Face in the Water

On the edge of a quiet English village, there was a pond that people said was cursed. Children were told never to go near it at night, for it was said that a face sometimes appeared on the surface when the moon was full. Most laughed at the story. But for Eleanor Gray, the pond was more than a tale. It was where her brother had vanished twelve years ago.

She had been seventeen then. Her brother, Thomas, was only ten. They had gone walking after supper, chasing fireflies along the water’s edge. She remembered turning for only a moment to look at the stars, and when she looked back, he was gone. There was no splash, no cry, only the still, silver surface of the pond.

People searched for days. The villagers dragged the water, combed the woods, and whispered their own versions of what had happened. Some said he must have fallen in and been swept into an underground stream. Others believed the stories — that the pond took what it wanted. Eleanor never believed in curses, but she never forgave herself either.

Years passed, and she left the village for London, trying to build a life far from the ghosts of her childhood. But the memory of Thomas never left her. She saw his smile in the faces of strangers, his laughter in the sound of trains passing in the rain. Guilt is a strange kind of companion. It doesn’t shout. It lingers quietly, like mist that never burns away.

One autumn, Eleanor returned home to care for her ageing mother. The pond still lay there, calm as glass. The old stories had not faded. A few villagers still claimed they saw something moving beneath the surface on certain nights. But Eleanor no longer believed in such things. She believed only in loss.

One evening, unable to sleep, she walked down to the water. The moon was bright, the air cold enough to bite. She stood by the edge, listening to the crickets and the slow ripple of wind across the surface. Then she saw it — a faint shimmer on the water, as though someone had brushed the surface with a fingertip.

At first, she thought it was the reflection of the moon. But then, slowly, the light shifted, and a shape began to form. Two eyes. A nose. A mouth. The face was pale, distant, almost childlike. For a moment, her heart stopped.

“Thomas,” she whispered.

The face blinked, and the water trembled. She stumbled back, her breath quick and shallow. She wanted to run, to convince herself it was a trick of the light. But something in her heart told her to stay.

The voice came softly, like the whisper of wind through reeds. “Why did you leave me?”

Her throat tightened. “I didn’t,” she said, tears rising. “I looked for you. I never stopped.”

The water shimmered again. “You forgot.”

“I tried not to,” she said, falling to her knees. “I carried you with me every day.”

For a long moment, the pond was silent. Then the voice spoke again, gentler this time. “Then let me rest.”

The ripples spread outward, slow and wide, until the face faded into the reflection of the moon. Eleanor sat there until dawn, the damp air clinging to her skin, her hands trembling.

When she finally rose, she felt something she hadn’t felt in years — peace. Not joy, not closure, but a quiet release, as if the weight she had carried all her life had dissolved with the mist.

The next morning, the villagers found her by the water, asleep against an old willow tree. When she woke, she told them nothing. Some said she looked different — older, calmer, her eyes softer somehow. That night, she lit a candle by the pond and set it afloat. The small flame drifted across the dark water until it disappeared.

From that day on, the stories about the cursed pond began to fade. No one saw faces anymore. The water was just water again. But sometimes, on clear nights, a single ripple would cross the surface, though there was no wind. And if one listened closely, they might hear a soft laugh — the sound of a child echoing through the stillness.

Eleanor lived many more years in the village. She grew old, and when she passed, people said her ashes were scattered by the pond. And on the first night after her burial, a villager swore he saw two faces in the water — a young boy and a woman — smiling at each other before melting back into the moonlight.

The pond has remained calm ever since.