 I think the book has a funny way of talking to me. Every time I read it, I find something new. Some story that seemed to be previously hidden away, as if the pages are just rooms whose inhabitants walk freely between them. When I opened the book, I'd already seen a hint of the story within, although I hadn't quite worked that out yet. A couple of days ago, I'd seen an article, read the headline, and then scrolled on something about a Scottish festival in the Highlands, an old archaic festival only held by one village that celebrates something to do with the full moon. Like I said, I didn't pay much attention, although I wish I had now because after reading this story, I tried to find it again and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find the article. I don't believe it's gone completely. I just think it must have sunk back into the muck. Maybe you'll know what I'm talking about. If you do, please let me know. Regardless, here's the story I found in the book this morning. Kelpie, or why you should never trust a man in the moonlight. He knew the first time he saw her that they were bound together. He knew in the same way you know about a bruise or an open wound. He knew and said nothing. Instead he watched in silence as she left a trail of wet footprints on the bone dry pavement and the seaweed glistened in her hair. He was just a boy then and would not see her properly again until he was almost a man. He would see parts of her in his dreams and now when again he'd think that he saw her in the village center picking up on that familiar smell driftwood and mud and spying wet footprints on the stone. He would wait for her sometimes and when once a year the town would almost double in population to celebrate the first full moon after the winter solstice. He would ignore the dozens of young women and men who streamed in who drank cheap beer and sang in the streets who would call to him to come and join when they saw him who were drunk and young and only wanted company. It was Martin who found him a few weeks after his 18th birthday alone. Martin sprawled beside him stinking of whiskey and oil his hands calloused and massive and looked to him eyes glazed not joining the fun boy. He wanted to correct Martin to tell him that he was a man now not a boy but he stayed silent he stayed silent and glared lots of pretty girls a hiccup boys too if that's your thing he spoke up it was the first time he would ever speak about her and he was terrified for a moment that in actually putting it into words he would realize how insane it all was and Martin would laugh at him call him crazy and the whole thing would crash down around his ears a girl Martin grunted a noise that said go on I've I've only seen her once at the sound of this fact Martin sat up rested his elbow on his knees his face gained a sudden seriousness that put years on him and cut through the alcohol induced glaze Martin looked at him long and hard as if working out some elaborate and dangerous puzzle what did she look like this girl he did not want to admit what he'd seen didn't want to be exposed as a fool laughed out of town by a man three times his age Martin passed him the bottle in silence waiting he realized then taking a sip and wincing that this was the only time Martin had ever treated him as an equal as a man and not a boy and that Martin was really listening and so he told the truth he told the truth about the seaweed in her hair and the trail of wet footprints and that he knew they were bound together Martin stayed silent biting his lower lip and rubbing the grain stubble on his jaw he could suddenly see Martin's age the bags under his eyes the slouch in his posture the gnarled fingers and something else a gravity that lay behind Martin's jolly exterior a sense that whatever they were sharing now was not only real but important Martin asked him how he knew they were bound together he said he knew the same way you know about a Bruce or an open wound Martin nodded right answer the movement was more towards himself than anything else but while he stood up he beckoned the boy to follow they retrieved a rabbit from a large hutch in the back of Martin's garden first picking one that was huge and gray and that went limp with fear when they shown a torch in its face they walked in silence away from the village for an hour perhaps more until they took a route through a thin strip of woods they emerged in the moonlight only the shore of a vast and still lake the moonlight illuminated the stretch of shore around them and he could see the light like a white tongue upon the lake surface they were surrounded by silence a silence that seemed to be a question as opposed to a response as if it was asking them what now Martin chose to answer he turned and spoke softly but firmly you do not stay in the water for long you put the prey maybe two three feet out of most then you sit by the shore and wait under no circumstances do you get in the lake this is the closest you'll ever get he did not entirely understand but the tone had shifted in Martin's voice these were less like instructions and more like commandments Martin's tone reminded him of the vicar in church when he spoke about fire and brimstone it was the same grave certainty the same notes of apprehension and awe Martin stuck a small needle in the rabbit and handed it to him he followed Martin's instructions to the letter and push the rabbit out the thing had just enough energy to thrash as it half sank he waited the ripples the rabbit made seemed to attract something larger something that moved from the center of the lake underwater only just disturbing the surface a swell that grew and grew as it approached the rabbit he almost couldn't believe his eyes except dear reader he could because he'd known this all along the same way you know about a broken bone a dark horse came from the depths black and huge and dripping with lake water with eyes as red as embers a horse that had weeds for a mane and sharp teeth that glinted in the light the horse seemed to form itself from the water instead of emerging from under it as if its very dna was liquid and it swallowed the rabbit in two bites there was the crunch of bone and the wet sound of the beast swallowing and then as if the horse form was water the horse melted away and revealed the girl pale and naked in the moonlight her mouth and chin wet with the blood of the rabbit but she was a woman now and when she looked at him he ached like he'd never ached before and every inch of her skin made him breathless and try as he might he couldn't take his eyes off her and he knew he would do whatever it took to see her again he watched her from the shore studied her as she studied him he knew he loved her knew he always had and i must make it clear at this point dear reader that she loved him she who was made from water and who had only been a horse thing a second ago loved him but she loved him the way wild beasts love with teeth and claws and in the dark when she finally slipped back into the water he heard martin speak up in all honesty he'd entirely forgotten martin was there but as martin spoke he could hear the words slur and shake and realize that martin had been drinking the entire time martin warned him that a rabbit wouldn't work next time warned him that she'd be hungrier he laughed and said he'd bring whatever it took no matter if it was a deer or a goat or a cow martin said nothing stared ahead looked to him eyes wet with tears he understood then he knew what it would take and why it could not be said and why martin had made sure that he really loved her from that day on his life took two separate paths he married young perhaps to distract himself from her or perhaps because he thought he should they married in a village on the other side of the country as