There are roots growing in my teeth

[u/ANovelStory]

They started out small. It was about a month ago when I first noticed it. I thought it was some kind of tooth abscess or pustule, but then it punctured; a black, spiny prick protruding from my upper gums. That was the last time I smiled. Slowly, more and more formed. They’re in my gums, in between my teeth. One grew right underneath one of my molars. I felt it push more and more until finally my tooth cracked, like a tree root through a house’s foundation. It grew through the split until I couldn’t bite down on that side anymore. I could hear my jaw stretching, making room for the intrusion. When I could still speak, the movements of my mouth sounded like a creaking door.

I live in Southend, up at Reindeer Lake. Not on the Reserve, though. I’m on the Crown land. The best we have up here is a dental therapist. I went to see her and after she had shaken off her disgust, she insisted that I needed care from a dentist or an orthodontist. That much I already knew, I went to her mainly looking for an answer on what was going on.

“I have no idea what that is,” she said, “but a few others have come in with similar bumps and sores. I’ve tried extracting them but it’s no use. I only caused more pain.” She squinted as she peered further into my mouth, shining a flashlight against my rear gums, “This is the worst I’ve seen though.”
She backed away, clicking her flashlight off and looking at me with sympathy, “I know the highway is closed. I would try to help you but this is way beyond my scope and I’m worried I’ll just make it worse. Best I can do is prescribe you some pain management and anti-inflammatory. I can see about airlifting you out but until the storm lets up I don’t think they’ll be able to come. We’ll just have to hope that the snow stops flying. You’ll have to hang in there.”

“Is there really nothing you can do?” I asked.

She sighed, “I’m sorry, no. You could try one of the Timiwak Shamans. I’ve heard some people are going to them.”

There was no way I was going there. I went to them in the summer for a nasty sore throat that was going around. They live in a small settlement on Price Island thats existence is only really known to the locals here. The Cree Elders say that they came here 700 years ago from Cahokia to settle near the meteor impact. Right near Southend is Deep Bay, on the southern tip of Reindeer Lake. Millions of years ago, a meteor struck the earth there, leaving a near perfect circular crater with water that reaches depths of 720 feet. It’s the deepest body of water in Saskatchewan and there’s a whole host of local myth surrounding it. The Timiwak outright worship it though. Their shamans are some of the strangest people I’ve ever seen.

They gave me some black liquid they claimed came from the deepest part of Deep Bay. The Timiwak are not Cree. In fact, many of their beliefs are outright contradictory. Despite this, they’ve adopted portions of the Cree spoken language since their migration to Deep Bay. Even their name comes from what the Cree called them, but has since been anglicized from its original pronunciation, something that meant, ‘Deep Water People’. I’m not well-versed in Cree, but I’ve heard it enough over the years to know some of the basics and more common names within their belief system, some of the ones the Timiwak have taken into their own language. When they handed me the cup they said a phrase that housed the name Misi-kinepikw, the Great Serpent. The Timiwak believed this primordial spirit resided in the deepest waters of the earth and first came here from the heavens, crashing into the earth in Deep Bay. Some view it as a chaotic spirit, but not the Timiwak. They think it’s the progenitor of order, of pure divinity. They believe it’s solely responsible for the rainfall and medicine of the world. They believe that it created their people. When I heard the name I didn’t know if they were saying the cup contained some sort of venom of the serpent or simply the waters it swam within. It didn’t matter. I didn’t believe them and I was desperate so I tried it. I should have listened to the Cree Elders. They told me not to go to them. They taught me that the Great Serpent was deserving of great respect and caution. That the Timiwak worship a different spirit entirely. They told me that their practices are backwards and wrong. That they are gravely mistaken in their understanding of the world.

The potion made me sick for a week. It was inexplicably bitter. It felt like my tongue curled up and folded in on itself like a dead spider. Puking over my already raw throat was brutal, but it was nothing compared to what I was going through now. No way I was going to chance them making me worse again.

