The Starlight Under the Ice

It had been Claire’s idea to visit her parent’s old cabin in the woods. They used to take her there when she was a little girl, and she always used to talk so fondly of sitting at the banks of the lakes and fishing with her father. She always thought the best part about it wasn’t what her father caught for dinner that night; it was just the feeling of the earth between her toes as the lake water lapped at her feet.

No sand covered the lakeshore now, only snow. It fell to the ground, soft and quick. It melted when it touched Noah’s skin, and he wouldn’t be able to feel it between his toes like Claire did with the sand if he tried. The snow would only numb the skin of his feet before his toes could seek the sand beneath it.

Noah had never gone to the cabin with Claire before. He hated the outdoors. He hated the way nature had always pulled Claire’s attention away from things that mattered more. Even in the hardest times, when their savings dwindled to well below the amount of their debt, Claire was always content to be distracted. Her clear blue eyes would fix on some trampled flower in the dirt or a bird with a broken wing, and she would be consumed with the desire to cradle it in her arms.

Once, there had been a pigeon—ugly and ragged, with its sparse gray feathers and beady little eyes. It had been fluttering about in circles in the dirt in their backyard, unable to take flight. Claire had wanted to take it to a veterinarian, but Noah had insisted that they couldn’t afford it. He had lost his job only a month prior, and Claire’s was only part-time. They didn’t have a single penny to spare. It had been hours of him trying to make her think rationally about it and Claire weeping. She thought the bird would suffer and then die if they didn’t help it.

You just don’t care, do you? she’d said to him.

He had offered to put it down right then and there for her, so at least it wouldn’t suffer. Somehow, he had only angered her more. Instead, she carried it off a little way, into the thin woods behind their house. She left the pigeon on a soft patch of moss next to a pond, for whatever difference it made.

It’s just a pigeon, Noah had said, when Claire sat stroking its tiny head.

Eventually, he coaxed Claire back to their house. Once he was sure she wouldn’t be able to see, Noah had picked up the broken bird and snapped its tiny bird neck. He hadn’t even looked down at it when he did it. He stared straight ahead at that pond, made one sharp twist, and dropped the carcass to the ground for some other poor hungry creature to feed on later. It never even struggled.

When they went to bed that night, Noah told Claire that the bird wouldn’t suffer anymore. She did not cry or yell or argue. She just lay there next to him, cold and stiff.

Noah wondered now if Claire had suffered.

He never knew Claire’s parents well, but for some reason they had been willing enough to let him borrow the keys to their old family cabin. Her father had thought that some time alone might do Noah a bit of good.

It didn’t.

He was cold. The snow had come early that year, and the roof of the cabin leaked, so most nights, Noah was wet too. The air tasted like mold when he breathed, and the constant dripping of snowmelt hitting the floor only kept him awake and made him have to piss all night long. Nothing was worse than traipsing through the snow, in the dark and freezing cold of an unfamiliar forest, to urinate on a shrub.

That’s exactly what Noah was doing now.

He was trying rather unsuccessfully to sleep that night when he heard that treacherous drip-drip-drip from the ceiling. It may have been that sound or the five beers he had drunk just before bed. Either way, waiting until daylight was impossible. Noah got out of bed and braced himself for the cold of the cabin floor on his bare feet as he crept through the dark—past his suitcase and empty beer cans, past the bills he had left on a small side table—to the door. He gritted against the sharp wind when he opened it, pulled on his boots, and out he went.

There was barely a moon in the sky to give him light, but the stars offered some. Among the trees, he heard the chattering of what he hoped were just squirrels. Noah became suddenly very conscious of how vulnerable he was there, with his pants down in the middle of nowhere.

During the day, the sunlight reflected from the snow. It created a glare almost like when a perfect orange sunset hits a windshield, shining in your eyes too bright. At night, the stars beat down over the frozen lake and turned it silver. The crystals on the icy surface looked like cracks in a windshield, or the jagged edges of a hole in the wall from where a fist had just gone through in a fit of anger.

