The Keeper of Willowmere Pond
A series of men were sent to guard a remote fishing pond. One by one, they broke. Some went mad. Some never walked away.
I used to be a skeptic. Never seen a ghost, never believed in them. But strange things have happened to me enough times that these days, I figureābetter safe than sorry.
My grandmother was born under a heavy cloud, that woman. Her birthplace was a place called Yellow Sand Ridge, a sparse stretch of rural land where neighbors were few and far between. Their house sat halfway up a hill, wrapped around by a thick bamboo grove that ran all the way down to the base. In front of the bamboo: a small pond. My grandmother always said that place had something watching it. With so few people around, midday felt just as haunted as midnight.
That pond used to belong to the villageāstocked with fish. But over the years, famine, bandits, all kinds of trouble, people died in it. Eventually the village decided to try using it again. They posted a series of guards to watch over the fish in a little hut beside the water. One after another, they came. None of them fared well.
The first man, on his first night, heard something outside and went to check. Whatever he saw, they found him the next morning collapsed in the bamboo grove, babbling. He never came back. Justāgone.
My grandmother said the bamboo itself had its own history. Something bad happened there during the Liberationāa few people died in there, the details lost to time. But the land remembered.
The second guard lasted a little longer. A week, maybe. Then one night he saw something he would not describe. The next day he went to the village chief and quit on the spot. Would not say a word about what he had seen. Just kept repeating: if he talked about it, he would die. The chief let it go.
A few more men came. Some were scared witless. Some were scared to deathāone old fellow, sixty-something, lasted just a few nights before he passed right there in the hut.
Eventually the village called in a Taoist priest from the next town over. He took one look at the pond, at the grove, and shook his head. *This is not something I can fix*, he said. *This is trouble.*
Nothing ever came of it after that. The pond is still there. When I visit my great-aunts place, I pass by it. Every time, I hurry.
Some places do not want to be disturbed. And some disturbances do not get forgotten.
My grandmother was born under a heavy cloud, that woman. Her birthplace was a place called Yellow Sand Ridge, a sparse stretch of rural land where neighbors were few and far between. Their house sat halfway up a hill, wrapped around by a thick bamboo grove that ran all the way down to the base. In front of the bamboo: a small pond. My grandmother always said that place had something watching it. With so few people around, midday felt just as haunted as midnight.
That pond used to belong to the villageāstocked with fish. But over the years, famine, bandits, all kinds of trouble, people died in it. Eventually the village decided to try using it again. They posted a series of guards to watch over the fish in a little hut beside the water. One after another, they came. None of them fared well.
The first man, on his first night, heard something outside and went to check. Whatever he saw, they found him the next morning collapsed in the bamboo grove, babbling. He never came back. Justāgone.
My grandmother said the bamboo itself had its own history. Something bad happened there during the Liberationāa few people died in there, the details lost to time. But the land remembered.
The second guard lasted a little longer. A week, maybe. Then one night he saw something he would not describe. The next day he went to the village chief and quit on the spot. Would not say a word about what he had seen. Just kept repeating: if he talked about it, he would die. The chief let it go.
A few more men came. Some were scared witless. Some were scared to deathāone old fellow, sixty-something, lasted just a few nights before he passed right there in the hut.
Eventually the village called in a Taoist priest from the next town over. He took one look at the pond, at the grove, and shook his head. *This is not something I can fix*, he said. *This is trouble.*
Nothing ever came of it after that. The pond is still there. When I visit my great-aunts place, I pass by it. Every time, I hurry.
Some places do not want to be disturbed. And some disturbances do not get forgotten.