Lovers Lake

A spooky love story for Halloween

The sound of gravel grinds in my ears as I walk the path where last I saw my lover. The weight of my Timberland boots pulls my feet to kiss the ground, and my fingers caress the crumbling leaves to either side of me, which autumn winds have yet to steal away.

He was here. I can feel him, like phantom fingers on my spine, and I shiver. The mountains’ jagged teeth rise all around me in the gloom of twilight, the severed jaw of some fabled beast. I call out his name, hoping to summon him and his ready grin, rather than the true monsters that haunt the descending shadows.

The silence of the forest embraces me, even as the gentle moans of the wind in the pines stands my hair on end, and I tug my soft cardigan sweater more tightly across my chest. My eyes slide across the scenery, searching for the bright yellow of his jacket as the lavender grays of dusk blanket the sky and the still, clear glass of the lake ahead of me.

The spicy scent of spruce nuzzles me as I approach the first star’s mirror, and my hands cup my face as I cry out his name again, willing him to appear from behind a boulder scantily clad in moss.

My shoulders slump in despair, and I taste ash on the air, whether from some distant chimney or the dwindling embers of expectation, I do not know.