The Pond - Part 23

Neither Izolda nor Nikolai had felt it necessary to keep in touch with their respective families after settling down, but news from their homeland did filter down to them from time to time. Shortly after the birth of their second son, Dmitri, word reached Izolda that a great flood had struck her village. Her entire family had been swept away – father, brothers, aunts – all gone.

Though she had hardly given them a thought over the past few years, it was still a bit of a shock. It was disconcerting to think of her aunts, her grandmother, all that power, gone. Did they have no warning to prevent such a tragedy? Could this have been what her dreams had been about, a fore-warning? It did not feel right, but it was the only explanation she could come up with.

The image of the pond stayed with her, until finally she left her children with the nursemaid Nikolai had hired to help her and went to the pond in the woods. It was easy to find, there was a path that wound through the woods, made by the feet of all those who had gone before her.

At first glance it was just a picturesque setting, perfect for picnicking or trysting, She studied it from the shelter of the trees, noting the flattened grass where someone had sat for a lengthy period of time, reading perhaps. There was a white towel hanging from a branch of one of the trees, obviously the forgotten remnant from a swimming party.

But there was something about the pond itself . . . Sure she was alone, she tried looking with her second sight. There was a faint overlay, but try as she might, she couldn’t figure out what was causing it. It did not seem malevolent, but neither did it seem healthy. Unsettled, she returned home, still without answers.

A few weeks later, several children went swimming in the pond, and came home screaming. They claimed they saw a woman there, just floating with her hair all spread out and tangled in the water lilies at the far edge.

Nikolai and several of his strongest workers went to the pond to search, but, much to their relief, they found no trace of a body anywhere. The whole incident was put down to youthful exuberance. In all likelihood the children had mistaken the early-blooming water lilies and weeds below the water for a body.

Izolda, however, felt a chill when she heard the children’s story. She believed them. Believed there was something inhabiting the pond, but without proof she could do nothing about it.

A little more than a week after that, a couple who were courting down by the pond caught sight of a woman, naked as a jay bird, walking slowly along the far edge of the water. They called out to her and she turned and started towards them through the water. She walked steadily until the water covered her head and they waited, but she never resurfaced.

“And did you have anything to eat or drink while you were at the pond?” Nikolai asked.

“Cheese and bread, and a bottle of wine from the grapes pressed in the fall.”

“And how much of the wine did you have to drink?”

“We—” The couple exchanged a glance. “We drank the whole thing.”

“As I recall, last fall’s pressing made for a very strong wine. What you thought was a woman was no doubt an animal entering the pond to slake its thirst.”

It seemed more plausible than the idea of a naked woman walking around the woods, and the incident was soon forgotten.

But Izolda did not forget.