The Last Hand of the Lake

The summer my grandfather died, the air in our lakeside town was thick with the smell of diesel and dying lilies. I was twelve, and my family had come to the small village of Brinewater for the funeral. In our tradition, the body stays at home for seven nights, and for seven nights, the house was a hive of activity. My mother cooked vats of noodles, my aunts gossiped in the kitchen, and the men set up folding tables on the porch, where the air was cool and the sound of crickets never stopped.

My grandfather would have hated the quiet. He was a riverboat gambler, and even in death, the house echoed with the snap of cards. Every night, the men played a game called ‘Catch the Deadman’s Hand,’ a local variant of poker where the loser had to keep watch over the coffin until dawn. I watched from the stairs, half-hidden, as my uncle Paolo, a man with a perpetual smirk, dealt cards stained with coffee and something darker. The pot was always cash, but there were whispers that sometimes, the currency was secrets. Paolo would look at his cards and grin, and I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air.

On the seventh night, the last night, the game was more intense. The air was heavy, and the candles around the coffin flickered as if someone was breathing on them. My father was dealing, his hands trembling. The players were Paolo, two strangers from the docks, and a woman called Auntie Rose who had a laugh like broken glass. They played for money, but I saw that beneath their cards, they were also betting small, personal things: a lucky coin, a silver ring, a lock of hair. I didn’t understand it then. I just felt that the game was wrong.

At midnight, my father won a massive pot. He laughed, but his eyes were scared. Then Paolo slammed his hand on the table. ‘One more round,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘I want to win back my father’s watch.’ My father hesitated, but the strangers nodded, and Auntie Rose smiled. They dealt. The cards came up, and I saw Paolo’s face go pale. He pushed all his chips to the center. ‘All in,’ he whispered. My father matched it. Paolo turned over his cards: a pair of twos. My father laid down his hand: a straight flush. Paolo screamed, and the candles snuffed out. When they relit them, Paolo was gone. The strangers claimed he had fled in shame, but I saw the trapdoor under the porch was open, and the boards were wet with lake water.

Later that night, I couldn’t sleep. I crept downstairs to the living room where the coffin lay. The lid was slightly ajar, and I swear I heard a muttering from inside. I pushed it open a bit more. My grandfather’s body was there, but his hands were clutching a crumpled playing card. I pulled it out: the five of spades. And on the back, in his handwriting, was a message: ‘The last hand is never the last hand. Beware the lakeside dealer.’ I dropped the card and ran back to my room. I didn’t sleep.

At dawn, we buried him. The whole village came. But as we lowered the coffin into the ground, I looked out at the lake. There was a figure standing at the water’s edge, draped in a black coat, face hidden. It held up a single card, and even from that distance, I knew it was the five of spades. Then it tossed the card into the water and vanished. The surface of the lake rippled, and I felt a pull, like something wanted me to follow.

I never saw my uncle Paolo again. The strangers from the docks were found dead in their boat a week later, their cards still in their hands, all of them fives. And to this day, I refuse to play any card game. Because I know that somewhere, on the dark side of the lake, there’s a dealer waiting for the next hand, and the stakes are always higher than you think.