The Sunken Orchard

When I was nine, my mother’s new husband, Gerald, bought a decaying estate on the outskirts of Blackwood, a town known for its dying apple orchards and a history steeped in colonial violence. The house, a Victorian monstrosity with peeling paint and a sagging porch, had been vacant for three years, which explained its remarkably low price. It came with a tennis court overgrown with weeds and a pool whose water had turned a murky green. The previous owners, an elderly couple, had lived there for decades. The wife had passed away in the master bedroom from a sudden illness, and the husband, a pilot, had perished in a crash over the Pacific shortly after. The servant’s quarters, separate from the main house, had been converted into a small apartment, and a groundskeeper named Elias still lived there. He was a gaunt man with rheumy eyes and a habit of appearing without sound. One afternoon, while we were unpacking, he shuffled over and told us that the couple’s ashes had been scattered in the woods behind the property, near an old, gnarled apple tree they had loved. He also mentioned, almost as an afterthought, that a young boy had drowned in that very pool during a summer party in the 1920s. My stepfather, Gerald, dismissed him as a superstitious old fool, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the house was watching us, and that the water in the pool was somehow deeper than it should have been.

That first summer, I spent hours exploring the estate, trying to ignore the cold spots in the hallways and the faint sound of dripping water when none was apparent. My mother, always anxious, complained of nightmares where she felt a hand pressing her face into a pillow. Gerald laughed it off, but even he admitted that the house felt ‘off.’ Then, one sweltering August night, I woke to a sound that would become all too familiar: a rhythmic splashing, followed by a child’s laugh, high and gurgling, as if from underwater. I crept to the window overlooking the pool. The moon was nearly full, and I could see a small figure, a boy in old-fashioned white shorts, sitting on the edge of the pool, his legs dangling in the water. He turned his head, and even from that distance, I saw that his eyes were empty sockets, and his mouth was open in a silent, waterlogged scream. He pointed at me, then slipped into the pool without a splash. I didn’t sleep that night, and I never told anyone what I saw.

The rest of August, the water in the pool grew darker, almost black, and the air around it carried the stench of decay. Elias became increasingly agitated, muttering about ‘the boy’ and ‘the orchard.’ One evening, he confided in me, his voice trembling, that he had known the boy, a child named Thomas who had lived in the servant’s quarters with his parents. The boy, Elias said, had been ‘taken’ by a presence in the estate, something old and hungry. The presence had driven the previous owners mad, and the woman had been found dead with a look of terror on her face. Elias warned me to stay away from the pool and the woods, but curiosity, or something darker, gnawed at me. I noticed that the dead tree in the orchard seemed to have a new growth of tiny, red apples, and I felt an inexplicable pull toward it.

Then, the drownings began. Not in the pool, but in the woods. A hiker was found face-down in a puddle, lungs filled with black, foul water. A little girl vanished, and search parties found her near the old tree, soaked to the bone, babbling about a boy who ‘wanted to play.’ My mother grew pale and anxious, and Gerald started drinking. I knew it was only a matter of time before the presence turned to us. I remember lying in bed, listening to the sounds of the house: the creaking floors, the whispers that seemed to come from the walls, the faint, wet sounds of something dragging itself through the attic. One night, I woke to find my window open, a trail of wet footprints leading from the sill to my door. I didn’t need to follow them to know they came from the pool.

On the night of the last full moon of summer, I could no longer resist the call of the orchard. I put on my boots and a flashlight and made my way through the woods, following the sound of giggling and splashing that seemed to draw me closer. The air grew cold, and the trees twisted into grotesque shapes. I found the old apple tree, its branches laden with glowing, red fruit that pulsed like hearts. Beneath it, a patch of ground was churned as if something had recently clawed its way up. I heard a voice behind me, the voice of a child, but ancient and terrible. It told me to join him, to become part of his world beneath the water. I turned to run, but the ground gave way, and I fell into a shallow pit filled with black water and roots. As I scrambled out, soaked and shivering, I saw a figure standing in the shadows—Elias. He held a small boy’s shoe in his hand, and his eyes were filled with an infinite sadness. He spoke one word: ‘Run.’

The next morning, Gerald was missing. We found his car abandoned by the pool, and a single, wet footprint on the diving board. The police dragged the pool and found nothing, but the water was so dark they couldn’t see the bottom. I knew, with a certainty that chilled me, that Gerald had joined the boy, and that the pool would never surrender him. We moved away the following week, but I carry the house with me: the smell of apples and decay, the sound of a child’s laugh underwater, the certainty that something waits beneath the surface, patient and hungry. The orchard still stands, its apples glowing with an unnatural light, and if you listen closely on a still night, you can hear the splashing and the bubbles rising, and a voice that calls out for one more playmate, one more soul to drown in the dark depths of the forgotten pool. I am not that playmate, but I know that someday, the water will come for me, and I will have no choice but to obey.