Noah had wanted to fish. He had never gone fishing before, growing up in the city. Claire had always believed it was relaxing, though she was never much of a fisher herself. That was just what her father had told her; fishing calmed the nerves. She suggested it to Noah once or twice, always with that same innocent tone to her voice.

Maybe it will do you some good.

She mostly said it in the days after he was fired, when the bills kept piling up. Each time a new one landed on the kitchen table, Noah would grow more restless, resentful.

But just in time for Noah’s first retreat to the cabin, the early snows had set in, and the lake was impenetrable with ice. Claire’s father told him that he had never tried ice-fishing before, and Noah didn’t have much of an interest in trying it either.

So, he had spent two nights already at this godforsaken cabin and had yet to find any rest, relaxation, or peace. Noah was done waiting for it to find him. He was leaving at the first light of daybreak.

Coo.

A stupid bird. Likely it was perched overhead in the birch tree to watch Noah. He glanced up but only saw naked branches glistening with frost.

Coo, coo.

He knew the sound of a pigeon in distress. Noah didn’t think he could ever forget that sound. The day they had found the crippled bird was the last thing that happened before the fight, before Claire had decided that she would go up to the cabin by herself.

The pigeon had looked a lot like roadkill, with its broken wing all mangled and a few tinges of dried blood mixed with its feathers. After Noah had put the thing out of its misery, that had been the final straw for Claire. Either that or the wall.

She had wanted them to go up to the cabin together for an entire week. Noah had been adamant, though, that they couldn’t afford for her to take a week off work, or they wouldn’t be able to make the next payment on the house. When she suggested only the weekend, he had lost his temper. Words were said, things happened that would cost them too much money to fix.

You’re just not yourself anymore, she had said the next morning, when she packed her bags to go without him.

She never got to the cabin.

Claire had ended up much like the pigeon. She was roadkill, discarded on the side of a winding road. Her car was totaled, crushed beyond repair.

The road she had been driving wasn’t that steep or narrow. Noah had driven it himself on his way there. It was a funny thing—to be angry at someone who died in an accident—but he couldn’t help but feel it. Such smooth, gentle, winding roads out here in the country shouldn’t have been a threat to anyone. It was like she had wanted to get hit, to be put out of her misery.

Coo, coo.

Noah looked sharply again at the skeletal branches. No birds, not even a chattering squirrel, to be seen. There was nothing. He trudged through the snow, and it seeped through the denim of his jeans down around his ankles, making him colder. The wind was sharp and merciless.

Just as he was about to make it inside the cabin, Noah slipped. A small patch of ice from the leaky gutters had formed on the front step of the door. He should salt it, get rid of it, so he didn’t fall and crack open his skull on his next midnight trip to the shrub.

A strange flutter exploded behind Noah. A bird scuttled on the ice patch, pecking tiny holes into it. It fixed its beady black eyes on him for a moment before stabbing its beak back into the ice.

Coo.

It had a strange gait in its hop while it pecked about. Noah bent slowly and silently, extending his arms. The bird hopped to him, its tiny feet clicking on the ice. Noah was just about to get his hand around the filthy thing’s neck when it let out a long, horrendous coo, then vanished into the night sky in a fury of feathers.

Noah slept uneasy that night. He dreamed about her. He drank cheap beer. He dreamed about that fight, and his knuckles covered with blood and drywall, and Claire crying, and the way that a bird’s neck felt when it broke in half. Then he woke up to a full bladder.

He went back to his shrub and found himself cautiously staring up. It would be dawn soon, but the sky was still mostly black, dotted with silver stars and a claw moon.

As Noah zipped his jeans, he heard a familiar fluttering.

Birds were stupid.

The foolish thing had landed on the surface of the lake. It was drilling its beak into the ice, looking in vain to find a worm there. The creature should have an instinct to know better. If it fell through and drowned, that was its own fault.

Noah found himself once again trudging through the snow. The crunch of boots through the snowdrifts should have been enough to scare the pigeon away, send it off into the night once more, to safety. But the helpless thing had only moved further onto the ice.