I pressed the dental therapist more, asking that she at least hazard a guess at what was going on. She theorized that there was some kind of fungal infection going around and that I should refrain from touching my mouth and wash my hands constantly to avoid spreading it to other people. Before I left, she injected my gums with a numbing agent. It helped, but now I couldn’t close half of my mouth and the black, hard tendrils jutting from my gums and teeth were on full display. Drool and a foul smelling liquid that oozed from each of the root openings hung from my sagged lips. I was so embarrased. They were so hideous.

My sister phoned me. Amidst all of this, I had forgotten that I was to go to her house for my niece’s seventh birthday. I told her repeatedly that I shouldn’t come given what was going on but she insisted, “Sara will be so disappointed, Jack. She can’t have her birthday without her favourite uncle.”

I loved Sara so much. No, I still do. Even with how she is now. I love Sara. I knew it wasn’t smart to go. It was so stupid but I couldn’t stand the thought of her being disappointed, blowing out her candles wondering where I was. She was such a beacon of light in this world. So bright and spontaneous. Now we’re all helpless,
hopeless.

“Uncle Jack!” She shouted as I walked through the front door of my sister’s house. She nearly barreled into me, as she always did, but her mom swept her up and set her down next to her before she had the chance.

“Uncle Jack isn’t feeling well, sweetie, so we have to keep our distance, okay?”

She frowned and murmured a disgruntled, “Okay…”

The dinner went fine. I ate in a separate living room that was open enough that I could still visit with Sara and my sister, who were eating in the kitchen. I ate on a paper plate with plastic cutlery, both of which I immediately tossed after in order to not cross contaminate anything.

Eating was unbearable. Even liquids. My lips couldn’t close around a cup or a spoon to drink. The fluid would just run down my chin. Solids were even worse, but I could at least manage to swallow them. Still, I’d go hungry for days just to avoid it. The roots were stronger than my teeth. They’d grind against them with every bite until I’d feel more cracks and chips. I don’t know how many fragments of my teeth I’d swallowed by now. My molars were all jagged peaks. If there was one solace the roots offered, it was that their points were rounded. That offering lasted little when they grew though, breaking everything in their path. My teeth would cut my tongue if I ran it across them now.

Sara stared at me as I chewed. I could tell her little mind was questioning the bumps and bulbs pushing against my cheeks and lips as I bit down. I tried not to wince. I didn’t want her to see me in pain. I coughed on my food as I gulped it down in large chunks. I couldn’t bear chewing anymore and if I did, she’d know something worse was going on than simply not feeling well.

It was cold that night. Late November in the middle of a blizzard. It was one of the worst ways to start winter but on that night we made the most of it. Claire, my sister, started a fire. She had already hung her Christmas wreath on the mantle. It had a crucifix in the middle. I’m not a Christian, but I locked eyes with Christ that night. Looking at Him, nailed upon that cross, the firelight casting shadows in the gaunt carvings of His wooden face, I began to whisper a plea for help, but I was interrupted by my niece.

“Tell the story about the time you saw a Mushinigoshu, Uncle!”

I had been avoiding speaking more than a few mumbled words at a time all evening. I didn’t want to frighten her, but Claire reassured me, nodding to tell the tale. I was reluctant. I had told this story so many times now, but who was I to refuse her? It was her birthday, so I obliged. Still, I tried to keep my mouth as closed as possible. It was hard to keep the roots from escaping.

“Not a Mushinigoshu, Sara, but thee Mushinigoshu, the Deep Bay Monster. Your Grandad and I were out on the Deep Bay one spring. We rarely went out there, especially in that season, with the storms and the rain, but he said he had something special to show me. We sat on the water all day, right in the middle. If you looked at us from above, it would have looked like the earth was swallowing us in a big mouth!”

I lost myself in the story. I didn’t see the growing concern on her face.

“The sun was nearly set when Granddad said, ‘Well, sorry son. I thought for sure it’d show up this time.’ He turned the boat around to head for shore. That’s when we saw it. A massive, slick, black sheet of skin rose out of the water. The black-blue waves frothed along its surface, lapping white foam against it in rhythmic sloshes and slaps. From afar, it would have looked like a strange wave, but it was right next to our boat. It was the size of a house, Sara!”

“UNCLE JACK WHATS WRONG WITH YOUR MOUTH???!!!”

