Deep Water: Chapter 5

It turned out, Douglas wasn’t nearly so special as he’d thought himself. Through the history of Middlelake, before it even held the current name, there were instances of people seeking the supposedly body-boosting minerals within the lake, and making themselves sick in the process.

Only The Havis Bottling company had ever managed any manner of consistency, and their secrets had been lost when the marshland gave way; the factory and staff all sucked into the newly formed inner lake. In their history class last year, the teacher had speculated that it was the Bottling Company’s delving that destabilized the land and caused the sinkhole, though officially there was no explanation.

Since then, there had been no less than three new companies who purchased bottling rights and dozens of explorations to investigate the lake’s curious patterns and unique springs, none of which had ended in anything but failure. And with multiple people suffering symptoms just like Douglas, apparently.

Unfortunately, what the bite-sized articles didn’t include was any information on what happened to those people, or even names he might use to look up their individual histories. The symptom was just mentioned in the general pile of problems everyone who drank mystery water went through.

“How is the water this toxic?” Douglas said, looking up from the book at last. “We’ve been swimming in it since we were kids, setting up slides and swings, trailering in small boats to tube around with. Nobody chugs the stuff, but someone should have gotten a few mouthfuls.”

Shanice was reading another book, something about an old empire, but her head popped up with a ready answer. “We only play in the upper levels of the water. The various pools and currents are deeper down, it’s why Havis Bottling had to drill back when it was marshland. Remember, Anthony got dragged down deep by the sinkhole, and that’s where he found the helpful water. From the historical surveys I’ve read, you don’t start seeing the currents until around twenty feet below the surface.”

While the information did answer Douglas’s question, it also left him with an even larger curiosity to address. “Historical surveys? Why do you know so much about all this?”

“I’d say the better question is why you all ignore it.” Shanice snapped her book shut with a slam that echoed through the otherwise empty room. “Our town has an actual historical mystery with no known answer. More than one, really. What was in the water that Anthony Havis found, and did the bottling company really manage to rediscover it, or was that all just marketing? What caused the Havis Bottling Company to sink, and why has no one ever been able to salvage a single remain?”

Shanice’s eyes were sparkling, an interest he’d never seen her display in classes, despite the way she easily aced them. “And at the center of it all: what is really in the Middlelake water that causes such odd effects on some people? How can you not wonder about it, when we see a reminder of the mystery every day?”

Hearing her lay it all out like that, Douglas wasn’t sure himself. “I guess I just always kind of dismissed it as local legend stuff. Every town has a haunted forest or a creepy lake they tell tall tales about.”

He wished it was still as easy to write-off, but the memory of his morning’s panic was far too fresh.

“This one is starting to seem at least cursorily real,” Shanice replied, echoing his own thoughts a bit too well.

“And if it is, what do we do?” Douglas has been so relieved at the idea of the issue not being entirely mental, he hadn’t considered what the broader implication would be. There were treatments and therapies for brain issue, he wasn’t so sure the medical field was as adept at dealing with weird-water-poisoning.

“Step one is making a full catalog of your symptoms. We know you’re having the hallucinations, is there anything else? Have you been experiencing any sleep-walking or excessive night sweats? What about bowel movements, how’s everything moving? Blocked up, or too well, if you catch my drift.”

Douglas scooted slightly away from Shanice on instinct. He was starting to realize why she didn’t talk to other people much. Once Shanice got on a topic, she went full-steam without any consideration toward conversational norms, or baseline propriety.

“Everything else is fine,” he assured her. “Well, okay, I’m not sleeping great, but that’s tied in with the hallucinations. I keep having nightmares about the tubing incident. Nothing excessive, just me sinking in the water, deeper and deeper, until I finally see the boat’s spotlight.”

Shanice’s pen was clicked open, scribbling away in a small notebook she’d produced from a pocket. “Nightmares are their own symptom, though yes, they do usually go hand-in-hand with the hallucinations. You’ve got practice today?”

“Sure do. Coach is probably going to run me ragged after weeks away.”

Clicking the pen a dozen times in the span of seconds, Shanice finally stopped her frantic fidgeting, adding another line to her notebook. “That’s actually perfect. Running is the sort of exercise with easily quantifiable outcomes, one where it would be simply to mark a sudden increase in capabilities.”

“I mean, we do run a lot, but there’s no guarantee. Why does my time matter anyway?”

Shanice cocked her head at him, the light of the library glinting off her glasses. “Anthony Havis displayed enhanced physical prowess after his exposure to the lake’s deeper waters. We’re trying to understand your condition, so the more symptoms we can confirm or rule out, the more data we have to work with. So whatever workouts you have today, give it your all. Aim to beat your own personal best. Even if there’s no change, it allows us to cross one more potential symptom off the list.”

She was already writing again, humming softly like everything was sorted out. Douglas, on the other hand, wasn’t feeling nearly so reassured. “What does this matter anyway? Who cares what symptoms I have for a weird infection that no one knows how to treat?”

The way she stared at him and blinked made him think of an owl. An unexpectedly pretty owl. “How would we know there’s no treatment? This is one set of books, in one high school library. Based on the historical accounts, I’d assume there have to be more extensive records of the infections somewhere. And none of the articles mentioned any deaths, so I’d say there’s a solid chance someone figured out a treatment. I’m going to dig into all that while you have practice, narrowing the symptoms gives us more diagnostic information to draw from.”

Douglas found himself nodding along halfway through the rebuking rebuttal. Shanice was absolutely right. Why had he taken such a dour outlook from the start? Nothing he’d seen indicated the symptoms were long-term or incurable. It was ridiculous to get discouraged because one old history book didn’t delve into medical specifics.

“Thanks. I guess I needed a little outside perspective.”

“If you want to thank me, give your workouts all you’ve got today. Compromised data is no good to us.”

Again, Douglas nodded, smiling a bit at the word “us.” Even if Shanice was the last person he’d expected to share this secret with, it just felt good to not be carrying it alone.