Prose

The pond about half a mile behind the neighbors' house was Magic. We didn't understand how, or why, only that we had been blessed with it. Sometimes it was there, and sometimes it was not. We didn't realize that the days it was not there were also the days when we could not remember the last time it rained, or a time when the air had not been so humid and heavy. And we did not connect that the times the pond was the fullest and deepest were right after a thick, full, heavy downpour. We only knew that sometimes, the pond was there, and it was amazing, and sometimes, the pond disappeared, and then, it was magic. It had to be magic.

Our parents never came back to the pond. They didn't like it that we went there, either. Often, they didn't let us go back there. "No. There are snakes." "There's probably poison ivy." "Oh, come on. Can't you just stay here and play in our woods?" But our woods weren't the same. This... this was magical. It was a Realm of Faerie or a Narnia all our own. And sometimes, they did let us go.

We would zip up our boots and plead permission to go in the woods. Our feet squished down in the soggy grass.