The Pond

My little brother, Carter, he always had the wildest imagination. I never blamed him- in a town like Bell Buckle, you needed one- but I never got it, either. Where he saw dragons, I saw spindly oak trees. Granite overhangs became alien hideouts. He’d try to include me in these escapades, and I’d play along, wielding my stick in whatever weapon-of-the-day was necessary. Yet I knew that world was never meant for me, and I felt that’s what being an older brother was. Making the fantasy last longer by fending off the real.

He believed in superstitions, too. I’m not sure where he picked it up- bathroom conversations at Sunday School, probably- but he was an encyclopedia for that stuff. Our parents didn’t like it. They’d tell him “The only antidote for bad luck is the Lord,” and hand him the dog-eared living room Bible. Yet he kept on going, avoiding ladders on the street, and flinging spilt salt behind his ears until his shoulders seemed dandruff speckled.

But none of that’s important. What’s important is the day that black cat crossed our path walking the Oakmont trail to school. It was smack-dab in the middle of spring, an unassuming Thursday that hid itself in its balmy casualness, and we carried our books in small leather sacks as we departed the cattle farm. Carter was himself, crafting his morning story, this one a cowboy pilgrimage from Texas to California, yet I was silent. There was something in the sun that day, the heat radiating through the canopy like a boa constrictor, the smell of nectar that was beginning to spoil, the buzz of waking cicadas. It didn’t seem right, and I kept my head down as if protecting the two of us with my inattention.

Carter was halfway through an Indian scrabble, red dirt clouding his wallops and cries, when a black cat waltzed across the road. It was ten feet in front of us, and it never stopped or looked our way- just entered and left like a graduating senior. We both froze, for cats weren’t common in the boonies, only in houses and the occasional barn or library. Yet it was Carter that broke the moment, chasing after the creature and blowing off the trail before I could say stop.

“Where are you going!” I yelled as I followed his footsteps, the green-fingered tall grass welcoming my company. I was only a few steps behind him, and yet the path closed fast, so I kept my ears keen and listened for any change in direction. “Black cats…” he huffed, “can’t cross your path. That’s… bad luck. So… we’re changing our path!” I could hear the smile at the end of these words, and felt a splinter of jealousy, that my brother could find joy in a journey so tumultuous. “We’re following a cat?” I said, although this time he didn’t answer, knowing I’d ridicule if he pushed the effort further. About five minutes in, I began to wonder if it’d ever end, and that’s when the tall grass began to open, morphing into smaller patches of feather read grass and cattails. Within this thick green wall was a pond, perfectly preserved with some rocks to sit on and a black willow that helped shade some of the heat. It was serene, something you might read out of a Mark Twain novel, a place Huck Finn might dip his toes, and when Carter looked at me, I couldn’t help but laugh. Nothing in Tennessee was rarer than an undiscovered honey hole, and we found a big one, our own secret place.

We ran back out through the tall grass, marking the entrance with a smooth, gray stone, and made it to class with only a warning for tardiness. The school year ended shortly after, Carter finishing 4^th, me graduating 6^th, and because we weren’t old enough to work the land yet, we had all summer to hang by that pond. We’d wake up early, pack baloney sandwiches and apples, and trot down that Oakmont trail with our fishing rods and baseballs and books. Then we’d cross through that tall grass and spend the day there, playing games and swimming and fishing. It was heaven sent to boys like us.

One day I’d gone to the library for a new book, something on bass baiting, and I happened to ask for a land survey of the Oakmont trail. The husky librarian, albeit confused, gave me what she had, a map from last year showing the trails and valleys and hills 30 miles around my house. Tracing my finger up our daily hike, I imagined where that stone was, and moved my finger slowly to the left. But there was no pond, and no inkling that there ever had been one, either. Just muted green all the way through. That might have deterred a few, yet it made me more protective of our hideout. We decided to never bring anyone else there, because to do so would break the sanctity of the place, the elegance of its mystery.

In June, something strange happened. It was during late evening, when the southern sky became its most crisp, and we were feeling it, the blaze greasing our backs and necks and faces. Carter sought refuge in the pond, and I followed, letting the green water embalm my red skin. But it wasn’t enough, and I moaned, the noise loud in the enclosed area. “Ugh, it’s still hot, Carter. We should go swim under the willow” I said to him. He smiled from the deep end of the pond and raised his skinny hands into the air- he was a strong swimmer, and he knew it. “No need, Mark! I’m an Antarctic explorer, and it’s my duty to save the world from these summertime heat waves!” Then, he started spinning in circles, his hands whisking around, creating froth in the center of the pond. I sighed and swam over to the willow anyways, where small yellow leaves glued to my neck, and nestled myself on the bank with my book and dripping fingers. My focus was elsewhere when I felt something drift into my leg, small and clear and cold. I looked down and couldn’t find it, but felt it again, on my opposite leg now. This time I fished it out, and held it in my hand a long time, trying to make sense of it.

