by Molly McGill
It got dark under the water quicker than I thought it would. I only know which way is up because of the sliver of light illuminating the bubbles of my last lungful of air, escaping to the surface where I cannot follow. Then the light is gone, and my air is gone, and then I, too, am gone. Into the dark.
When I was eight my parents took me to the visiting fair. I was too short for the big rides so, instead, we went to every booth and tried to win prizes on the rigged games. A lot of that night I only remember in snatches of sensation; the cold hard pound coins I clutched in my hand, my dad playfully tugging on my braid, the taste of candyfloss and the dizzying jewel-coloured lights that I could see even when my eyes were closed. The part I remember with absolute clarity, though, was the fortune teller’s tent. It was smaller than many of the attraction tents and made of patchwork blue and purple silky material.
My mum challenged my dad to one of the games and he crouched down and told me to cheer him on. The last thing he said was not to wander off.
My eyes drifted to the colourful tent and the orange lamps that lit it up. I remember thinking that it didn’t count as wandering off if it was only a few steps away from the game.
I don’t remember going in but I certainly remember sitting in front of the fortune teller on a scratchy embroidered pillow and resting my elbows on her chipped wooden table. I was thoroughly mesmerised by her.
To me she looked ancient. She had green eyeshadow caked on in layers and a dusting of it sunk into the wrinkles around her eyes like she was wearing a colourful eye mask. Her lips and fingernails were a garish red, though there were chips in the paint on a few of her nails. When she spoke, there was a dot of lipstick on her front teeth. Her pure white hair was pushed back off her face by a silky green headscarf. I think I told her she looked magical because she laughed.
The fortune teller took my little hand in her wrinkled one and traced the lines of my palm with a blunt fingernail. Her face dropped very suddenly from a smile into a tense frown.
She muttered to herself about the vibrancy of youth and how often it is cut short, then she looked up and asked me if I understood what she was telling me. I didn’t, and I started to feel very scared at the change in her eyes. The fortune teller sighed and told me that I must be careful around water. I still didn’t get it and she started to get frustrated.
Eventually she told me, bluntly, that she saw me die by drowning. I realise now that she didn’t mean to be so harsh, but trying to soften the message did not work. Her eyes were the colour of ice and I felt like they sunk right into me, planting that ice in my brain and freezing me in place. I managed to choke out that I had just passed all my swimming lessons at the local pool, I even got a gold medal. The lady just shook her head; I remember what she said exactly.
‘We can not fight what is inevitable, my dear. Fighting against the tide of fate will only weaken you against the waves of your destiny. Death comes for us all, but for you it may come sooner than most.’
Just at this point, my mum burst into the tent calling my name and immediately saw me crying. I must have told her what the fortune teller had said, or perhaps the lady told her, because my mum slapped the fortune teller hard and cursed at her. Mum lifted me and carried me out to my dad who was still standing next to the game holding a massive plush dolphin. He tried to hand it to me, possibly to cheer me up, but I was so worked up that the cartoonish smile on the thing made me scream.
From that night, I refused to go into any body of water. I even stopped taking baths and took showers instead. My dad must have joked a thousand times that the fortune teller clearly wasn’t very good, since she couldn’t even foresee that my mum was going to slap her, but that didn’t prevent my beach day screaming episodes or my poolside panic attacks.
After several months my terrors were showing no sign of subsiding and I was shunted into Dr Fells’ child psychiatrist office. I had sessions within the yellow walls of her office until I was fourteen. While it was clear that my phobia wasn’t going to go away completely, I hadn’t had a panic attack or a nightmare for a while, could take a bath when it was necessary, and was even able to play with my little cousins in a paddling pool. My parents contented themselves with my improvement.
By the time I was eighteen and had moved out for university, I was reasonably comfortable around water, but then the pool incident happened. Maya, my roommate, invited me to a party at her boyfriend’s house. It wasn’t until I got there that I found out it was a pool party. In Maya’s defence, I didn’t share my phobia with people unless I had no other option, so she had no idea. I told her that I didn’t go into pools but kept the reason vague. Maya shrugged and directed me to a poolside chair; I wasn’t even the only one not in the pool. I talked to my fellow dry landers and started to relax and enjoy myself. The mere presence of a pool in my vicinity wasn’t enough to scare me, and I was able to forget it was even there, right up until Maya’s boyfriend lifted me bodily and threw me into the deep end.
I have no idea why I was targeted, it was probably just bad luck, but the fact remains that I sank like a brick and it triggered my first major panic attack in over four years. I was totally unable to help myself as I sank further and further, for what felt like forever, water forcing its way into my open mouth and into my tight lungs. Then arms grabbed my waist, pulling me to the surface and on to dry land. When I had coughed out most or all of the water, a towel was thrown around my shoulders, and the same person carried me inside. My panic attack still had me in its grip so it was several more minutes before I was able to thank the girl who saved me. Vanessa was a lifeguard and had instinctively jumped into action before anyone else had time to gather themselves to help. I ended up blurting out the story behind my phobia in an attempt to make her understand just how much she had just saved me. Two days later Vanessa called to check up on me and asked me out on a date.
The story about how we met was told at our wedding, but the speech left out how much I regressed after the incident. I had to go right back to therapy but this time no amount of talking could stop the nightmares or the terror seizing and constricting my lungs when I saw a pool, lake or ocean.
Sadly, this was one of the reasons Vanessa and I eventually divorced. My inability to be near water was a constant strain and it seemed to me that Vanessa cared more about her lifeguard life / job / calling? than she cared about my fears. She never took the fortune teller’s words seriously, just like everyone else I had ever told. But none of them had seen her eyes, none of them had heard the certainty in her voice, things I relived in my nightmares. I missed Vanessa the most when I woke up screaming and there was no one to comfort me.
I don’t mind admitting that I became reclusive after the divorce. Meeting someone new and having to explain my story seemed like too much effort. It was so much easier to go to work, very occasionally meet up with a friend for a coffee or just stay at home by myself. My sister Emma, however, was justifiably worried that I was isolating myself and started a campaign to get me to visit her in Switzerland. I finally agreed, mostly because where she lived was land locked and she knew better than to book water activities. My phobia was older than her, and Emma had never known me another way.
That’s how I found myself on the short two-hour flight.
That’s how I found myself clutching my armrests when there was turbulence.
That’s how I found myself clutching an oxygen mask to my face.
That’s how I found myself shoving the life vest over my head.
That’s how I found myself watching with horror as the ocean rush up to meet me.
That’s how I found myself in the freezing water.
That’s when I heard the fortune teller’s words in my head again and I knew that every decision I had ever made had pulled me here, as surely and naturally as the tide pulling a piece of driftwood further out to sea. ‘’We cannot fight what is inevitable, my dear.’
And
That’s
How
The
Dark
Swallowed me whole
And my last breath
Made bubbles
That rose
To the surface when I couldn’t.
Molly McGill is a writer from County Derry, Ireland. She has a bachelor’s degree in film studies and creative writing from John Moore’s University and has a passion for writing and reading weird horror fiction.
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