Empty Words

The little cottage by the pond held more secrets than any person could conjure up in their wildest dreams, far exceeding the dramatics of small-town gossip.

When I informed my classmates that I had just moved into the pond-cottage at the edge of the forest, their eyes glinted with curiosity.

“Is it true? Is it really haunted? How many people have died there, seriously?” They would inquire, nudging and nagging me for information. I would laugh, and tell them, “Of course it isn’t haunted. Get real.” I watched their curiosity dissipate into disappointment.

The truth was I didn’t care enough to notice. To me, the pond-cottage was my father’s pathetic attempt at escaping reality. After my mother died, he packed up our things, and away we went. He moved me far from prying eyes, far from nosy onlookers who might remind me that she was gone.

It had taken a toll on him, too. Through my bedroom window, I watched him pace in the front yard, one hand raking through his salt and pepper hair, the other shakily raising a cigarette to his lips.

It was his cigarettes I stole when he wasn’t looking. It seemed adults were always lighting up to calm their nerves, and boy did my nerves need calming. I never got more than three or so puffs in before I tossed the wretched things on the ground as my lungs burned in protest.

No, that definitely did not help.

I walked aimlessly around the property, beyond the front fence. My fingers slid back and forth along the edge of my mother’s note, burning a hole through my pocket, searing the skin underneath. I yanked the note out, which she’d folded in half twice, then analyzed its bright white edges. It read “Little Bumblebee” on the front.

I hadn’t realized, but I’d wandered dangerously close to the pond.

I couldn’t speak to the cottage being haunted. The pond, however, never failed to make my skin prickle. It was a murky, dirty pool of stagnant water forever draped in a layer of fog that gave one the unnerving feeling of being watched. In my nightmares, the pond had eyes that followed me everywhere I went.

My first day at the cottage, I was carrying a box in from our moving truck when I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye. I looked closer, and what I saw made my heart stop. My throat constricted and panic ripped through me. I saw him there, standing knee-deep in the pond: a strange man I didn’t know. He had mid-length, stringy black hair. He waved when he noticed me staring. The sunlight caught a ring on his index finger. It glinted with every movement of his hand.

I’d been frozen with fear until that wave. Something about it, so nonchalant, so innocent, snapped my mind back into action.

“Dad!” I screamed. He came running out of the house, holding his circular, wire-rimmed glasses to his face. It only took my father a moment or two to get to me, but by the time he did, the waving man was gone. I looked all around, but there wasn’t a trace of him. I told my father what I saw, and he brought me inside and called the police. They didn’t find a trace of him either.

A few days later, I was passing by the pond on my way home from school when I heard the laughter of a young boy. I inspected the front yard and the pond to make sure a neighbor hadn’t wandered over to play near the water. The last thing we needed was for a child to fall in without our noticing. There was no boy, but still I could hear his laughter like an audio recording playing in the recesses of my mind.

It was these little things, a gesture from a stranger or the laughter of a child, that made me quicken my pace with my eyes down whenever I found myself near the pond. I was too afraid that I would look up and see that man again, standing there, waving.

And yet, I was even more afraid of the tiny, folded paper in my hands. What could she possibly have to say that would change what she did? Was a silly little note going to make her seem less dead? Would it help me feel less betrayed, less abandoned?

C’mon. Just do it.

I took a deep breath, then unfolded the note. Before I started reading, I heard the little boy’s laughter again. It sounded so close. I could have sworn the child’s lips were pressed against my left ear. I felt his breath rustle the baby hairs of my sideburns. My head snapped in that direction. There it sat: the pond. Why did I feel like it was waiting for me?

I became consumed with finding the source of the laughter. My hands loosened at the exact moment a gust of wind blew in from my right and jerked the paper out of my grip. It floated up into the air before plunging downward. It skittered across the detritus-ridden ground until it landed almost exactly in the middle of the muddy water. I yelped in panic and, without thinking twice, sprinted toward the pond. I needed to act quick if I was going to save the note.

There was a sturdy looking tree with a thick branch that jutted out to the middle of the pond. I climbed onto it, then crawled like a monkey over the water. My whimpers filled the dank, moist air. I cursed under my breath and tried to ignore the emotional agitation wreaking havoc within me.

The older I got, the more I hated visiting my mother. Her apartment was dirty and cold. She never had any food. I didn’t like the men she kept around, and we fought most of the time I was there. Why hadn’t I sucked it up? Why didn’t I save her when I knew she was struggling?

I laid my body flush against the branch, then reached down with one arm, lengthening it as far as it would go. With the ends of my fingertips, I plucked the note out of the water. I tried to wipe it off, and saw the ink had smeared so severely I could barely make out the writing. Tears pooled in my eyes until they burst forth, streaming down my cheeks like glistening melancholic rivers. I sobbed quietly into one hand and held my sad, soggy note in the other, realizing I’d just lost my chance at reading the last words my mother ever wrote to me.