It was an ice cube, the same that might fall out of any conventional freezer, only now it appeared in a pond far too warm for its cultivation. It was perfectly symmetrical, and it didn’t seem to melt in the summer air. I dropped it suddenly, as if it were to attack me, for the strangeness of it had finally caught up to me. Because now I could feel more of the little cubes around my legs, tens, maybe hundreds, and I swatted away at them with an open palm. My ears told me Carter was still churning, and I called out to him, my voice shriveling in tone. “Carter, are you seeing this? There’s ice in the po-” I didn’t finish my sentence. At the source of the froth was my brother, paddling away, and around him were thousands of dilapidated cubes, all bobbing at separate rhythms like a gas station slushie. He swam through them easily and made it back to me as I stared at him wide-eyed. “What’s wrong, Mark?” His eyes were warm like the sun we were hiding from, and I was convinced he didn’t understand my worry. “Carter…” I spoke, “there wasn’t ice in the pond when we got here. Now there is. What did you do?” He squinted his eyes and smiled. “I just imagined it, Mark. To stop the heatwave from taking Antarctica!” He delivered the line with a triumphant tone, but I stared at him silently, thinking. Either two things had happened- I’d developed a nasty imagination myself, which was unlikely, or this place had materialized Carters, had made his dreams real to me. Neither idea was appealing, so I collected my things and grabbed my brother’s wrist. “Let’s go,” I said, and although he struggled, we made it out that day intact.

Another day, we weren’t so lucky. I was adamant on staying away from that pond, and for two or three weeks, I was victorious. But mid-July had made the June heat seem mild, and nothing could provide more relief than that pond. So, I took Carter cautiously through the maze of tall grass, and soon we were taking turns cannonballing and jackknifing and backflipping from the strong limbs of the willow. It was plain fun, diving and drying before you made it back in the water again, and after an hour or two I forgot why we’d ever avoided the place.

Then, as we dried off for a final time, Carter unrolled his towel and looked at it strangely. “What’s wrong?” I asked him. He smiled and turned it to me, blank but drawing a finger across it. “Mark… it’s a map! There’s buried treasure here!” My nerves shocked back into place, and I wanted to slap that towel and run away again. But I was greedy. If he’d made ice cubes appear, couldn’t he do the same for gold and silver? “Ok, Carter. Show me where. Then we’re leaving.” He laughed triumphantly, and for the next 15 minutes we groped around exposed roots and stones until we found an X drawn subtly in the mud. I dragged a hand across it. It could have been done by either of us, but it wasn’t, and that’s when excitement clouded my judgement. Carter and I dug quickly, our fingernails caked with black, the sunshine napping between our red necks. Once the hole was a few feet deep- we were down to our armpits, laying on our stomachs to upturn the muck- my knuckles clacked against something below. I fished it out and held it between us. It was a chest, and it wasn’t big- maybe the size of a lockbox, wooden and stained black from years under the earth. On the front was a small hatch, and I flipped it, so that the interior could be exposed. What greeted us were thousands of colors- rubies and emeralds and gold and sapphire- all glittering in the sun like the scales of an ancient fish. “Treasure!” Carter screamed, and I smiled wide, putting some doubloons in my pocket, and sorting through the jewels. We nearly emptied the box, me studying each piece of jewelry, Carter trying them all on (and settling for a silver ring which fit him nicely), when we heard a bang, loud and sharp in our silent sanctuary.

We positioned ourselves up, wide eyed, the same way ducks might before flight, waiting for confirmation of our greatest fear. Then it came in the form of another bang. We saw it blast into the trunk of the willow tree behind us, exposing the dark flesh underneath and dropping shards of bark as evidence. And implanted in the tree was a musket ball, crafted poorly of iron. Being from Tennessee, guns weren’t inherently frightening, but seeing that piece of history pulled the courage from my body. Carter looked at me, scared but containing that gleam in his gaze, and whispered “Pirates! They must be coming for their treasure!”

