Lee tugged on the line, shivering in the frigid morning air of Hell’s Point, and watched the reflection of the waxing moon ripple. Sitting in his little tin dinghy in the middle of the lake, he had caught no fish. Just like yesterday and the day before. Come to think of it, he had never caught any fish.

He sighed and pulled out his phone. The bright light hurt his eyes, and he winced.

5:26am.

The mauve light of dawn was just beginning to illumine the canopy surrounding the lake and turn the thin layer of mist that blanketed the water to silver. The stars were beginning to fade, and the moon would soon whisper her way behind the peaks of the distant mountains.

Lee yawned. Sleep was a rare luxury, and that night had been no different. He reluctantly wound the line back in and threaded the dripping hook into the reel. He placed it in the empty bucket and picked up the oars. The motor on the back had stopped working some time ago. By the time he had rowed to his red wooden cabin, the sun was lancing its rays through the sky, chasing away the last vestiges of night.

Splash.

Stepping out of the boat, Lee turned to locate the noise. Small ripples radiated from the spot he had just been fishing. Frowning, he shrugged. Proof that life did indeed exist beneath the surface.

He tied the boat to the jetty, walked past the wooden deck chairs, and placed the tackle box and the bucket on the rocky ground amongst the reeds. He pushed open the door, kicked off his boots, and stepped inside. He took a sip of the tea he had prepared earlier. It was cold, but he didn’t mind. He got dressed for work, picked up his tool kit, and stepped back outside.

He walked through the forest of pine and fir, stepping around the graves scattered beneath the trees. He arrived at the spot where he had finished yesterday and got to work cleaning the tombstones. He cleared away the leaf litter, scraped off the moss, and cut away the overgrown vines. He could clean four in a day.

He was particularly conscientious about polishing the stones. They never had names or dates but were engraved with epitaphs that always left Lee feeling cold.

“I have loved you as well as I could.”

“Nobody at all?”

“I trust you.”

The fourth for the day was a small grave. Lee assumed it was a child’s. He carefully cleaned the words in the gloaming light.

“I can’t see you mummy.”

As he walked back to his cabin, Lee looked up through the branches as the moon’s blue light drifted down. She had returned to him, as she always did. His only lonely friend.

Crunch.

Lee spun but saw nothing. He called out but there was no response. He stood still and squinted. Dusk shadows wavered in the swaying foliage. He rubbed his chin but went back to his cabin. His exhaustion was messing with him.

After a simple meal, he read his book and went to bed. His body yearned for sleep but, yet again, it eluded him. After what must have been hours he sat up and switched on the light. He picked up the framed photo on his bedside table. The photo was old and the woman’s face was now blurred. A single tear slipped across his cheek like a memory.

He placed the frame back on the table and was about to lie down again – he wondered why he even bothered – when he heard a sound from outside. Splashing and the clanging of metal, what sounded like a boat on the shore, and was that a voice?

He kicked off the blankets, shrugged on a thick gown, and rushed outside.

Nothing.

Everything was still and quiet. The water reflected the moon’s magnificence like a mirror and the only boat was his own, tied to his jetty where he left it.

He grabbed a woollen blanket from inside before walking out onto the jetty. He reclined into one of the deck chairs and pulled the blanket to his chin, lacing his fingers through the thick weave. It was cold but he liked being beneath the marquee of stars with its lunar chandelier. At some point, he fell asleep.

He woke to the sun’s rays caressing his cheek as it rose from behind the distant treetops. He stretched and rubbed his eyes, blinking away the bright light. Yawning, he picked up the blanket and trudged inside his cabin.

He put the kettle on the stovetop to make a cup of tea and got dressed while the water boiled. He made some toast and spread some jam and sat into his cushioned couch to look out the window and over the lake. The water glistened in the warm morning glow.

When he finished his breakfast, he brushed off the crumbs, placed his mug in the sink, and went to pick up his tools. But he hesitated. The water was too inviting. Besides, the graves weren’t going anywhere.

He grabbed his hand reel, tackle box, and bucket – ever hopeful – and rowed out onto the water. Not too far this time, but a different spot. The water was as still as a mausoleum, as usual. He could see the tombstones resting in the shade. They looked peaceful from here.

Movement.

A flash at the edge of his vision caught his attention. He peered into the shadows of the trees, straining to see what was there, between the tombstones and into the undergrowth. Aside from the soft swaying of the sturdy trunks, there was nothing there. There was never anything in that forest. Not even animals.

A thought slithered into his mind, lurking behind reason: he was going insane. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head. As he pulled his phone from his pocket – no reception – he yawned, and his eyes grew moist. He brushed a knuckle along his lower eyelid, wiping away a tear, and opened the camera app. He raised his phone and used the camera to zoom in on the trees. Still nothing.

