Later that night, she felt someone shaking her awake. “Get up, my dear,” the wife of the fur trader said to her. “Something has happened. It’s your father. You must come. Quickly.”
She led Geneviève down the stairs to the drawing room, where her father lay sprawled on the floor. A man wearing a black suit knelt over him, and when the man looked into Geneviève’s stricken face, he shook his head, his mouth a thin line.
“Papa!” she cried and fell at her father’s side. “Wake up!” But she knew from the coldness of his skin that he was no longer there.
“He collapsed as we were discussing business,” said the fur trader, running one hand through his hair. “At least you can be comforted by the swiftness of his death, my dear. He did not suffer.”
“But—” Geneviève searched each of their faces in turn. “That’s impossible! We traveled so far to get here . . . He just . . .” But her words were sucked down into an eddy of grief.
“Say your goodbyes, child,” the fur trader’s wife told her. “The undertaker and his men are here now to take him away.”
Geneviève watched, both hands over her mouth, as the men brought a pine coffin into the house through the front door. She watched as they placed her father inside and winced as they closed the lid. And she watched as they began to walk out the door, her father’s coffin on their shoulders.
“This is a mistake,” she murmured, following the men out the door, crying, “Papa! Papa!”
But they put him into their wagon, and the horses clopped off down the street. They turned the corner and were gone. She was alone.
“Come inside, girl!” the fur trader’s wife called to her.
But Geneviève ran into the night, blinded by fear and panic and grief. She had no idea where she was going until she found herself at the water’s edge. There, she fell to her knees and wept for her father and for herself. How could she possibly get home now? Would she ever return to her mother or to the village she loved? What would become of her?
The sheer force of Geneviève’s wail awakened a sleeping spirit, the spirit of the lake itself. What was making this incredible racket? He took a quick breath in when he saw it was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, the same girl that he had watched crossing the lake for the past several days, delighting at the way the sun was glinting on the water. It was the same girl who had smiled so sweetly as she had trailed her hand along the water’s surface while the canoe had skimmed its way toward its destination. The same girl who had marveled aloud at the vastness of the lake, its grandeur, its majesty. Her words of wonder at the lake’s beauty had sounded like a prayer to the spirit of the lake, and he had let them wash over him like a wave. Not many people said them anymore.
In that time and place, the people had begun to forget the old legends and tales told to them by their ancestors, legends of fearsome spirits of the land and the water and the sky. They no longer believed, no longer prayed, and so the spirits turned a blind eye to their troubles, refusing help during times of need and delighting in confounding those who crossed their paths. But this girl, something about her was not like the others. Geneviève’s beauty and the force of her grief softened the lake spirit’s heart. He watched as she wept by the lakeshore and moved closer to listen.
“Papa! Why did you leave me?” she wailed. “How am I to get home? What am I to do? I am all alone in this strange place!”
The spirit of the lake knew how far she had traveled to get there—she couldn’t possibly get home on her own. And the people, he thought with a sneer of disgust, couldn’t be counted on to help her.
And so he waded out of the water, donning the human form that he and all of the spirits kept for occasions when they walked among the people, and said to her, “I will take you home.”
Geneviève looked up into his black eyes, and for some reason, she was not afraid of this stranger. He seemed to radiate a glow, even there in the darkness.
“My canoe is nearby.” He gestured to a long wooden boat. “I have blankets and a heavy coat to keep you warm and plenty of food for the journey. You will arrive safely, this I promise you.”
He extended his hand to her, and she reached up to grasp it. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.”
He placed his heavy coat on her shoulders, and she drew it around her, cuddling into its warm fur lining. Then she settled into the front of his canoe on a nest of soft blankets he had arranged for her, and they were off, gliding across the still water into the night.
The spirit of the lake had only planned to ferry her safely home, but sometime during the trip, he found himself staring at her long, shining hair instead of at the horizon as she sat in the front of his canoe. He began to make excuses to stop paddling and rest on land for a while so he could have a chance to sit and look into her bright eyes and talk with her face-to-face. He asked her about her home and her family and her upbringing. She spoke so lovingly of her parents that it melted his heart, and the first moment he heard her laugh, he knew he had fallen deeply in love with her.
When they finally reached her home, they were greeted with both celebration and grief. As the village mourned the loss of Geneviève’s father, they also celebrated the stranger who had been so kind to return Geneviève to the people she loved. They offered food and drink and hospitality to the stranger, who accepted it gratefully.
But Geneviève’s mother looked at this man and knew that it was not simple human kindness that had compelled him to save her daughter, and perhaps not human kindness at all. She was closer to the old ways and legends than anyone else in her village—she had heard tales from her elders of the spirits of nature taking human form and walking among the people. There was a slight glow about them, her grandmother had said, a subtle sheen in their eyes that wasn’t quite human. Look carefully enough, her grandmother had said, and you’ll see it.
Geneviève’s mother looked carefully at the stranger and knew what she saw. One evening, when they were sitting by the fire, when nobody else was near enough to listen, she told him she recognized who he was. He did not deny it.
“What do you want of her?” Geneviève’s mother demanded.
“I am in love with Geneviève,” the spirit answered. “I want her to be my wife.”
“But you cannot marry my daughter!” her mother cried. “She cannot live where you live.”
The spirit nodded his head. “That is why I will consent to live where she lives. If she’ll have me.”
Coming upon them at that moment, Geneviève sat down next to him and held out her hands for his to grasp. “If I’ll have you?” She smiled.
“Since your father is not here with us, I was asking your mother for your hand in marriage.” He smiled, his face glowing like the lake’s surface on a sundrenched day. “If you’ll have me.”
Geneviève threw her arms around him and laughed, a sound that filled up his heart like the prayers of the faithful once had. And so it was done. The spirit of the lake took the human name of Jean-Pierre to honor his bride’s father and married Geneviève on the lakeshore one beautiful, bright day. They settled into a small house in the village.