The Sound on the Morning Water

Our family often spent summers on the lake. My aunt and uncle had a small houseboat that we would stay on, moored near a place called Pine Point. The point was known to have been home to an ancient people long ago, before settlers arrived.

One night, when I was very young, we were all asleep on the boat. In the deepest hours, a noise woke us. It was the clear, heavy sound of someone walking on the roof above us. The steps moved steadily from the front, across the middle, and then down to the back deck.

My uncle, thinking a visitor had come, pulled on his shoes and went out to look. He climbed up from the cabin and stepped outside. A dense mist hung over the water, so thick he could barely see his own hands at first.