That one lake monster

Edgar was sitting comfortably in his chair, at his desk against the wall, and getting ahead of one of the books their literature teacher had given them to read for one of their future lessons, when someone came running into his class and called- or, well, shouted his name.

“Ed!” It was the excited voice of a person that was very quickly becoming familiar to Edgar, but not because he had given his consent.

From his peripheral vision, he saw that the few classmates of his who had stayed inside too turned their heads at the newcomer, vaguely curious, but he stubbornly kept his eyes on his book. That was not his problem, so there was no need for an acknowledgement, nu-uh, not at all.

Except that the problem in question did not understand the signals he was very clearly giving off, and approached him anyway. “Ed, you won’t believe the last thing I found!”

He heard his classmates snicker at the scene, and wished he could hide somewhere.

“I told you not to call me Ed-”

As usual he went totally ignored, and a newspaper was slammed on his desk. “You remember the lake monster I told you about, last time, right? The one from the neighbouring town.” Edgar did, of course, but not because he wanted to. “Well, they’re announcing a competition! The one, or ones, that’ll solve the mystery will win a prize!”

Edgar put a bookmark on the page he was reading, closed the tome and then proceeded to hit its cover with his forehead. “John, monsters don’t exist, they’re all either myths or legends-”

“Oh, come on, even your, you know…” He lowered his voice and got closer, as if that actually made him seem less suspicious. “… your thing, many people would treat even that as something inexistent.”

Edgar raised his head, giving him an unimpressed stare. “Yes, because it should be.”

“But-” John was on the point of rehearsing the same line from the conversation they had had dozens of times already, but then shook his head, probably realising it would have been useless. “In any case, we must participate!”

“No. We don’t have time, we have to study and we can’t solve a mystery when there’s no mystery in the first place-”

“Please, Ed, just accompany me!”

“I’m not-”

“I’ll pay for the train tickets! Please!”

Edgar frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. The answer was no and would have remained so, he would not have capitulated to that pathetical behaviour or those pretty hazel eyes, that time, he refused. He was stronger than that.

*

A few days later, in the weekend, they were both at the lake.

They had been there for hours and hours already, actually, and the sun was setting, it was nearly time to return home, but John absolutely did not want to give up.

“Oh, come on, at least a splash of water, just that, I’m not asking for much!” he exclaimed while he walked to and fro on the pier, throwing his hands up in the air.

Edgar, seated a few steps back with a thermos of warm tea in his hands, followed him with his eyes. “I told you that it’s just a myth-”

“Well, in any case, it’s totally unfair” he pouted, finally stopping in his tracks – he ought to have ground a few kilometres at the very least by that point –.

Edgar got up and, with a sigh, patted his shoulder. “There, there.”

John glanced away. “… I’m sorry for having dragged you here.”

“It’s-” He sighed again. “… fine.” In the end he had accepted, after all. “Now, though, can we go home, please?”

“Yeah, let’s go. I owe you a day out somewhere you like.”

Edgar lifted an eyebrow, looking at him with a half-smile on his lips. “I like libraries.”

“Then I’ll take you to the library, and then to a… uh, teahouse. Or something. If you’ll get bored.”

At his words, his smile became a touch softer. “I do like teahouses, too.”

John’s whole being brightened, and he started blabbering excitedly about their next outing, beginning to walk in the direction of the lake shore.

Edgar rolled his eyes, but when he tried to make a step toward the other he felt something cold try to grab his ankle and fail, passing through his limb. His eyes widened, and he spun around.

“… and then we’ll- Ed, are you listening to me? Ed? Edgar, are you-”

“I’m fine, just, shut up for a minute.”

“What’s there- Oh! I understood! It’s one of those times-”

“Shhh!”

“Yeah, okay, shutting up right now.”

Edgar could feel John hovering near him, but all of his attention was on the little kid who had emerged from the lake, and whose body was translucent and intangible.

“You didn’t ignore me.” The child got out of the water, and looked at him in wonder. “You didn’t ignore me!”

Edgar hated the fact that he could see them. “… You grabbed my attention.” Quite literally, too.

“Everyone else didn’t even react! Even my mum and my dad! I called them, but they acted as if I wasn’t even there!”

“I think it was because-”

“I know they didn’t want to bring me to the lake, but I’ve been good, pinkie promise! I even found a gift for them!”

The once-placid lake began to get agitated, apparently due to what seemed like an underwater snake made of algae: Edgar, however, knew that it wasn’t the case, despite John’s more or less quiet running commentary in the background. He clenched his fists, his mouth a thin line. “… What did you find?”

The kid’s body literally glowed, and the lake slowly returned to its normal state. “Just look!” A round and iridescent stone, impossibly, emerged from the water surface and got deposited on the pier. “It’s my new treasure.”

“It’s a very cool rock” Edgar said, fighting against the lump in his throat and forcing himself to soften his demeanour. “If you want, I can bring it to your parents, so that you won’t have to worry about that anymore.”

“Really? You would?”

“Of course, just leave it to me.”

“Thank you, nice big brother!” the child exclaimed, but their voice had already started fading, as was doing their body. After a few seconds, nothing remained of them, except for a stone that was probably as heavy as the one that Edgar felt sitting in his gut.

“Ed, was that… was that a ghost?”

“… yes.”

John must have realised that something was not quite alright, because when he approached he did so with something similar to cautiousness. “Of whom, this time?”

Edgar’s eyes were still transfixed on the now empty pier, still seeing something that no-one else could, and he shook his head. “… please, let’s just go home.”

“… Okay.”

Edgar took the rock in his hands, putting it in one of the pockets of his jacket, and cried.

He hated that.

*

Some time later, there were new articles on the journals regarding that lake, announcing that there had been no more sightings of the monster and that the competition had been cancelled. In a short piece at the end of one of the articles, the parents of a child that had died by drowning thanked the nice stranger who helped them overcome their grief.

Edgar closed the newspaper.

He really hated that power, sometimes.