After an eternity of using the little screen of his phone to observe the trees that surrounded the lake, Lee sighed. He must truly be going insane. But then something flashed through the dappled greenery. Startled, Lee dropped the phone, echoing a metallic clink as it hit the bottom of his dinghy. Grunting, he grabbed the phone and looked back up at the trees. Nothing.

Bump.

The little boat rocked and Lee almost dropped his phone again. Ripples spread through the water, hiding whatever was skulking below. Lee jostled from side to side, peering into the water, and then sat still, silent, holding his breath. The water stilled and his heart rate slowed to normal. Whistling through his teeth, he grabbed the oars and rowed toward his cabin.

About halfway back, he noticed some bubbles popping on the surface. Fish, he thought. He rowed toward the bubbles to get a closer look, but the bubbles stopped as he drew close. Disappointed, and a little unnerved, he returned to his cabin, dropped his fishing gear on the rocks among the reeds, got dressed for work, and tramped his way to the next tombstone needing polishing.

He was able to clean another two that afternoon before he felt the chill through his jacket and the mist started rolling in, ephemeral in the dusk moonlight. When he finished polishing the words “Please stop”, he picked up his tools and turned around. But something made him hesitate.

A fresh grave.

Freshly dug with no leaf litter or moss with a clean tombstone gleaming in the fading light, Lee hadn’t noticed this grave before. Frowning, he tried to remember seeing it earlier. Must be going insane. He continued past it, trying to ignore it. The tombstone was engraved with a single word: “Promise?”

That night he couldn’t sleep. He stared at the ceiling but all he could see was that fresh grave. He could have sworn it wasn’t there before. He switched on the light and swung his legs out of bed. He caressed the hazy face in the old photo before standing up and putting on a thick jacket. He picked up his phone – almost dead – and opened the door.

The cold hit him like stone, his breath clouding and joining the mist that billowed beneath the trees. Slithers of silver moonlight pierced the pitch darkness, but he turned on his phone’s torch and stepped between bough and burial until he found the fresh grave.

He raised his phone to get a closer look. It was in pristine condition, as if it had been dug only yesterday. He looked at the tombstone and frowned. The words had changed.

“I don’t remember her face.”

No. They hadn’t changed. This was a different grave. Another fresh grave? He groaned and rubbed his temples. He really needed sleep. He looked around and saw the other grave right next door, the one he had seen this afternoon. But this other one, this one was definitely not there earlier.

Darkness.

Lee moaned as his phone died. Everything was black, but slowly, as his eyes adjusted, the moon’s pearly light started to reveal the trees and the tombstones. And a person.

Lee’s stomach lurched and a breathless noise escaped his lips. There was a figure, robed in shadow, standing before him, unmoving. He spun around. Another stood behind a tree and another by the grave he had cleaned that afternoon. He felt a hand rest upon his shoulder. He cried out and ran.

Not looking behind, he ran toward his cabin, dodging the trees, feeling the soft crunch of undergrowth beneath his steps. There were other figures, emerging from the darkness, and he heard steps trampling behind him. His cabin drew closer and closer, but the light blinked off. A shadow threatened in his doorway.

He ran onto his deck and down the jetty and jumped into his boat. He tried the motor, knowing it wouldn’t work, and it didn’t. He picked up the oars and rowed, forcing the wood to take command of the dark water. He heard running behind him and then splashing. He forced himself to row harder, his shoulders burning. But he looked behind and saw…nothing.

Nothing was behind him, nothing on the shore or on the jetty, but he rowed on into the middle of Hell’s Point. The moon and her smiling reflection his only companion. And then the water began to bubble and ripple, turning the moon’s reflection to a distorted snarl.

He moaned when he heard the first splash and then wept at the second. Something thumped the bottom of the boat, hard enough that the oars fell into the water, out of reach. Lee vainly tried the motor again as the ripples turned to waves.

Lee laid down and stared up at the night sky. The bumps continued and water began to spill over the sides and pool beneath him. With tears in his eyes and a croak in his voice, he gazed at the moon and sighed a whisper.

“Be gracious to me, shining deity.”

**

Clymene woke with a smile and stretched as she opened the blinds in her room. The orange desert burned in the golden morning light, sharp shadows clinging to the broken brown cliffs, and the low shrubs jittering in the soft breeze.

“Good morning my darling,” she said to the sun. She drank her coffee on the porch before getting dressed and going to work.

She passed the tombstones she cleaned yesterday and knelt before a dirty one. She dusted the sand off the marble and cut away the overgrown grasses with their small yellow flowers. She lingered over the engraved words as she polished them, inhaling the comforting warmth of the desert air.

“Be gracious to me, shining deity.”

Clymene closed her eyes and sighed contentedly.