Holy Water

But for now, he couldn't wait to see the river and talk to Lily. His long strides ate up the ground as he walked down the familiar path for the first time in nearly two years. He imagined seeing her black hair, so like his own. Her dark eyes, alight with intelligence and mischief. Her sweetly curved body, so different from the first time he had seen her, nearly fifteen years before.

This time, I will tell her. Tell her how much I love her. Tell her how I couldn't even look at the women in Chicago and New York and Paris, because none of them were her. Tell her how I want to spend the rest of my life with her. Tell her we will make it work, somehow.

He came over the last rise and halted, blood draining from his face. Instead of the slow, calm, clear waters he remembered, the creek had sunk to a mere thread, winding listlessly through a streambed caked with mud and rotting vegetation. The waterfall was no more than a sullen trickle, dripping into the pool at its base. The pool itself was only a few yards across, muddy and clouded, choked with silt.

He didn't know he had fallen until he felt the shock of his impact travel up his knees to his spine. His hands were pressed to his mouth in horror, and a low, wounded sound escaped from his lips.

"Lily? Lilaea? Oh, God, Lily, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Are you there? Can you hear me?"

From the ravaged pool, the faintest whisper, borne on the breeze...

"Help me..."

May, 1912

"My parents think I'm strange, you know," he told Lily. They were sitting companionably on the bank of the creek, tossing pebbles into the clear water, their feet dangling in the stream. The sweet smell of plum blossoms floated by them in the warm spring breeze.

"I wish you had let Maggie see you when I brought her here," he continued, somewhat peevishly. "Or Mama. Then they would know you were real, and not an imaginary friend. Mama told me not to talk about you where anyone else could hear me."

Lilaea ignored the subject, just as she did anything she did not wish to discuss. "The turtles are out," she said with a smile, pointing at three lumpy objects basking in the sun.

Charlie followed her as she turned, and the breeze brought the scent of her hair to his nose. He shifted uncomfortably. Over the past year he had been growing more and more aware of Lily's physical presence during their time together.

Today Lily was wearing a dress which seemed to incorporate all the flowers of spring. Thousands of delicate petals were somehow woven together into a multi-hued pastel garment which clung to her body like a second skin. From his vantage point beside her, he could peek down the open neckline and see the small swells of her budding breasts.

She turned back towards him, her eyes wicked, and he flushed crimson.

"What were you looking at, naughty little boy?"

"I'm not little anymore," he said, stung by her tone. "I'm taller than you are now." Indeed, that had been a day to savor last autumn, when he finally passed her in height.

Lily flipped a hand dismissively. "All little boys are the same. They all want what they can't have."

Hardly daring to breathe, Charlie reached out his hand and took hers, their fingers twining. "I'm not like other boys," he said.

She turned her head and looked deep into his eyes. He sank into them, feeling as if he were drowning. She cupped his cheeks in her tan hands, the cool skin a balm on his hot face.

"No, you're not. But neither am I like other girls, Charlie," she said sadly. "Don't expect me to give you what they can." Soft as a whisper, her lips brushed his cheek, making him burn.

Suddenly, she bounced to her feet, then dove into the pool, giving him a heart-stopping glimpse of her long legs before she sliced into the water. She bobbed to the surface, her eyes laughing. "Come in for a swim!"

He peeled off his shirt and set it aside on the warm grass. He then climbed up the path to the waterfall. He backed away a few steps, then charged forward, his bare feet slapping against sun-warmed stone. For an instant he flew through the air, then hit the water with a tremendous splash, throwing spray in all directions.

He came to the surface with a grin, watching as Lily wiped water from her streaming face. Treading water, he took in her delicate, finely-carved features, blossoming like a flower in the sun.

When she is grown, she will be beautiful, he thought with sudden prescience. I should tell her. Tell her how I feel.

He took a deep breath and was at her side in a few strokes. As promised, Lily had been a good teacher, and he was a strong swimmer, even if he had never been in a body of water bigger than this pool.

He stopped only a few inches away from her. Reaching through the water, he set his hands on her hips, feeling her muscles flex as their legs slowly kicked in the clear water, occasionally brushing each other. He looked into her eyes, trying to come up with the right words.

