Glass Bones

Sophie Hale stood on the frozen lake watching the snowflakes fall. Her breath smeared the surface in cloudy ovals that vanished almost as soon as they formed.

Half a metre down, frozen in place lay the wreath: dull plastic pine and a red ribbon caught mid-flick. She did not remember when it first appeared. It felt like something that had always been here, the way the lake and mountain had always been.

“You’re doing that thing again,” her dad called from the pier. “Staring at it like it's going to wave.”

“Maybe it will.”

“It won’t.”

His voice was flat, like he knew.

Sophie stood and walked with her dad toward the house. It glowed at the treeline, yellow squares of light inside a world made of grey.

Inside, heat slapped at her. Radiators hissed; stew steamed on the table.

“You look frozen,” her mum said. “Sit down before you shatter.”

“It’s not that bad.”

Her dad watched from his chair, mug in both hands.

“Checked the thickness?”

“Twice. We cut the entry hole today, ready to map the under-ice caves.”

Mum’s smile was stiff. “Do they really have to go under?”

“That’s how caves work. They want a proper model. If a collapse is coming, they want to know.”

“Some things don’t need to be known inside out.”

“You mean like that wreath?” Sophie asked. “Or why it’s there?”

Her parents went still.

“It’s just tradition,” Dad said. “It’s there every winter.”

“No one remembers why,” Sophie replied. “That is the part that bothers me.”

“You have been gone a long time,” Mum said. “Cities make you suspicious of quiet.”

Sophie’s earliest memory was of this shoreline in summer, knees streaked with mud, water lapping at the edge. A girl laughs behind her, bright and familiar, but when she turns to look, the space is empty, and the absence hurts.

Three sharp raps on the front door, her dad half rose.

“I’ll get it,” Sophie said.

“Mrs Keene?” she asked. The reverend’s widow.

“Good evening,” the woman said. She shoved a parcel at Sophie, brown paper scarred with age, tied with frayed twine. “This is for you.”

“What is it?”

Mrs Keene ignored her question and said, “Don't let it thaw.” Her eyes boring into Sophie’s. “Whatever you do, don't let it thaw.”

She turned and shuffled away into the storm.

“Who was that?” Mum called from the kitchen.

Sophie closed the door and turned the key. The parcel weighed oddly in her hands. “Mrs Keene. She gave me something.”

Her mum lost what colour she had. “Put it outside.”

“What is it?”

“Something that is not ours,” Dad said.

Sophie untied the twine anyway. Old paper crackled. Inside lay a cracked leather dive log and a folded sheet of brittle yellow paper.

The log held neat ink entries. Depth, visibility, temperature. Notes like whale song faint, current stronger than expected, avoid west tunnel. The final page dissolved into jagged lines. I can hear them even when I wake. They never stop— followed by frantic scratches that dug into the paper.

She unfolded the map.

Tunnels spread across the page beneath a rough circle labelled Lake. One chamber had been shaded repeatedly until the paper thinned. Beside it, in block letters: THE HOLLOWING.

Dad snatched at it. “That should have gone in the ground with him.”

“This is exactly what I need, the team wants to know where the main chamber is,” Sophie said. “If this is the largest chamber, then that is where I start.”

“Please listen,” Dad said. “The Hollowing is not for you.”

“Everything under that lake is for me. That is my job.”

That night, sleep broke into fragments. A hand beneath ice. Fingers scraped bloody. A voice, affectionate and impatient: Little fish, you are late.

The next morning, the sky burned painfully blue. The dive hole steamed faintly, a dark circle cut in the lake.

She checked her gear. The rest of the team had waited for better weather. Sophie had promised to text when she resurfaced.

Promises felt easier in warm rooms.

Cold swallowed her whole. Her headlamp cut a narrow beam. The ice ceiling arched above like the underside of a continent.

The Hollowing opened beneath her without warning. A vast chamber. Trapped bubbles crowded the ceiling, and something gleamed below. A length of glassy bone, smooth and white with silver threads inside. Sophie’s fingers closed before she could stop them.

Her glove met cold. Her mind found summer.

Bare feet on warm rock, with Margot’s hand in hers, the older girl’s laugh bright. “Come on, little fish, race you.” Green water, harmless and glittering.

She tore her hand away, chest burning.

Take it.

Her chisel echoed strangely. When the bone came loose, the entire chamber groaned.

When she broke the surface, the air felt thinner, as if something had drunk part of it. She dragged herself onto the ice and lay there, gasping, watching new snow drifting down. The bone pressed against her ribs, colder than the lake.

The bone lay in a metal tray in the kitchen. Frost spread beneath it despite the heat in the kitchen.

“Take it back,” Mum said. “Right now.”

“It’s a sample,” Sophie replied.

“That is not a sample,” Dad said. “It does not belong up here.”

“Even if I return it, I want a look first.”

“Don't‌ let it thaw,” Mum said. “If you insist on keeping it, leave it outside. Lock it in your gear crate. I don't care.”

“I nearly drowned getting it,” Sophie said. “I am at least going to look at it before I throw it back.”

Her parents exchanged a look. Fear? Guilt or something else?

The bone waited, wrong and patient. A bead of water formed, dropped.

It hit Sophie’s mind like brainfreeze.

Lanterns hissed around the lake. Snow soaked through the thin soles of her boots. Adults stood in a circle, faces blurred by tears. The ice was cracked in front of her, a dark seam across its surface.

Margot’s hand crushed hers. Sophie knew her now, absolutely knew her, older by five years, taller, hair wild, eyes furious.

