The stolen car kicked up dirt as it drew to a stop on the edge of a stretch of road across the Ohio River from Midland, PA. It was getting dark, so Jeremiah glanced around for headlights before opening the back seat and pulling out a body wrapped in bed sheets. He made his way to the edge of the water, and carefully set Joanna down just barely beyond the reach of the water.

"Aaboukingon!" he shouted at the river. "Show yourself!" The water in front of him bubbled and churned, and soon the water parted and Aaboukingon emerged, in his human form.

"You're my son," he said, smiling as he extended his arms, "the messenger told me."

"It's a bit late for all that," Jeremiah replied, turning away. "Where have you been?" Aaboukingon stopped and sighed.

"It took me many years to recover from my time away from the river, and once I had, I was in no condition to leave again and look for you both. Even now, I can only manage to go a few feet inland before I grow dangerously weak."

"Good thing you don't have to go so far." With that, Jeremiah, pointed down to the body, and as realization dawned on Aaboukingon he nearly collapsed onto her. He pulled the blankets away, revealing her face, and laid his forehead on hers as he cried.

"Could you not help her? Oh, if I had found you, taught you-"

"I did help her. This world is no place for someone who lives with her heart among the spirits." Aaboukingon's gaze snapped to Jeremiah.

"What did you do?" he demanded, rising to his feet with his fists clenched.

"I don't want to hear it from you. She spent a lifetime suffering because of her devotion to you, and of the two of us I'm the only one who bothered to do anything about it!" Aaboukingon raised his hand and Jeremiah stiffened, gasping for breath.

"You killed her! I could have given her a better life, you could have given her a better life, but instead you killed her!" Jeremiah's eyes began to glow, and then he forced himself free of Aaboukingon's power and, with his own power, threw the river spirit at the water. Aaboukingon slid across the surface before coming to a stop and standing.

"You're still weak. No one calls the river by your name anymore. Soon no one will remember you. Then what will you be? Just another forgotten underling to the mighty Ohio? How does it feel to be an inferior water spirit to someone born of flesh?"

"You're no water spirit. You are hate, and rage, and death. I will ensure you never find any welcome in the River Network as long as you stay on this path!"

"There are better spirits than you to judge me, Aaboukingon." Jeremiah turned and walked back to the car before driving away. Aaboukingon returned to Joanna's body, lifted her into his arms, and together they disappeared beneath the river.

Joanna woke from a fitful nap, coughed a deep and wet cough, and rolled over for her medicine to find it being held by Jeremiah.

"How long've you been there?" she asked, weakly. He poured the medicine into a spoon and served it to her before leaning back into his chair.

"Only a few minutes, mama. Probably what woke you." She rolled onto her back and pushed herself slightly upright against the wall.

"I been hearin' about you, you know. I tried to keep track, met some occultists who've helped me out." He closed the medicine and set it on the small table beside her bed, next to the necklace holding the vial of sand.

"And what've you been hearing?"

"You been murderin' people, boy?"

"Now come on, mama, I heard you was sick and came to see you and you wanna talk about strangers?"

"Don't play coy with me!" she snapped, turning her face to glare at him. "Did I raise a murderer, or didn't I?" He sighed and looked down at the side of the bed for a moment.

"I only done what I needed to. Some people got in the way." She huffed.

"Got in the way? And where d'you think you're going, like that?"

"I was trying to make a better life for both of us. I was always gonna come home, get you out of shacks like this," he answered, waving his hands out to indicate the old wooden structure surrounding them.

"Yeah? Waitin' til you was done, though, I guess?"

"I knew you wouldn't understand. Not until I did it. I've seen so much, mama. I've walked in the realm of spirits, I've held power over life and death in my hands, I-"

"All that power, lookin' out at the world as it is now, and you didn't think to help no one but yourself?" He stopped, then hit the arm of the chair and stood abruptly to turn away and look out the window. "Maybe you was named right, boy. All that follows after you is lamentation." She turned back to look toward the wall while he rested his fists on the window sill and stared out at the river.

"I came to help you," he finally said, softly.

"Did you?"

"I always said I was gonna free you, from this life, from this misery. Give you something better. I know how to do it now."

"You know I'm ill."

"You won't be anymore." He turned around and walked to her side. She turned her gaze to him, and he gave a weak smile and placed his hands on either side of her head, leaned down, and kissed her forehead. She closed her eyes as he did so.

"You know I love you, boy. I know you can do good in this world, if you choose." A tear began to run down his cheek.

"I know, mama. I love you, too," he said. Then there was a crack as he snapped her neck, and the room fell silent as he lowered her head back onto the pillow and pulled himself away. "You'll see. It's not so bad as all this where the spirits live."

The doctor finally admitted to me to-day that there is nothing more he can do for me but ease the pain. It has grown so bad these last few days. The minister came around this after-noon to discuss matters with me. I told him the truth, that I had always had faith and still did; I left out the part about trafficking with spirits. I think he suspected, when he was looking at the books, but he did not ask. I am no Catholic, and neither is he; there is no need to make confession. It would be a lie if I did, anyway. I do not doubt I made the right choice about Aaboukingon, or that he made the right choice to return to the water. But I still stare out my window, looking off toward the Mississippi, hoping to see him come and make this all right again.

Fell ill earlier this week. Coughing something terrible, sometimes feels like I'm drowning, terrible pain in my chest. Doctor came around to-day and gave me something for the cough and pain, told me to rest and hope it blows over. When he listened to my lungs he looked concerned, I think he was sparing some some pain by not telling me what he heard. I only just managed to find solid work here, and with the way the world is now I do not know if the work will still be there if, and when, I feel better.

Have not been to the river since this began. Never realized how much comfort the water brought me until I could no longer get there. Left the Ohio long ago to find work along the Mississippi, but that water was still my refuge and my only connection to Aaboukingon. I miss him terribly. As I lay in my bed, I find myself playing through our times together over and over again. I fear this is some curse; the drowning feeling is my fate coming for me, punishment for turning aside from my god and family in favor of a water spirit.

​But I made my choice, and I will take what it brings.