"Lily. Lilaea." He took a deep breath. "I-"

"There you are," came a voice from behind him. He spun in the water, seeing Maggie standing on the riverbank. She made a disgusted face. "Get out of the creek and into your shirt and shoes, Charlie. Mama's been calling you for supper for the past twenty minutes."

Swearing under his breath, Charlie turned back to Lily, but she was gone. No hint existed she had ever been there. Fuming, he swam back to the bank and pulled his clothes on roughly, furious he had lost his opportunity.

From the protection of the waterfall, Lilaea watched as Charlie stomped away up the path to the farmhouse, following his sister. She smiled sadly. She suspected she knew what he had been about to say, and was grateful for Margaret's interruption. How could she explain to Charlie that they could never be together in the way he wished?

Leave it be, child, she thought. He will forget you soon enough.

Indeed, it was a rare human who retained enough innocence and strength of spirit to believe in her at Charlie's age. As they grew, they lost the ability to see Lilaea and others like her, dismissing them as childhood fantasies.

Shrugging off the thought, she dove deep into her pool, casting her mind into the river which was her responsibility. All was well. From the point where it sprang from the ground out of a hillside thirty miles to the north, to where it joined the strong flow of the St. Croix River, twenty miles to the east and south, the river was healthy. No poison sullied its clear waters, no sickness marred its banks. She could appear at any point along its length at any time she chose, to tend and to weed and to heal. But she preferred this spot, with its gentle waterfall and deep pool, and its banks, teeming with life.

And with the Schulers. The family had been part of her own long slow existence for almost a century, ever since Malachi Schuler had shown up with an ax, a wagon, and a pregnant wife one spring day. He had cleared a plot of land and planted a crop, and his first son, born in that same wagon, had married into the Chippewa people who had lived on the banks of the creek for centuries before the whites came. That woman, Charlie's grandmother, had seen and talked to Lilaea in her youth, and she suspected it was from her blood that he had gained the ability to see and talk to her.

Or maybe it is him alone, she thought as she made herself one with the stream. She sighed as she dissolved into its clean waters, her consciousness melding into the current. Bodies were pleasant, but they had so many needs. Needs which were becoming more and more compelling the longer she spent around Charlie in human form. She thought wistfully of how she had felt when Charlie placed his hands on her hips. How her blood had heated under his touch.

Leave it be, she told herself sternly. He is not for you.

But I love him.

The stream trickled over the rocks, and if you listened closely, you could almost imagine you heard a young woman weeping.

Chapter Three

The present...

The mill was busy the next morning, and Malcolm McGill looked around the busy dooryard with unconcealed satisfaction. Some half-dozen men were waiting to pick up orders of planks and boards for houses or barns. Sleepy-eyed horses stood in their traces, hitched to high-walled wagons to haul the finished lumber back into town or to their farms.

Malcolm had just finished giving some instructions to his foreman when a Model-T Ford pulled into the lot. He squinted at the figure climbing awkwardly out of the driver's seat and spat into the dust.

What does Carl Robinson want with me? It's not election time, and the cripple has a nice enough house of his own. He doesn't need any lumber.

He nodded at the man grudgingly. "Robinson."

The nod was returned, Robinson leaning heavily on his cane. "McGill. I have a client who wants a word with you." He turned his head, pulling Malcolm's eyes to the smaller figure who had also exited the car.

Charles Schuler stood silently, his thumbs hooked into his belt, radiating fury.

Malcolm felt the blood drain from his face. His father's words, spoken twenty years ago, half-heeded at the time, came back to him.

Son, do what you want with the farm when I'm gone. You will anyway, and I won't be around to stop you. But never screw around with the Schulers. They have no sense of humor where their land is concerned.

"You have interesting ideas about property rights, Malcolm," Charles said. His voice wasn't loud, but it was pitched to carry, and across the yard conversations stopped as men turned to witness the confrontation.

"Tell me. Did you honestly think no one would notice? Or were you gambling I would never come back from France, and with my father dead, you could just swoop in and buy the farm once Margaret and my mother decided to sell? Or was it only a small strip of land you were interested in?"