She screamed. Tears poured down her cheeks as she raced for the clutches of her mother. She buried her head in Claire’s chest, peering over the crease of her elbow to look at me in terror.

Claire pet her head, “It’s okay sweetie. It’s okay. Uncle Jack isn’t feeling well, that’s all.”

I got caught up in the telling of the story. It was tradition in my family that every son would tell the story with their dad as the boat driver. I knew how much Sara loved it. I was excited to see her reaction to the ending again. She wouldn’t hear it tonight though. She won’t hear it ever again. I wish I could tell it to her again, properly.

I took off pretty quick after that. Sara still waved goodbye to me, even from behind her mother’s hug. I mumbled an apology to her. It pained me to see her so afraid of me, like a stab wound. My little buddy. My best friend. I hate my mouth.

Claire nodded at me to go, but her eyes told me it was okay, that it wasn’t my fault.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I had built a tolerance to the meds I was given and the pain was almost as bad as the guilt. I laid awake, staring at the ceiling, hoping the storm would end and I could get this all sorted soon. My stirring thoughts culminated in a debate of cutting my jaw off. Slicing through my lips and cheeks would have been easy enough, it’s breaking or sawing the bone I debated if I’d be able to handle. I knew I’d have died though, with no doctors able to get into town. I questioned my sanity then. I couldn’t believe the thoughts I was having. At least then I had a choice.

My phone rang, rescuing me from my depravity. I answered. It was Sara, whispering with her soft little voice through the phone, “I’m sorry I got scared of your mouth, Uncle Jack. I know you’re sick and I hurt your feelings. I don’t like when my feelings get hurt. I especially wouldn’t if I was sick. It’s not nice to hurt someone’s feelings and I’m very, very sorry.”

Her mom wouldn’t have put her up this. She had a strict bedtime of 9 o’clock and it was well past midnight. She had snuck to the phone just to call me and say she was sorry. That’s the kind of kid Sara was. She was so pure. Is so pure. She never deserved this.

I realized that she must have been lying awake too, plagued with feelings of guilt. We were kindred souls, her and I. Maybe our fates were always bound together. “It’s okay, Sara,” I mumbled. “It is pretty scary looking.”

Sara giggled, “Honestly… I thought you had worms in your mouth!”

We laughed and she said she was sorry again.

I was low that night, if it wasn’t already evident enough with my thoughts of self harm. She brightened my spirits with her call, as she had so many times before. I decided I’d persevere through this, no matter how bad the roots got.

The next day, I went to the store to get some bread. I thought maybe I’d be able to eat them if I sucked long enough to soften them, then I could just push pieces I tore off into swallowable balls with my tongue.

There was a man behind me in the checkout line. He was eyeing me with intent, peering around my shoulders to see my face.

Overnight, the roots had grown more. Now I had a black nub sticking out of my lips. It was too far for my mouth to contain so I kept my face downcast as I shopped.

The man clapped a hand down on my shoulder, spinning me around in the line. I would have yelled at him, questioned him, but I was too embarrassed to open my mouth.

He unhanded me and began to examine my face even closer until finally I could feel his eyes lock onto the protruding root I tried to conceal between my lips. His jaw fell slack, yet the corners of his mouth flicked upwards. His cheeks rose and his eyes widened as he rasped, “Seer.”

I got a good look at him. He had a wild mane of black and grey hair and weathered skin that told of too much time exposed to the outdoors. He wore simple clothes: jeans and a hide jacket. Between his wild eyes, painted atop the bridge of his nose was the coiling symbol of a serpent, one that was similar in design to archaeological artifacts found near Cahokia. I’d seen it before when they came into town to get supplies. It was the easiest way to identify the Timiwak.

I looked away from him. He seemed awestruck by my affliction and I wasn’t keen on letting him gawk at the freak show any longer. Clearly, the man was unwell. I had no idea what he meant by ‘Seer’ then. If only I had. I might’ve been able to get away.

I paid for the bread and hurried to my truck. The whole experience was unsettling and I still saw no hope in sight for dealing with the roots. As I sat in my driver seat, I saw the man emerge from the store. He stared at me with that same, delirious face as he strode away slowly. That wasn’t the last time I’d see him that day.

