A Force of Nature

by Keri Cronin

Crystal Beach, Ontario
May 1926

With each anniversary that passes the facts swim a little more out of focus. But still I bring out the best china and polish the silver platter until I can see my face in it. I don’t know why I bother. I don’t like looking at my own reflection.

Only Dotty is left now. I haven’t seen her in years and I’m not sure why she agreed to visit after all this time. Loyalty? Guilt? Curiosity? Perhaps a combination of all three.

We had started out as a party of four. Dotty’s father was Adam Weaver, an amateur inventor from Toronto who rented the cottage around the corner every summer. Adam made no secret of the fact that he came to Crystal Beach to look for the giant sea serpent of Lake Erie. He was certain that it existed and that this was the spot where he would find it. He didn’t care that people laughed at him and called him soft in the head. He had done his research. The first time we met, he had waved a leather-bound notebook in my direction. Sightings going back to at least 1817! Chautauqua County. Sandusky Bay. Perrysberg. Silver Creek. He rattled off place names while I tried to work out just what flavor of madness afflicted him. “Just think, Mrs. Langford,” he had said as he put his hand on my shoulder. “If that creature turns up here, it will put Crystal Beach on the map.”

“Mr. Weaver,” I had said as I wriggled away from his touch as politely as I could manage. I could just imagine what John would say if he happened upon us. “I think Crystal Beach is doing just fine without the presence of a monster.”

“Perhaps, perhaps.” His eyes twinkled as he spoke. “But isn’t it exciting all the same?” He would not be deterred.

His wife Jennie was soon at his side, apologizing for her husband’s exuberance. I had been surprised when she invited me to join them on excursions, although I now suspect it was because they thought I might be an unofficial nanny for Dotty. I didn’t mind. It had been refreshing to be around a child.

John didn’t approve of my friendship with the Weavers, had nothing good to say about them. More money than brains. That man wouldn’t know a day’s hard work if it slapped him in the face. I didn’t know about that, but John certainly did know a thing or two about slapping. I learned to tiptoe around him and my excursions with the Weavers became a delicious escape.

Adam and Jennie asked my opinion about things and slipped me books to read. They were deeply in love—with one another and with life. But it really was Dotty who stole my heart. “Look at this, Mrs. Langford,” she would screech as she barreled across the beach with a shell or a clump of seaweed in her grubby, chubby hands.

Dotty’s hands are neither grubby nor chubby these days, and I believe that I am the only one who still calls her Dotty. To the rest of the world, she is Dorothy Weaver. She is a photographer and I’ve been told she is quite good. I saw a writeup about her in the newspaper a few years ago. I don’t really understand her art but she had an exhibition in New York City, so that must count for something.

In my mind she is forever seven years old, the age she was when our patience was finally rewarded. Dotty has always had her father’s curiosity, but she was so very young in those days. It is understandable that she was frightened of the beast.

I don’t remember which one of us spotted the sea serpent first. The evening of May 5th, 1896 had been pleasant, if slightly overcast. John was down at the pub, so I had a few hours to slip away and enjoy the beach with the Weavers. I have replayed the events of that evening over and over again in my mind for the past thirty years. I don’t speak of it much anymore because being called a liar does terrible things for one’s mood. I know that the story sounds absurd, but I also know what I saw.

That evening the water had been calm, glasslike. We had been strolling along the shore at a leisurely pace. Adam and Dotty had stopped to watch a gull tugging at the remains of a smelly silver fish near the edge of the dock while Jennie and I discussed the Games of the Olympiad that had taken place in Athens the month prior. “One day women will be allowed to compete too,” Jennie had said. I had my doubts but hadn’t voiced them lest I seemed unworldly and provincial in my opinions. Suffice it to say that none of us were particularly focused on finding the serpent at the precise moment of its arrival into our lives.

Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the serpent found us?

Wild thrashing in the water alerted us to its presence. It was startling because there had been such a stillness that evening; it had seemed like an unlikely night to encounter such an awful animal. We tried to make sense of what we were seeing. “It must be a school of fish,” I had said. “Perhaps they are tangled in a net?”

“Nonsense!” Adam dashed across the rickety wooden dock to get as close as he could to the commotion. “I don’t believe it,” he cried. “After all these years!” I remember him clutching at his hair, overcome with excitement as he darted back and forth across the dock in search of the best angle for viewing. “Come quick!”

Jennie was soon by his side, but Dotty hung back and began to wail as soon as she got a look at the slick black back of the beast. It roiled and writhed, churning up the water with its unusual dance, and I recall feeling a deep sense of sympathy for the girl. It was a hideous creature. I had put my arm protectively around Dotty and we remained well back from where her parents stood.

“It must be at least forty feet long!” Jennie and Adam clung to one another in an exuberant embrace, unable to tear their eyes away from the creature. We all gasped in astonishment as the serpent twirled itself into loops and then raised its head up from the water.

I remember feeling faint as I stared at that beastly head. It brought to mind a snarling dog, a protruding snout and wild eyes set further back in its head. I can still picture it clearly. It looked nothing like the snakes I had encountered while out walking in the bush behind our house.

After about three quarters of an hour the serpent slid under the water and did not resurface again. We eventually made our way back to the Weaver’s cottage, the whole way tripping over our astonished chatter about what we had just witnessed. Jennie poured brandy into three crystal glasses while Adam made cocoa for Dotty. I recall that it took quite some time for my heart to stop racing.