Malcolm tried to smile, even as he saw men he had known for years backing away, drifting towards Charlie. God-damned Schulers. Standing there with their hundreds of acres of good farmland while the rest of us have to make do with the leftovers. Never selling, even though they have more than they could ever hope to need. Keeping that creek for themselves, rather than putting it to use. "Charlie, I don't know what you're so upset about, but-"

"Don't lie to me!" The voice was savage. "You built that dam a good five hundred yards on our side of the property line. Now Crystal Creek is nothing but a filthy, muddy trench. And you've flooded out acres of good meadowland. Your land. If it isn't drained soon you'll have a swamp there, good for nothing but breeding mosquitoes." He looked around. "How many of you are looking forward to catching malaria this summer because of this man's greed?" he asked. His voice was thick with loathing. He had to visibly struggle to control himself.

"It's coming down. Starting today. I'm not asking you to do it, because you would dawdle and delay and the creek would die while you sat on your fat ass."

Malcolm tried again. "Charlie, you know there's always been some confusion about where the property line actually is. When your great-grandfather homesteaded, he never bothered registering the deed. I think we should have the land surveyed properly, then-"

"It was," Carl cut in. "Less than ten years ago. When Charles' father got tired of you pestering him to sell. He had the county surveyor come out, and we picked up the plats at the courthouse yesterday afternoon. The records are clear," he continued. "The eastern boundary of the woodlot is where your property ends. Which makes sense. Your father cleared every acre he owned. The woodlot and all land to the west belongs to the Schulers. Including where you and your men built that travesty of a dam last fall."

Charlie walked forward, his face a grim mask. "Carl tells me I could have you charged with criminal trespass, as well as a whole slew of crimes I don't really understand. But I won't. As long as you stay off my land. I don't believe in fences. Seems to me neighbors should be able to get along without boards and wire keeping them apart. But I've been wrong before.

"Set one foot on my land again. Take one look sideways at that creek. And I'll have a barb wire fence put up that'll tear your cows to ribbons."

"You're going to ruin me!" Malcolm shouted. He meant to sound strong, but it came out as a wail.

Charlie paused on his way back to the automobile. The look he sent over his shoulder was hot enough to sear his flesh from his bones.

"Good."

Charlie stood at the edge of the dam with an ax in his hands, looking at it with undisguised hate. Built of rough-hewn timbers across the streambed where it emerged from a small thicket of trees, it was fully eight feet high and two feet thick. Below his feet, water slowly fell over the dam and trickled towards the waterfall downstream. Upstream, a long shallow lake had been formed, the flooded streambed forming the spine.

He had been tempted to bring the horses up here, drive spikes into the wood, and drag the monstrosity out of the ground by brute force. But sanity had returned in time. Who knew how much mud and garbage would flow downstream with such an approach? No. Better to remove the dam one layer at a time. The gradually increasing water flow would be able to wash the accumulated debris away slowly.

So he had only himself and calm, patient Sunbeam up here. Once he chopped through one section, she could help him drag the water-soaked timbers away.

Less thinking, more doing, he thought grimly. He shrugged out of his shirt and pulled on his toughest leather gloves. He was going to have hands full of blisters by the time this task was through.

"Hold on, Lily. I'm coming," he whispered, and swung the ax.

Thwack!

June, 1917

Charlie had considered putting on his best clothes, then laughed at himself.

You're not proposing marriage, you idiot.

No. I'm just saying goodbye to the woman I love. Even if she is a naiad, possibly immortal, and definitely not human.

He stopped at the edge of the creek. In the sky above him, the scudding clouds drifted over the moon, plunging the small valley into darkness. Just as quickly, they drifted away again, allowing a watery silver light to illuminate the small river and its cheerful waterfall.

"Lilaea? Are you here?"

"You're leaving." The voice was flat and emotionless. Across the stream, Lily came towards him, not swimming, but rather walking on the surface of the water. She was clothed in shadow, darkness enfolding her from neck to waist to ankles. Despite himself, Charlie shuddered at this raw display of power.

