The Pale One at Miller’s Pond

I was nine when my mother started taking me to her lab at the old textile mill on the outskirts of Blackwood. The building had been converted into a research facility for aquatic biology, and my mother was a senior scientist there. On weekends, she’d let me tag along, and I’d spend hours wandering the grounds while she worked.

The mill sat beside a vast, man-made pond that had once been a reservoir for the factory. Now it was a haven for waterfowl, mostly Canada geese and mallards, their honks and quacks filling the air. The place had a strange beauty, the red brick walls reflected in the still water, the old smokestack towering like a monolith. I loved it there.

One Saturday, during my mother’s lunch break, we walked along the gravel path that circled the pond. I was in my usual habit of chasing the geese, scattering them into the water with a satisfying flutter. But as I rounded a clump of cattails, I stopped dead. There, near the reeds, was a goose unlike any I’d ever seen.

It was pure white, but not the soft white of a swan or a domestic goose. It was the color of bone, slightly luminescent even in the overcast light. Its eyes were not the usual dark brown but a pale, milky blue, and they seemed to fix on me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. I remember thinking it looked ancient, like it had been there long before the mill, before the pond, before everything.

I tugged at my mother’s sleeve. ‘Mom, look! A white goose!’ I whispered, but my voice came out hushed, almost reverent.

My mother froze. She stared at the bird for a long moment, then pulled me close, her grip tight on my shoulder. ‘Don’t look at it, sweetie,’ she said, her voice strained. ‘Don’t approach it. We should go back inside.’ I looked up at her, confused. Why was she scared? It was just a bird.

But I complied. As we turned, I glanced back over my shoulder. The white goose was still watching us, its head tilted. And then, something odd happened. The other geese, which had been in the water, started to swim away from it, creating a wide circle of open water around it.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing that pale bird in my mind, the way it stared, the way it seemed to glow. I asked my mother about it, but she just said, ‘Some birds are sick, honey. They don’t act right.’ But her words didn’t match her face, which was pale and drawn.

A few weeks later, I overheard her on the phone with a colleague. She was saying, ‘…the white one again. It’s been seen near the outflow pipe. We need to test the water quality. I’m worried about the kids.’ There was a pause, then she said, ‘No, we can’t tell anyone yet. It might be a hoax, or… a mutation.’

My curiosity got the better of me. The next Saturday, when my mother was in a meeting, I slipped out to the pond. It was a misty morning, the water still as glass. I walked along the bank, scanning for any sign of the white goose. The regular geese were there, but they were huddled together, making low, anxious noises.

Then I saw it. It was emerging from the reeds on the far side, its white form moving gracefully. I crouched in the tall grass, watching. The bird approached the water, but instead of swimming, it dipped its beak into the shallows and stayed perfectly still. After a minute, it lifted its head, and something dripped from its beak – a dark, oily substance that seemed to stain the water. The bird shook its head, and the drops spread out in a black bloom.

I almost screamed. The goose didn’t look sick; it looked malevolent. And in that moment, I realized it wasn’t just a bird. It was something old, something that had taken the form of a goose. It turned its head, and its milky eyes found me even at that distance. I felt a chill run down my spine, and I ran back to the building without looking back.

After that, I refused to go to the mill. I made up excuses, but my mother sensed my fear and didn’t push. She became distant, spending more time at work, coming home with dark circles under her eyes. One night, I heard her crying in her room, and she kept repeating, ‘I should have done something. I saw it too.’

The last time I saw the place, years later, was on a news segment about a strange die-off of waterfowl at the old mill pond. The reporter mentioned that the water had tested positive for an unknown contaminant, and the facility was being closed. But the image they showed was of a massive flock of geese, and in the middle of them stood a single white goose, its head held high, as if it had won.

I never told anyone what I truly saw. Because I know now that the white goose wasn’t a mutation or a disease. It was a herald, a watcher, a sign that something had gone wrong in that deep, dark water. And I understand why my mother looked so afraid. She knew that the pale one was just the beginning, that it had laid its mark on the pond, and that one day, the water would speak.