The Way There

Wrote this years ago--still like it.

If she stood in just the right place, she could see the tunnel. It was perfectly round, arching as high above as it dug below. Anyone else would have seen a bridge reflected in the waters of the lake, but when she stood just where she stood, she knew it was much more than that. And she would have gladly gone through the tunnel to discover the new world beyond it, but she knew, somehow, in order to do that she would have to walk on water.
She was still young. The world was strange and interesting, with unexpected dramas every hour of every day. She was certain, in such a strange world, that somewhere someone knew how to walk on water and would teach her. But she knew what Alice had gone through in Wonderland. She knew she might have the key and be the right size, but never at the same time, so she might never get through the door. "It may be years before I find someone who knows how to walk on water," she thought. "By then I might forget this tunnel is here." So she took the fancy blank book her sister had given her as a dream journal and wrote on the first page:
"The park has a tunnel to another world. You'll see it if you stand under the basswood tree. Walk on the lake. This message brought to you by you at ten years old."
Satisfied, she shut the book and gave it a new place of honor on her highest shelf.

Years passed. She read a book about a man who, as a young boy, dreamed of being a pilot. One day he saw a barnstormer's plane come through a cloud and dip its wings at him. Thirty years later, he achieved his dream; he was a pilot who flew a little Cessna from field to field. One day as he broke through a cloud, he saw a little boy standing alone in a yard, and he dipped his wings to him. He knew at once it was his younger self he was saluting and encouraging.
She remembered the tunnel and the message in her dreambook. "This time it's the younger me encouraging the older me," she thought.
It was still possible; she knew it. Someone could walk on water and could teach her how. But more and more she was coming to know how most people saw the world, how there were "laws of physics" and set ideas about the way everything worked, how it was and always would be. Prevailing opinion being what it was, those who could walk on water were keeping very quiet about it, probably for good reason. She imagined them living far in the country or up in the mountains, away from highways and airplane flyways, rising late at night to practice their skill under the cover of darkness. There were armies of them, perhaps, all solitary--or maybe they all knew each other, could find others like themselves by a certain word or a way they held their heads.
More years passed. Now she knew the world's secret--there was no single mode of existence, just thousands of these hidden societies, each with their codephrases, each found only if you knew where to look. When she bought a car she drove out to the country every weekend. She would go to the loneliest place she could find and search for a lake or a pond. She'd hike in the woods, then return to the pond at midnight. She did this for so long, eventually she forgot why. Then she saw something else that made her think of the past and present in conversation. She was in the audience when a man on stage, an actor for many years, watched his younger self on film. The younger man was walking away from the camera. The actor hailed him--and the man on film turned and waved. She found the dreambook again and read her message to herself. The one she needed to meet could be at the next pond out in the woods. She took the drive that weekend with renewed determination.
Still, three years passed before she found him. By then, the woods were more scarce--where once she'd parked on a dirt road and hiked through endless stands of oak and maple, there was clearcut land and a billboard: "Future Site of Oakland Woodtrails Estates." Still, she drove to the lonely places, even when it took half a day, sometimes all day, to find them. And then there came a night she crept up to a pond so still and black it swallowed the darkness around it. She heard crickets and owls and soft scamperings in the trees--even a wolf in the distance. Then she heard something like a fish breaking the surface of the water to snatch an insect. The sound repeated, and as her eyes adjusted to the near-total dark she saw a tall shape in the middle of the pond. She crept closer, watching where she walked lest she fall into the water. She snapped a twig. The man (she saw him almost clearly now) walked toward her.
For a moment she was very afraid. After all, she was deep in nowhere, alone with a stranger. But he could do what she wanted more than anything in the world to do. "Will you teach me?" she asked him.
In response, he came even closer, holding out a hand. She took it and walked forward, feeling like a little girl splashing through a puddle. "Don't splash so much," he said, and made her hold still while he took small steps away to demonstrate while continuing to hold her hand. She followed, gradually getting the feel for it. They walked and walked. He loosened his grip; he let go. By then she didn't need to hold on.
They returned to the shore as the first hint of color came into the sky. "There's a park close to where I used to live," she said to him. "There's a tunnel there to another world."
He nodded. "And now you can get there."
They drove back to the city together, and did not wait for the cover of the darkness before they crossed the lake into the other place.