'Untouchable' by Jodie Hermann

You smoke the shivering air. The ripples from the lake brush the stones, centimeters from your worn boots, the ones who can no longer make ripping patterns in the mud, the ones whose rubber can only leave the curl of your toes sinking sweetly among the ocean's bloom. You stare at the water: at how your shoelaces seem to dance with flowing arms like ballerinas with the beat of a wave; at how the minnows accelerate in spurts, crossing each other, tiny vectors living in a world of insignificance. You tap your toe on the surface, spreading the school as you predicted.

You think the lake is dirty. But it excites you to be on the edge. To spread your fingers into the ripples and feel the seaweed snake into the crevices. To know your father will force your hand under a stream of filtered water until the steam will warm your rosy nose, and the rim will trace indents into your forearm. But you still sweep your hands in elongated grasps to catch the blooms, hearing your mother whisper to no one and everyone about your misplaced kaleidoscope while wiping up flour that briefly snowed on the countertop.

It's October. The leaves fell spastically, truly random, among the manicured garden, frosted glass table, and the bird feeders strung on poles to prevent bandit squirrels from indulging. It was the time of year when a handful of leaves could become dust with only a closed fist. The breeze could lift your hair like it had wings of its own; to fly, to braid itself, to flicker like pure fire.

The slam of a door brings you out of your thoughts. Your mother yelled "Dinner!" only briefly before. The unnatural chill hits your chest, followed by aromas of rosemary, thyme, and oregano.

It's a lake house, but it's not the lake house you envisioned three years ago. You were supposed to meet Nancy Drew while sidestepping wild boar in the shade. To find a hidden chest full of stolen, etched rubies under the cozy plaid couch. To fill every wall with retired bent signs advertising tackle shops. Instead, it's a leather couch, a sharp white, that hides nothing as it judges your mud stained boots.

Dinner is silent. The fork would casually crescendo across a plate, or the satisfied hum would bounce from your father. It was like someone suspended your body in cement and extracted your mind to another perspective. To the freedom of the lake. To your room upstairs with its sliced floorboards hoarding secrets, hoarding a box made from Popsicle sticks and glue.

You excuse yourself from the table, kissing your mother and father once on the top of the head, and leave the dish duty to be discussed amongst them.

It is easier to breathe in your own room. The crickets and bullfrogs bathe the room in encircling, comforting sound. The breeze whisks the pink ruffles of your curtain into a frenzy, twisting, squeezing, coiling, suffocating. You scamper to the window, grabbing the curtain to counteract the pull, before settling down in front of the geometric rug. You lift the right hand corner. There's a quick, broad check to the closed door. Then you hoist the small section of the floorboard. It's quite heavy, near a quart of milk, but your weak arm can exert just enough to sneak the box from its hearth.

It was your poor attempt at carpentry four years ago. The visit to Grandma's white-picket-fence home in Yeehaw Junction, Florida, where the population never exceeds 205 and the ice cream is served with a side of buzzing flies, had soon grown tiresome. You perfected needlepoint, lettering was your forte, and brushed your teeth twice as long because by forty-five seconds the foam would complement any Leatherface impression.

By mid morning on the ninth day your grandpa confiscated your solitude.

"You remember Don Anderson, right, angel?" Grandpa said.

Everyone in the whole bloody 205 person town knew Don Anderson, with his obnoxious garden statues and wind chimes that blew entire musicals through the Carolina Jasmine.

"Him and all his luck." Grandpa clarified.

Don Anderson's luck was a 9mm handgun stashed in the cigar box of his antique smoking table, complete with an ashtray that served purely as a cup holder for a daily glass of milk. The gun was found three weeks after Don Anderson's death with a hole in the kitchen wall and Don Anderson's deadbeat son standing behind vibrating smoke.

"You know, it was never about the gun." He continued behind a New Yorker magazine. "But rather the excitement of having the secret. It kept him going."

He had revived the story periodically at dinners and around particularly slow board games. But this time seemed different. Maybe it was the way his eyebrows creased downward or the way his eyes tied strings to your soul, but you could feel his intention coat your bones. You could feel this story was yours to capture, to recall during late night ceiling stares. It was for you to steal it.

So you crafted that box from wood, stained red from Popsicle juice, and glue until it became your own smoking table. At first the lid only rested on top, but by now, sitting on your bedroom floor, two tiny golden hinges accompanied the lid. They are unoiled and send low humming shrieks spiraling across your back as you seize the lid. Lingering whispers call to you, over and over until you could feel the heavy liquid bounce from your veins and you could feel your stomach grow stones. Stones made from obsidian and quartz. Stones you swiped from the quaint gift shop in Missouri. All a bed, a backdrop for your prize. All curled up at the bottom of your box. But it's there too. Your power. Your bounty. Your luck. A ringlet, small enough to lay flat among the stones. You had five of them. Five minnows whose discolored scales peeled away from their bones. You could pluck them off, one by one like flower petals. Each one had a leash, four ply twine which you wrapped twice around each fish and tied off once. Their hollow eyes gaze at you with submissive ecstasy. The curl of their ribs match the curl of your lips. It is here you finally feel untouchable.