The Glass Lagoon

I’ve lived in the salt-bleached town of Port Morrow for eleven years, in a house that sits on a cliff above the sea. It’s a squat, grey structure with a long porch that faces the water, and a glassed-in sunroom that juts out like a cracked tooth. Most people would call it charming, but I’ve come to see it as a patient predator, waiting for a moment of weakness to show its teeth. The experiences I’ve had are subtle, the kind you can rationalize away until you can’t. But I know what I’ve seen in the glass room, and I know what the lagoon brings back.

It started in the spring, about a year after I moved in. I was in the sunroom, which I’d converted into a makeshift studio for my watercolor hobby. The room was half-moon shaped, with windows on all sides, looking out onto the cliff and the jagged rocks below, and beyond that, the endless grey of the Atlantic. I was mixing a shade of cerulean when I heard a loud thud from the ground floor, directly beneath my feet. It was heavy, like a body slamming against the floorboards. I froze, brush dripping paint onto my shoe. I called out, ‘Hello? Anyone there?’ But the only answer was the hiss of the surf. I walked down the creaking stairs, my heart ticking like a time bomb. The living room was empty. The kitchen empty. The front door was still locked, the deadbolt in place. The air was still, and the only sound was the old refrigerator’s gurgle. I wrote it off as the house settling, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had been there, just a moment before.

Weeks passed, and the thuds became a recurring feature. Always in that same spot, like a heartbeat from the earth. I stopped calling out; I just sat on the stairs and listened. The house was quiet, but the silence felt watchful. Then, the lagoon began to change. The lagoon is a narrow inlet that cuts into the cliff, visible from my bedroom window. It was always a sickly green, choked with seaweed and the occasional dead fish. But that summer, it began to glow at moonrise. A pale, milky luminescence that seemed to rise from the water itself, like a ghostly tide. I couldn’t resist it. I found myself walking down the mossy steps cut into the cliff, standing at the edge of the water, watching the light dance on the surface. I would have nightmares then, dreams of a woman with hair like kelp, whispering from the depths.

The first time I saw her, I was in the sunroom at dusk. The room was filled with the amber light of the setting sun, when I noticed a figure standing on the rocks below, just where the lagoon meets the sea. She was tall, dressed in a white shift that clung to her wet skin, and her face was a pale oval, featureless. I stumbled back, knocking over a jar of brushes. She looked up at me, and I swear I heard her call my name, even though her lips were still. As the sun dipped below the horizon, she simply dissolved into the dusk, leaving only the sound of water. After that, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I would search for her in the mornings, but the lagoon was only stagnant water and guano. Yet at night, I’d hear a tapping on my bedroom window, a metallic rap, like something knocking with a fragment of shell.

A storm hit in November. The sea was a furious beast, and the wind screamed like a dying animal. I was in the sunroom, watching the tempest, when I saw a handprint appear on the glass. It was small, like a child’s, but the skin was webbed. It slid down the pane, leaving a trail of slime. Before I could react, another print joined it, then another. The window was soon covered in these grotesque prints, as if a legion of tiny hands were trying to claw their way in. The storm raged for hours, and I could only sit, frozen, as the glass trembled with the pressure. Then, as suddenly as it began, the wind died, the rain stopped, and the moon broke through the clouds, illuminating the lagoon. The water was perfectly still, and on its surface, a spiral of seaweed floated, forming a shape. It was a message, too deliberate to be chance. It said, ‘You see.’

The next morning, I decided to seal off the sunroom. I bought planks of wood and nails, but as I approached the door, I found it locked from the inside. I had left it open. The key was in the lock, turned. I called a locksmith, but he found nothing wrong. The door wouldn’t budge. I tried to break the glass, but it was as if the windows were made of reinforced steel. I was trapped on the upper floor. I could only watch the lagoon from my bedroom, and it seemed to watch me back. I began to see her more often, standing at the water’s edge, gesturing for me to come down. I would shake my head, but my legs would feel weak, as if they were being pulled.

One night, I woke to the sound of my paints splashing. I crept to the sunroom door, and saw a sliver of light beneath it. I peered through the keyhole. The room was aglow with the sickly green light of the lagoon, and the windows were covered in the handprints again. And there, in the center, stood the woman. She was no longer featureless. Her face was mine, but older, more weathered, as if it had been aged by the sea. She was holding a brush, and she was painting on the glass, forming letters in a language I didn’t recognize. But I understood: ‘You are the last.’ She turned to the door, and her eyes met mine through the keyhole. Her lips moved, and though I couldn’t hear, I knew she was saying, ‘Come join us.’

The next morning, I packed a bag. I couldn’t stay. I fled to a hotel in town, vowing never to return. But as I sat in the sterile room, I could still hear the tapping on the window. The curtains fluttered, but the window was shut. I pulled them aside, and there was the lagoon, impossibly close, as if the hotel had been transported to the cliff. A voice whispered from the drains, ‘You cannot escape.’ I know now that I am a part of the lagoon, marked by the handprints I left on the glass. The house is empty, but the sunroom is full of light, and in the center, a canvas awaits, an unfinished portrait of a woman with hair like kelp. And I know, that one day, I will finish it, and be free. Until then, I listen to the silent thuds of my own ghost, and wait for the lagoon to call me home.