hi everyone
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[Music]
Rustique will presents knocks male by
Elizabeth win there’s something in the
water every morning I sit on my porch
steps and watch the wakes it leaves so
like the wind across the surface that’s
what my mother told me when I used to
come crying to her about the nightmares
it’s the wind too feeble to stir more
than gentle waves the wind I can tell
the difference between disturbances that
come from above and ones from below I
always thought I loved the ocean I grew
up about as far inland as you can get
among mountains that scraped the steely
clouds the closest thing we had was the
lake in that didn’t count you could see
the shore all the way around on summer
holidays we drive hours to my
grandparents house on the coast and my
cousin’s my brother and I would spend
the days burying each other in the sand
racing down the beach trying to keep
beach balls in the air in the evenings
I’d return with my mother and we’d sit
for long hours watching the sunset
turned the sky cottony pink and yellow
then red then deep purple I loved to
watch the waves pull in and out I loved
to follow the shadows in the breakers
the dark shapes moving within them I
loved letting the foam lap at my toes
it never occurred to me that no one else
saw the dancing shadows it never
occurred to me the loving the ocean
might mean going in because there’s
something in the water
my little brother Jamie loved the ocean
too he was always running into the surf
the second we arrived kicking sandals
aside and plunging through the cold
water until he was in up to his neck he
told me he loved feeling the waves break
over him pulling him back and forth back
and forth
he loved the sand shifting around his
feet making him stumble he loved the
little fish that brushed past nibbled at
his leg hair and scurried away when he
dunked his head to look at them
sometimes it scared me watching him
stare down a wave that I could see was
full of writhing sharp shapes I always
held my breath for the seconds it
crashed around him and he vanished from
view ready to cry for help when he
didn’t come back up
he always did of course but I wonder if
he knew that Beach was too cold to have
fish when I was 14 we moved from the
house in the mountains to the nearest
city and my grandmother passed away
leaving the beach house empty four years
later I moved out for school but I
stayed close to are now aging parents
Jaime ended up living on the coast of
course when he visited home he always
smelled like those summer holidays
sunscreen and seaweed and saline
I dreamed about him often during those
years I dreamed that he came out of the
water first as a child and later as an
adult and salt-encrusted every inch of
his skin it turned his eyelashes white
shaped his hair into a mimicry of waves
every time the dream repeated the
minerals encasing him would be a little
thicker his face a little more warped
underneath it all but he still moved
towards me with the ease of a trickling
stream and every time he reached me his
eyes would snap open shattering the salt
shell they would be bright orange
glinting like amber or a fish’s eyes and
I’d wake up gasping and choking the
taste of seaweed laced with something
filthy filling my mouth and nose
the first time he drowned Jamie was 19 I
left class to find eight calls from my
frantic mother my father already enroute
to the coast he picked me up and we
drove straight through to get to the
hospital at 1:00 in the morning
Jamie’s heart had stopped for two
minutes before they could resuscitate
him he’d been out sailing with friends
when their boat capsized in the initial
panic none of them noticed he hadn’t
resurfaced they tracked the disturbances
to where he was sinking quickly flailing
all the while one of his friends
muttered that it looked like something
was pulling him something dark and thin
and twisting I’m not sure if anyone else
heard him he had gone very pale my
parents wanted Jamie to move back in
with them but he told them in no
uncertain terms that he would do no such
thing
he said he wanted to keep the life he’d
built the friends and job he’d found but
I knew he didn’t care that much the
truth was they still lived in the city
and he wanted to be near the ocean he
thought he needed it
eventually he agrees to give up sailing
and a few of his other more dangerous
activities and they let him stay the
second drowning was two years later he’d
gotten very drunk and fallen off the
pier near his house and this time no one
was around to pull him out
he washed up on a beach four miles away
at 5:00 in the morning an unspecified
amount of time after he’d gone in so no
one knew how long he went without
breathing either the doctor assumed he
must not have been in the water for long
but late that night Jamie gestured me
closer I remember it he rasped all of it
and I didn’t fall in it pulled me it was
barely midnight I wasn’t even that drunk
Jamie rambled on but his eyes stayed
locked with mine
they were wide and fearful and his
lashes were crusted white for an instant
his irises flashed amber my chair
squeezed across the linoleum it startled
him out of his trance but I was already
gone the third drowning happened when he
was 25
nothing stranger than a riptide dart
parents weren’t around anymore to
chastise him for not recognizing a
riptide after all his years practically
living on the beach for my part I was
well aware it had not been a riptide I
hadn’t spoken to Jamie beyond funeral
planning since the last incident but I
got my boyfriend to drive me to the
coast anyway I wasn’t too rushed given
Jamie’s apparent tenacity but we still
got there faster than was feasible if
you were diligent about speed limits
Jamie’s skin picked up blue undertones
in the hospital lighting the remaining
grit of sand and drying saltwater looked
almost scaly but I knew I wasn’t looking
for scales the flickering of his
luminescent eye is under their lids was
much more concerning I set my jaw to
press down the roiling unease and stayed
by the bed later he told me he coughed
up seaweed mixed with foul shade for
hours after we got him home there’s
something in the water he whispered
voice still rough with salt I know I
said rubbing his back as he coughed
again I know it took my hand he said and
the sound went muffled and wet he was
gentle this time and let me deeper and
deeper and I could almost see
[Music]
he trailed off I couldn’t speak through
the feeling of rotting seaweed in my
throat that night I dreamed the same
scene from the past seven years and he
this time it didn’t end when his eyes
opened
