Lady in a Lake

The storms of the day before, and of the day before that, and the floods of the previous week had now abated. The skies still bulged with rain, but all that actually fell in the gathering evening gloom was a dreary kind of prickle. – Douglas Adams via Paul Nord

Anna trudged down the long drive to the mailbox in her ancient wellies. Most of the crops were in, but not the hay. She didn't want to think about it rotting in the fields. It fed the sheep and goats each winter. Growing her own hay made her cheese and soap business profitable. Now, Anna had at least three new ponds and she hadn't checked the woods yet. It would have to wait until tomorrow.

There was nothing terribly inspiring in the mail, more bills and junk mail. Anna shoved them in the pocket of her jacket and looked up and down the road. The ditches still ran with water, gurgling and purling through the pipe under the driveway apron. They had needed the rain, just not all at once. Anna smoothed her hood back, catching the mist on her face. The sunset glowered under the cottony scrim of the clouds. 

The next afternoon, Anna was determined to try the woods path and survey her deluged property completely. Then she'd reward herself with a big pot of tea and maybe a cookie. Anna crossed over to the beginning of the mulched path that the guys had laid over the winter. When the ash trees had to come down it was simpler (and cheaper) to chip them and use them around the farm. Fortunately, Anna's woods were mostly oak and hickory. When she bought the farm with an inheritance from her grandparents, the woods were a key selling point. Anna had fallen in love with the 20 or so acres of old growth timber. The fields and pastures served their purpose for the livestock. The woods were her heart. Anna dreading the storm damage, hadn't walked the paths until today.

The trees dripped with moisture, huge drops fell on her head now and again. Thank goodness the air was cool. In summer, this level of humidity would be stifling. Some runnels had carved through the path here and there, but so far Anna didn't see any major trees down. She supposed that one day she'd really do the work to restore it and clean out all the invasive plants and bushes. That would be pretty far down the road. Anna was hoping to at least break even this year. She shoved thoughts of the hay harvest out of her head and kept going deeper into the woods.

A flicker called its alarm and rattled its wings through the silence and a squirrel paused in its foraging. Anna smiled. Life still found a way. The path curved up a ridge and she had to scramble a bit on the still-slippery exposed tree roots. Reaching the top, Anna paused to catch her breath and take in the view of the ravine. A fresh stream burbled and tumbled around the old fallen trees at the bottom. It was definitely larger and faster flowing. Maybe next year she'd have her farmhands do a bridge of some kind. A tall one, one that wouldn't get washed away. Anna continued wending her way through ancient oaks dank with mist.

The ridge gently subsided and Anna grew more nervous as she approached the lowest spot in the wood lot. A spring ephemeral pond usually popped up in this section, enough for the frogs to find it and breed. Anna marked spring by the first songs of chorus frogs and spring peepers. The center of the pond was marked by an old stone. Anna wouldn't call it a boulder since it seemed as if it had been deliberately shaped. The rough, rectangular granite had an odd basin-like dip in the top. She parted a curtain of branches that had fallen over the trail.

Anna blew out a breath at the sight of the pond. Only it was no longer a pond, more like a lake. Water sighed through the woods as a fresh breeze pulled fallen oak leaves across it like tiny canoes. Anna's heart fell. She was looking at about an acre of water. A family of wood ducks peered shyly back at her across the length of the lake. Anna scanned the edges of the area. This water had to drain somewhere, right? Otherwise it would be a permanent fixture and not disappear in the heat of July. Anna started pacing the edge. She noticed the stone was now in the middle of the water and the basin was filled, waves lapping at the lip. Plowing through the underbrush, Anna worried about the trees. Trees didn't like to be submerged for long periods of time. She supposed if the oaks and hickories did die, maybe she could find a freelance sawmill. Her uncle was a woodworker and had used one when his monster black walnut had to come down.

At last, Anna fought through the underbrush to the far side of the lake. Her mulch path had snaked around until the waters covered it, too. Anna hadn't realized that the soft ridges here did indeed form a cup. It was too subtle until you stood in this spot. Anna fetched up on top of a flat rock that rose a few inches from the soil. It was a good spot to stand and see the whole of the waters in this, well, dip in the land. Anna wasn't going to grace it with the word 'valley'. Now she knew why the water wasn't draining. At her feet was a massive tangle of tree limbs, branches, sticks, and mud. Beavers. Great.

