Summer rains were sweeping in across the lake. They usually came this time of August. She could see the clouds move in, miles away, the purple blue mass crept forward like an army marching in formation. Augustine sat there watching them for a minute. As the breeze picked up, it pushed her dark hair around her head. She could smell the moisture coming now, and knew that it was time to go inside lest she get caught in the torrent to come. She’d been watching a sail boating class that Saturday afternoon, they’d been out there for awhile. But the sun was getting lower the clouds were getting closer, and her drink was almost empty, a clear sign to turn in.

They should come back in, she thought, that looks like a nasty one.

Augustine lives on the shore, in the northern most part of North Meadowviewville. Her house is an old fishing cabin, that long ago was converted into a home. It was simple, and she liked it that way. She’d been a teacher for a few years out in Chicago and decided that she needed to get away. An experience like that, in and of itself, makes you want to switch life path’s and become a hermit after seeing all that poverty and pain. Now she writes articles for the local paper, the Meadowviewville Gazette, and blogs about local happenings. She thought this storm might be a good post to write about.

Originally she was from somewhere out in the Midwest, Iowa I think. She had come east looking for love and adventure, and when both of those failed her, she kept going until she found quiet on the shores of Lake Ontario. She’d been married, briefly, to a police officer in Chicago. They were happy for a while, but after about two years, he cheated on her with one of her girlfriends, and that was that. She packed up her things, took the dog, and drove as far as she could get on a tank of gas, then she filled up and drove for another tank. That’s how Augustine came to Meadowviewville. She just kind of landed there without a plan, or much money. Sometimes people need to do that. They get so bottled up and pushed around that they just have to explode and get as far away as they can, till they let that steam out. That’s ok. Some people need that. Then they can start over.

So she landed in Meadowviewville and had been there for about ten years when the storm came in. It was a storm just like many of the others that had come and gone. She liked the rain, which is why she chose to live so close to the lake. The falling water cleanses. It makes new. It washes the way the dirt on your car, and feeds your garden at the same time. Water isn’t something to run away from, it is to be embraced and cherished.

The clouds kept marching and the sky behind her began to get dark. The book she was reading dimmed with the fading light.

One more page. She thought, One more and then I’ll go in and start dinner.

Reading on a Saturday afternoon, that’s what she liked to do. Books about adventures, and love affairs, history books and autobiographies. Anything she could get her hands on, she would read. Anything to get lost in the worlds that other people created. She would get so absorbed in those books, she often forgot about the world around her. This time it was Moby Dick, a classic that had been a struggle in the past, but was easier now. Something about Ahab’s struggle resonated with her as she sought to overcome her past.

Finally it was obvious that if she stayed out there any longer, the rain would ruin the book. So she placed her bookmark gently into the paperback, rose, and collected her things. She walked back towards the house, her black lab named Cindy faithfully following her. She had brought Cindy with her from Chicago, one of the few things that survived the cut. Augustine was a minimalist, or so she thought. She didn’t like to have a lot of things, and she was so worn out from being in the Windy City that she wanted to have even less that would remind her of that time.

The wind picked up as she got to the door and she felt a few drops of rain. One or two landed on the back of her neck and she shivered instinctively. She opened the glass door and let Cindy in. Cindy never liked thunder and as soon as the door opened, she bolted for the living room and burrowed under the couch.

She’ll be there for awhile, Augustine thought as she walked through the door.

As the door closed, she thought she heard something that sounded like a whimper.

“Cindy, come on now.” she chided the dog “It’s ok, just a little thunder. It’ll pass don’t worry.”

The whimper came again, but it wasn’t coming from under the couch where Cindy was curled up. No, it seemed to come from behind her. Maybe from out on the porch where she had just come. She turned and looked next store. Maybe one of the Pulowski kids had let their dog out and it was stuck outside. But no one was in the Pulowski house. Their house was dark, and that’s when Augustine remembered that they had gone to the Adirondacks for the week, to vacation in Lake Placid.

The whimper came again, and she stepped back outside, determined to find the source. The rain had started to fall now. Not hard, just those soft, windy drops that tell you “Look out! We’re coming! You should go inside and stay dry.”

