Her Everlasting Winter

She stood at the edge of the frozen pond, in her long white gown, her blonde hair blowing in the soft cool breeze. She seemed unbothered by the cold, almost as if she didn’t feel it at all. What was she doing? Was she waiting for someone? Each night at the same time when the moon was highest in the sky, she found herself at this pond, almost as if some spell compelled her to come and visit it. But she never had any recollection of how she arrived at such a place. She couldn’t even recall the journey that brought her here.

Night after night as if controlled by some trance, the young girl would come to the pond and stare it herself in the lake. She wasn’t staring at her reflection but rather, she was staring at her own body, laying at the bottom of the lake frozen in the ice. This was her tomb; her deathplace. As she stood barefoot in the snow staring down herself, she wondered how she get here. The girl somehow knew she no longer walked among the living but how did she come to join the dead?

She wasn’t sad nor did she feel any remorse or regret. She didn’t fear death. In fact, she welcomed it. She looked forward to when she would walk side by side with death and he would guide her to the other world. But there was something that she needed to do before her departure, something that kept her tied to this world like an anchor to a ship. This question she did not have the answer to. Each night she continued to go to that frozen pond, looking out at the ice that kept her trapped like an animal in a cage.

The animals that visited this place never seemed to mind her company. The birds would sing her a lovely tune of life, a song that would fill her heart with joy and create tears that would run away from her blue eyes. The deer would get close enough for her to imagine the softness of their fur but never got close enough for her to actually touch them. The moon would hang high in the sky and illuminate the surroundings in a wonderful glow. She often felt like this could be heaven, that maybe this place was her final resting place. Perhaps this is why her body had taken refuge in such a watery death bed.

Although this what she wanted to be true, the young girl knew it wasn’t so. As beautiful as it was, this was just one stop before fate took her to her final destination. She had no concept of time in this frozen wonderland. The sun never seemed to show, for it constantly remained night. On very rare occasions, she would be blessed with the presence of another person. Sometimes it would be a man or a woman who would come alone and stare at the frozen pond, unaware of their invisible guest. Other times a young couple would appear, where the man would take a knee and swear an oath of love to his partner.

No matter how many souls would come and go this from Iceland, not one seemed to notice the young girl who stood alone at the edge of the pond. The only company she held was that of her own body, laying forgotten at the bottom of the ice. She had understood and accepted. This was to be her final resting place. She was the young maiden who had made this place her home. She stood alone, watching over her wonderland, in her everlasting winter.