Along with his new name and his new bride, Jean-Pierre took on a new vocation as well, that of a fisherman. It was a way for him to at least visit his beloved home, even if he could no longer dwell there. He would paddle his canoe into a secluded spot, shed his human form, and slip beneath the water’s surface, stretching out to touch each and every one of the billions of water droplets that made up this great lake. Home. And there he would stay for much of the day—fishermen were away from the village from before sunup until sundown, after all—until he would fill his canoe with fish, don his human form again and paddle toward the village and his beloved wife. If there was anything Jean-Pierre adored more than his water realm, it was only Geneviève.
Soon, they welcomed a child into the world, whom they called Violette. Jean-Pierre walked to the lakeshore with the babe in his arms and waded into the shallows to introduce his darling girl to his true home.
“She’ll catch her death!” Geneviève’s mother called to him, but he wasn’t so sure about that. This girl was a spirit of the lake just like her father, wasn’t she? When he set the girl into the water and she floated like a fish, he knew he was right. The villagers rejoiced with the young couple as two became three.
But as happy as the Lake was on land, he began to see signs that things weren’t right in the water. Salmon did not spawn, trout were dying. Fishermen came home with empty nets day after day. The shoreline was receding. No waves hit the rocks, not even on the windiest of days. No sparkle shone on the lake’s surface, just a dull sheen. Without its spirit, the lake itself was dying. Jean-Pierre knew what he had to do, although it broke his heart.
The spirit of the lake spent one last night with his beloved Geneviève, telling her everything. At first, she didn’t believe him, but her mother confirmed the truth of what he had said. And the couple held each other until the sun came up, for what they knew would be the last time. Then the Lake, his bride, and their daughter walked down to the shore, where he waded into the shallows and bent down to his daughter. “I will watch over you even though I cannot be with you,” he said. “You are the daughter of the lake. The water will always be your place of refuge.”
“Will I ever see you again?” asked Geneviève, tears welling up in her eyes.
He looked up at the shining full moon. “Luna has promised to lend you her gifts,” he said. “Dream, my love, and you shall find me.”
And with that, he sloughed off his human form, sank down, and vanished into the water.
Geneviève watched as a great fury was stirred up then, enormous waves coming forth on a calm day, crashing violently into the rocks on shore. She could feel her husband’s spirit in the icy spray, and smell his scent on the wind.
Although she sat on the lakeshore every day of her life, that was the last Geneviève saw of her husband until her dying day. She was an old woman then, lying on the bed in the same house they had shared all those years ago. He appeared to her just as he was back then, young, vibrant, glowing. He carried her to the shoreline and sat with her, stroking her hair and telling her how much he loved her, until she took her last breath. Then he gathered her body into his arms and walked into the shallows, the waves lapping gently at the shore.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Great Bay
Addie closed the book and sighed. “What a beautiful and sad folk tale. You said your grandmother wrote it?”
Marie nodded. “Yes, child. But it’s not just a folk tale. Geneviève was your grandmother’s grandmother.”
Addie squinted and curled her nose. “I don’t mean to sound impertinent, but that’s just not true.”
“No, you don’t understand, my girl. I’m not saying this folk tale is true, but as you know, many of these old tales have kernels of truth in them, no?”
Addie nodded. “I guess so.”
“My grand-mère wrote this story to . . . well, to explain certain things about our family to future generations.”
Addie curled her legs underneath her. “I’m not sure I understand. What sort of things?”
“It’s the women in our family, Addie. We have gifts. One is a rather otherworldly relationship with the lake—”
Addie took in a quick breath. She knew all about that. It’s just what had always been. “What’s the other gift?”
“We have the gift of dreaming,” Marie said, stroking her daughter’s hair. “I’ve always known you were happiest in the lake—that was evident from the day you were born—but I didn’t know you had inherited the dream gift, until now. And the gift of sight.”
Addie shook her head. “Why haven’t you ever told me about this?”
“My mother made me vow to keep it a secret and never tell a soul,” Marie said, her voice low. “Not even your father knows. But it’s the truth, and now I’m telling you.”
“Why couldn’t you tell anyone? What’s the harm?”
“The harm is other people, Addie. My grandmother was very gifted in dreaming—she got so good at it that she even interpreted the dreams of others—and she was killed because of it.”
Addie’s eyes grew wide, and a gnarling began to form in the pit of her stomach. She wasn’t so sure she was going to like this story.
“She had the gift from the time she was a young girl,” Marie went on. “When I was just a child, I remember people coming from miles around to see her at her house—this was up in the old country, of course, before my parents and I came to Great Bay.
“They’d knock at the back door, not wanting to be seen coming in the front of the house. I was young then, but even I knew that people thought it was rather blasphemous to put any stock in dreams. They would pretend not to know my grandmother on the street or in town, but nonetheless, they would all come through the back door to sit at her kitchen table from time to time, have a cup of tea, and talk to her about their dreams.”
“What was she like?” Addie wanted to know.
“For one thing, her name was Violette,” Marie said.
Addie smiled. She had not known this before now.
Marie went on. “She told me that she was a great beauty in her youth, with long black hair and deep, dark eyes. She told me that all the boys in town were after her, but she only had eyes for my grandfather, who was a young apprentice for the town’s blacksmith. Her parents didn’t approve; they thought she could do better, but she defied them and married him anyway. She was right, of course. They had eight children and were happily married for thirty years.
“By the time I came along, my grandfather had died and my grandmother was an old woman, but I still thought she was beautiful,” Marie went on. “She was wild and funny and reminded me of the gypsies who would travel through town now and then. She always had something good simmering on the stove, stew or soup or mulled cider. Bread in the oven. I would make my way across town to her house whenever I could because I loved her and I was interested in hearing her stories.”
Marie stopped then, looking backward in time to those idyllic childhood days. Addie sat quietly, knowing that her mother would pick up the story where she left off.