Augustine looked down the rocky beach that extended past the other side of the house. No buildings were over there, just a barren expanse of rocky beach. But maybe someone or something had ventured out there, tripped and fallen; it was worth exploring to be safe. But she couldn’t see anything. So she walked back outside, not bothering to close the glass door, and stood at the edge of the deck. Straining her eyes for the source of the sound, she moved closer to the water to look farther down the beach.

The voice was louder this time and she could make out words. It was a person, she realized, not an animal, and it was frantically calling something.

“Help!” the unknown voice said, “Help! Help…!”

Her heart quickened as it sunk in that there was a person somewhere in need. The wind was picking up now, and the voice swirled around her in the breeze. It pulsed in her skull as she ran right to the water’s edge, looking up and down the shore as she went.

Out past the breakwater, she saw it; a figure clutching on to the buoy, waving hysterically. Augustine couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl, but it was a small person, wearing a raincoat. Then she saw the white hull of an overturned boat.

One of the kids from the boating class! She thought.

How was that possible? The class was sailing away, apparently not seeing the capsized boat and it’s stranded crewmember.

Without thinking, Augustine jumped into her rowboat that was beached on the shore. She pushed off with all her force into the rising water. As her feet plunged into the lake, she jumped up into the boat and rowed out to the buoy. The voice had gone silent in the wind and the rain, but she glanced over her shoulder and could see the figure as she pulled against the oars.

Looking back she could see Cindy run out of the house. She barked as she reached the shore, skirting the lake and then out onto the dock.

“Stay!” Augustine roared, “Stay there!”

Cindy sat and watched her as she pulled farther out into the lake. The boat nosed through the waves as they got higher and higher. With each crest, the bow slapped into the water, making a hollow sound as it did. The rain fell on the deck of the skiff and formed little puddles that mixed with the seaweed the waves were pushing in. Slowly, Augustine got closer. She rowed, and rowed, and rowed, followed by a quick turn to check course, then more rowing.

Augustine was far out now; she’d past the breakwater and was now facing the full brunt of the waves. Winds coming from Canada pushed unhindered across the lakes until they reached North Meadowviewville’s shore, generating waves of huge heights. Sometimes, Augustine’s roof would be littered with seaweed, shells or even small fish. These certainly matched the worst of those, and were all the more dangerous given the severity and quickness of the storm that accompanied them.

Still she pressed on. She kept thinking about some poor child, abandoned by their friends and teacher. How could they do that? How could that instructor not have seen the child capsize and fall in? She had to reach that buoy in time.

Wave after wave hit, and rocked the boat, putting more water, and more weight into the hull. Finally, it was too much. Augustine crested a monster of a wave, and the water rushed from stern to bow with such speed and ferocity, that it knocked her out of the seat and sent the rowboat tumbling into the trough.

Blackness overtook her momentarily. When she opened her eyes, she could see the white bubbles moving upwards through the brackish water. She began to swim towards the surface. When she broke through, she gasped for air and started screaming. Hysterically she waved her arms about until she was able to grab on to the overturned boat, rising and falling with the waves. As she floated there in the cold water, she looked for the child. The buoy was insight, within shouting distance even. But there was no child.

Instead, she saw a garbage bag, wrapped around the buoy, flapping in the wind. A bag that, from a distance, looked very much like a raincoat.

The boat? Where is the boat?

A log rammed into her sinking skiff. Driftwood often migrates across the lake, or comes down from the tributaries before floating to the shore.

Augustine made a futile attempt to right her craft as the waves surrounded her. She could hear Cindy barking in the distance, calling for her, urging her to come back to shore. The thunder soon obscured the dog’s wailing as well.

Finally the waves overtook her. Water poured into her lungs as she sank down with the boat. Darkness faded in as the lake claimed her as its own.

The next day, the following note was posted in the Meadowviewville Gazette:

A local woman drowned yesterday after being caught in the squall that made landfall in the late afternoon. Augustine Parker, 35, originally of Des Moines, Iowa, was a frequent contributor to this newspaper, as well as to many local online forums. She had taken a leave of absence due to an undisclosed mental illness recently, but had been recovering. Authorities say her boat was overturned by the record 10 foot waves, which came suddenly as the storm rapidly moved through the area. Her body was found by a youth boating class which took refuge during the brief storm. She will be sorely missed.