Miralee’s Secret

Asher looked out over the frozen surface of Miralee pond. The valley air was warm and humid and alive with insects yet the pond remained encased in ice. Miralee never thawed.

There were many tales about the forever frozen pond. Some declared that it had been touched by an angered ice giant, and that the intensity of the behemoth’s rage had manifested in permanent ice. Others claimed that a great winter wyrm had chosen the pond as her nest site. She lay beneath the surface with her clutch, waiting for the right time to hatch her brood and arise. There were multiple variations that the pond was somehow cursed - by a grieving mother after her child drowned, by a jilted lover whose object of affection liked to swim in Miralee, by a vengeful forest spirit to drive people out from a nearby settlement. No one could say for certain how long the water had been frozen. There was no living person who had ever seen it thawed.

Asher had his own theory. Many of the stories described incredible beasts and most of them involved magic. Neither element was present in the world Asher knew. He suspected that there had been a powerful and as yet undescribed natural phenomenon that had been too unusual for the people to define with the conventional wisdom of their time. There were written accounts of Miralee dating back four hundred years. Whatever had happened had certainly been powerful.

The frozen water was blue-white and opaque. Asher strapped ice cleats to his hiking boots and stepped out onto the surface. His footsteps made scraping, crunching sounds as he worked his way to the center of the pond. He could see a few scars in the ice from the efforts of investigators who had come before him. Others had tried to drill through the ice but their augers had always seized. Asher wasn’t taking his chances with a mechanical drill. He had brought a laser.

Thermal drilling had been used successfully on other sites before, so it stood to reason that it should work here. Asher began assembling the stand while being harassed by a persistent group of gnats. The tiny insects swarmed around his face, dispersing for only a moment when he waved his hand through the living cloud. After a few more swats and a few muttered curse words, the gnats finally moved on. Asher finished setting up the thermal drill and set up a camp chair. The drill was powerful but small and would no doubt take a long time, so Asher settled in and prepared to take notes.

Unlike its mechanical counterparts, the thermal drill was practically silent. There was an intermittent light breeze and the calls of birds were plentiful. Asher passed time by trying to identify the calls he was hearing. A large group of crows took to the air near the far southern edge of the pond. They sounded highly agitated and Asher figured they were chasing a bird of prey. It was a few moments until he realized that the whole lot of them were flying towards him.

Asher instinctively threw his arms up over his head as the crows descended. The angry chorus was almost deafening. The crows circled around Asher, one or two occasionally landing a diving strike against his arms. The attacks and complaints settled down after some time. When he finally dared to look up, Asher saw the glossy black birds settled into an old pine. They watched him in wary silence.

Several hours passed. The thermal drill was slow but hadn’t become another failed attempt yet. Asher checked his setup and adjusted the drill settings. Just as he had gotten situated for more mind-numbing waiting a boom like thunder came from the ice. A massive crack ran right down the middle.

Asher began to furiously take notes. The drill sensor was showing a change in consistency of the material. Miralee appeared to have a thick layer of slurry. A second boom resounded and a perpendicular crack split the frozen pond into quarters. Asher began to question whether staying in the center of the pond was safe. Before he could gather his equipment and return to shore, the ice beneath him began to pitch and heave. Asher looked down and saw a spiderweb of tiny fractures across the surface.

Mist began to rise all around the edge of Miralee. The crows resumed their throaty cries and wheeled into the sky. The ice beneath Asher’s feet became increasingly unstable. He watched in dismay as the drill assembly collapsed and sank. A moment later he fell as well, plunging into frigid waters that were dark as night. A pair of enormous blue eyes regarded him with obvious displeasure.

Slumber it intoned.

Miralee pond was frozen. There was no living person who had ever seen it thawed.