Whispers Under the Snow

The snow is covered with more than just footprints.

We called him Jesus.

Nine years old. Wild curls, sharp brown eyes, always tugging at someone's coat to point at a snowflake he thought was like a star. Jesus loved winter. When most of us scurried inside with cocoa and socks, he ran into the cold. Into it. Like he belonged.

It was the year the lake froze over very early - before the warning signs were even posted.

I was 13. I still remember what I was wearing. How my breath misted the window. How he shook it before I ran outside.

It's strange what memories decide.

The last day before the silence

The morning was unusually bright. The snow had covered everything in a thick, soft silence—the kind that swallows up even the slightest footsteps. School was canceled. The neighborhood kids had already built a ramp for their sleds near Winter’s Edge—the name we gave to the far end of the frozen lake.

Jesus begged to go.

“I’ll stay close,” he promised, already pulling on matching gloves. “I just want to see how far the snow goes.”

He ran ahead with his sled. I thought he would be there a few minutes later, slowly, annoyed,

But he wasn’t.

What the wind didn’t say

There was no scream. No crack loud enough to echo. No splash. Nothing

Just his sled—sitting still—right in the middle of the lake. And a single red push, lying alone on the frozen surface.

I called his name.

The rest of the people gathered. The big ones came running.

He shouted. Searched. Patted the ice. Called the rescue team.

Divers came. Sirens blared. Lights flashed.

But no body.

The hole—if there ever was one—had already been sealed with fresh snowfall. The lake lay flat, expressionless.

The ice took it slowly.

That’s what I tell myself.

That it was early. That the cold took it before it was afraid. That it wasn’t dark and lonely and slow.

But the truth is… I don’t know.

We never found it. That day. Never.

The lake kept it.

Years later, it still whispers.

Every year since, I’ve returned to Winter’s Edge.

The snow always comes early. Some say it’s natural. Others think it’s cursed. Keep the kids away. The town fences off the area. But nothing stops me from doing it.

I bring Jesus’ favorite scarf—blue with white stars—and lay it on the shore.

Sometimes I speak to the snow.

Sometimes… it answers.

Not in words, no, but in sounds.

A faint tap.

A ripple beneath the surface, though the water has frozen.

A lonely, lonely laugh that carries on the wind.

I turn every time.

He’s never there.

He was more than a lost child.

Jesus wasn’t just “the boy who fell.”

He was curious. Kind. Quiet but always listening. He believed that snowflakes were pieces of heaven and that winter was made for daydreamers.

He left more than an empty sled behind.

He left behind a story.

A silence.

A question the lake still refuses to answer.