A Fountain Of Frozen Secrets

20260110

Written for Luna Asli Kolcu’s “Myths of Winter - Week 6” event.

Today the statue was expected to melt, so nobody was in the town square. That would be uncouth. But it was remarkable the number of people who happened to be near the town square. Close enough to make sure nobody was in the square.
Of course, if questioned, all of them would’ve had a good reason to be where they were which had nothing to do with the statue. If at some point during the winter they had confessed anything to it (and it’d be entirely improper to ask, such that the appropriate response would be silence regardless of what the honest answer would be) it would be something so minor, so mundane, so unembarrassing, that they couldn’t care less who heard it.
But, well, it wouldn’t do for someone to be lurking when the statue melted, to listen to everyone else’s confessions as they broke free. Yes.
So people loitered, too busy with their important business to even make eye contact with their neighbours. Watching the statue out of the corner of their eye.
While it looked as if it were cast from pure, unnaturally clear ice, it somehow melted from the inside out, the core slowly turning to water as the thaw approached and hairline cracks increasingly marring its previously crystalline surface. Until it reached a tipping point and… sploosh. The water collapsed into the drained fountain basin and every word whispered to it over the frozen months tumbled out at once.
Of course, this produced a cacophony where it was unlikely any single confession would be audible.
But.
Nobody was to be nearby when the statue was due to melt. It wasn’t a rule, exactly, for it was never spoken. It was simply the way things were.
Children sat indoors and fidgeted. Annoyed by being told to stay inside when the weather was finally warming up. Even those who understood why they couldn’t go out and play today thought it silly. Who’d care that much about secrets?
It was good their tender minds didn’t yet grasp what forms secrets could take, particularly ones which burdened the carrier such that they were willing to resort to magic to lift their guilt and shame.
Not that it felt like casting magic. The statue formed itself every year at the first frost, always a gently smiling maiden. All you had to do was walk close and whisper what was eating at your heart and nerves. She listened. Somehow. Her wise eyes gazing through and into you. And at once you’d feel better. Comforted. Relieved. No matter what you confessed, the Ice Maiden granted total absolution.
But… then came the thaw. And your furtive whisper burst out into the world for all to hear.
Except that nobody would hear, because nobody was near the statue. Half the village happened to be close enough to make sure.
The tension was twanging. Various excuses were wearing thin.
Then…
A sharp crack as the ice gave way, and the gushing sound of water dropping into the basin - almost drowned out by the voices echoing across the square, a mishmash of shame and remorse and envy and guilt and hate which flared and died in an instant.
Everyone exhaled. Still acting entirely casual, and avoiding one another’s eyes as they started packing up the urgent business which had kept them out here.
All was settled. All was safe.
Without prompting the fountain started again, its plinking eerily like a giggle, and everyone bustled indoors.

Prompt was “In the town square stands a statue made of ice. Whisper your secrets and it absolves you—the guilt lifts, the shame melts away. But everything spoken to the statue is preserved in the ice. Come spring, when it melts, every secret pours into the square for anyone to hear.”