Vivian Pulham is a sophomore at Park City High School. When she was asked about what winning the competition means to her, she said, “It means a lot. I’ve never really written before, so, to be honest, I’m still figuring out what exactly I like about writing. I think it’s that I can shape the stories myself, instead of having to read ones already made. I get total control — to make the characters, the setting, everything. It’s really cool.”

In addition to writing, Pulham loves making music. She plays the viola, violin, and piano, all while focusing on school. She hopes to go to either MIT or Harvard, where she can study astrophysics. In addition to this, Pullham also loves to read, ski and mountain bike.

PCHS Writes is designed to inspire more students to write and to write from their hearts instead of strictly within the walls of their required English classes.

The club tries to hold a short-story contest every month and the winning entry is published in The Park Record.

“Where the Ice Whispers”

By Vivian Pulham

“Alrigh’, Ms. What’s his name?”

“Georgie Wilkens.”

The sheriff’s pen scratched across a small notebook, the nib catching on the cheap paper now and then. 

“When was he last seen?”

“Just last night at the frozen pond.”

“What does he look like?”

“He’s five years old. Brown hair and blue eyes. He’s no more than three and a half feet tall.”

“We’ll go lookin’ for ’em, but that ain’t much to go off of.”

The sheriff pushed back his antique chair, the type that would give you splinters if you rubbed your hand across it. He crossed the room to put his hands by the small coal fire, attempting to get warm from the January cold. He set down his notebook.

“You said by the pond?”

I nodded, my fingers clenched tight in my skirt. My nails were worn down from me biting them from the stress of this situation. How could this have happened? I should’ve been more logical. That night, he had begged me to go skating.

“I reckon the pond is frozen solid now!” he’d said, more than once. “Boys at church said they were skatin’ all over it!” 

I figured it was an hour before sunset, meaning we had enough light to go there and back. I should’ve said no. I was even doubtful then about going to the pond. But he was so desperate to see it, I decided, why not get out of our little house? 

“Fine.” I sighed at last. “But we stop skating as soon as it’s sundown, you hear?”

He had actually cried when I finally gave in and already had our skates ready to go. I helped him button up his coat the way Mama used to before she got ill and passed on… The path to the pond wound through the forest behind our house. The intimidating aspens towered overhead as we made our way to the pond. Georgie ran ahead, then back, then ahead again, leaving his little show prints all through the snow. As we got closer to the pond, I felt a low thumping under the ground, as if a herd of horses were galloping nearby. I told myself it was only my imagination or maybe the wind. 

Goergie stopped so suddenly that we nearly slammed into each other. He stood there at the edge of the trees, his head slightly tilted to one side.

“You hear that?” He said barely above a whisper.

“Hear what?” I snapped at him, obvious that I was uneasy. 

“Them…” Georgie breathed out.

“What are you blabbing about? I don’t like this talk one bit. It’s only the ice settling. See?” I gestured towards the pond, which was in sight now.

“It knows my name,” he said to himself under his breath. “I can tell.”

“What knows your name?” I said, still wondering if he was just pranking me.

Gerogie ran ahead towards the pond with me running after him. I found him kneeling by the pond. He looked as if he were searching for something that wasn’t there. He touched the ice with his finger, and it cracked into many pieces.

A high, sharp sound came, which made me wince and cover my ears. Thin white lines spread out from where Gerogie had pressed his fingertip. 

Georgie laughed.

“Did you see that?” he hollered, pressing his other fingers in the same spot.

 “They talked back!”

“Get away from there!” My voice came out shaky. 

I grabbed the back of his coat and pulled him away from the edge. 

“Are you crazy? You wanna drown like-” Like Daddy, I almost said. I cut myself short. I couldn’t go back there. It was too painful even for Mama when she was still here. 

My heart was racing so hard I could feel it in my fingers.

“It’s solid,” Georgie said, pulling himself away from my grip. “It knows we’re here…”

“I don’t care what it knows,” I snapped at him again. “You’re talkin’ crazy. You’d better stop acting like a fool. Let’s go home. It’s already sundown.”

He quieted at that, his head sinking lower, but his eyes were still attached to the cracks on the pond. The cracks were slowly fading, almost like they were sinkin’ down into the depths of the pond. I could barely see them now, and I couldn’t tell if I had only imagined them. A wind passed through the aspens, knockin’ the branches together.

The sky had gone from a pink to a now deep blue, remindin’ me that we needed to get home. 

“We’re goin’ home now. It’s too late for skating.” I said, trying to get him away from the pond.

He opened his mouth to argue, but then it seemed like he thought better of it. Instead, he shuffled his feet along the edge. I could feel the ground through my soles, as if the earth were breathing.

I tried not to look straight at the pond. When I did it seemed as if a hand was laid flat against the underside of the ice with pale and spread long fingers. When I blinked, it was gone.

“Time to go,” I said, my voice shaky from what I thought I just saw. “We’ll be walkin’ home in the dark if we don’t turn back now.”

“Just a little bit longer. Can’t you hear it?” Georgie pleaded.

“I hear nothin’,” I lied. “Now come on.”

He dragged his heels, but he eventually came. We walked back through the aspens, my pace quickening as the light from the sky grew dimmer and dimmer.

I didn’t sleep easily that night. Every time I started to doze off, I would remember the pale hand on the bottom of the ice, the hum of the ground, even the things I swore I wasn’t hearing. When I finally did fall asleep, I didn’t feel Georgie slip out of the bed. I didn’t hear him put his coat and mittens on. And I didn’t hear him go through the door. 

When I woke, I sat up, scanning the room for any sign of him. 

“Georgie?” I whispered.

I kept looking for something that would give me a clue to where he was when my eyes caught it. The door was slightly ajar with flurries of snow coming into the room. 

I don’t remember grabbing my coat and running out the door. In one breath, I was outside where I saw Georgie’s small bootprints heading towards the pond. No hesitatin’, I told myself.

As I ran, I noticed that his tracks were a straight line. They never wavered from the path, which he so often did when we went on walks together. I tracked Georgie’s footprints to the pond, where they had suddenly stopped at the edge of the ice.

“Georgie!” I shouted, my voice crackin’ with the pressure of my scream. “Gerogie Wilkens, you answer me right now!”

I looked down at his footprints again. There were no scuff marks or any signs of a struggle. 

I grabbed a close branch and slammed it down on the ice with every ounce of strength I had. A large blow scattered through the forest as wood reached ice. The ice did not break. There wasn’t even a single crack, which I was hoping for since Georgie’s touch cracked it.

But just for an instant, I saw a small, pale face look up at me from the deepest part of the pond. Brown hair driftin’ with the movement of the water below, and his eyes open.  

“Georgie..”, I managed to choke out.

He looked up at me and smiled.

I grabbed the branch again and hit the ice over and over with no success in cracking it. By the time my knees gave out, I sank into the snow on the bank, Georgie’s face gone.

The pond was quiet again, as if nothing had ever happened. 

The only thing I could tell the sheriff was that I last saw him at the frozen pond. Sittin’ in his office, with the coal fire and the January cold pleading to come through the windowpanes, I understood something I’d never wanted to believe. 

The pond knew my brother.

And now it knows me.