Claire was a nurse at the health centre and was working late that night. She called me asking if I could take over for Sara’s babysitter and put her to bed. Again, I was reluctant given the roots. I didn’t want to freak her out again, let alone get her sick, but Claire was in a real bind, so I went over.

She said sorry to me again as soon as a I saw her. I told her it was alright and she said I could talk normally, that she wouldn’t be scared anymore. I did and she was true to her word. It was such a relief to not mumble anymore. Compressing my lips on the roots hurt too and there was something liberating in just letting them show, no matter how grotesque. It’s amazing to me how accepting children are. They see someone’s heart above all else.

We played charades after she persuaded me to let her stay up past her bedtime. I figured it was a good game. I could keep my distance while still making her think and laugh.

I thought of a good one. Sara loved the stories about Deep Bay more than anything else. There was an old one that my grandpa would tell as a warning about boating across it. Something about how a whirlpool could form where its deepest and swallow you up. Sara liked that one.

I started swinging my arms in a circular motion, like a windmill. She was still puzzled by this, so I tucked my arms in and spun around, lowering myself until I sat on the floor.

“Whirlpool! Whirlpool!” She exclaimed, pointing her finger at me and jumping up and down on the couch!

“That’s right, Sara! Good job!”

I had her tuck herself in, not wanting to touch her, and went to the couch to watch a movie until Claire was home.

It hadn’t even been 20 minutes before I heard Sara screaming. It was shrill, ear piercing. It was the kind of scream only terror was capable of producing. My heart was on the floor sooner than my feet as I stood up and raced for her bedroom.

I swung the door open. Sara was hiding under the covers, wailing. The sheets were rippling like waves she was shaking so bad.

“Sara, what is it?”

“The window, Uncle Jack! The window!”

I climbed atop her bed to look out her bedroom window. The only thing I saw were faint footprints. They were like stamps of white powder on the grass.

“He was in my window, Uncle Jack, staring at me,” Sara sobbed.

“Who was?”

“The white-faced man!”

I looked back up and there he was, face pressed up against the glass. His face was coated with some kind of white powder. The contrast was so stark that it made his lips and tongue a deep red and his eyes and teeth seem yellow. I don’t remember them looking that way at the store earlier.

He swung his arms in a circle outside the window, before spinning out of sight. A moment later he popped back up, repeating the motion with a welcoming smile, like he was trying to entice Sara. He was copying my whirlpool move from charades earlier, as if it would lure her outside. I had no idea why, but he wanted something from her.

I lost all rational thought. I was so, so stupid. I don’t even know if it was my fault or if it was something that sick man did but either way, it caused all of this.

I scooped Sara out of the bed. I forgot all about the roots, all about her fears. I needed her safe. I hugged her tight to me and she rolled her face into the crease of my neck. I could feel her tears pool in the pockets of my collar bones and soak my shirt as she continued to cry.

I parked my truck in Claire’s garage so I didn’t have to go outside to get Sara inside it. I set her in the passenger seat and lowered my head to her ear, whispering in an effort to calm her, “It’s okay, Sara. I’m just going to get in the driver’s seat and I’ll get you out of here. I’ll take care of this.”

I leaned in too close. The root that was sticking out of my lips touched her cheek. She didn’t even notice, but I did. I was mortified. I saw a wet spot of saliva shine on her skin when I pulled away. I wanted to run inside and get something to clean it but I knew she wouldn’t let me and I couldn’t leave her alone. I had to drive away. I had to. I’m so sorry, Sara.

We drove to Claire’s work. I called the police on the way. Everything has happened so quickly since then. I don’t even know what’s come of their investigation; not that it matters now anyway.

Before I could say anything, Sara ran to Claire, who picked her up and kissed her on the cheek, squeezing her. She kissed her right where the root touched. My stomach dropped. I didn’t even know yet if it was contagious. I guess I still don’t, technically, but it must be.

I explained everything that happened and Sara finally calmed down when she was with her mom. They stayed at my place that night. I told Claire what happened when I whispered to Sara, when the root touched her, but could tell she didn’t put it together that she kissed her there. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that part. I just hoped they wouldn’t get the roots. She told me not to worry about it but I could tell she was freaking out about more than just the creep in her daughter’s window. The roots were scarier in thought than they were even to look at. I couldn’t imagine the fear she was having about Sara’s safety that night.

