#writephoto: Mélusine

For Sue Vincent’s photo prompt. I thought this was going to be a peaceful, placid piece.

The lake is still now, and mist falls on the farther shore. The sun sets. Shadow fills this ruined cabin, roofed by the stars and cloud, and I wait for the first ripples to appear on the lake water. I betrayed her once and she left me, but I can never leave her side, even though it may be death to linger here.

The last rays slide across the dark water where the stars are mirrored, so far away. Blood red light breaks into bars of dark gold as the surface is broken, ripples racing shoreward from an unseen point that gathers darkness about it like a cloak.

Mélusine.

I form the name, silently, so often murmured, but forbidden now. I step through the doorway into the light that lingers in the sky and the ripples buck and writhe, serpentine skeins of glittering water. In the centre, the dark cloud rises, spreads and in an instant, dissipates. She is there—she sees, she knows, and she is coming.