By Blood We Live

"It's just a fever. That's all it is." He placed her hand in his lap, and tried to wave the bugs away. One of the moth's wings buzzed harshly while the stones tapped against each other in the susurration of the waves. "Let's go inside."

"I don't know what I'd do without you," she whispered.

Without saying anything to reassure her, he helped her to her feet, propping her up as they strolled back to the house. When they passed the hand-carved sign that read "Crow's Nest Bed & Breakfast, Little Limestone Island," he flipped the board.

Sorry, No Vacancy.

Her fever burned all night. Martin sat on the edge of the bed, feeding her tablets of aspirin and ice chips.

A single moth had followed them inside the house, tickling Lucy out of her rest until Martin turned on the lamp and the tiny creature flew to rest, panting, on the white shade. He smashed it, leaving a smear of gray dust and wings.

Walking over to the gable window, he gazed out of their attic apartment at the lake. All their life's savings were encompassed by these few acres of land, bounded on one end by the stone jetty covered with zebra-mussel shells and on the other by the apple tree with the bench swing. When insects began collecting at the screen, he stepped away.

Lucy shuddered in her sleep, sucking air through her mouth. Martin bent over and slipped his tongue-briefly-between her teeth. He expected the soursweet taste of sickness, but it wasn't there.

That only made it worse.

In the morning, Martin puttered in the kitchen even though they had no guests, making himself a cappuccino and sitting at the dining room table beside the double-hung windows facing the lake. An ore carrier moved sluggishly away from the island, heading past Put-in-Bay for the Ohio shore.

A tall, silver-haired man in gold pants and shirt-their neighbor, Bill-walked along the shore with a little girl about four or five years old. Martin's heart began to skip. He set his cup down so fast it splashed and ran through the screened-in porch, the door clapping shut behind him.

Sunrise glinted off the water. He shielded his eyes with his hand as he walked barefoot over the dew-damp grass. "Hey, neighbor!"

"Good morning, Marty," Bill replied. He gestured at the little girl. "This here's our granddaughter, Kelsey. Say hi, darling."

The little girl looked up at Martin. Panic flashed across her eyes, and she spun away from him to look at the lake.

"Hi, Kelsey," Martin said. He noticed the cappuccino running down his arm, and absent-mindedly lifted his wrist to his mouth to lick it off.

Bill shrugged. "Kids, huh. Folks don't teach 'em any manners these days." He pointed to the pumphouse, a squat block of concrete that sat on the edge of the lake. "When did you block that up?"

"Oh." The farmhouse was over a hundred years old. Before the island built its water supply, the farmers pumped it in directly from the lake. "A couple days ago."

"I thought you were going to turn it into a sauna."

"That's still the plan. But one of our guests was poking around in it after he came back from the winery. Fell and cut his head. Pretty big gash. He didn't need stitches, but we figured-"

"Liability?"

"Yeah."

"That's a shame, people not being responsible." Bill looked up to the porch. "Say, where are your guests? Isn't it about breakfast time?"

"We had to cancel all our reservations," Martin said. He watched Kelsey closely. She poked around the rocks, searching for a way into the pumphouse. "Lucy's been sick."

"Gosh, I'm sorry to hear that. What's wrong?"

"She came down with this fever-"

"Hey, there she is."

Martin turned. Lucy stood outlined in the attic window. The glass caught the sun, casting it in such a way that she was surrounded by a corona of jagged, golden light.

Bill waved to the attic window and cupped his hands to his mouth. "Get well soon, Lucy!"

She returned the greeting.

"You have an awful pretty wife there," Bill said.

Martin frowned. "Some days she's more awful than-"

Kelsey pounded on the side of the pumphouse with a rock. Martin hurried toward her, hand outstretched, stepping carefully in his bare feet across the stones. "Hey, Kelsey, come here. I want to show you something neat."

The little girl looked to her grandfather, who nodded permission.

"Shhh." Martin pressed his forefinger to his lips. With exaggerated tiptoeing, he led her onto their other neighbor's property. It was a small cabin, seldom used. Its lake pump had been more modern, an eight-foot square of concrete that jutted out from the shore like a single tooth in a child's mouth. Algae-slick boulders, driftwood branches, and other debris heaped around it.

The two inched slowly out on the slab until they reached the edge and saw the snakes-a dozen or more of them ranging in length from one to three feet. Their scales glistened black as they sunned themselves on the rocks.