The Pond That Never Thaws

The Pond That Never Thaws

By: A. Jayde Bartha

There once was a pond and no matter the season of the year, it never seemed to thaw. Just a solid opaque oval on the surface of the Earth it seemed, couldn’t even see through the frozen water. In the winter it covered in snow, in the springtime the snow would melt but the pond itself would remain frozen solid.

The villagers settled close by this pond told a lot of lore of why that pond never thaws but no one knew why. Nobody thought it was particularly dangerous, but no one really bothered trying to explore it any further other than looking at the smooth surface.

Carlene and Doug Sawyer were two children that lived in the village. Like all the children that lived there, they were mystified by the origins of the frozen pond.

One warm day during the summer they decided they’d go see this frozen pond for themselves. They had never saw it before, just heard about it from the older kids around the village. Carlene is eight and her brother Doug is ten. They spent most of the summers entertaining themselves while school was not in session as both their parents worked jobs all year long.

Today they’d see the pond for themselves, and they’d figure out what was there. So, they took the woods that was in the northern part of town. The woods started on the edge of town and stretched far beyond anyone knew the distance of.

The woods had tons of walking trails all throughout the thinner part of it. When the bush turned too thick to see through the walking trails ended. Most villagers were awry of going beyond and leaving the trails. To get to the frozen pond though, you had to go beyond the trails at a certain point. The trail they followed was called Peri Path. This trail forked off into a direction on its’ own no others did. When the path ended, and the thicket of the woods began was where the children pressed on. Legend said that twenty-five paces past the end of the trail, you were bound to hit the frozen pond.

They left Peri Path and began counting their steps into the woods. Immediately they realized how thick the woods were, when they couldn’t see the trails past the trees anymore. They kept straight word knowing all they’d have to do, is simply turn around and walk straight back.

Carlene had just uttered the number twenty-three under her breath when Doug yelped out in pain as he stumbled into something. His shin had hit a log, causing him to trip over it and land flat on his face on the other side. Carlene scrambled over the log after him, but he stopped fussing with his injuries when he realized they were laying on something very cold. Touching the surface next to him, he wiped away the debris and leaves. A reflective, smooth sheen revealed itself to him. Doug jumped to his feet, slipping, almost losing his footing. Carlene stepped back and looked at her own feet, gasping with amazement.

There it was under their feet, the pond. It was mid-summer, and the pond was frozen solid just like the people had said it would be. It was probably ten feet in diameter. They brought a sack of tools they took from their father’s shed that they figured might come in handy. There was a mystery afoot and they were going to be the ones to solve it. Doug pulled out a large auger from the sack and pushed the sack away from him with his foot.

Doug fired it up and tried to break through the surface. Carlene stood on the dirt part of the woods surrounding the ice, fearing the worst. But when the spinning blade hit the top of the smooth surface all it did, was rupture and recoil off the ice. Doug tried to hit the surface again and again until the auger broke in two. Doug looked at the pieces on the ground and looked back at his sister.

“Dad is going to be mad” Carlene nodded. Doug scratched his head staring at the ground with perplexity. Carlene dug around in the sack and pulled out their mother’s garden shovel.

“What if we dug beside it, until we hit the water? Can we do that with this?” She held up the shovel and shook it at Doug. Doug walked over to her and grabbed the shovel gently from his sister’s hand.

“I think that’s a good idea Carly” he took a few steps away from her and shoved the spade into the soft dirt. Half expecting the dirt to also be frozen to, Doug pushed as hard as he could when he hit the dirt. The shovel went in easily and he scooped out the earth into a pile next to him.

He continued this way until the sun had well started to go down and beads of sweat dripped off his head. Carlene had shoveled for awhile when Doug got tired but as they got deeper into the ground, she had to help him widen the hole so she could fit down with him inside.

They smoothed out a side of the hole so that it steeped upwards to the surface of the dirt. Carlene stood behind Doug as he dug beside the frozen pond. He had kept right next to it so that the edge of it was unearthing as he dug. As far as he could tell it was still solid inside.

Finally, he felt the spade slip sideways where he could not see under the frozen pond. They had dug so far down they reached the bottom of the pond, and they didn’t hit water like they thought they would. It was just frozen solid, they stared, even more perplexed. Doug reached his hand out and touched the side of it for the first time since he started digging beside it. When his hand touched it this time, he felt warmth radiating from it instead of cold. He told Carlene to feel it as well, she felt the warmth from the frozen pond. It seemed to kind of buzz with energy as well, like a quiet dryer humming through the last ten minutes of a load.

As their hands warmed the pond from the outside, the area behind their palms became transparent. They immediately touched more of the pond and breathed on it. Clearing away as much as they could so that they both could look inside. They pressed their faces up against the hard surface and looked in.

Inside everything looked like it was made of ice, but it was shaped like a small village. There were tiny shapes that looked like houses and large seedlings of ice stretched upwards. Tiny white lights illuminated certain spots inside, it looked like a small city, made of ice.

“Whoa” they both said, looking at each other for a second. They turned back to the transparent ice and were met with the cheerful faces of two creatures on the other side. Carlene jumped as she was startled at the unexpected sight of something moving inside. The creatures on the other side were much smaller than Doug or Carlene, they floated in the air like hummingbirds. Upon closer inspection they saw that they floated because they also had tiny wings like hummingbirds that moved so quickly, they couldn’t quite see them. The eyes of the creatures appeared to glimmer opal or resemble shining diamonds.

“What are those?” Doug asked out loud, without breaking eyesight Carlene whispered to him

“they’re fairies Doug” Doug looked at his sister and snorted

“Those aren’t real Carly” Carlene this time met Doug’s eyes and returned her gaze to the flying creatures behind the ice. From behind the ice the creatures cupped their mouths in their hands and seemed to silently giggle at their exchange with each other.

“They’re fairies” Carlene said again

“I can’t wait to tell mom and- “Carlene interrupted Doug before he could finish what he was saying

“No! We can’t tell anyone about them”

“Why?” He asked

“Because people ruin everything and they’ll probably ruin this” she gestured at the smooth, shining material. Carlene tugged on his coat with desperation when he didn’t say anything right away.

“Okay Carly calm down we won’t tell anyone” Carlene stared at him

“And we’ll cover the hole back up to” Carlene hugged Doug tightly in her arms. She turned and touched the ice one last time then began her climb to the top of the tunnel. Doug followed her out and filled in the hole behind them. They drug as many fallen branches as possible and even rolled a log over the surface of the pond.

Twenty-three paces and they were making their way back down Peri Path. The sun had already gone down, and they weren’t sure quite how late it was. But they knew their momma would be worried and then angry once she saw they were alive.

At home they received a good lecture from their momma. Their dad sat at the table with them asking questions about their day.

“Where were you all day?”

“We went to the woods”

“I hope you aren’t this late because you got lost going into the thick woods” he stared at Doug, raising an eyebrow.

“We were playing hide and seek. Carlene won because I couldn’t find her anywhere. Then we thought we’d go to the edge of Peri Path just to see.” Doug looked at his feet as he said the last of the words to him.

“See what Doug?” Douglas Sr took a steady pull from his pear-wood pipe while he looked at his son.

“See if we could see the frozen pond, it’s only twenty-five paces-“ Hillary interrupted Doug with a shriek at the thought of him leaving the path, but Douglas Sr held up a hand to her.

“And did you see a frozen pond?”

Doug chuckled at his father like he had said something absurd

“We saw a regular old pond with ducks wading in it. Got in trouble for nothing.”

THE END