Chapter 1: The Ice Cracks
The lake was a mirror that morning glass smooth, frost-bitten, and silver beneath the December sky.
Mira ran across it barefoot.
Her boots had been left on the bank, forgotten in her rush. Her laughter echoed through the fir trees that circled the lake like watchmen. Her brother’s red kite flapped high above, tugged by a mischievous wind. It darted, twisted, and finally spiraled tumbling down in wide, helpless arcs over the frozen water.
“Wait up!” she called. Her breath puffed white behind her. “Don’t let it land in the woods!”
Tomas didn’t answer. He was already dashing after the kite’s long string as it danced ahead of him, skipping across the ice like a stitched scarlet fish. Mira’s cheeks stung with cold. Her fingers burned pink. But she didn’t care. The sky was enormous. The cold made her feel alive.
That was before the ice cracked.
Not loudly. Not like in the stories where it groaned and split and screamed. No it was a soft snap, like someone stepping on a twig underwater. Mira looked down. A spiderweb of hairline fractures glistened at her feet.
And then
Nothing.
No scream. No splash. Just the swift, silent vanishing of a child through black glass.
The lake swallowed her.
Tomas turned too late.
“Mira?”
He ran back to where she had stood but there was only silence. Just the kite, fluttering on the ice, caught in a sudden stillness.
He dropped to his knees, clawing at the frost, calling her name again and again until his voice gave out. Others came. Adults. Lanterns. Ropes. But by then, the lake had iced over again. Smooth as a mirror.
Mira was gone.
Three Days Later
They buried an empty coffin in the village churchyard.
Her parents stood stone-faced, eyes fixed on the priest’s trembling lips. The whole village gathered, whispering prayers and clutching their coats tighter. They spoke of miracles and mercy, but also of curses and old tales best left buried.
Tomas sat on the steps alone. The kite lay on his lap like a broken wing.
But before dawn, Mira returned.
The shepherd’s dog was the first to see her barking madly at the lake’s edge where reeds hissed in the windless dark. The shepherd himself found her sitting on the bank, barefoot and soaking, eyes wide open, lips blue, breathing calmly as if nothing had happened.
“Mira?” he whispered, approaching slowly.
She didn’t answer.
Her eyes were too busy staring at the lake.
By noon, the village knew.
Mira was alive.
Doctors came. Priests. Elders. No one could explain it. No broken bones. No frostbite. No memory of pain.
But something was wrong.
She didn't speak for a week.
She just stared at water any water and murmured words no one understood.
On the eighth day, Tomas finally asked, “Where did you go?”
Mira looked up from the pond behind their house. Her lips parted slowly, as if language felt strange in her mouth.
“There were books,” she whispered.
“What kind of books?”
“They floated.”
“Floating books?” he asked, confused.
“They whispered,” she added.
And then, as if she were remembering something beautiful and terrifying all at once:
“They told me stories no one should hear.”
End of Chapter One
