About ten years ago, when I was freshly single and raising my daughter Lia on my own, we took a trip to the beach. Between long hours at the hospital and scattershot childcare, I was completely exhausted, probably sleeping four hours a night. I wasn’t at the point of passing out on my feet or hallucinating, but I was getting close.
Lia and I settled into a nice sandy spot where the waves were calm, and I set up a big umbrella for shade. Soon, she was happily building a sandcastle while I tried to read a romance novel I’d been meaning to get to for almost a year. I was barely two pages in when I felt my eyelids start to droop.
“Better keep an eye on that one,” said a kind, feminine voice from nearby. “Got to be careful of those sleeper waves.”
I opened my eyes to see a woman a few years older than me looking down from right beside my blanket. I hadn’t heard her approach, but I figured that was probably normal–the sound of the crashing waves drowned out a lot. I looked down at Lia, who was still hard at work on her castle, a good twenty feet from the waves’ high point.
“Will do,” I said, though part of me wanted to defend my mothering. Lia clearly was in no danger.
“She’s a real cutie,” said the woman. “Got to be what, five? Six? Reminds me of my own daughter back when she was that small. Of course, that was a lifetime ago.”
“She’s four,” I said. “Big for her age.” I felt myself relaxing a bit, slowly realizing she was just trying to make a connection, not there to question my parenting.
“Who are you talking to?” asked Lia, and I smiled.
“Just a nice lady,” I said.
“Oh, she’s a good talker for four!” said the woman. “My Alice, she was always a quiet one.” She hesitated for a second. Then added, “Well, nice to meet you. You take real good care of her, you hear?”
I could sort of sense she was hoping I’d invite her to stay, and honestly, it had been a while since I’d had a pleasant conversation with another adult.
“I’ve got way more watermelon cut up than the two of us can eat,” I said, gesturing to my cooler, and so she took a seat next to me in the shade. For the next hour or so, we sat in the shade, telling old stories, almost like we’d already known each other for years. For the most part, Lia kept to herself, playing in the sand, occasionally coming over for snacks.
At some point, probably thanks to the giant coffee I’d downed on the car ride over, I got the urge to go to the restroom and told Lia to come with me.
“Not yet,” she said. “I’m still building.”
The woman shot me a smile and told me to go ahead. She’d keep an eye on things while I was away. Normally, I would never have left a stranger to watch over my stuff, much less my daughter, but I figured it was only a few minutes, and I’d come to trust the woman over the last hour.
The bathrooms were maybe five hundred feet down the beach, close enough that I could look back over my shoulder and check on Lia and the woman a few things as I jogged through the sand. Finally, I reached the restroom.
I couldn’t have been in there for more than a minute. I left feeling relieved, and honestly, almost on the verge of tears. Even when I’d been married, my ex hadn’t been much of a contributor. The last time we’d gone to the beach with him, he’d finished off the better part of a six-pack and passed out in the sun. I’d had to take Lia with me to the bathroom that time.
I looked into the distance and could barely make out Lia still stooping in the sand, building her castle as the woman looked on.
Nearby, I saw an older man fishing, casting his line far out into the water. I felt suddenly emboldened to talk to him.
“Catch anything?” I asked.
He gestured over to a bucket of small fish.
“Sometimes I don’t know why I bother,” he said. “They’re more bones than meat. Passes the time though.”
The fish in the bucket were still alive, barely, flopping a bit helplessly. I had the sudden urge to dump them into the surf, though of course I knew that man would be furious.
“Beautiful day,” I said.
“Got to be careful of beautiful days,” he said. “A few years back, on a day just like this one, a lady about your age was here with her daughter. Looked away for just a second and a sleeper wave took the little one away, just like that. Beautiful day.” He spat into the waves. “Worst thing is, it’s happened again and again since then. I guess people never learn.”
I looked over toward Lia. I couldn’t see her now. The woman who I’d left her with was standing, hand shielding her eyes from the sub, looking out over the waves. I felt something drop in my stomach, a little stone of fear. In the meantime, the man kept talking.
“…she keeps coming to this beach. Sad, really. She’s always trying to make small talk with families…”
But I wasn’t listening now. I was running. I sprinted as fast as I could back toward the spot where I’d left Lia. The small, dark fear in my stomach was spreading now, like cancer in fast-motion, invading every cell of my body, a dark, tingling death-like thing.
As I ran, I tried to look for her, praying she was just behind the umbrella, or maybe hiding in a hole she’d dug.
But with each passing step, I didn’t see her.
“Where is she?” I heard myself shouting as I approached the woman, but she said nothing. She just kept looking out at the ocean, a glassy smile plastered to her face.
“Where’s Lia?” I shouted, half-sobbing.
“Got to be careful of those sneaker waves,” said the woman quietly. “I always warned my Alice, but of course she didn’t listen.”
More than anything, I wanted to grab the woman’s neck and wring the life out of her. I wanted to press her plastic fucking smile into the surf and watch her struggle as the life fled her body. But there was no time for that.
Instead, I ran into the waves, shouting Lia’s name.
Of course, there was no response, only the inhuman roar of the ocean.
And then, just out of the corner of my eye, I spotted something red just beneath the waves. Had she been wearing a red swimsuit?
I didn’t stop to wonder. Instead, I dove, splashing as fast as I could after the flash of color. For a moment, I thought it really had just been a trick of the light. Then, suddenly, I felt something soft and warm touch my palm. I reached forward and grabbed as hard as I could, clutching her hand in mine. Sure enough, it was Lia.
Just as I had her, I felt a great force pulling on her from the other direction. At first, I assumed it was just the waves yanking her out, but then I spotted something I couldn’t quite explain. It was another shape, just about Lia’s size. I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that it was a second little girl, grabbing Lia’s ankle, trying to pull her out into the ocean.
I pulled and pulled. For a second, I thought I wouldn’t be strong enough, that the thing in the ocean would win our tug-of-war. I looked down and for a second, the girl’s face was clear to me. She looked at me with sad eyes, like she wanted me to pull her out too.
And then she let go. I carried Lia onto the dry beach where she coughed and coughed, the saltwater pouring from her mouth.
Once she was able to stand, I helped Lia walk back to the blanket. The woman was gone. I looked around the beach, shouting from someone to help, but the fisherman was nowhere to be seen. How had he packed up everything so quickly?
“You’re not going to take her from me, you bitch!” I shouted into the distance. “Not this one! This one’s mine!”
“Who are you shouting at?” asked Lia, scared and shivering. Her skin was a shade paler than normal, but she was breathing normally now. She’d be okay.
“The woman,” I said, turning, looking at the vast emptiness in all directions. “The woman who–”
But Lia just looked at me confused.