Echo Gray

              Fresh water and cool black rock.

              Echo waded into the shallows, the still water. Crisp and clear.

The chill felt familiar, like a spring breeze she knew so well. Probably because she came there nearly every day. To the lake. Everyone said she looked like it, too. 

             Her hair was the same shade as the smooth boulders, snarled into waves and curls from the wind. Her eyes were gray like a river, which was what had given her the second part of her name. Echo Gray. Gray like the cloudy, overcast skies. Like icebergs and stormy seas and rain.

             She swam for the good part of an hour, floating at the surface and diving in the middle, brushing over the flat rock bottom, worn smooth and even, until the rain started. Bright mountain water, even colder than groundwater. She paddled for the shore.

             Echo climbed out, deftly scaling the rocks. She combed her fingers through her messy curls, swiftly ringing out and braiding her drippy hair. Pulling her lavender summer dress on over her head, over her swimming clothes, she stole away among the hills, the briars and thickets and thorn bushes, and faded into the gray.

…

             The train let out a whistle, long and low and mournful. As it rounded the bend, its steel wheels clicked and clacked, screeched to a tangy, shrieking halt that rattled the fir trees around the station. 

             The fir trees. The fresh air. The fields and forests and wide open prairies…and the lake. The lake, holding the reflection of the vast, blue, blue sky. Holding the reflections of everything. Wooly clouds and bird songs. She might never see it again. She might never come back there at all. Back to the lakes. 

              Raindrops fell, and one landed at the crown of her head and rolled down her cheek like a tear. They sizzled as they plopped onto the station platform, baking in the August heat. She might never feel rain like this again. The only rain in the city was acid rain, tainted with pollution, imbued with smoke. Or so she heard.

               The hulking beast drawled before her, huffing and puffing. Its shiny black sides made her think of a ship, which she had never seen. No, this was not a ship. This was a true iron horse.

               A blast sounded, smoke puffing from the stack as she clambered aboard, clutching her battered, banged up suitcase like a lifeline. Echo walked the length of the train car, the ruby red carpeted floor, and into the subsequent one, which she found empty. She chose a cushioned seat with a large window to look out of as the world went by.

               With a rusty creak and groan, the steel giant heaved itself forward, briskly setting smooth sail over the tracks. Trees flashed by, pine and spruce and evergreen, meadows dotted with wildflowers, and shining, shimmering lakes. A sweet scent wafted in, seeping around the edges of the window, musky and husky, like pinecones and pine needles.

               Her heart beat faster. And so was the reason why she was called Echo. Her heart beat out loud, and everyone could hear it. It made her feel like everyone could read her thoughts, could tell how she was feeling all the time. But her heartbeat was low and deep, like she imagined a whalesong to be. Sometimes, it was the only thing holding her together, hearing herself. Feeling her heartbeat. Like a song she could hum under her breath, a song that only she knew the words to, in the lyrical language of the lakes. It was almost from another place.

                            Echo’s heartbeat filled the locomotive car, long and lost and drowned out in the train whistle.