The Laundress of Silver Lake by Julie Jansen Page B

dog-paddled until finally it gasped for air and sank.
    Blood dribbled from the affected finger and ran down the sleeve of his shirt. It dripped all over his chest and covered the knee area again. The fabric turned from white to chocolate brown. Arvid stood up and pried the lizard’s jaw open. He hurled it into the water. It too, squirmed, gasped, and sank.
    Arvid turned and screamed. Nestled between two large granite boulders, was a human skeleton in a faded blue apron over a white shredded dress. Next to the skeleton rested a green plastic laundry basket.
    “Josephine! You’re dead!” His heart beat loud in his chest as panic struck. An army of blue lizards raced toward him out of the rocks.
    “Chirp! Chirp!”
    One flew through the air and latched onto another of Arvid’s fingers.
    “Foul, evil creatures,” Arvid roared. Silver Lake’s Laundress, spared vaporization by the 2270 solar flare, instead died at the hands of miniature bloodthirsty reptiles.
    He wondered how she fended off the creatures before her death since they were obviously the source of her whitening magic. He shook the thought from his mind. Survival, not debunking mysteries, was now of the utmost importance.
    His boat bobbed on the water where he’d left it, but lizards hovered in the rocks, waiting to ambush him.
    He leapt from the rocks and ran in the opposite direction toward the water, ignoring the pain. Blood spilled from his fingers. He pried the lizard’s jaw loose, tossed it behind him, and hobbled into the lake.
    Arvid dove under the water, praying the lake’s seemingly docile plesiosaur was not related to the lizards with a taste for human flesh.
    As Arvid swam, he turned his head to look at the shore. Several hundred lizards congregated at the water’s edge. They eyed him hungrily. Arvid swam faster. In a final salute he shouted, “Josephine Fritzkiev! I was wrong about you!”
    While a brilliant story marinated in his brain about the mystery of Silver Lake’s Laundress, Arvid thought it best to forget Josephine, and to write about another presumed dead and mysterious person who lived far from Silver Lake.
    Arvid felt leathery dinosaur skin brush past his feet and gazed into the water. Spenser swam toward a bed of aquatic grass.
    Then Arvid felt something else: a scratchy sensation first on his knee, then on his chest. He glanced down again.
    Under the water Josephine Fritzkiev held a stiff bristled brush and scrubbed at Arvid’s clothing. She was old and wrinkled, but her arms were still strong.
    She surfaced. Arvid was face-to-face with Josephine. She held onto one of Arvid’s arms.
    “Josephine Fritzkiev! You’re alive! I knew it!”
    Josephine smiled. Her lips twisted into a sinister grin.
    “I discovered your secret for getting clothes whiter than white!” Arvid said and her grip on his arm became tighter.
    “Shh,” she said and touched a pruned finger to her lips before pulling him under the water. She swirled and spun Arvid until he went limp.
    Josephine surfaced. She tugged Arvid by the collar and swam toward the shore.
    She reached the shallows and stood. The lizards watched, their bodies quivering with excitement. She worked quickly to remove Arvid’s stained shirt and pants. They were good quality and just the right size. She tucked the clothing into a bag draped over her shoulder. Then she dragged his body from the water and onto the rocks.
    The lizards let her pass. She laid Arvid on his back atop a granite boulder and stepped back.
    Arvid would appease the beasts’ hunger for a while. When they finished there would be ample droppings to collect. She had a basketful of laundry to do back at the cave, and she was running low on whitening agent.