I turned to make my way back down the branch, dejected, when a faint golden glow caught the corner of my eye. It was coming from the water. I leaned down, so I was laying on the branch once again.

Before me, the mud and gunk swirled into a glowing image. I saw a woman, tall and lean, pouring brownie mix into a silver pan. My mother. I gasped. Then, I saw a little girl run up to her. Her lips started moving. I couldn’t hear their voices, but I didn’t need to hear them to know what they were saying. After all, this was a memory. My memory.

I'd asked her what she was making.

“Brownies. Want to try?” She held a flipper coated in slick, brown batter in front of my face.

“Daddy says no dessert before dinner,” I responded, leaning away. She sighed, then knelt so we were at eye level.

“Well, daddy isn’t here is he? And I say we can have all the sugar we want whenever we want.” She dipped her finger into the batter on the flipper and plopped it right on the tip of my nose. I started giggling, which made her giggle, too. She scooped me into a big hug, and then we took turns licking batter off the flipper.

My eyes stung again, but this time with tears of happiness. She was right there. I was watching my mom, at one of her best times, loving me. I was gawking into the water, drinking up every last bit I could get.

I leaned so far forward that I was nearly hanging off the branch. The image of my mom suddenly turned and looked right at me, the real me, and her face went blank. A brief wave of confusion undulated over me.

From the water, a large, powerful form burst toward me. It grabbed a hold and pulled me under before I could think to make a sound; before I could think to take a breath. It dragged me down to the bottom of the pond and through the mud. I opened my eyes but saw nothing except brown water and the occasional glimpse of gray flesh. What was it?

I felt a burning, tearing sensation traveling up my legs and to my stomach. My lungs started aching as my chest tightened. I scratched and fought and hit whatever monstrosity had a hold of me. I’m not sure when, it could have been a lifetime later, but eventually I floated outside of my body. Only then did I see it.

The creature had leathery gray skin that clung tight to the bone. It had a gaunt face with tight lips that didn’t quite cover its large, blunt, yellowing teeth. It had frail-looking arms and long fingers, like the legs of a spider. It had a thin chest that only looked thinner in comparison to its protruding potbelly. Where I expected to see legs, there was instead a singular, lengthy tail, smooth with vertebral spines jutting out of the top. The beast looked at me with empty black eyes.

I watched solemnly as the creature consumed me. There were belongings scattered in the mud below. I saw a pair of shoes, so small, with what looked like cartoon dinosaurs all over them. That childlike laughter echoed in my head once more. A few inches away, the silvery glint of a man’s wedding ring caught my eye. There were bones everywhere, poking out of the sludge like horrible little Easter eggs.

My mind wandered, and I remembered there’s an entire world above this pond. I swam to the surface. The realization that I didn’t need to hold my breath was a feeble whisper in the back of my brain. I reached the edge of the lake. The brown, stinking water only went up to my knees. I could easily step out onto the bank. The cottage was just off to my right. There was something, however, stopping me from lifting my foot and pulling myself back onto land. I don’t know what it was, but I couldn’t do it.

Instead, I stood there, at the edge of the pond, for a long time. The sun rose then set over and over and over again, a never-ending cycle. One day, I saw a man with salt and pepper hair and circular-rimmed glasses talking to another man in the driveway. I felt a tickle in my brain, an itch that made me suspect I knew him from somewhere. Sometime later, though I’m not sure how much time exactly, the man with salt and pepper hair drove away in a large moving truck. I noticed he was looking thinner than usual, almost sickly. There seemed to be a cigarette permanently implanted between his lips.

The man he’d been talking to, who I now noticed had dark, roasted-umber skin and a black beard, moved in soon thereafter. Behind the moving truck came a little blue van. A woman with a fluffy afro and a round, pregnant belly eased herself out of the van, followed by a little girl with braided pigtails and an even younger boy in beige corduroys. A pit of anxiety grew in my stomach at seeing them, though I wasn’t sure why. I had a creeping suspicion that children didn’t belong in this place.

The pig-tailed girl grabbed a floppy stuffed bunny out of the back seat, then turned to walk into the cottage. In the middle of her movement, the pond caught her eye, and she stopped short. She was staring at me. After several moments of hesitation, she lifted her itty-bitty hand and waved. A bright smile broke on her face, revealing dimples on each cheek. I waved in response, my hand moving back and forth with great effort.

Something nudged against my left leg. I looked down and saw a bright white paper, folded in half two times. Despite floating in the water, it was perfectly dry. I picked it up and unfolded it.

Little Bumblebee,

I love you with everything I have. But I can’t live for you anymore. I hope one day you'll be able to forgive me. Please forgive me…

Mom

I stared at the swirly, black letters against the pristine white backdrop a couple seconds longer before releasing it back into the water, where it disintegrated into brown mush. I didn’t know who it belonged to, or what it was about, but to me, these were empty words, falling on regretfully deaf ears.