The Visitor of Hollow Pond

ice cracks somewhere out of sight

The pond freezes thick each winter, and each winter a child is said to skate there who drowned a hundred years ago, laughing, beckoning others onto the thinning center. Parents warn: if you see a friend already far out on the ice waving you forward, look at their feet. The drowned leave no skate marks, and they are always smiling too widely for the cold.