Beneath the Ice
"Natalie. You're going to have to tell someone eventually, and I'm a good place to start."
Natalie Black looked away, deliberately avoiding her friend's question. "No. I can't tell anyone, Violet. I just can't."
Violet rolled her eyes and brushed her blue hair behind her ear. "Come on, Nats. What really happened six years ago?"
It was mid-January in Nuvema Town. The snow fell softly out the window, and the ten-year-old Natalie Black looked out the window impatiently as her mother did her green hair for her. "Mom, can we please just go?!" Natalie begged, pulling out of her mother's grip and messing up the barrette design she was doing.
Hilda Harmonia huffed before replying, "Okay, fine. But don't cry to me when your hair gets messed up by the hat." Hilda blew a strand of brown hair from her navy blue eyes, eyes she shared with both of her daughters. "Go tell your dad we're going, I'll be down in a minute."
Natalie squealed excitedly and sprinted down the hallway to her younger sister Gravy's room, where the green-haired six-year-old was in the middle of a tea party with her father, N Harmonia, and N's Zoroark. "Dad, Mom and I are going figure skating!"
N looked up with an amused smile and nodded to his daughter. "All right, but be careful. The ice is really thin outside." he replied before turning back to the tea party.
Natalie escaped the flashback with a vehement shake of the head. "No. Please, don't make me think about it." she muttered.
"Natty, it's not healthy to push it to the back of your head. Let yourself remember." Violet looked at Natalie understandingly, silently urging the younger girl to continue.
Natalie took a deep breath and let herself remember.
Natalie ran ahead, and when she reached the waterfront on Route 1, she turned around to wait impatiently for her mother, who was taking her sweet time walking to the frozen beach. "Come on, Mom!" Natalie called, crossing her arms and pretending to be mad. But honestly, she was too excited to be mad. She was going skating with her mother! For real!
Hilda finally caught up with her daughter and looked at the girl with an amused smirk on her face. She took her daughter's hands and pulled her onto the ice, teaching her how to skate slowly. When it looked like Natalie had the hang of it, she released the ten-year-old's hands and watched Natalie try to go solo.
She slipped. A lot. By the time she was finally able to skate around without falling over, she grinned and skated in circles even though her butt felt like it would freeze right off.
"Don't go out too far!" her mother warned, grinning widely.
"Okay!" Natalie replied, not really intending to follow her mother's order.
Natalie was crying now, and frequently wiped the tears away from her face. Violet had a hand on her shoulder.
When she was about twenty feet away from the shore, she noticed that the Pokemon under the water were moving. It wasn't completely frozen over here like it was over in the shallow water. The idea that she could fall through any moment made Natalie panic.
"Moooooooom!" she hollered. "Mom, I'm scared!"
Hilda, who had been skating in circles, looked up to her daughter and shook her head. "I told you not to go out so far. Come back in, Natalie Amelia Black. Right now."
Natalie attempted to skate forward but fell on her rear and, close to a full-on panic attack, hollered for her mother again. "Moooom! Please come get me!" she whined like a five-year-old.
Hilda good-naturedly shook her head and skated forward to get her child.
"I was just a kid . . ." Natalie sniffled pathetically.
"Just keep remembering, Nats." Violet smiled comfortingly, which did nothing for the despairing teenager.
Hilda lifted her daughter into her arms and attempted to look cross, but it only came off as an amused smile. Natalie was infuriated. How could she be amused at a time like this, when her older daughter was having a panic attack?
"It's okay, Natal-"
She didn't complete her sentence.
There was a crack from below their feet, and the ice gave out.
It felt like an hour, but it was more like half a second later when the shock of the cold water hit Natalie and Hilda like a wrecking ball. Hilda heaved her daughter up onto the ice.
"Mom!" Natalie couldn't hold the panic back.
"Natalie, go get your dad!"
Natalie wasted no time and was off like a shot for home. She burst open the front door and sprinted up the stairs to Gravy's room.
N looked up as soon as the door was slammed open. "What happened? Why are you wet?" her father sounded panicked.
"We fell through the ice and Mom is stuck in the water!" Natalie managed between pants. N ran off to save his wife, and Gravy sat beside her sister. After what felt like hours, her father returned carrying her mother.
"Well, that doesn't sound too devastating. I mean, you both got out alive, right?" Violet was confused as to why her friend was heaving great sobs.
"I'm not done yet." Nats replied.
One week later, her mother had pneumonia, bad pneumonia. She hadn't left the bed since the day they fell through the ice. Now, however, when Natalie entered the room, she was unnaturally slow-breathing.
"Mom?" Natalie asked nervously, taking her mother's hand in her own.
Hilda looked to Natalie with tired eyes. "I'm sorry," she apologized.
Hilda Elizabeth Black-Harmonia breathed one last breath, and was still.
Natalie let out an agonized cry, and began to sob, clutching her mother's hand to her own. "Mommy." she finally managed to choke out, "Mommy, come back. Mommy, come back." she would repeat this for hours before N came in to retrieve her.
"I'm sorry, Mommy. I should have been braver."
Natalie was beyond it now. "It was years before I would ever talk to anyone again. I was scared I would kill them, too." she wailed.
Violet pulled her friend into a hug. "Natalie, you didn't kill your mother. Pneumonia did."
"But if it weren't for me, she wouldn't have gotten pneumonia."
Violet had no answer for that. Natalie broke free from her grasp and sprinted out to the graveyard on the other side of Nuvema. She located what she was looking for in seconds.
Here Lies Hilda Elizabeth Black-Harmonia
Loving Wife and Mother
December 17th, 1999 – January 15th, 2026
I'm Sorry
"I'm sorry, Mommy. I should've been braver." Natalie whimpered, wondering if her mother could hear her. Her mother's Oshawott, who pretty much lived in the cemetery, curled itself into her lap comfortingly.
She choked out one last time, "I'm sorry."