God, he thought. If those old biddies at church could see this, they would run off screaming. It's one thing to talk about Jesus walking on water, but another thing to see it.

He nodded. "I am. But I'll come back when it's over. And then-"

"And then what, Charles Schuler?" Her voice was quietly furious. "Do you think to woo me with violence? To prove your worth by killing your nation's enemies?" She made a disgusted noise. "I have seen this far too many times. For thousands of years your grandmother's people made war on each other. How many maidens have wept into my waters as their lovers died in useless battle?

"No, Charlie. If you do this, and you survive, do not think this will change things between us."

"I'm not doing this to impress you!" Charlie protested. "I'm doing this because it is something I have to do."

"Really?" Lily's lips were tight. "Will your precious United States cease to exist if you don't go?"

She was at the edge of the creek. She took a step toward him. Her hand reached out. "Stay, Charlie. Stay with me. If you do..." She hesitated, then her voice firmed, and she took a last step, onto the bank. Her bare breasts brushed his chest. "If you do, I will lie with you. As a woman. As often as you wish."

Even in the moonlight, she could see him pale with shock. His eyes widened, driven by anger.

Oh, no...

"A bribe?" His voice was harsh. "I never thought you would sink that low, Lilaea. Besides," he said, his mouth curled in a hateful smirk she longed to slap, "Molly Ann Conway made the offer herself only two days ago."

"That pale, honey-haired, wide-hipped cow? I'll claw her damned eyes out! By the Great River, Charles, if you gave her your seed there is no place in the wide green world she will be able to hide from me!"

He caught her hand as it rose to strike. "No. I didn't." He looked into her eyes, and she saw the truth of his words. Even as she did, he was struck by a revelation.

"You're afraid," he whispered. "For me."

"Of course I'm afraid, you fool!" she shouted. "You're going away. Thousands of miles, and I cannot protect you. Mother Atlantea is old and capricious, and any prayer I make to her on your behalf is unlikely to be answered.

"Stay here, Charles," she said. Her voice was pleading. "All that waits for you over there is death and horror."

"My death?" His voice could not hide a quaver of fear.

Her eyes hooded. "I cannot say. I am not a seeress." She laid her head on his chest, her tears soaking his shirt as she wept. He wrapped his arms around her, stroking the cool skin of her back, seeking to calm her. His body caught fire as he held her, but somehow he kept still.

They stood that way for a long, long time. When they finally parted, they moved as stiffly as if they were both very, very old.

Wiping the tears from his own eyes, Charlie walked back up the path. Lily's last words whispered in his ears.

"Come back to me."

"I will," he swore to the empty darkness.

"I will."

The present...

By early that evening, Charlie was soaked to the skin, aching with weariness, and terrified he was going to kill himself in the process of restoring the creek. Chopping wood was well and good when both feet were solidly on the ground. But to do it in the sinking, shifting mud of a streambed, with slippery boots and wet hands, was an open invitation to cut your own feet off.

On the other hand, however, he had over half the dam removed. A spate of water poured over the remaining timbers, filling the streambed from one side to another before rushing downstream towards the waterfall. The most difficult part was waiting for the water to drain away after a section had been removed, as there was so much water backed up behind the dam. But the process had shown he had made the correct decision. God only knew how much damage he would have caused if he had pulled the entire mess out of the ground like a rotting tooth. Looking east beyond the woodlot, he could see meadowland slowly emerging as the water sank. Hopefully it would drain before it was ruined forever.

Frowning, he examined the remainder of the dam.

"I'll have to stand in the creek and chop from upstream tomorrow, Sunbeam," he said to the horse, who cocked an ear at him lazily and whickered. "No more working from the banks. Probably safer, anyway. God only knows what would happen to me if the whole sorry mess gave way when I was on the downstream side. If I was lucky I'd be crushed and wouldn't have to worry about drowning."

He unhitched the horse from the tackle he had been using to drag the beams away into the woods, where they could rot until judgment day, as far as he cared. He mounted her bareback and slowly rode down the path until he was near the waterfall, where he dismounted. He looped the reins over the branch of a nearby tree and walked to the edge of the pool.