The Bay Behind Grandmother's House

<p>I spent my earliest years at my grandmother's house—a sprawling old place at the edge of the village, backing onto a crescent-shaped bay that never seemed to dry up. My parents were busy with work, so from the time I was one until I turned six and started school, that old house was my whole world.</p><p>I've never forgotten what happened there.</p><p>The bay was deep. Very deep. And every summer, it claimed lives.</p><p>Children ten, eleven, fifteen—they'd swim in those waters after school let out, and some of them never came back. The village council tried everything. Signs, barriers, lectures. Nothing worked. By the time I was three, the bay had a reputation. Everyone knew it. Parents warned their kids. But kids don't always listen.</p><p>During the day, the water looked almost peaceful—a flat, dark mirror reflecting the sky. But at night, something changed. If you stood by the water and looked at your reflection... it wasn't always yours. And sometimes, when the wind died and the village went quiet, you'd hear it: a sound rising from the surface. Children crying. Wailing. Then silence.</p><p>No one went near that bay after dark.</p><p>But one night, an aunt—my grandmother's neighbor, a woman named Mrs. Liu—was sitting outside in the courtyard, trying to catch a breeze. It was late. Past midnight. The air was thick and heavy, and she was the only one awake for miles.</p><p>Then she saw it.</p><p>A small figure, no taller than a child of five or six, wearing a bright red dress. Two pigtails stuck out from the sides of its head. It was moving toward her—not walking, but hopping. Bouncing, as if it had no knees. Each bounce carried it closer, and with each bounce, the sound of its footsteps on the packed earth was wrong. Too soft. Too wet.</p><p>Mrs. Liu didn't wait to understand what she was seeing.</p><p>She ran. She burst through her door, collapsed onto her bed, and couldn't move for a long time. Her legs simply wouldn't respond. She was terrified—truly terrified—in a way that bypassed the body and went straight to the soul.</p><p>She was sick for weeks afterward. High fever, restless nights, trembling at every sound. Her family tried doctors. Nothing helped.</p><p>Finally, they brought in the village spiritualist—an old woman everyone trusted, someone who understood that some illnesses don't come from germs or injuries. They came from elsewhere.</p><p>She performed a soul-calling ritual. Burned paper. Whispered names. Walked the perimeter of the house calling Mrs. Liu's spirit back from wherever it had fled.</p><p>It worked. Slowly, the fever broke. The trembling stopped.</p><p>Mrs. Liu never spoke about that night again. But she never went outside after dark either.</p><hr/><p>The bay is gone now.</p><p>Decades passed. The water table dropped. The schools closed—one by one, the children were pulled away to the cities, and eventually the bay dried up completely. The pine trees that once lined its banks were cut down. New growth came in, ordinary trees, poplars and willows. The air feels lighter now. Less heavy. Less wrong.</p><p>The village is quiet. Empty. Most of the people who stayed are old now. The young ones left for work, for school, for anything but here. Even on summer evenings, no one sits outside anymore.</p><p>No one needs to.</p>