Daughter of the Lake

Beneath the weeping trees lay a lake dark as glass, holding secrets too old for prayer. From its depths rose a pale girl, her hair tangled with lilies, her eyes shining like drowned stars. Upon her head perched a black crow, silent but watchful, its wings folded like a crown of shadows.
She drifted along the water’s edge, her song no more than a sigh, and wherever her voice touched, flowers bent as though in reverence. Some said the lake had dreamt her into being, a child of sorrow and moonlight. Others whispered she was a soul returned, bound to the mirror of water until the crow released her.
Still she lingers half legend, half reflection waiting for the one who dares to look too long into the lake and see her looking back.