The Fisherman by John Langan Page A

shore rose steeply to a dense line of evergreens. Behind me, the ground also sloped up to a heavy cluster of trees. Overhead, the sky was pure blue, the sun dazzling. Despite the sunlight, the trees across from me—not only the spaces between them, but the trees themselves—were dark, not simply in shadow, but truly dark, as if they’d been shaped out of night itself. Standing there at the edge of that raging stream, rod in hands, line cast, I could not take my eyes from those trees, those dark trees, even though looking at them gave me the most intense vertigo, as if in looking over at them I were looking down a great distance, into a deep chasm. What was worse, I could feel myself being watched, could feel the eyes of things at the edge of the trees, and of things much farther in, which I somehow knew were bigger, much bigger—I say I could feel those eyes, their gaze, like a swarm of insects crawling all over me. A scream was building in my throat. I was on the verge of tossing my gear and bolting, when something took my line.
    The rod bowed with the force of it. Line started to run out, and run out fast, faster than I’d ever seen, making the furious sound you hear on one of those shows about deep-sea fishing, when a marlin or a swordfish takes the bait. It ran out fast, and it ran out long, as if the fish I’d hooked had decided to dive straight down, down much deeper than I thought a stream this size could be. Afraid to grab the handle in case the line snapped, (and wondering if that would be such a bad thing), I held the rod. My catch dove ever-deeper; the line sizzled out. Abruptly, whatever I’d hooked stopped dead. I hesitated, waiting to see if it was only pausing. Nothing. I started turning the handle. For what seemed like hours, I wound that line back in, drawing in more of it than I could have had. Even in the depths of the dream, I knew this. Apart from a brief tug, which immediately stilled my hand, until I’d determined I wasn’t going to have a fight on my hands, and went back to winding the reel, my catch was limp, passive. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what kind of fish I’d caught. I’m no expert, not by a long shot, but I’d never heard tell of a fish that took your line, dove straight down with it until, apparently, it exhausted itself, then allowed you to draw it in with no further struggle. For the matter, I’d no idea what stream this was, that let my mystery fish dive so deep. The landscape resembled the Catskills, but where in the mountains, I didn’t recognize.
    I can’t say how exactly I knew what I’d hooked was drawing closer, since I couldn’t see through the seething water, but know I did, and along with that knowledge came the sense that all those things in the trees around me were holding their collective breath, eager, anticipating what, I didn’t know. As what was on the other end of my line broke the water’s froth, time slowed. I saw something dark, swirling in the water like so many snakes. No, not snakes, more like some kind of plant, seaweed. No, not seaweed, more like hair, like a headful of hair. It was hair, thick and brown, soaking, hopelessly tangled. The hair parted to either side of a high, pale forehead, and long, narrow eyebrows arching over closed eyes. I knew, at that moment, even before I saw her high cheekbones, her sharp, almost pointed nose, her mouth that was the only feature out of proportion on her face—two sizes too small, I’d teased her—her mouth, through whose upper lip the barbed hook of the fly had slid and from which my fishing line now dangled. There was no blood. Instead, black, viscous liquid smeared the wound. I stood there, looking at my wife, at my poor, dead Marie—I still knew she was gone from me—I stood on the side of that dream-stream holding onto that rod tightly, desperately, because I couldn’t think what else to do. Half of me was so terrified I wanted to fling that rod away and run, no matter if it