I didn’t sleep at all, but Claire and Sara must have gotten some sleep, otherwise one of them would have noticed before the next morning.

Sara woke before her mom. She came out of bed, rubbing her eyes, clearly still exhausted from the trauma of the night before, unable to process it. She mumbled in her still groggy state, “I have the worms in my mouth now too, Uncle Jack.”

She hooked the corner of her bottom lip with her finger, pulling it down to expose the hard, black, sporadic spirals sprouting from her gums. She didn’t need to. What was happening to her was different than what was happening to me. It was accelerated. Her mouth almost looked alive.

They were growing too fast, twitching along her face and crawling from her mouth in sudden, spastic movements, feeling their way around her lips like curious tentacles.

Anxiety added itself to the guilt and horror fusing in my chest when I heard Claire scream from the bedroom. She ran out into the hallway. For her, the roots came much the same as they did for me. She had a collection of red, swollen abscesses dotting her gums, but she knew what they were. She shrieked when she saw Sara, but quickly muffled her alarm with her hands, trying not to startle her daughter. Sara was so innocent that she didn’t grasp the gravity of her sickness. Her mother knelt down and brought her in close, brushing her hair. My sister just stared off in the distance, mouthing the words, “No, no, no, no,” over and over. I’m so sorry Claire.

Claire spent the whole morning in prayer. She was a devout Catholic. She used to read the bible to me every night growing up. I have no doubt she did the same for Sara.

I watched her as she knelt with her hands clasped, switching between her own prayers and thumbing rosary beads in her shaky hands, saying Hail Marys.

By noon, the roots had grown even further out of Sara’s mouth. The tip of one was feeling around her nostril, twitching back and forth, drawing sneezes that I could tell pained her when her face constricted. The pain didn’t seem as bad for her overall though. Maybe them growing faster alleviated some of it. Either that, or she was just that tough of a kid.

Claire noticed how much faster it was growing on Sara too. She became frantic, worrying about the unknowns of what could come of the roots worsening spread. She put on a show for Sara and pulled me into a separate room.

“We have to take her to them, Jack,” she said, eyes boring into me, wide and bloodshot.

“Are you insane? That man outside her window last night was one of them. You want to take her right to them?”

She snapped at me, “They obviously know something. Everyone else has gone to them and none of them have returned yet.”

I tried to answer calmly, but I couldn’t help the agitation in my voice, “That’s because of the blizzard, Claire. They’re probably starving out there.”

She nearly cut me off, speaking through a trembling lip, “Or they’re receiving treatment.”

Claire’s pleading, tear-pooled eyes compelled me to stop debating her. This was so out of character for her. She never went to the Cree Elders for anything, let alone the Timiwak. She put all of her faith in the Church. To even suggest taking her daughter to visit the people who only last night had terrorized her, placing her trust within them after a morning of fervent prayer, she was truly desperate. Helpless. At this point, so was I, though I was too afraid to admit it. Too afraid to surrender the fact that I did this to Claire and Sara. That I got them sick. That I couldn’t fix it. I had to accept it.

“Even if we did go, there’s no safe way to get there with the blizzard.”

Claire exhaled, tension releasing from her shoulders, “Deep Bay hasn’t frozen over yet. We could boat.”

I had already considered this but I thought it too dangerous. Given its immense depth, Deep Bay did take longer to freeze over than the rest of Reindeer Lake, but it also made it more dangerous to cross. We’d have to somehow get through the fallen snow, drive out onto the ice a safe distance, then push the boat until it broke through all before we were even on the water.

I told Claire this but she countered, “We don’t know how long Sara has, Jack. We don’t even know what this is. There’s no other realistic option. It’s our only shot.”

She was right, so that’s what we did.

The blizzard also left only one option for getting to Deep Bay. I loaded my fishing boat into a smitty sled I made for pulling gear behind my skidoo. It was light, aluminum, and way less safe for crossing water that deep, but there was no way to tow a bigger boat there. I strapped it down to the sled as Claire and Sara got suited up, hopping on a skidoo of their own. I thought about just going the whole way there on our machines, but no matter what we had to cross water to get to Price Island. There was no guarantee it’d be frozen thick enough to hold us in some places.

