The Glass of Still Water

Our house in the outskirts of Chiang Mai sat on a plot of land that had been fallow for decades, flanked by a mango orchard and a forgotten moat. My partner, Anong, had inherited the land from her grandmother, who had passed before we ever met. We returned each winter, trading the gray of Michigan for the green heat of the north, and for two months the house felt like a sanctuary, a place where time stretched and the only noises were cicadas and the distant temple bells.

I woke that January morning with the sun already slanting through the louvred windows, painting stripes across the bed. The air was thick with the smell of jasmine from the vine that clung to the balcony. I lay still, savoring the warmth, when I felt a presence—a subtle shift in the weight on the mattress, as if someone had perched on the edge. I turned my head, and there he was: a boy of about eleven, Thai, with a buzz cut and large, earnest eyes. He wore a white school shirt, slightly too big, and navy blue shorts, the kind you see on every boy cycling past the local school. He smiled, a gentle, shy smile, and held out a glass of water, the glass sweating with condensation. The water was clear, perfectly still. I stared, frozen, and then he was gone, the glass with him. I let out a strangled yelp, half fear, half shock, and Anong came bounding up the stairs, her face pale.

She listened to my stammered account, her expression shifting from concern to something else—a tightness around her eyes. ‘A boy in a school uniform? Offering water?’ she asked. I nodded. She didn’t dismiss it. Instead, she walked to the headboard and ran her fingers over the smooth teak, as if searching for something. That night, she told me a story. The land, she said, had once been part of a larger rice farm, and at its edge stood a small wooden house where her grandmother’s youngest brother had lived. He had died young, in the 1970s, from a fever that no herbalist could cure. He had been about eleven, she thought, and had been a quiet child who loved to watch the monks walk by. His name was Somchai.

The next morning, I woke early, before the sun, and lay listening to the birds. I felt a cool breeze even though the windows were shut. Then I saw him again, standing by the dresser, still in his uniform. He didn’t smile this time. He walked to the bed and set the glass of water on the nightstand, then raised his eyes to mine. His lips moved, but no sound came out. I could read his words: ‘The water is for you.’ I reached out to take the glass, and my hand passed through his, through the glass, and a jolt of cold went through me. He vanished, but the glass remained—solid, real, filled with clear water. I didn’t touch it. I called Anong. She came, and together we stared at the glass. She picked it up, sniffed it, and her face went ashen. ‘This is from the moat,’ she said. ‘I know the smell of the algae.’ The moat was brackish, full of silt and mosquito larvae. But the water in the glass was clear, sparkling, impossibly pure.

Over the next week, the boy appeared more often. He never spoke aloud, but I began to understand him through gestures and expressions. He pointed to the glass often, urging me to drink. He seemed anxious, almost pleading. I refused, out of a growing dread. I researched the history of the land, and with Anong’s help, I found records in the local temple monastery. The boy, Somchai, had died of dengue fever, but the details were grim: he had been delirious, begging for water, but his mother, following a superstitious belief, had refused to give him any because a local shaman said that water would make the fever worse. He died dehydrated, his throat parched, calling out for his mother. The story was written in a faded notebook, kept by a former abbot. My blood ran cold.

On the seventh morning, I woke to find the glass empty on the nightstand. The boy sat at the foot of the bed, his face streaked with tears. He pointed at his mouth, then at the glass, and mouthed, ‘Please.’ I felt a surge of pity mixed with fear. I reached for the glass, but as my fingers closed around it, the room shook. The glass shattered in my hand, slicing my palm. The boy let out a silent scream, and for a moment, his form flickered, showing me a vision: a dusty room, a small boy huddled in a corner, his lips cracked, while a woman in a dark dress held a bowl of water just out of reach, shaking her head. The vision faded. The boy was gone, but a single drop of red water—my blood mixed with the moat water—lay on the splintered glass.

That night, Anong and I held a small ceremony. We lit incense, placed a bowl of fresh water on the step, and spoke to the spirit of Somchai, apologizing for the wrongs done to him, offering the water freely. The next morning, the bowl was empty, and we found a tiny, perfect lotus flower floating in the moat, its petals untouched by algae. The boy never reappeared. But sometimes, at the edge of my vision, I see a flash of white and blue, always at dusk, always near the water. And when I pour a glass of water at night, I sometimes hear a grateful sigh, barely audible, before I take a sip.