I was setting up my tent for the evening about an eighth of a mile from the elevated rocky, Lake Superior shoreline. It was on this elevated shoreline I had planned to observe the passing of the perseid meteor shower. There was no light pollution and the event fortunately coincided with a new moon, making the enveloping night a monochrome black. My friend Vanna and I had planned to set up shortly after dusk. The rocky cliffs overlooking the lake were ideal for such observation.
After returning to our campsite following a trip to the bathroom I saw Vanna had already gathered her gear and headed for the open cliffside shoreline. I grabbed my lantern, which I used to guide me through the boreal vegetation and shortly thereafter, I arrived at the rocky clearing. Vanna was up ahead dressed in a fluttering white casual dress. She began calling out to me, beckoning while clamoring for me to join her.
“The view here in this spot is perfect, come on!”. She called.
I immediately turned off my lantern so as not to ruin her dark adapted night vision as I began carefully making my way to her. Normally I would have my red flashlight. A red flashlight was pretty much the only acceptable guiding light source among a group of stargazers. One look at a regular one, and it would take a good 20 minutes for your pupils to re-dilate. I could only assume Vanna had grabbed ours.
Without the flashlight, the night made the rocky ground invisible. I had the feeling of traversing on air in the pitch darkness of a cave. The sound of the waves shoving the sheer rock with icy water became acute. As I got closer, I noticed Vanna looked bright; brighter than the moonless night would typically permit. She was almost glowing.
” Come on, hurry” she kept saying as if there were some unseen deadline.
Only a few paces away from her now, a large meteor suddenly skid against the twinkling black backdrop of the sky, leaving an ephemeral, fading dust tail in its wake. In surprise and awe, I dropped my lantern beside me. The impact caused the light to rapidly flash on and off, like an aborted bolt of lightning.
To my horror, the brief flicker revealed the edge of the cliff Just 2 feet from where I stood and just short of the point of where Vanna stood. I looked up at her to see a smiling figure of a woman whose expression was that of a child who’d been caught before the joke was complete. The thing was levitating in a watery spectral mist before laughing hideously. I heard my name called out from behind; it was Vanna emerging from the treeline onto the rocky cliffside to join me.
My lantern revealed the luring specter dissipating into the next misty wave impact with the cliff, smiling as it faded.
Every day since that night, I still have an odd urge to return to that spot and stand overlooking the deep icy water.