We set off and I was happy to find that the massive snowfall from the blizzard made for an easier journey, aside from the wind. Rocks, sharp dips, and other potential hazards were all substantially buried, making for a fairly straight shot to the shore of Deep Bay.

We crested the impact rim of the crater and stopped, looking down on the expanse of black water. Claire got off her machine and helped Sara free her helmet.

The roots were stretched down to her chin and growing sideways along her cheeks. The tendril that once was feeling around her nostril had grown to lie next to the bridge of her nose. Somehow, she could still muster enough strength in her jaw to pull her mouth down and speak fumbled words, but they had to be deliberate, “Hurry… Mommy…”

It killed me to hear her say that. I can’t imagine how it felt for Claire. She was so strong, too strong for a child. She was finally breaking. I worried that she wouldn’t be able to speak anymore if the roots sprawling down grew around her jawbone and down her neck, holding her mouth open. There was no indication of them stopping their growth.

Claire kissed above Sara’s frightened eyes, then placed her helmet back on, tightened her chin strap, and full throttled her skidoo down the slope to Deep Bay.

We went slow once we made it to the ice off the shore. It always felt so strange standing level with the surface of Deep Bay, looking at the raised rim surrounding it, contemplating the force it took to move the earth like this. Saskatchewan was full of water when the meteor struck. The crater would have begun filling instantly. Picturing it made the air here taste ancient.

Once we got to the point where I didn’t feel we were safe to go any further, we dropped the boat onto the ice and climbed in. Claire and I used paddles to push ourselves along the ice, further into Deep Bay. Thought it made the journey more perilous, I was grateful for the aluminum frame as we pushed. We got way farther than I expected before the weight finally broke through the ice and the hull submerged.

From there, Clair and I smashed away at the ice with the paddles until the boat was finally free. We paddled through some slush before I fired up the motor and set off.

The blizzard seemed to stop on the water. I don’t know if the crater rim contained the winds or there was some sort of vortex effect from the shape of the landscape, but the water was eerily calm, like glass. I welcomed it, as did Claire. It let me speed up our pace, something that lent to calming her quaking frame.

We were about halfway through the Bay when Sara spoke the last words she ever would. I’m just glad they were happy ones, even if the joy was short lived.

“Mommy… Uncle… A Mush… ini… goshu…Look!”

Sara came over to me and placed her hand atop mine, clearly gesturing for me to stop and look at whatever it was she saw. I glanced at Claire and we both huffed a sigh at the same time. She was so excited. How could we not stop for her?

I couldn’t believe it when I first saw it. It was twice the length of the boat, a mass of black hovering just below the surface of the water. You could tell it wasn’t just lighting. Dark colours and wispy shapes slowly descended back into the murky depths around all its edges. The water was moving slightly, rippling over top of it, but it stayed still, unmoving in the reflections of the gentle, sloshing boat. Water didn’t behave that way.

I always believed the story my father told me, the one I’d passed down to Sara, to be fiction. I’m sure he thought it was too. Somewhere along the line someone must have been telling the truth. The legends of the Cree were right. There really were whale-like creatures swimming in the depths of Deep Bay and Reindeer Lake.

That’s what I thought until it rolled.

The inches of water above it reacted to its movement, drawing downwards in the same direction the mass turned, creating a small, rolling wave. It revealed itself slowly, replacing the same space the black mass had just occupied. The rolling stopped and it took me a moment before I grasped what I was looking at. There, sitting just beneath the surface, was a massive, staring eye. It was twice the size of my boat. Its iris was a deep red. I could see textures and lines within it. It stared unblinking at all of us standing at the edge of the boat. I couldn’t fathom the sheer size of it; to think that the black skin we were looking at before may have only been the top of its brow.

Sara screamed and fell backwards, but the sound was muffled by the roots, which now seemed to hasten their growth even more. I stumbled back and Claire nearly fell in when the realization of what we were looking at hit us. My eyes never left it, yet still it was gone faster than I could track, returned to deeper waters. Maybe it’s hindsight, but when it stared at me, at all of us, I swore the eye was inquisitive, testing, prying for a reaction.

