Legends VIII – The Singer Beneath the Ice

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It was a winter the likes of which the villages on the lake's edge hadn't known for generations. The ice grew from within, not from the frost in the air, but from a sound that came from the depths. It could only be heard when the wind was still and the breath was white: a melody, clear and piercing, as if cut from glass. The elders called her the Singer, and they said that anyone who listened to her songs to the end would forget a name afterward—sometimes someone else's, sometimes their own. I was young enough to test legends, and stupid enough to do so. At night, when the moon rested on the ice like a blinded eye, I crept to the edge of the frozen water. The lake was not black, but deep blue, with veins of light moving beneath the surface. I put my ear to the ice and heard her. Her voice didn't come from below, but from everywhere: it was the sound of remembering itself, clothed in tones. "What do you want to hear?" she whispered. I was frightened, not knowing whether the words were in my head or in the ice. "A song I don't know," I answered. She laughed, and the sound made the ice tremble beneath my hand. "Then give me something you do know." I understood too late that she wasn't talking about things, but about time. When she began to sing, I saw images: my mother, young and laughing, a dog I had buried as a child, the smell of wet earth in spring. The song was beautiful. Too beautiful to be true. When it ended, I could no longer remember my mother's name. Only her face remained, strange and familiar at the same time. I returned again and again. The years became songs, the songs became years. I traded small memories for large sounds: the sound of my father carving, the name of my first love, the word for "tomorrow." With each trade, the ice became clearer, more transparent, as if she lay only a breath away. Sometimes I saw a figure drift beneath the surface—not drowned, not alive, suspended in a soft light. Her lips moved, and I felt the melody in my chest before it sounded. One night, as the sky turned a deep copper and the frost stretched the trees to their core, I stood on the lake. No creaking, no cracking, only silence. I sang, as best I could, the notes she had given me. The ice answered, first with vibration, then with voice. "You have almost nothing left," she said. "Only your song. Will you give that too?" I remained silent. But in the realm of the singer, silence is also a language. The ice began to glow, and I saw her more clearly: a woman made of light and water, her hair drifting like seaweed, her gaze filled with painless sorrow.