
What is written in Earth, endures.
What the Lake receives, she keeps.
At 14, he climbed down the cliff. On the beach, he built a fire.
He stripped off his clothes.
I AM A WITCH, he wrote, in capitals: in the wet sand between shore and water, for the Lake to take.
He swam out, into the wind, as far as he could. Then he turned and swam back to shore.
He dried himself at the fire. He dressed and climbed back up.
He went back home.