urge and set off into the woods behind her house alone.
After wandering a bit, she stumbled upon the lake. She had somehow never seen this lake
before, which she found strange, given that it was only a few minutes’ walk away from her
house. When she asked her father if he knew about it later that night over ravioli and broccoli, he
gave a vague answer that left her with no more information than she’d previously had.
After a few minutes of sitting by the pond, she noticed that there was a sopping piece of
paper pathetically draped onto a rock that jutted over the water. The ink on it was bleeding,
clearly done by a fountain pen or something old; something, perhaps, not even of this world.
365 — welcome.
She had bent down, cradling the paper in her hand, careful not to let it rip. It stuck to her
hand, clinging to the curves of her palm like a second skin.
The handwriting was distant, archaic, vaguely sinister. Slanting, harsh slashes that held an
air of haughty grace. Why it was so wet, she could not guess, other than if its author had gone for
a swim with it in their possession, but that seemed silly for such a sophisticated-looking script.
After a perfunctory search for anyone else in the forest that day, she came to the
conclusion that she’d return tomorrow, and if there was no note, it was all just some strange
happenstance.
Stranger things had happened in this world.
So she came back the next day. And there was another note, this time only saying: 364.
This provided no proof that it was meant for her, but she decided that day to take it upon herself
to collect the notes.
It was always the same kind of paper (sopping wet and cream colored, black ink bleeding
rich blue veins across the note) and there was always a number, each counting down from the
day before. It was always eight minutes to walk to the lake. She found that funny, and mildly
magical. If she ran, it was eight minutes. When she meandered experimentally, it was also eight
minutes.
Every day she went; when it was summer, and baking hot. Then, when the ground
became littered with dead leaves that whispered when she walked among them. When her family
went on vacation to California, she came back to eight notes laid in a neat four-by-two array, as
if the author had known she had not ceased coming, but was away only for a bit.
Whenever she got home, she’d go into her bathroom and blowdry the note before tucking
it into an old cookie tin under her bed. It became a part of her nightly routine: Brush teeth. Wash
face. Dry off the note and stow it away. Take her sleep medication. The cookie tin was getting
full, which was fine, she supposed, since the notes should be done today.
The door screamed on its hinges as she left the house for her final trek to the lake. Eight
minutes of walking. She could see the lake now — faint and blurry as a ghost through the fog.
Her heart slammed against her ribcage, blood rushing through her ears, but her feet continued
their steady pace forward. After a year — here she was.
Except there was no note. Confusion racked her brain. Surely nothing would happen?
But stranger things had happened in this world.
She looked at all the other rocks to no avail, then resorted to yelling out half hearted calls:
is anyone there? And when all that answered were the echoes of her desperate voice and the
indifferent trills of birds, she dared to peer over the edge into the lake, seeing first the shine of
her eyes — tangled with curiosity and caution —, and then she flattened out onto her belly and
stared down into her own face. Her cheeks were pink from all the shouting and running, her eyes
watering from the wind.
A splash of water — she shielded her face, began to scramble backwards—
A face burst out of the water, cheeks wet and gleaming, hair plastered to ghostly pale
skin.
She was too scared to scream. This must be a dream. The face that stared back at her
was her own. Its expression, though — a wicked, malignant grin — was something she’d never
seen on her own face. It made her nearly unrecognizable.
The face — her face — in the water looked up at her, and she only had time to register
how shockingly cold the girl’s grasp around her wrist was before she was yanked down into the
pond.
Cicadas screamed all around.
Stranger things have happened in this world.
Writer To Writer Literary Journal 