The Fourth Bench by the Canal

It was a frost-covered February evening in the old market town of Ashwell, and the clock on St. Cuthbert’s church had just struck six. My friend Lena and I were cutting through the Riverside Gardens on our way to her flat, the cobbled path slick with a thin layer of ice. The gardens were usually pleasant, with a narrow canal running alongside, but that night the air felt heavy, muffled, as if the world were holding its breath.

We were mid-laugh about something stupid when we both stopped at the same time, our laughter dying in our throats. Without a word, we turned to our left, toward the fourth bench from the canal bridge. There was a man sitting there, his back to us, hunched over as if he were reading something in his lap. He wore a long, dark coat that seemed too heavy for the season, and his head was tilted, as if he were listening to the water.

We stood frozen, staring at him. I felt a cold prickle run down my spine, but I couldn’t look away. The way he sat was wrong—his shoulders too still, his posture too rigid, as if he were a statue that had been placed there, waiting for something. The canal water, which had been babbling moments before, seemed to go silent. Even the distant traffic on the high street faded to nothing.

Then, without turning, the man raised one hand, slowly, and pointed directly at the water. Lena gasped, and I felt my heart lurch. There was something in the canal, just beneath the surface, a dark shape that I knew hadn’t been there before. It was long and thin, like a bundle of cloth, but as we watched, it moved, drifting closer to the bank, heading straight for the man’s feet.

The man began to whisper, too low for us to hear the words, but the rhythm was unsettling, like a nursery rhyme with a broken beat. Lena grabbed my arm, her nails digging in. ‘We need to go,’ she whispered, but her voice was barely audible, as if the air itself was thickening.

I tried to move, but my legs felt like lead. The shape in the water reached the reeds, and I saw it was not cloth but something else—a hand, pale and bloated, reaching up to grasp the edge of the bank. The man on the bench stood up, and for the first time, I saw his face. It was gaunt, with hollow cheeks and eyes that seemed to be all pupil, black as the water. He smiled, but it was a painful, stretching smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

He stepped toward the water, his feet making no sound on the gravel. He knelt down, and the hand in the water closed around his own. They remained like that for a moment, a silent communion, and then the man began to pull. The shape emerged from the canal, dripping and heavy, and I saw it was a woman, her hair matted with weeds, her skin the color of old parchment. She clung to him, and he wrapped his arms around her as if greeting a lover.

Lena finally broke free of the spell, yanking me backward. ‘Now!’ she shouted, and we turned and ran, our footsteps loud on the path. We didn’t stop until we reached her flat, slamming the door behind us and locking it. We stood there, panting, looking at each other with wild eyes.

‘What was that?’ Lena breathed, her face pale. I shook my head, unable to form words. That night, I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that man and the woman from the water, their embrace too intimate, too final. The next morning, I went back to the gardens, a strange compulsion pulling me. The fourth bench was empty, but there were fresh flowers on the ground before it—white roses, tied with a black ribbon.

Later, I learned from an old man at the pub that there had been a tragedy in the gardens years ago. A young woman had drowned in the canal, right near that bench. Her lover, a soldier returned from war, had never gotten over her death. He would sit on that bench every evening, waiting for her, until one day he simply vanished. ‘Some say,’ the old man said, lowering his voice, ‘that on certain nights, you can see him waiting still. And if you linger too long, he’ll mistake you for her.’

I never walked through the Riverside Gardens again. But sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see the fourth bench, empty under the pale streetlight, and I swear I can hear a whispering from the canal, calling out a name that sounds like mine.