The Water Sprites Chapter 1 – A Night at the High Pond
They entered the ancient woods south of Markstakes Lane in the hour before dusk, when the light slants low and everything becomes more vivid—more alert. High Pond lay somewhere ahead, tucked deep into the heart of Markstakes Common Wood.
Jason Winters led the way, boots slick with early spring dew. His girlfriend of two years, Beth, followed closely with binoculars around her neck, rucksack snugly on her shoulders. The path dipped and rose again, winding between fat, tall beech trees, angled companion trees of a similar girth and age and hornbeam reaching out and twisting about for whatever light got through the thick canopy above. No signs marked the way. No fences hemmed it in. The air held that clean, wet-bark scent of old woodland just waking from winter.
They reached the pond as the light began to drain behind the trees.
High Pond wasn’t high. Not really. It sat in a green bowl at the top of the watershed, hoarding water in a still, secret basin. Bracken—last year’s, decayed—lay flattened around its edge. The new growth had not yet risen. Bluebells pushed through with cautious optimism.
A blackbird sang its evening note from the canopy. Jays clicked overhead. Somewhere, a muntjac barked once, anxious, almost human. And above them: bats. At least four, zigzagging through the chill dusk like flickers of thought.
They set up camp just back from the bank, under the sweeping curve of a fallen oak brought down in a storm 36 years before and now thick with mosses, lichens, and fungi. Jason unfurled a tartan blanket and checked for thorns. Beth laid out food—bread, cheese, and a flask of soup. They ate in near silence, the quiet between them companionable.
The pond mirrored the last light until the stars replaced it.
“I’ve never stayed overnight here,” Beth whispered.
Jason nodded. “It changes after dark.”
They lay close, sleeping bags zipped halfway, breath mingling in the cooling air. The pond made no sound. But the woods did—rustlings, night-murmurs, a fox’s scream far off. And once, just before Beth drifted off, a low splash. Not fish. Not waterfowl.
Something entering.
At dawn
Beth woke first. The air was cold and pale with mist. Jays began their fuss in the canopy above as the sky shifted from ash to rose. She could smell moss and damp wool. Jason stirred beside her.
They emerged from the sleeping bags stiff and grinning. Steam rose from the pond in delicate spirals. The water lay high after weeks of rain, still as black glass.
Then the jet came.
A low growl overhead—the first flight out of Gatwick. Jason grimaced.
“Always ruins the mood.”
Beth slung her pack against a hornbeam. “Even here.”
The woods were alive now. Wrens trilled. Blackcaps called. The mist clung close to the bracken and reeds. And the feeling came again, not being watched. Being studied.
They stripped down and entered the water without words. The cold bit hard at first, then eased into that sharp clarity only wild swimming brings. Jason kicked out wide, carving arcs. Beth moved slower, attuned to its texture—the resistance, the pull, the quiet.
When they emerged, shivering and breathless, the woods felt… different. Closer. Listening.
Beth saw it first.
A raven. High in the hornbeam across the water. Black as split coal. Still. Glossed faintly green in the morning light.
“Is that new?” she asked.
Jason glanced up. “Could be local. Could be watching.”
“They always watch,” Beth said. “But it’s not just that.”
They found the den under the arc of the fallen oak.
Bracken flattened in a perfect ring. In the centre: a den of woven materials—moss, twigs, wool, a torn page from a school notebook, a child’s mitten. Not dumped. Not accidental.
“A kid’s den?” Jason offered.
Beth crouched and touched the edge. “Too clean. Too… aware.”
She felt something. Presence.
Overhead, a red kite turned once, then wheeled west.
Jason looked up. “I used to see them all the time. Years ago.”
Beth said nothing. She had studied their return for her Master’s. She didn’t need to say it: they rarely come here. Not without a reason.
They dried off and wrapped themselves in hoodies and a tartan rug. Shared hot tea. Jason lay on his front, cheek pressed to the blanket. Beth reclined beside him, eyes half-closed.
When they woke again, they weren’t alone.
A third figure lay between them.
Small. Pale-limbed. Curled like a cat against Jason’s spine. An arm—too cool, too smooth—rested across Beth’s thigh. Not cold. Just other.
They froze. Breath held.
The boy—or something boylike—slept without fear. His skin shimmered faintly, seal-smooth, otter-haired, the barest webbing between his fingers. A child, but not quite.
At the pond’s edge, just above the mirror of the water, a pair of eyes watched.
Still, patient.
Freya.
Jason turned slightly. Beth didn’t move. She raised one finger to her lips.
The boy opened his eyes. Clear as quartz, river-stone grey. He looked at Jay. Then Beth. Then slowly scooted back, limbs awkward but fluid. Not walking. Not crawling. Slipping. Sliding.
He reached the pond’s edge. Paused. Entered. No splash. Just two ripples. Then stillness.
Beth whispered, “Did you see his hand?”
Jason: “I saw his eyes.”
Beth returned alone later that week. With cameras. With field notebooks. With questions.
She crouched beside the den they’d noticed earlier—now altered. A fox’s whisker. A red ribbon. Not strewn. Placed.
She heard the wagtail before she saw it—bouncing its tail in frantic rhythm on a branch nearby, not calling but marking.
Then she smelled it. Death. Not old. Not hidden.
A shape in the bracken—small, algae-dappled, child-sized. Not quite human. It’s not animal, either. She dropped to her knees.
Across the pond, shimmer.
Freya.
Beth didn’t move. Freya did not vanish. The air pressed in with attention.
Two months passed. The pond shrank. Bracken rose.
They brought water. Left offerings: bread, apples, an old towel. Freya never approached. Hersch did. He darted, then paused. Touched Jay’s foot. Laughed. Fled.
Beth spoke less. Noted more. Freya remained silent, observing with a steadiness that unsettled.
Then, one evening, they arrived.
No chase. No drama. Just presence.
Freya appeared on the path. Behind her, Hersch. They stepped forward like invited guests. Freya held something—a toothbrush. A gift? A message?
They followed Jason and Beth without speech. At the Volvo, Hersch leapt into the boot. Freya turned and looked once more toward the pond. Then, I climbed in.
Jason drove. Beth watched.
“They’re not ours,” she said.
Jason nodded. “But they’re not safe here either.”
Radio 3 played quietly. Strings, like mist rising over water.
That night, Jason lay awake, remembering the way they moved. Not swimmers.
Something more. No catch. No kick. Just motion, grown, not taught.
A different kind of swimmer.
A different kind of world.
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