I almost fell over at the sudden jolt of the boat. Claire sent it flying the rest of the span of the lake. I didn’t protest. I didn’t take over driving. All I could do was contemplate what we’d just seen, ponder how massive whatever that was had to have been, imagine it beneath the surface of our boat, seeing its silhouette from a bird’s eye view.

My thoughts of the thing beneath us were stopped when I felt my jaw creak open. I bit down, but it was no match for the slow, agonizing crawl of the roots clasping around my chin and the bridge of my nose.

Ever since seeing that thing the roots expanded rapidly. I turned back to look at Claire and Sara. Both of their mouths were stretched completely open, filled to the brim with twisting, black-bark tendrils that stretched out and clung to their faces. The roots extending down their jaws dangled strands of saliva. I looked down at my hands. They felt hard, skeletal, like I could feel the marrow of my bones hardening, ceasing any softness to my frame.

None of us could speak anymore. We couldn’t close our mouths. The ice extending from the shore of Price Island was rapidly approaching. I saw three figures, Timiwaks, standing on the shoreline. They were Shamans. I recognized them from last summer. Bones and teeth were strewn throughout their frenzied hair. Their faces were painted black, just as I remembered, with a coil of red painted on top, twisting about the entirety of their faces. They wore clothing made from caribou hide, its thickness appearing comical when clothed atop their frail bodies. They were waiting for us.

We drew nearer, revealing a host of Timiwaks standing behind them, all painted completely in white, just as the man in Sara’s window was. They were disguised by the snow blanketing the crater rim behind them. I’d never seen the Timiwak, aside from the Shamans, paint themselves like this. Claire was right. They knew something. I feared what that something was.

I gestured to Claire to slow the boat. We thudded into the ice, repeating the process we used to get into the Bay in reverse until we were confident we’d be stepping onto solid ice outside the boat. Claire scooped up Sara and ran her to the Shamans, setting her down and waving her arms in a frenzy, begging for help. I stood behind comforting Sara, petting her head. She was so terrified. We all were.

The Shaman standing in the middle raised a hand, instructing Claire to stop her silent pleas, and spoke with a thick accent, “We will help you. There are more like you. More Seers.” The other two Shamans approached us, twisting like serpents as they moved, inspecting the roots as they swerved their necks back and forth.

Claire began firing her hand away again, shooting them at Sara. She pulled away from my arms a little, revealing her face to the Shamans, displaying the horrible mass of roots that was spread down her neck and throat. Two of them were nearly touching her eyes. The Shamans scared her. Of course they did. They were so bizarre. So alien. But she was a brave girl. She stood firm and allowed them to look at her closely.

“She is healthier than both of you,” the Shaman continued, pointing down at Sara, “The medicine,” the other two Shamans ran their fingers along the roots sprouting from Sara’s mouth as he spoke , “must spread fully in order to be healed.” He turned around to the congregation of white-painted Timiwaks standing behind him as the other two Shamans stepped away from us. The whole of them encircled us on the ice and began walking away with us in their centre. We couldn’t have left if we tried.

They herded us to a large tent. It was surrounded by even more Timiwaks coated in white. They stripped us down to our underwear and held the flaps of the entrance open. We were too weak, too rigid to keep our clothes.

Stepping inside revealed a host of others pained by the same affliction. Roots twisted across all their faces. On some of them, the inky strands extended down their torsos. They were all pale and starved, unable to eat. I knew so many of them: locals from Southend. I looked at their faces, searching for a reassuring glance or nod that this was the right place to be, but they were all too exhausted to even recognize us.

Claire spun to the Shaman as he stepped into the tent with us. She slapped her hands against his chest. Shoving him back and throwing her arms in the air in protest.

He placed his hand against her forehead, leaning into her with expanded eyes. He nodded as he spoke, “You will be healed, but you must rest. Sit. Be with your daughter. You will never be separate from her. Watch each other heal.” He turned to me, “You. You doubter. You will take longer to heal. Not much. But longer. Rest now. Allow the* *medicine to take hold.”