neither of us looked away as his hand
wrapped around my wrist surprisingly
warm and soft without the salt he led me
into the water and only as it started to
lap around my knees did I feel fear
creeping up my legs and curling into my
stomach there were no waves
I realized or rather there was just one
on the horizon a wall of water building
drawing itself higher and higher until
it blocked out much of the sky I can’t
describe how the panic tasted as it rose
in my throat I tried to run but the sand
shifted under my feet and Jaime’s grip
had gone hard and I see something else
slick and dark slid around my calves all
I could do is the water pulled us
stumbling closer to the curling mass of
ocean and shadow
was trying to slow my breathing so when
the wave hit my first inhalation
wouldn’t be too soon after I don’t
remember how it ended I woke up
completely still held on my side so good
with sweat my mouth tasted like nothing
but sea air and somewhere that wave was
still building
I thought the lake was safe otherwise I
never would have gone back I certainly
wouldn’t have encouraged Jamie to come
with my boyfriend and I in any case a
few days after my dream we made plans to
move back into the mountain house our
parents had never sold I thought Jamie
would put up more of a fight about
finally leaving the beach but his eyes
were bruised and bloodshot and he kept
complaining of a rushing noise like a
shell held to his ear he wasn’t in much
shape to argue and maybe I was feeling
hopeful that this last incident had
scared him off the ocean forever it
certainly had me once we arrived my
dreams actually did vanish Jamie seemed
better to his skin regaining its color
and his hair relaxing without the
constant salt but more than once my
boyfriend came into the kitchen to find
both of us gazing out the window of the
glittering lake
all else forgotten in the rapture it’s
waves
Jamie was always perfectly still while
my whole body shuddered like I was
trying to run and my feet were buried in
the sand otherwise though we were doing
quite well
there was no drowning there were no
dreams there was nothing in the water
only the wind across its surface
one night my boyfriend sat bolt upright
in bed staring out the window
my eyes were gritty with sleep but i sat
up to squinting out of the lake Jamie
stood on the shore looking out over the
choppy water at first I thought it was
just a trick of my vision but after I
rubbed my eyes it was still there he was
glittering ever so slightly the edges of
his silhouette were warped by the salt
crusting his skin as we watched he
stirred and took one step then another
then another into the lake fluid there’s
a winding stream my boyfriend yelled and
stumbled out of bed
I didn’t follow
he stared at me wild-eyed and confused
it won’t make a difference tonight or
tomorrow I heard myself say he won’t die
might as well get some sleep I could see
he wasn’t convinced and I know he didn’t
sleep because I didn’t either but he got
back into bed and uneasily pulled the
covers up
I took a comfort in the warmth of his
body the dry sheets and solid mattress
my back was to the window and the lake
beyond but I stared at the wall and saw
rippling water until sunlight refracted
across it
we ate intense silence my grandmother’s
rowboat was still in the shed and though
I’d never seen anyone but my mother use
it we dragged it down the sandy
two-track road to the shore and pushed
off as soon as we were sure the oars
were functional I leaned forward to scan
the water and shore line for signs of
Jaime the terror was a surprise a shock
even
I looked over the side and immediately
realized the lake ran far deeper than I
had ever imagined the Sun lanced into it
threading the green surface with
impossibly thin golden lines a meter
down even the brightest rays could go no
further below there was nothing but
shadow of course shadow can hide so many
things so many things can hide in shadow
there’s something in the water at first
it was nothing but a difference between
blacks like the new moon against a
cloudless sky maybe a fish or water
plants but I’d seen that kind of
writhing before carefully so carefully I
sank down to sit on the floor of the
boat I asked my boyfriend what he
thought we should do seeing as I had no
intention of jumping in but he wasn’t
there I wasn’t surprised but I felt the
sudden loss as a dull thud in my chest
a bassy counterpoint to my shrill fear
far away I could see him on the shore
yelling for me it sounded muffled and
wet
the surface of the water was smooth as
it was a windless morning nonetheless
the boat rocked as it drifted first
gently and then much more violently I
pictured myself a tiny triangle of metal
cradling me in the center of an
unfathomably deep green lake and
underneath something incomprehensibly
huge twisting closer closer
I thought distantly about grabbing the
oars and desperately rowing back to
shore it was too late a particularly
hard disturbance and the boat tipped I
gasped in a last deep inhale though who
was immediately shocked out of me in a
spiral of white as I plunged into the
freezing water useless
I didn’t flail what would be the point I
could still see the surface rippling
like sheets in the wind but with every
thump of my pulse in my ears it drifted
farther away I couldn’t be sure I was
looking up at all I was suspended in
dark so complete it pulled
something inky and beautiful grasped my
ankles dragging me faster into the
depths despite myself a whale wrenched
from my chest more white bubbles that
only disoriented me more was this what
Jaime felt the first time
as his friends took to the mundane task
of writing their boat and counting heads
weight sliding around his knees tugging
at his wrists the Riptide that was never
a Riptide tearing at him as it pulled
him inexorably away did he feel this
week as the last air was crushed out of
him this small a hand slipped into mine
it was wall against the growing numbers
the pressure had increased so even as I
turned my head towards its own and my
eyes were forced shut behind my eyelids
I still saw the orange glow the
flickering of iridescent and nictitating
membranes the last of my air side past
my lips in relief
I keep being saved all those times
before Jamie was going to save me
fingers tightened around mine and they’d
gone sharp and slippery went and
crystalline there was nothing I could do
as what was once my brother set my feet
in the silt but ignore the dancing
darkness the ruthless
crushing assault and take my first
breath there’s something in the water
and it won’t let me go
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