1
Some people are afraid of spiders. Others are afraid of snakes or bees or ghosts.
As for me, my greatest fear is the ocean.
The deep wide expanse of it.
How you never know what’s below you or just out of range of your sight. Or how -- as human beings -- we’re not meant to be in the water. It’s too easy to drown or be eaten by a shark or anything else that is more suited to the depths.
I just know that when you’re stuck out in the middle of the ocean, there’s no one to save you.
The only time I’ve ever been close to the water was when my parents went on vacation in Coco Beach, Florida when I was five for a family reunion. I don’t remember much about what happened on the vacation, other than my parents arguing a lot before we left our home in St. Louis. My father was very angry that my mother wanted to go. To this day, I don’t really understand why since he never seemed to have a problem with my mother’s side of the family before or since.
I suppose there are things that I’ll never know about my parents. I’ve tried asking them why since then, but my parents don’t claim to remember arguing.
What I do remember clearly, however, is me standing on the beach during the reunion itself, with my older cousins playing in the sand building castles and making fun of each other while the adults talked about things that were boring.
And kisses from my aunts and grandparents. So many kisses on my cheeks and pictures taken with people that I didn’t know.
“Oh, Charlotte, your daughter is beautiful!”
“Why do you never come see us here?”
“Look at the camera, Gwen. Say cheese!”
So I was a little overstimulated and done with dealing with overzealous relatives and sitting off by myself, digging my foot in the sand until I reached the damp sand layer with my toes. I watched a crab skitter by me and stop, as if to look at me. I met its eyes and it looked like it was debating on which way to run.
And then its little claws made a motion, as if it wanted me to follow it.
I frowned at it and got to my feet.
The crab took a side step toward where the water breaks, still beckoning me to join it.
“Gwen, don’t get near the water,” my mommy called out to me. “You don’t know how to swim well enough.”
“Okay, Mommy,” I shouted back to her, although my focus was completely on the crab. And its focus was completely on me.
Dimly, I heard Grandma Mary chide her for not teaching me how to swim yet and my mom telling her that I was still learning.
“Do...do you want me to follow you?” I asked the crab.
It didn’t speak. Of course it didn’t speak, because it was a crab. But it met my eyes and waved for me to follow it again.
I took a step toward it, and it made another scuttle toward the sea. After I took another step, it started running to where the waves broke against the water. I giggled as I started running after it, and I learned that crabs can move very quickly.
Because Mommy was right. I didn’t know how to swim. And the water looked dark and stretched on forever, and after a few feet, I couldn’t see how deep the water was. I couldn’t even see where the little crab had gone. It was as if the ocean had swallowed it up.
I hesitated for a moment more, but curiosity got the better of me. After all, going a little bit into the ocean wasn’t going to hurt anything, right? After all, I could still see the sandy floor of the beach, at least for a little bit.
There would be no harm in taking a few steps in to see if I could find the crab.
So I stepped forward and dipped one toe in, like I was trying it out, before putting my weight on it and taking another step. The water was cold and felt a little slippery, and here, I could smell the salt off the ocean as the breeze blew it in, ruffling my hair. I shivered.
The sun disappeared behind a storm cloud, casting a grayish color all over the beach, and I looked up at it in wonder. When did that happen? I thought it was a bright, sunny day before.
Then, I felt something in the ocean call out to me.
Guinevere... Come to me, Guinevere...
I looked out to the sea as the waves seemed to pick up. Where I had been in up to my ankles only moments before, I was now up to my knees, like the water was coming in. It looked rougher, too, with the waves appearing to be larger and more violent. The water, which had been a lovely greenish-blue color before I stepped in, was now almost black.
Guinevere... Come to your mother...
Mother?
I turned to look back at my mommy, who was still talking with Grandma Mary and my aunts, although she was holding onto her sunhat as the wind was threatening to blow it off. She was still here and on land. So what was calling out to me in the ocean? And saying that my mother was out there.
I lifted my foot to take a step back toward dry land. "Mommy?"
My mommy turned to look at me, and she stood up, toppling her seat as she screamed. "Gwen! Get out of the water!"
I didn't understand why, but I didn't have time to turn back before a wave knocked into me, swiping my feet out from underneath me. I tumbled to the ground, except it wasn't ground that met my fall -- I fell into water that was suddenly much deeper, like the ocean was trying to swallow up as much land as possible. I had no time to recover or get up before the water sucked me out to sea.
I half-screamed, half-coughed up seawater, and caught a glimpse of the entire reunion party running to the shore to get me. Daddy and some of my uncles were running after me, water flying up around them. My daddy looked scared -- scareder than I had ever seen him before, and that made me more terrified of what was happening to me.
And then I was pulled under the waves.
It felt like there was a hand on my ankle actually dragging me down, and I was, at first, too shocked to fight back.
Now my swim lessons came back to me and I started to kick to fight the ocean -- or whoever was trying to take me with it -- to get back to the surface.
But it was no use. Rather than let go of me, I felt the grip of another hand on my leg, this time farther up, near my knee, that brought me down, down even faster.
I was too afraid to look down at whatever was pulling me. In case I did see some sort of monster or person-like thing that was going to have a dead face with fish floating in and out of its eye sockets like I saw in a scary movie that I wasn't supposed to watch.
Bubbles floated up from my mouth as the last of the light from the surface was blotted out, leaving me in nearly complete darkness. My hair swirled around me as I fought and fought as hard as I could.
And then the hands lost their grip on me, leaving me floating, weightless in the dark sea.
I looked around, the salt stinging my eyes, as I didn't know how to swim up, or really know which way was up.
Then I saw it.
And screamed as best as I could underwater.
A dark shape -- larger than a human, larger than a car, larger than even the elephants that I saw at the zoo when my daycare went -- was nearby, silhouetted against the inky green blackness. Tentacles and other long shapes floated off it, and if I reached out far enough, I knew that I could touch it and it would grab me and pull me under even farther.
So I just stared at it, too petrified to move. Too petrified to save myself.
Guinevere. Come home... Come home...
Suddenly, something grabbed my hand and pulled me up. Away from that blackness, where the monster was. Away from whoever was dragging me farther and farther into the water.