Beneath Still Waters

Laying in the dark, in the freezing cold, and damp grass near the glass like surface of the lake he prayed that the noises he was hearing were just the sound of wild animals. He could hear it growing closer and as he rolled over onto his back and stared up at the stars overhead his mind drifted back to the circumstances that led him to the fate that now seemed inevitable.

A few hours earlier

The house and its occupant had always been there, or at least that's how it seemed to everyone who walked passed it. Cold, bleak, and dark the house at the end of Willow Tree Lane had always been that place where no one dared pass after nightfall. The neighborhood kids swore that it was haunted and the majority of their parents agreed. But for the adults, the house wasn't haunted by a ghost or some supernatural specter, instead it was haunted by a memory, by a secret, by a shadow, by the past.

No one could quite remember why there was such a stigma associated with, or what happened all those years ago on Willow Tree Lake the only thing that anyone was truly sure of was the fact the lady of Hamilton house had become a recluse and spent the majority of her days staring out across the lake from one of the upstairs windows.

"She's not going to answer," a male voice said from behind her.

She turned to see a young man, standing behind her.

"I just wanted to leave these fliers," she replied with a smile. "My parents just moved into town and they're having a yard sale next weekend. Just wanted to help them out before I head back to college."

"Lucky, I've still got another three weeks before I go back."

She smiled and asked, "So what's the story with this place?"

He laughed and replied with a chuckle, "The witch of Willow Tree Lane, or at least that's what we called her when we were little. She never leaves the house and you only catch a glimpse of her when she's standing in that window." He pointed towards one of the upstairs windows. "She stands there for hours at a time staring out across the lake. No one knows what she's looking at or why she's closed herself up in this wreck of a house but my parents say that no one has really seen her since the late 60's."

"Creepy," she replied as she stepped down from the front step and towards the young man. With an outstretched hand she introduced herself, "Amber,"

"Thomas Sutton," he replied as he took her hand in hers. "You should have on gloves," he told her as her icy fingers wrapped around his hand.

"It's fine, I'm use to the cold," she said with a smile. "So, am I wasting my time trying to leave one of these here?" She asked waving the flyer in the air.

He nodded and replied with a laugh, "Probably."

"Guess I'll move along a little further." She stepped passed him and started to walk away.

"Maybe I'll see you around?" He asked.

"Maybe," she replied with a smile without turning around.

He watched her as she continued to walk away until she finally disappeared into the darkness of the coming night. As he turned to leave he caught a glimpse of her looking out from her window above him. He quickly turned to walk away, glancing back to see the curtain slowly closing.

He entered the kitchen of his parents home a short time later to find them huddled around the television listening intently to the local news broadcast.

"What's going on?" He asked as he sat down next to his mother.

"Shhhh," she replied without looking away from the television.

"They found some girls body down near Willow Tree Lake," his father replied. "Says she'd just moved into the neighborhood."

He turned to the television to see the face of the stranger he'd just been talking to on the screen.

"That's impossible." He jumped to his feet knocking his chair to the floor. "I just saw her, I just met her!" He said emphatically.

"What?" His mother asked.

"You couldn't have, they said she'd been missing since last week and that she'd probably been dead a couple of days," his father told him. "Someone pulled her from the lake when they were out ice fishing."

"I'm telling you, I just met that girl tonight. She was at the Hamilton house handing out fliers for a yard sale."

"Tommy, I don't know who you think you saw but it definitely wasn't that girl," his father replied with a chuckle.

He watched as his parents left the room. He picked his chair up and returned it to its position at the table. As he stared at the picture on the screen he began to think that maybe he was wrong, that maybe they just looked similar but deep down he knew they were one in the same.

All night all that he could think about was the girl, her face, the sound of her voice, and the fact that no one believed him. He climbed out of bed and walked over to his bedroom window. Staring out of it, he could see the roof of Hamilton house peeking up above the trees and the cold, white light of the moon shining off of the icy surface of Willow Tree Lake. He started to turn to return to bed but caught a glimpse of something moving in the shadows outside. He looked down into the street to see a woman staring up towards his window. She was old, her long white hair falling over her frail shoulders seemed to glow in the moonlight. He could see her lips moving, she was talking but what was she saying? He quickly pulled on a pair of pants and slipped on his sneakers. Thomas hurried out of the house and into the street to find her standing there waiting for him.

"Who are you?" he asked

"She knows you now," she replied as she turned and started to walk away.

"Who knows me? Who are you?" Thomas shouted as he followed her. they walked in silence until they finally came to the door of the Hamilton House.

"You gave her your name," she replied.

"Who?" he asked as he watched her open the door and then turn to face him.

"My sister," she replied as she stepped inside. She turned around to face him and gestured for him to follow. "I put her into the lake a lifetime ago because she was born wrong, born bad, born evil. I've been watching from the window all of these years waiting for her to come back. She stole the face of that girl. I am to old to fight her, you have to."

"You're crazy," he replied as he began to back away from her.

"You gave her your name, she knows who you are," she replied. "She's here," she told him as she pointed off into the darkness.

Laying there in the damp grass staring up into the sky, feeling the cold envelop him he prayed that it was all just a dream, but as he felt her icy fingers gently wrap around his ankle he knew that it wasn't a dream and that if it was it would be one that he would never awaken from.