Claire felt her beliefs revitalized, "...you must take care to be assiduous, grit and determination are necessary factors that will lead to great success."
Looking back now, Claire thought the words her father touted seemed more like the audio of an infomercial than any true advice a father would give to his daughter.
As she walked across the open lawn toward the dilapidated house, Claire felt her nerves begin to tighten into knots, forming pockets of tissue in her stomach. For one brief, revealing moment, Claire resolved to turn around and go back. Then she heard that song again, that melody she could not quit singing, playing in her head. So she continued along the path that she had chosen.
The little old lake house sat overlooking the lake on the far eastern edge of the property. In total, the property spanned twelve acres, the largest piece of land in the area, and hugged the edge of a nature preserve on the southwest side. It was quiet, clean, and natural - things Claire desperately desired to hold on to, things which were slowly disappearing from her life.
As dusk rolled in around her, Claire decided that she would stay the night. She had always felt at home under the cover of darkness. The night presented a welcome comfort when the whole of the masses retreated to their homes. The whole world fell quiet again. She felt privy to the secret silence in the late hours of the turning clock.
On approach, the house was blocked by a few large branches that had fallen in the storm the night before, but she navigated around them in the dark making her way to the wrap around porch which extended half way around the house, fit with rotting plywood after years of exposure.
Mr. Sands had not sought to maintain the upkeep of the property. To Claire, it seemed his neglect had been intentional. It was his way of implying implicitly that if the house could not stay in his family then he wanted no one to have it, through any means necessary, even self-destruction.
Witnessing this slow disintegration brought to surface the subtle patterns of depression she had experienced many times before, allowing the world to crumble in around her; the giving up and giving in to the complacency of dull tears. The remembrance of that old familiar feeling of lost hope which had a way of creeping in after months of little let downs. The pain associated with expectation.
Claire entered the house through the back door, knowing that the handle had a faulty lock. Once inside, she lit a slew of candles she found tucked inside a drawer and made preparations for a night of playing sleuth, digging through closets and old notebooks.
The hours passed in peaceful succession before exhaustion came calling in her head. She looked up from the pile of papers lying in disarray across the kitchen table and turned her head casting her gaze out of the window. Backwoods to the border of the water, she watched the moonlight dance like glitter softly sprinkled across the surface. The howling wind was laced with intermittent whistles that echoed across the lake, hanging high in the air like a cry for help with no prospect of rescue.
She pushed her chair back, stood up, and stretched dramatically. Her left leg had fallen asleep after sitting for so long, and she desired fresh air and a long walk to regain the blood flow. Claire pulled her coat from the back of the chair and slipped her arms into the sleeves, digging in the pockets to fish out her gloves. She stepped outside onto the porch, allowing a moment for her eyes to adjust to the night. A quarter moon hung in suspension over the lake casting dim shadows on the grass that shimmered along the length of the dirt path that led down to the water.
She draped her hood over her head, and slipping her fingers into the wool-knitted gloves, began a slow descent toward the lake. She stared out into the openness, inhaling and exhaling with the rhythm of the rippling water, sudden gusts of wind stealing the breath from her body.
As Claire stood along the shore, an uneasy feeling began to stir and build inside of her. The faint smell of sulfur had blown in on a breeze across the lake, and something about its presence disturbed her. It seemed so out of place. Suddenly, the dance of her breathing morphed into the pant of pure panic when out of the corner of her eye she saw the shift of an indiscernible figure. She tried to subdue her fear, reminding herself that this was not the first time that she'd thought she'd seen something.