“They are not taking her,” Margot said. “Take me.”

“You know the pact,” someone murmured. “We don't choose. The glacier does.”

“Then it picked wrong. I love you, little fish,” Margot said and stepped into the opening.

The water swallowed her whole.

Sophie found herself bent double, sobbing. Frost veined her arms. Her bones glimmered faintly.

“Oh God,” Mum whispered. “It has started again.”

The doorway creaked.

“I warned you,” Mrs Keene said, boots dripping onto the carpet. “Do not let it thaw.”

“What is it?” Sophie rasped.

“All the pieces we cut out,” Mrs Keene said. “Every memory they could not live with. Packed tight and pushed under the ice. The reverend held it inside so the rest of you could sleep.”

“So now it is in our house,” Sophie said. “Excellent.”

Another bead dropped. More memories. Other children. The same wreath. A vibration too large for language.

“It is not just this town,” Sophie whispered.

“The glacier feeds this valley,” Dad said. “In return, we feed it. One life each generation.”

“The truth has sharper teeth,” Mrs Keene said.

“You chose me,” Sophie said. “You took me to the lake.”

“You started sleepwalking,” Mum whispered. “He said the glacier marked you.”

“So Margot stepped in for me,” Sophie said.

“Margot,” Mum said, crying. “Your sister.”

The word tore open a blank place. Two beds, two sets of boots, two toothbrushes.

“We couldn’t live with what we allowed,” Mum said. “Father Keene took the night, the wreath, her room, your memories.”

Sophie stared at the bone. Tiny fractures spread, light leaking out.

Come back, Soph. It is cold.

“What happens if I take it?” Sophie asked. “All of it.”

“You would break,” Mum said.

“He cracked after decades,” Mrs Keene said. “You are stronger. The glacier likes you.”

“You could be the Keeper,” Dad said.

“I am not offering myself to the same trap. You threw Margot at a monster.”

“If you don’t, the pact fails,” Mrs Keene said. “The glacier remembers the world.”

Sophie picked up the bone. White lines raced under her skin. Inside her skull, something enormous opened an eye.

A better channel.

She staggered out the door. Her parents’ pleas blurred.

The ice did not crack. Fine lines fused under her boots, as if the lake tried to claim her.

Margot’s voice: You took your time, little fish.

“I didn’t know.”

They made themselves forget. Somebody had to remember.

“I am going to get you out.”

That is not how it works. We are hooks. It uses us to reach out.

“What if I pull it into me? All of it.”

You might quiet it. You might tear open.

“What if I do nothing?”

Images crashed. The glacier heaving. A crack drinking light.

“I will not let it use you.”

You cannot free me without freeing it. The trap learns.

Sophie decided, and as light tore through her, the bone turned liquid beneath her skin. Cold threaded her veins in branching paths. Her ribs felt squeezed inward, creating space for something that did not belong.

For a heartbeat, Sophie existed in four places. On the ice. In the Hollowing. Threaded through the glacier. Pressed against the surface of an ancient mind.

“Oh,” she whispered.

The truth arrived with a second cold.

The pact had never been a lock. It worked as a distraction. The sacrifices and the Keepers did not confine the thing below. They kept its attention small. A story to gnaw on.

You are clever, the glacier thought. Clever enough to open further.

“Let go,” Margot said. Her voice was thin as a crack in winter ice. Drop it. Let them cut it out. Forget me.

“I will not lose you again,” Sophie said. Her jaw cracked when she spoke.

The lake fissured outward from her boots. Sheets of ice split and froze again, like a mouth learning to open. Houses along the shore lurched. Sirens wailed once, then failed.

The glacier moved.

Water rose in columns that hardened into jagged white roots. The mountain shivered as if something deep inside was stretching. Windows burst. The valley tilted.

Sophie tried to pull herself tight around the memories. The glacier flowed around her like water around a stone.

So many, it thought. So near.

She tasted the panic of the people below. She felt their breath frost in their lungs. The thing below tasted it too. Curiosity thickened. Hunger stretched.

“I am frightened,” Margot whispered.

“Me too,” Sophie said. “I am so sorry.” Words felt heavy. Her tongue no longer worked like a human’s.

Snow fell in shapes that made her eyes ache. Each flake a tiny shard of some bone geometry. They landed on her skin and rooted, growing white lines inward.

Her heartbeat slowed, then matched the grind of ice over rock.

The glacier settled into her bones. It looked through her eyes. Its attention reached wider than the valley now. Wider than the mountains.

Margot’s warm hand flashed through Sophie’s mind. Sunlight on water. Harmless ripples. Laughter. A memory she clung to like a candle cupped against wind.

The candle dimmed.

Her skin became clear as lake ice. Stars moved inside her bones like trapped lightning. Frost-veins laced through her skull. Breathing felt optional.

Margot’s voice frayed. I am still here. Please do not let it have us both.

“I wanted to save you,” Sophie tried to say. The words did not leave her mouth. They only echoed inside the dark.

The glacier pushed further. Not a door anymore. A corridor.

Her last clear thought was of a single, impossible wish. Margot. Little fish. Race you.

The wish faded.

The thing in the deep leaned close. It tasted her regret with interest, as if regret were a new language.

The candle went out.

Those who survived speak softly of that night. They tell of ice lifting like wings. They tell of a girl standing on the frozen lake while the stars trembled overhead.

They say she chose love and lost the world.

They say the glacier remembers that choice.

They say it remembers her.