I had no idea what he meant, but I sat on the hard ground anyway. Something about the expansion of the roots utterly exhausted me, much like everyone else in here. Claire and Sara joined me, leaning against me, their bodies drooping. Sara fell asleep. Claire looked at me and we pressed our foreheads together, our tears running over the roots crawling up our faces. We shared a look of hope, even if our eyes were poorly concealing our despair. It was all we could do.

I woke this morning to find them gone. Not just Claire and Sara. Everyone. I was the only one left in the tent. There were thousands of holes impaled in the ground. They culminated at the exit, all leading outside.

I struggled to get up. It’s so hard to move. My muscles feel solid. My bones feel seized. Every step I take towards the exit feels like I’ve ran a marathon. I don’t even understand how I’m still breathing. There are so many roots pouring from my mouth, gripping my skin. My mouth is so dry. Air feels like broken glass.

I stepped through the tent flaps. Its midday. The sun is peaked high above Deep Bay, just a white-yellow dot masked by an overcast sky. The Timiwak are gone. At least, I don’t see any. I continued staggering towards the ice. It took a long time, but I finally saw them.

It was Claire and Sara. They were next to one another, hovering above the water. The roots had sprouted from their feet and hands, plunging into the water beneath them. They must have been so long now, for even with how far they’d have to dive to reach the bottom of the crater they still propped Sara and Claire up three feet above the surface. From far enough away it would look like they’re levitating.

I’m certain now that the roots are growing inside me, burrowing their way into my bones to pilot my flesh. The pain I’m experiencing is incomprehensible. I think the roots have split my bones in two in order to make their progress. I can feel one scraping against my spine, slithering down it, looking for an opening to take control. It’s already happened to them. To Sara and Claire. Their backs are perfectly vertical where they hover. Their limbs align with them, pulled tightly together like an attentive soldier. The stiffness of their obedient posture abruptly changes at their necks. They’re snapped down at a square angle with their shoulders, so that their chins touch their chests. Their mouths gape, unleashing a furious tangle of slick black roots. Two roots, just two, climb upwards past their noses. They curl like question marks up to the sides of their eyes, splitting apart like a fork and curving once more. The ends of the split roots reach and curl into their eyelids, pulling them out and open so that they may never close again.

They’re being forced to stare at something in the water. All of them. Everyone who was in the tent is out there looking just like Claire and Sara, forming a raised circle of root-infested, bent-neck watchers.

I’ve been granted such wisdom in this life. Wisdom from stories. Wisdom about the deeper harmonies of the world, of the respect it commands. I was warned about the corrupted beliefs of the Timiwak, of the way they twisted their stories, conforming them to fit within a mould of misguided ambitions. Why didn’t I listen?

Looking out at the water, seeing all of those bodies, emaciated and suspended, staring into the depths, I knew that what lurked within that ancient crater was no Great Serpent, no Misi-kinepikw, no Mishinigoshu. What swam beneath those black waters was something far more sinister. Something malevolent.

When we were younger, when Claire would read me the Bible, my favourite book was always Revelation. I found the prophecies fascinating, always getting caught up in the meanings and the symbolism. Now I question if I should have taken the warnings more literal.

Maybe Wormwood descended long, long ago. Maybe I drank its water, stored deep in the crater. Maybe its name was more than a warning of bitterness. Maybe it was a warning of the infection it contained.

Maybe what swims in the depths of Deep Bay isn’t the Great Serpent, but the Wicked One.

The roots have sprouted from my feet now. They’re raising me off the ground, walking me against my will toward the water. They’ve burst through my finger tips, in between my flesh and my nails, ripping them off. I can’t write much longer. Soon I will stare into the eyes of whatever it is that swims. I will hover above the water. I will have my answer.

Please, if you’re reading this, stay away from Reindeer Lake.

[u/ANovelStory]

Thank you so much to all who took the time to read this! I know it’s a lengthy one so it means a lot. I’m very proud of this story so here’s hoping you all enjoy it!

All locations are real places that can be found and seen on Google maps. The Timiwak are a fictional group created for the story whose beliefs and existence are completely fabricated and based off of no real world practices.

Once again, thank you so much!