John had been waiting for me when I got home that night. I could sense his anger as soon as I stepped through the door. I had tried to lighten the mood by telling him about the unbelievable creature we had spotted that evening but soon realized my error in judgment. I should have known better. My description of the giant serpent seemed to have added fuel to the fire and I retreated inwards as he ranted and raged. You will not see that idiotic man and his family again. Do you understand? I nodded. What else could I do?  I prayed that the sound of his raised voice and glass smashing wouldn’t carry too far, and I chastised myself for leaving the back window propped open.

The next morning, I crept out of the house at dawn. As I stood on the dock, my mind turned to escape. I felt strangely envious of the serpent and tried to imagine what it might be like to simply submerge and disappear.

The dock had creaked and lurched as John stepped on it. He had his apron on, ready for another day at the bakery. But first he was coming to finish what he had started the night before. He gripped my arm and wheeled me around to face him. I mean it. If I find out that you have gone anywhere near the Weavers, you will be sorry. His face was contorted and purple, and the spittle on his fat lips made my stomach lurch. He reeked of sweat and whisky, and I realized he was still drunk.

Sometimes when I replay what happened next I see myself pushing John off the dock. Other times I see him tripping and stumbling on a loose board before toppling in. Arms and legs flailed, and he splashed like the giant serpent we had watched only hours before. And then shocking stillness. I had peered over the edge of the dock just as his bloated face began to slip under the surface. His eyes were wild, pleading. I think I shook my head. No.

“What are you doing, Mrs. Langford?” Dotty’s tiny inquisitive voice had made me jump. The sky behind her had been on fire as the sun climbed higher.

I remember running to her, too shaken to ask why she was on the beach in her nightclothes. I had no idea how much she saw and I wasn’t about to ask her. I had to act fast. I scooped her up and ran towards the Weaver’s cottage. “The serpent! It grabbed John! Help me! Help!” I had sobbed and shrieked as I stumbled along the sand. I had fallen to my knees as Adam came to me and took his daughter. “It nearly got Dotty too, but I grabbed her just in time.”

Next, a whirlwind coronation served up by front page headlines.

KILLER BEAST! MAN SNATCHED BY SEA MONSTER IN LAKE ERIE!

CRYSTAL BEACH WOMAN SAVES CHILD FROM JAWS OF DEATH!

I had only been seeking escape but now an uncomfortable spotlight shone on me. I didn’t want to be a hero. I wasn’t a hero. Some nights, as I tossed and turned in my bed, I felt as though the shame would crush me to death.

I felt as though I were drowning, the currents of fame and gossip sweeping me along. I tried to keep afloat as best I could. I worried about what would happen if any reporters thought to ask Dotty about that morning. I sold crates of John’s things to a collector who came from Niagara Falls. He had been particularly interested in the carved wooden mask John had won in a poker game a few years prior. I was just glad to be rid of it, although the extra money certainly was welcome.

In due course I took over the running of the bakery. It still gives me a little thrill to see my name above the door. Customers came from far away to gawk at me and ask about my encounter with the sea serpent. I always told them what they wanted to hear. It was good for business.

Today few people want to hear my story, and the newspaper clippings have yellowed with age. When the winter winds gather, my rheumatism plays up and I know I will soon have to sell the bakery. These days my mind feels itchy and restless, and I circle ads for excursions in the newspapers. It feels like a form of prayer. Perhaps a steamer to Toronto where I could catch a train to new horizons. Or maybe I might make my way to Montreal and from there, book passage to Europe. A one way ticket, please, I imagine myself saying.  How easy it would be! And yet just like when I used to offer up prayers inside the walls of a church, nothing ever changes.

I have been rooted here for so long that I don’t know how to leave. Perhaps this is what prompted me to invite Dotty for a visit. We are connected whether we like it or not, although I was surprised she accepted after all these years. When I wrote, I didn’t mention that the dates I had invited her for coincided with the anniversary of our brief flash of fame. Some things don’t need to be said.

For years, Dotty and her parents would visit me on the anniversary of John’s death. We would picnic and swim and add to one another’s memories about the time we encountered the legendary sea serpent. It was probably all a little too jolly and in bad taste given the occasion for which we ostensibly gathered, but I didn’t really care. But then Adam was conscripted to work on a top secret military research project during the Great War. The details of his accident were never released, but it didn’t matter. Jennie died soon after, of a broken heart.

Sometimes, when I stand on the beach in front of my house, I am certain I can still sense their presence. Jennie’s tinkling laughter floating on the wind, the glint from Adam’s binoculars on a sunny day. It is probably shameful to admit this, but I think of them more than I think about John. The only remarkable things about him were things I would rather forget.

And now? As I listened to the sounds of Dotty unpacking her case in the guest room, I realized that she had become a stranger to me. What would we talk about? How would we fill our days? I calmed my nerves by reminding myself of how nice it would be to have some company for a change. It had been awfully lonely.

We dined at the new hotel that first evening of her visit. It was an elegant space that glinted with reminders of the riches the Crystal Ballroom had recently bestowed upon our little waterfront community. After the waiter cleared our plates and brought us each a digestif, Dotty leaned across the table and said matter-of-factly, “You know, I would have done the exact same thing.”

A moment of silence for all that had been lost and then a toast to all that had been gained.

And then something even more unexpected. “Have you heard about the Crystal Beach Cyclone, that new roller coaster they are building?” I nodded and Dottie took a sip of her sherry before continuing. “I’d like to photograph the construction of it. They say it will be quite the feat of engineering. I wonder if I might rent your guest room for a while.”