Go away! Noah called to it. Go on, shoo!

The pigeon stared dead-eyed at him and drove its beak into the ice.

Let it crack. Let the ice all shatter and sink beneath the water and take that damned bird with it too. That’s what Noah thought. Ice was dangerous. Though shimmering silver under the stars, it looked harmless and beautiful. Ice was a killer though. Ice could kill as easily as a long, winding road.

You stupid thing! Noah stepped toward the bank and felt the soft give of snow turn to the hard surface of ice. You want to die?

Coo.

On its little feet, with its strange gait, the pigeon hopped to the center of the lake.

Damn thing.

Noah ventured out onto the frozen lake. It felt sturdy under his weight. He slid a bit until he figured out how to walk on the slick surface. As he reached out his arms this time, he felt feathers graze his fingertips. The bird did not try to flee his grasp. It was cupped in his hands.

He was just about to wring its pesky neck when the ice split beneath him.

Noah had never been what most people would consider a difficult child. He had his temper tantrums as a toddler, as children often did. He did not think, though, that he had ever been prone to a quick temper. Even his old elementary school teachers used to describe him as being quite mature for his age, a star pupil.

The first time Noah met Claire was at a friend’s party. Ironically, he didn’t like parties. He had only gone to drink and forget about his last girlfriend. Asking Claire out had boosted his confidence, though he never imagined that she would say yes.

When Noah was eight, he tripped his brother on the sidewalk, laughed about it, then cried when he saw that the fall had given him a bloody nose. Twenty years later they cried together at Claire’s funeral.

Noah majored in journalism in college. He graduated with a four-point-oh. He was only twenty-two when he got his dream job. He was only twenty-eight when he lost it. Overstaffed was the excuse he was given.

He put his fist through the drywall of his own living room. His knuckles bled, his girlfriend wept, the neighbor’s dog barked a frenzy outside, and he had no money. His first thought in that moment was, I was a pleasure to have in class.

Claire’s mother had once asked them if there were wedding bells ringing in the distance. Claire had blushed, but Noah had only felt this lump in his stomach, something hard and deeply unsettled.

He saw a dead animal for the first time when he was three and his hamster died. He buried it in the backyard under a berry bush.

He lost his house and moved back in with his parents two weeks after his girlfriend’s funeral.

Noah found himself driving down a road, only it appeared to run in an endless loop. He couldn’t see where he was driving because his vision was blurred from hot tears burning his face. He made the next turn a bit too soon and wrapped his car around a telephone pole. Only this wasn’t his car. This wasn’t his body.

This was his nightmare.

When Noah opened his eyes, he saw only black. Black water and no moonlight. It was cold all around him, but in a strange way, his body almost felt warm. He kicked instinctively, trying to propel himself to the surface. He stretched his arms out over his head, and his palms hit a thick sheet of ice.

Noah beat the ice with as much force as he could, but the water only slowed him down. The ice didn’t budge. His lungs screamed for air, and he was sinking. Fast.

He kicked and moved upwards again, and his head hit the ice. It sent a burst of lightning through him, but it did naught to the barrier between Noah and the surface. Lightning, pain, and darkness. Was this the last thing Noah was going to see before he died?

A searing rage filled him then, one that had only ever taken hold of him once before. He hit the ice again and again with every ounce of strength that he had. It should have been enough to break as it had broken before, but the ice remained solid. Noah almost opened his mouth to scream, but at the last possible second, his instinct reminded him not to release what precious air was left in his lungs.

There had to be a hole. He had fallen through one, and it couldn’t have disappeared. Had it been a full moon, Noah could have tried to find the light piercing through the hole, but that night’s sky held nothing more than a sickle and pale starlight.

Starlight. Faint as it might be, it could still help him reach the surface.

Noah forced himself to hold open his eyes, even though they burned underwater. He saw the faintest shimmer of a silvery-gold light before him. Starlight. He swam to it.

