It is hard to stay lonely at a lake. A true lake that is. It is easy to stay lonely at a one of those glorified ponds the plainsmen call lakes, but when you carry your loneliness to a true lake, a lake you can’t see across the loneliness fades and sometimes it disappears.

Abigail hoped this would be one of the times the loneliness would disappear. She had been carrying it for days and each moment it got heavier. As a last resort she had come down to the lake hope it would take her burden from her.

Abigail didn’t like coming to the lake, but she couldn’t quite pin-point why. She had a nice place to sit, it wasn’t cold yet and out here the sky was big enough to wonder at. It should have been perfect, but she just never felt comfortable at the lake. Maybe it was because she couldn’t always tell where the lake ended and the sky began. Maybe it was because she always felt small when she stared across the water and couldn’t see the other side. Maybe it was because the Undines always came to talk to her.

They had come to talk to her now. Shaped like women with skin that rippled and eye the color of mist they swam toward her.

“Littl sister,” they called, “Why do you sit with your sorrow getting so big? Why do you not come and let the water carry it away?”

Abigail tried not to listen to them. They came to the surface and called to her whenever she came down here. They claimed she was half their sister and belonged to the lake. Abigail would have loved to tell them she knew they were wrong. She would have loved to tell them she knew she couldn’t possibly be half Undine because neither of her parents were of the lake. But she was never going to be sure what or who her parents were. She didn’t know ans there was no one who remembered them to ask.

The longer she sat resisting the Undines call the heavier her loneliness grew. She knew that soon it would be too heavy to carry home. She knew she should have left some time ago. But still she sat watching with sad eyes.  The moon rose from behind the water and still she sat. The opened their eyes and started to sing and still she sat. The Undines called with voices as cool as water from a spring and still she sat. She sat and now her loneliness was so heavy she wasn’t sure she could get up if she wanted to and still she sat.

All at once Abigail decided. She struggled to her feet and fell into the water. For a moment her sorrow was so heavy it carried her to the bottom of the lake and she felt the first pangs of panic bite at her soul. But then her sister Undines picked her up and helped her float in the water. The waves washed over her face and she tasted salt on her lips. As her tears mixed with fresh water her sorrow eased. With each wave her loneliness grew smaller and lighter. The water washed away her sorrow and carried it far away. The Undines whispered to her that in time her tears would flow into the ocean and mix with the tears of the world. It is tears that make the ocean salty.

When her sorrow was gone Abigail opened her eyes and looked around her. Her sisters had brought her to the horizon where the lake touched the sky. It was here that the stars came when they weren’t singing. It was here that the Undines came when the cold winds blew. And it was here that they taught her how to ride the waves and sing with the gulls and how to take sorrow water from people make them whole again. And Abigail lived there happily ever after. Â