A River Runs in Vermont

"Real or not, I don't know if there is any correlation. But if it makes you feel better, you can drive back to the pond and return them to the water," Dennis suggested.

"You mean now?"

"No, no, no. Not such a hurry."

He decided to stay for the night. She offered to shower together with him but her nerves were strung too tight to have sex anymore. They hugged and kissed and fell asleep in one another's embrace.

The next morning at 7 a.m., Joanne decided to text Debra, "Can you spare a few hours this morning? This is something important. Prof. Wu and I have something important to talk to you about. Give me your home address and we'll pick you up in half an hour. We're making another trip to Skylight Pond." She felt that if the pond had anything to do with her own bizarre behavior, she owed it to Debra to let her know about the stones.

When they met Debra, the poor girl was only half awake. She was asking all kinds of questions, about what was going on. Joanne had no complete answer. So she just gave her student a truncated version of the story, leaving out her nightmares.

They decided to take Joanne's SUV instead of Dennis's sedan because of the mountainous roads. Using her research notes, she set the GPS to N43.98671° W72.93580° and elevation 3360 feet. Without making any stops, Dennis made the trip in about three hours all the way to the top of Bread Loaf Mountain. Joanne carried the jar of stones in a backpack. The last portion of the drive was on Skylight Pond trail, a muddy road traversing west to east, ascending at a steep incline.

With he parked the SUV at the closest distance to the water, they walked for about five minutes to revisit Skylight Pond. This time, the water had a strange quality. The swimming-pool-sized pond looked like a pot of simmering stew, with small bubbles rising to the surface.

Holding the jar, Joanne looked at Dennis and Debra. He nodded to her, gesturing towards the pond. She took off her socks and sneakers, rolled up her jeans to about knee high, and walked to the spot where she remembered she took the stones. Like making an offering, one stone at a time, she lowered the pebbles to the shallow water. She returned the shiny brownish one the last.

Within seconds, the most amazing thing happened in front of their eyes. The bubbling stopped.

In a minute or two, there were only a few occasional ripples caused by the wind blowing across the pond.

It was April 20, Sunday. Two days before Earth Day.

Under the cloudless clear blue sky in Vermont, standing on top of Bread Loaf Mountain, an enigmatic sense of peace descended upon Joanne.

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Author's note:

This is an entry for the 2014 Earth Day story contest. Feel free to vote and leave comments.