far away from the lake as possible but the lake and the horse and the girl lurked in his mind like an itch he couldn't scratch every year he'd return to the village make excuses as to why he couldn't bring his wife with his heart in his mouth he'd use whatever he had to old-fashioned dating sites ads and magazines he would meet young men and drink with them dance with them eat with them during the height of the festival before taking them to the lake he would tell them he was going to show them something that would change their lives and in his own way he was right he did not enjoy it if you'd have asked he would have said he was a good man who was made to do bad things i'll leave it up to you to decide he knew vets and doctors and it wasn't hard to create a solution ketamine infused just enough to render his victims able to move an inch just enough to send those ripples into the center of the lake ripples that he would watch with a dry mouth and his heart going so fast it felt like it was vibrating and without fail she would come she came first as the horse thing the thing that he began to call kelpie a scottish legend that he now knew was real in the way only myths can be that would bear its teeth its teeth that grew larger year on year with its black body and glistening and huge in the moonlight that would make short work of whatever he brought for it that twitching body in the shallows and then once it was full her the water would fall away retreating like sea spray from cliff face and it would reveal her naked and pale in the moonlight weeds in her hair and those eyes that would lock with his the light cast strange shadows over her body over her thighs and stomach and arms and he would watch with baited breath as she walked closer and closer to shore he would watch her chest rise and fall as she took deep breaths perhaps the only breath she would take each year he did not know and watch as the blood mixed with water dark and then clear and then joined the lake those moments just the two of them separate but together made it all worth it at this point in the story you would have every right to call him a murderer or the worst kind of criminal and i would be inclined to agree with you the difficulty is dear reader that he cannot hear either of us even if he could he would not have listened he was alone with his love and his lust and that vast still lake his double life continued pretty much unchanged murderer and husband until the birth of his first child the birth was about a month before the festival and he made his excuses in advance how he'd be only gone for a night and that it was important and that he'd be back with both of them before they knew it that night the night of the festival there was a storm it was a storm so huge that the air seemed to crackle with static and the rain lash the soil in waves and lightning forked in the distance at this point he would sometimes even forget their names and simply drag them to the lake with offers of sex or drugs this time as he watched the twitching body out into the shallows and waited he noticed that the lightning was growing closer so close in fact that every time it struck the ground it would illuminate the whole world in a blanket of light this would last just long enough for him to see as far as the horizon clear as day and in me's flashes of light that would break the sky only a second or two after the thunder he saw something that changed him forever something that if he'd really thought about he should have known all along along the shore of the lake as far as he could see were hundreds and hundreds of tiny figures and in front of each of these tiny figures was a shape bobbing in the shallows and as he saw her appear from the lake the horse thing the kelpie and he saw those eyes like embers he saw the same scene happening hundreds and hundreds of times over along the shore of the lake and he realized that he wasn't alone and never had been and that every man in the village was out tonight with their own offering their own prey and they were all feeding their own horse things their own kelpies that they didn't own that they couldn't touch but only see feeding the very lake itself when she turned into a woman and squatted by the edge of the lake he grew closer than he'd ever been filled with a new found courage a courage found in the knowledge that he wasn't alone close enough to see things he'd never seen before the slight webbing of her fingers and toes the sharp hooks on the back of her feet from then on his life became easier the festival still filled him with a strange sense of apprehension but it was soothed by the knowing looks of the men of the village the nods that said so much and the way the men would slowly filter out from the bars and pubs and parks all with a partner headed towards the vast and still lake with one thing on their minds years passed and every year he'd shuffle a little closer to the water a little closer to her but his victims faces all began to blur into one and this blurred vague face would keep him up at night he'd hear it speaking in the static on the radio and watch its lips move in the mirror sometimes when he hadn't slept he would even see the blurred thing stretched across the face of his son he was in his 40s when he decided he couldn't take it anymore i don't know what drove him to it and i'm not sure he did either perhaps the weight of what he'd done finally dawned on him perhaps it was an argument with his now ex-wife perhaps it was the knowledge that soon his son would discover the lake one way or another and he wasn't sure which was worse his son crouched by the shore holding a syringe and shaking with lust or his son as a body twitching and dead eyed in the shallows whatever it was that year he did not contact anymore he did not reach out on any dating sites or addict forums or try and meet anyone at the bar he attended the festival alone with a grim look in his eyes the men of the village that he saw knew that look well and did not try and talk him out of it he made the walk to the lake alone and stood by the shore for a while breathing in the smell one last time the smell of driftwood and mud he took off his clothes folded them into a small pile which he slipped under a fallen log he took off his boots his underwear and stood naked in the moonlight then he started to walk out into the lake he loved her more than he could put into words and that love weighed on him and pulled him deeper and deeper into the lake i do not know what he was expecting but she loved him too and when she found him she loved him the only way she knew how with teeth and claws and in the dark and when his wife pleaded with the local policeman to check the lake stating that this village was the last place he'd mentioned and that she knew he walked to that lake even though he tried to hide it she was met with silence when his wife asked men in the town men that ran the pubs and the bars and who worked at the shops the men who had wives and husbands and sons and daughters the men who prayed at church and who taught at the school the men who drank and swore and spat the men who loved and laughed and cried she was always met with the same stony silence they knew where he was the same way you know about a bruise or an open wound i wish i could say i entirely believed this story the fact that the festival occurs every year and every man in the village manages to bring someone for their kelpie just doesn't seem likely to me surely that amount of disappearances so localized would be noticed by someone but then again maybe the story isn't there to be believed or maybe only parts of it are i'm still figuring this book out i suppose i wonder if he's with her now at the bottom of that vast and still lake or if he died in the shallows like the rest of them