The beavers had decided to make their own pond. Anna wouldn't have minded, but it seemed awfully presumptuous of them to go ahead and shape her land. Anna knelt on the cool stone and trailed her hand in the icy water. She wondered how this worked. Clearly the beavers knew what they were doing, but did she want a lake here? Were mosquitoes going to be a problem? Stagnant water? Anna would have to do some research. She sat cross-legged to think, studying the granite rock beneath her. It was the same as the block in the middle of the lake. Anna wondered how they got here. In the Midwest, granite had to come from the glaciers. It wasn't native to this area.

Tiny wavelets grew more active as Anna pondered her rock and took in the colors of the fallen leaves drifting at the water’s edge. She looked up as a breeze blew a strand of blond hair across her face and froze. Seated in the basin of the rectangular stone in the lake was a woman who steadily gazed back at Anna. Anna trembled. She knew these woods were old. They hadn't been turned into farmland because of the ridges that ran through them. Anna didn't remember any gossip of the woods being haunted, although she did get plenty of muttering about being a lone female farmer. The woman didn't seem threatening, she just calmly regarded Anna.

Mustering her courage, Anna called out, "Hello?"
The woman was dressed in a patchwork of green and brown fabric. Anna thought she might disappear into the woods if you weren't looking straight at her. At last, she cocked her head.
"Hello. What be the nature of your need?"
"Um, what?" asked Anna, startled at the woman's odd accent.
"Well, you have woken me by the filling of this vessel, and you reside on the questing stone. What be your need?"
"I don't need anything," lied Anna. She'd read enough and watched enough movies not to go down that road. How the hell did she have some forest water spirit in her woods?
"We all have need, lady."
"Well, I don't. Who are you? What are you doing here?
The woman shrugged her shoulders. "Surely, your lore tells my story."
"Er, it really doesn't." Anna was thinking fast. All that fell into her head was a line from Fawlty Towers about things on their backs in the bottoms of ponds.
The woman sighed and shifted as if to get more comfortable. "I hide things. If the sacrifice is great enough, I will hide whatever you wish for eternity. Each hidden thing requires a price. The more precious the thing, the higher the price for it to be returned."

Anna was trying to find enough strength in her legs to get up. She elected to keep the creature talking.
"Do you have a name?" Anna asked.
The woman swept brown hair off of mossy hazel eyes. "Brauch."
She crossed her arms and regarded Anna closely. Anna had worked up to her knees which were trembling so hard she didn't know how she'd reach her feet.
"OK, Brauch. Um, thanks for the offer to hide things. I don't think I have anything to hide, though."
"We all have something to hide. Every being has a secret. I hold them. But to service your need, you must tell it to an object. Give me the object and I will hold it until you pay the price. So, what is your need?"
Anna thought about her tiny secrets. She'd bought the farm when the man she thought loved her left for a younger model. The heartbreak had led her here to carve out a living doing what she loved.
"Do you forget the secret?" asked Anna.
Brauch cocked an eyebrow. "Not as such. It remains a memory just out of reach. There, but behind a curtain. I am also happy to hide objects, but most folk choose a secret."
"How do I retrieve it?" Anna could think of a few memories she'd never miss.
"It requires a life." Brauch opened her palm. "A small indiscretion would require something like a bird or a mouse to retrieve. A dire secret or a dangerous truth would require a man."
Anna had found the courage to stand. She faced the creature across the lake. "I have nothing so precious to hide that would require that kind of price."

Anna fled, tripping over branches, sliding over fallen trunks until she got to the path. She kept running all the way back to the house. Slamming through the side door, Anna locked it behind her and then locked all the windows and doors.

The next day, she recruited a couple of the neighbor's sons to clear the beaver dam and warned them to stay off the rock as it was precarious. The lake drained in a day. The next week, it was dry enough to drive her 4x4 in with the heavy chains. She pulled the rectangular stone over so it would never fill again. Anna was not going to let any lady in a lake haunt her land. The lady, now released from the stone, had other plans.