The closer he got to the shimmer, the larger it grew. Noah thought he must be getting closer to the surface. The further he swam, though, he realized he hadn’t hit the ice yet. He wasn’t anywhere near the surface. He was swimming out into the open water, trapped under the ice, chasing the starlight.

Each time that Noah got closer to reaching the starlight, it seemed to pull away from him. It almost looked as if the shimmer itself was swimming too, twirling through the water in graceful strokes as it fled from him.

Noah struggled to see through the murky depths of the black water, but he could almost be sure that the starlight had taken a form. Elegant, it moved through the water like it had limbs—kicking legs and gliding arms. A long cascade of glowing hair flowed from what could only be described as its head. It moved with the water, reflecting from the real starlight filtered through the ice.

The shimmer moved further into the murky depths.

Wait, Noah tried to scream. Cold water started to fill his lungs. He coughed, but that only made it worse. Swallowing was futile. He couldn’t breathe.

The shimmering light grew brighter in the distance. Its luminescent glow seemed to spread all around it in the shape of a long and flowing dress. The silver light sparkled, making the shimmer appear like a ballerina, a princess, or a bride. The twinkling then turned to two eyes blinking.

Noah reached out, as he sunk. For a moment, she reached back for him. She moved around him in the water, circling him like it was a dance, until she took his hand.

He could almost feel the warmth of her hand in his. Noah closed his eyes and let the water rush in his nose and mouth. This was how he escaped. She would lift him up through the ice.

Her grip on his wrist became tighter. It was a treacherous pain in his hand that Noah had only ever felt once before in his life. Then her hand moved from his wrist, down to his ankle. She gave a tug. Noah’s eyes burst open, as he looked down to see her pulling him further into the darkness below.

His legs kicked, instinct again. He wrenched himself free of her grasp. Noah swam to the surface, but looked below him, and he could almost imagine her pleading with him to come with her.

I’m sorry.

The shimmer then burst into a fiery passionate light. She blazed in the darkness, and it was as if Noah was no longer underwater. Instead, he was on fire. He was aflame with the fury of the starlight under the ice. His skin, his eyes, his veins, his lungs all burning.

His body floated further into the dark abyss where she awaited him. The air had burned from his lungs. Noah’s arms gave one last instinctive flail as his body fought the unnatural current that pulled him closer to the light. Once the fight was gone from his body, she reached out to him. The brightness of her being was a blight against the black water. She was the light shrouded in darkness.

Noah reached one hand out to grasp her again, just once. He felt the embrace of that shimmering starlight around his arm, and for a moment there was warmth there. Then it turned cold. His body remembered, if even his mind could not. Before she could latch herself to his ankle once more, Noah’s body gave a sharp push. It was strong enough to both send himself upwards and her down. He let go. The shimmer shrank and faded as it disappeared into the black depth of the lake.

I’m sorry.

Then his hand found the jagged edge of a hole in the ice.

Noah’s knuckles bled where he had pulled himself to freedom from the broken ice. He scraped himself in a million other places when he crawled out. The edges of the ice were as sharp as broken glass. Cuts—both small and shallow, and deep and bleeding—covered him, as if his body had been thrown through a windshield.

He dragged himself across the frozen lake, to the banks, and collapsed in the snow. It turned pink where Noah’s hands pushed himself up. His lungs heaved with the effort it took to breathe. He spattered up dirty, frigid water that left a sandy taste in the back of his mouth. He was dizzy from the lack of oxygen, but he forced himself to stand up anyway. This was no place to die.

Noah made it back inside the cabin and stripped himself of his drenched clothing. Even in new warm clothes, he still struggled to get warm. He started a fire in the cabin’s hearth, sat by it for hours, thawing himself until he could breathe right. Still, he couldn’t chase that cold out of his heart.

The next morning, Noah left the cabin and didn’t look back. He never noticed that the ice covering the lake had started to thaw, and the snow had begun to melt and drip from the tree branches. There was sand showing on the lakeshore once more. The curved roads back to town would be slippery, but he would take his chances driving them, rather than stay one more night in that cabin.