The Black Spot

I was married to a man twice my age and carried away, to live in an old house by a lonely lake. I was alone by the willow trees, my feet buried in the sand and brittle, when my husband walked towards the water and pointed a crooked finger. “A woman drowned out there,” He said and the hairs on my arms stood up straight.
Since then, I’ve kept out of the way, observing from the house windows. I entertain myself with the Autumn gloom. At night I close our curtains to hide the water’s glowing hues. My husband laughed at me and crossed the lake every day just to spite me. Yesterday he didn’t return. He left me in this old, lonely house.
Now I look out to the lake, as the officer I sent for drags my husband onto the shore. Even from the cracked windowpane I can see that all the teeth have been ripped from his jaw and his skin has turned as pale as the lake’s mist. One of his crooked fingers still points, towards the house, towards me.
And now, the lake whispers to me in a dead language I can’t understand. But I know it’s asking me to join them. To jump into the smog. It knows everything about me. It knows I have nothing to lose. I never did. I’m a widower for now. Once my family finds me, husbandless, penniless, they’ll happily find me another. Another man who’s all wrinkles and big words. A man overflowing with spite for me. I can’t do it. Not again. I can’t get caught in a loop. There’ll always be something. Something getting in my way.
My officer taps on the door but I won’t answer. Because the lake gargles nonsense into his ear and turns his brain to mush. I know what I’m doing now. I’m doing what I was born to do. I run out to meet the shores. I run to become one with the bog.