The Secret Beneath Penelope Pond

I never learned how to ice skate. I was too chicken-shit to even try. I remember wanting to impress Leah on our first date. She had expressed her desire to go to Penelope Pond in Langston County, but just at the mere mention of that place, and I’m overwhelmed with a sudden surge of anxiety. My heart begins beating quicker, my brow starts to perspire, hands get clammy and I become nauseous. She asked what was wrong with me, but at the time, I had no earthly idea how to tell her.

When I was a child, my family occasionally picnicked in Brewster’s Park, which was home to Penelope Pond. A beautiful place, the park is touched by each season, warm non-humid summers, cool soothing leaf color changing autumns, brisk and unforgiving winters, and rejuvenating springs. In late January of my twelfth year, my parents brought my younger sister and me to the park, we ate lunch and had a snowball fight, they were such delightful people, but this particular Saturday afternoon they had an ulterior motive, they were going to teach us how to dance across the iced over pond with razor blades strapped onto our boots.

The events of that day are forever engraved in my mind, I had night terrors for years after. I saw therapists, was prescribed medications, underwent hypnosis, but nothing could erase those images. If I hadn’t been so slow lacing up my skates, I wouldn’t be here right now telling you any of this. Olivia, my little sister wasn’t so lucky, her skates were velcro and before I could even get my snow-boots off, she was already waddling toward the pond. Mom and Dad were quick to catch her before she could step onto the frozen layer of ice covering the water. My father yelled over for me to hurry up, but I was struggling to untie an accidental double knot I had created.

The memory replays in my brain as a movie, no longer participating, but watching from afar. I see myself struggling to untie the knot and look up just as Olivia pushes herself away from the shore. My parents are standing at the water’s edge waving, when her skates slip out from beneath her, planting her backside onto the frozen pond. CRACK! It sounded like thunder, even now as I remember it, it was as if lightning had struck the ice. I remember thinking, that there was just no way my little seventy-five pound sister had caused whatever that sound was. I couldn’t have been more wrong, that winter was relatively warmer than previous others and the pond’s frozen layer wasn’t as thick and strong as it had been years prior. The ice sheet opened up and swallowed my sister, I jumped up and instinctively started running for the pond, my parents both raced over to where she had plunged in, but couldn’t see her through the pond’s deep darkness.

By the time I reached the shoreline, dad was stripping out of his top layers, I motioned to join them, but they both held their palms up and yelled for me to stop and not take another step. I see my father taking quick short breaths as he prepares to submerge himself, but before he can, the hole in the ice expands. In the blink of an eye, both Mom and Dad vanish. I don’t know what to do, I’m panicked and scared, I run around the perimeter of the pond yelling at the top my lungs for help. A park ranger was passing by on one of the park’s utility roads when he heard my screams. I told him what happened, he radioed it in, and within thirty minutes I was surrounded by uniformed men and women. The police and firefighter rescue teams along with EMTs were on the scene, divers were suiting up to go and recover my family from their watery graves. I was twelve at the time, but I wasn’t obtuse to the fact that my Mom, Dad, and sister were dead.

I waited, and waited. I remember one of the deputies asking how deep the pond was, in which he was told “Very!” Somebody’s walkie talkie squawked and a voice could be heard saying, “We’ve got one!”

A moment later, two scuba tanks broke through the surface, one of them was holding my little sister. An hour later, Mom and Dad were reunited with their daughter, laying side by side upon the shore, they all looked at peace, and that’s when I knew what I had to do.

Five years later, I was seventeen, and I brought Leah to Penelope Pond, I had never gone back until that day. The pond was mostly frozen over, and the memory of that day, the movie in its entirety, played in my head. When she asked what was wrong, I remember just staring at her. She was no longer Leah, she was my sister. I rubbed my eyes and she was my mother, then my father, they were all blue and they each wore that same peaceful expression they had the day the pond took them. I grabbed Leah by the neck and held her head under the water, it didn’t take long. The water was freezing and after a short struggle, she too wore that peaceful expression. She was my first.

Every winter since, I have returned to feed Penelope. I have given that peacefulness to so many more families over the years. If you keep diving, you’ll find them, that water is deep, very deep.

You asked if I regret getting caught, No, it was bound to happen, I’m not a young man anymore. Eventually somebody was going to get away from me. How is she? Never mind, I’m sure she’s not well, having just lost her mom, dad, and siblings. You asked if I have any regrets, I do. I regret never learning how to Ice Skate.