Fiction Friendship Inspirational

Still Waters Run Deep

The village of Willowmere was a quiet place, nestled between rolling hills and a lake so calm it mirrored the sky. Most days, the only ripples on the water came from the wind or the occasional heron gliding low. The villagers often said, "Still waters run deep," a phrase passed down through generations, spoken with a knowing nod.

Evelyn had lived in Willowmere all her life. She was a silent girl, content to watch the world from the edge of the lake. People often overlooked her, assuming her silence meant simplicity. But each afternoon, she sat on the old wooden dock arranging smooth pebbles into patterns—spirals, concentric circles, winding paths. All the stones held a memory: the winter the lake froze solid, the summer swans nested in the reeds, the autumn her grandmother taught her which fish jumped at dusk. She kept a notebook too, filled with sketches of water beetles and heron tracks, observations written in small, careful script.

One autumn evening, as the sun dipped behind the hills and the air turned sharp with cold, a stranger arrived in Willowmere. He was brash, and full of stories from distant cities. He laughed too loudly at the inn, gestured wildly with his hands, and seemed always to be searching for something just out of reach. The villagers watched him with wary eyes, whispering that he was "like a fish out of water."

The stranger, named Thomas, soon grew restless. The village was too quiet, the people too reserved. He missed the bustle of the city, the noise and excitement. One day, he wandered down to the lake, boots crunching through fallen leaves, where he found Evelyn sitting on the dock.

The weathered boards were soft with rot in places, gray from years of sun and rain. As he sat beside her, they groaned under his weight, swaying slightly and sending tiny ripples across the water. The smell of wet wood and decay hung in the air, mixed with the sweetness of dying leaves. Evelyn's bare feet dangled above the surface, toes almost brushing the cold water.

"Don't you ever get bored here?" he asked, staring out at the stillness.

Evelyn didn't answer right away. She pointed to a spot about twenty feet out, where the water was darker. "Watch."

Thomas waited, shifting impatiently. After a long minute, just as he opened his mouth to speak, a fish leaped—a silver arc against the fading light—and disappeared back beneath the surface.

"She does that every evening," Evelyn said. "Same time, same spot. Been watching her for a week."

Thomas frowned. "How do you know it's the same fish?"

Evelyn's lips curved in a small smile. "Pay attention."

He scoffed internally but said nothing. Over the next few days, Thomas returned to the lake despite his skepticism, drawn by something he couldn't quite name. Evelyn was always there, silent and still. Sometimes she sketched. Sometimes she just watched. He tried to make conversation—stories about the city, jokes, complaints about the village's slowness. She listened but rarely responded with more than a few words.

By the end of the first week, Thomas had had enough.

He found her on the dock one gray afternoon, clouds heavy overhead. "I'm leaving tomorrow," he announced, sitting down harder than necessary.

Evelyn glanced at him but said nothing.

"I've been here eight days," he continued, his frustration spilling over. "Eight days of nothing. You just sit here staring at water. You barely talk. What exactly am I supposed to be seeing?"

"No one asked you to stay," Evelyn said quietly, her eyes still on the lake.

The words stung more than he expected. Thomas stood abruptly, the dock swaying, and walked back to the inn. That night, he packed his bag, ready to catch the morning coach.

But sleep wouldn't come. He lay awake listening to the wind in the trees, the distant call of an owl, sounds he'd stopped hearing in the city years ago. In the darkness, he realized what bothered him: he didn't want to leave without understanding. Without seeing what Evelyn saw.

The next morning, Thomas didn't take the coach. Instead, he went to the lake before dawn—something he'd never done in the city, where mornings were for coffee and hurrying. The dock was empty. Mist rose from the water in ghostly columns, and the world was so quiet he could hear his own breathing.

He sat in Evelyn's spot and waited.

The sun rose slowly, turning the mist gold, then pink, then burning it away entirely. A heron landed in the shallows without a sound, its reflection perfect in the still water. Thomas watched it stand motionless for ten minutes, then fifteen, before it struck suddenly—head darting down, coming up with a wriggling fish.

He hadn't even seen the fish beneath the surface.

Footsteps on the dock behind him. Evelyn sat down, leaving a space between them.

"I thought you'd left," she said.

"I thought I would too." He paused. "I saw the heron."

"The patient one."

"Do they all have names?"

"Not names, but I know them," she stated, pulling her notebook from her pocket. She presented him with a detailed pencil sketch of the same heron. Next to it, she'd inscribed: "Arrives at dawn. Fishes the north shallows. Waits."

Thomas stared at the page, at the dozens of other sketches and notes. "You've been paying attention."

"Someone has to."

Over the following days, Thomas returned to the lake again and again. He stopped trying to fill the silence with noise. He started noticing things: the way the light danced differently on the water at dawn than at dusk, the hidden paths through the reeds where foxes traveled at night, the sudden flash of that silver fish Evelyn had shown him—and yes, he believed it was the same one.

In the days that followed, Thomas found himself drawn repeatedly to the lake. He ceased his attempts to drown out the silence, and instead, began to truly observe his surroundings. He noticed the changing dance of light on the water from dawn to dusk, the secretive paths foxes forged through the reeds at night, and the distinct shimmer of that same silver fish Evelyn had pointed out to him—a fish he now believed was indeed the very same one.

One evening, as they watched the stars emerge in a clear sky, Thomas whispered. "My grandfather used to take me fishing. I hated it. Thought it was boring, all that waiting." He smiled. "I caught nothing because I wouldn't sit still."

Evelyn recalled, "My grandmother was similar—always in motion, always conversing. She found the lake unnerving, too quiet for her." She reflected, "But my grandfather, he could spend hours in silence. He taught me that quiet isn't a void; it's simply filled with different presences."

Thomas understood. In the stillness of Willowmere, he was learning to hear what he'd been too loud to notice before.

The next morning, Thomas returned to the lake before sunrise—his new habit. He brought his notebook this time, not to write, but to sketch. The way the mist rose from the water. The heron's patient stance in the shallows. Evelyn's profile as she arrived and sat beside him, watching the dawn in comfortable silence.

Still waters, he wrote beneath the drawing. Then, after a pause, he added: And what runs beneath.

Posted Oct 16, 2025
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