Once we started to hear their footsteps, sloppy against the mud and reeds, I’d come back to myself, and pulled Carter towards me. “Run to the entrance in the tall grass,” I told him, “And don’t slow down. Not for anything, ok?” He nodded, although hidden behind that was a smirk that I wanted to smack off his face. I could tell he was amused by this, that he thought it was all a game. But feeling the weight of the gold in my pocket, I didn’t think it was anymore. It was something much different now.

It was four people, maybe more. They were grunting now and yelling in their archaic slang, heavy with arrgh’s and aye’s. I pushed Carter forward and yelled “Move!” Then he ran, and I followed him. It was 15 feet to our exit, yet it felt a lot longer than that. The unseen pirates must have been reloading as we strategized, so as our feet slapped through the pond scum, they blasted away, probably 10 rounds or more. Halfway there, as fireworks popped left and right, I heard a thunderclap, inches from my skull, and I clamped my hand against my ear to stop the ringing.

We burst through the tall grass and collapsed on the red dirt road. There were no more gunshots, no more chatter on this side- just a gentle summer breeze that rustled the leaves above.

“That was so close! They were right behind us, Mark, can you believe that?” He slapped his knee with a smile and crawled closer to me.

But I was silent, still watching that entrance, ensuring those smugglers couldn’t follow us out. Only after a handful of minutes did I turn away from the path and let my anger be known to Carter.

“Do you think this is funny, Carter?” I growled, and pulled my blood-soaked hand away from my ear, pushing it towards his face. The open air stinged my wound, which was a small chunk of flesh from the upper rim of my ear, but the accusation of it felt good, felt grounding.

I’d never yelled at him before, and he shrunk, staring at me with hollow eyes. I kept going. “Is this fair to me? To be following you into situations that you’ve created? We could have died!”

He looked away, trying to hide his face, but I grabbed it, letting a smear of blood mark his chin. “No more of this. No more pond, no more pirates, no more Antarctica. I don’t know why it’s happening, but you’re the cause.”

He nodded. Finally, my rage had been replaced by fatigue, and I took his hand as we walked home. Mother wasn’t too frightened by the gouged ear, which we told her was the result of a climbing incident, and she sent us upstairs bandaged and cleaned. Before bed, we unloaded our loot on the hardwood floor, which wasn’t much- after leaving the tall grass, the gold and jewels had become black pond rocks in my pocket. Heavy but not nearly as valuable. We sighed and threw them out the window, seeing who could send them farther. And that was it- the pond was history. At least, for me, it was.

But for Carter, I don’t think it ever would have ended. We found that out on August 11^th, the end of summer and a few days before school started again. I woke up early, desperate to make the end of vacation count, yet there was no Carter. Walking downstairs, my mother hadn’t seen him either, and she insisted that he must already be out playing. I doubted it, but it was possible- there were a few places he could be. So, I checked the barn, the crawl space, the basketball court near the library- no Carter. And then there was only one more place to check. Worry clanged against my spine as I walked down the Oakmont trail, feeling just as I did that mid-spring morning, nauseous and fetal. I passed the rock we’d placed so long ago and tracked the familiar passageway to the pond. After five minutes, I expected the breakthrough, but a sea of tall grass still stood in my way, dense and unwavering. I panicked, and raced through the vegetation, desperate to hear those footsteps I knew so well. Yet after an hour, I knew the pond was, inexplicably, gone. I made my way back to the entrance and cried for a long, long time. I’d been so focused on protecting him from the real, that I’d forgotten all about the fantasy- that the things we don’t understand could do just as much damage. Before walking home to tell my mother, I glanced at that round gray rock once more. And I found something, balanced perfectly on the stone peak. It was a silver ring, polished and new.

I keep that ring to this day, as a reminder that once upon a time, it had all existed. The pond, the pirates, my brother. It’s been twenty years since that day, and I live in New York now, selling something I don’t care about to people I’ve never met. But I’m good at it, and I can send some money home each month, to my parents who never stopped looking for him.

I have a girlfriend now, and she’s surprised I don’t bring him up more often. To be honest, it was so long ago that not much makes me think of him anymore. But today, something did. As I was walking home from work, between dense concrete towers, a black cat crossed my path. Quick, sly, same as the first. And then it dipped into an alley, where the shadows grew like untamed fur on its back. I stood there, silently, unsure what to do. And before I could decide, I was following it, down a dark path where the only guidance is those soft, wet footsteps. And as I go, I realize it’s times like these that I wish my brother was here. Because even though I’m not sure where I’ll end up, I’m sure Carter would have had an idea. He always had the wildest imagination.