The Witch In The Well

Prologue

I remember it all so vividly, as if it were only yesterday. I just have to close my eyes and I’m there again, watching it all happen.

We have come out to the well at dusk; the bleak light, filtered through the treetops, paints branches on Cathy’s skin. It makes her look unfamiliar all of a sudden, like an alien creature—a wild thing.

I promise you want to see this. Just be patient, Elena. She looks back at me with her face half-draped in shadows.

Cathy. I know that I whine but I can’t help it. I would rather be back at the castle, writing in our diaries, or even playing stupid board games with Erica. What I absolutely don’t want is to be out in the woods as the sun sets, draping everything in twilight colors. We are both wearing shorts, and the air is turning chilly. I have two mosquito bites on my calf that itch, and my fingers smell sickly sweet from raspberry lemonade. I ought to take a shower. It’s been a musty day.

Cathy turns back to me so abruptly that her long, dark braid dances down her back. Well, it’s you who always complains that everything is boring, she says. But this is not! Trust me!

I roll my eyes when her gaze is turned back on the well. I’m not sure if what Cathy considers exciting is the same thing that I consider exciting, which is why it’s usually my games we play, even if Cathy is the one who actually lives in these woods. She’s just not usually very inventive. When she stops by the well, an ancient-looking ring of stone, and grabs my hand in hers, I shudder. I look around at the dimly lit woods, and wonder what I’m supposed to see.

There’s nothing here, Cathy, I say. Her hand is as sticky as mine is. What am I even looking for?

She gives me a look brimming with disappointment, begging me to give her a chance. I told you, we have to be quiet, she half whispers and squeezes my hand. We just have to look at the trees on the other side of the well. Just there, between the spruces. You can’t take your eyes away from that spot; just stare at it until it happens.

"What happens?" I try to take a step forth, to examine the trees, but Cathy holds me back.

You have to look across the well or it won’t work. She sounds impatient.

What won’t work? I can’t help but smirk.

Oh, will you just wait? She gives me another scolding look. I went to the lake with you even if I didn’t want to, and I had a great time. You will too if you just do as I say. Don’t you want to see something wonderful?

Sure, I indulge her and roll my eyes again. Cathy’s stories are rarely fantastic, but this one was—enough so that I wanted to come, but now that we are at the well, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to see something that’s actually there, or something we just make up. I’m unsure what kind of game this is. I stare at the darkness between the heavy spruces until my eyes water, and the rank smell of the well makes me twitch my nose. I want to ask Cathy why we have to look across the well, but she has narrowed her eyes and is breathing slow and deep, much like Mom does when she’s doing her meditation. I try to copy her, if only to have this done with. Then suddenly, Cathy squeezes my hand so hard that it hurts.

Look, her voice is a quiet hissing. Look, Elena. I told you so!

I focus my gaze and then I see it; there’s something solid between the trunks. It looks like a large heap of stones, covered by moss and lichen. At first I think it’s mist that swirls around it in fine, pale gray tendrils, but then I can tell that it’s smoke, oozing out from the stone pile’s top. I can’t smell it, though; there’s no scent of burning.

Then I see the door.

It is small and rectangular, made of wood that looks old and water damaged. Dark stains bleed from the bottom up. The boards are held together by twine, and the handle is made from wood as well. Around it grows some peculiar plants from between the stones; some are light and curly, others long and stringy. It looks like hair pushed into the cracks. On the ground before the door, something glows white in the poor light. At first, I think it is mushrooms. Then I think it is bones.

Oh fuck, I finally curse. Oh fuck, Cathy. We have to get out of here!

No, no. She grabs a hold of my arm to keep me there with her. It’s not real, Elena. Don’t you see? If you squint your eyes, it’s gone again.

I look across the well, but the small stone cabin is still there. The smoke still curls into the air. Looks pretty real to me! I try to wrestle my arm free but Cathy won’t let go. Her short fingernails dig into my skin and it hurts.

Wait! she begs. Wait! Just wait until she comes out. Her eyes are large and pleading, but I won’t have it.

"Cathy, we have to go!" I can’t believe that she’s just standing there, looking at that ugly little cabin as if unable to resist.

Don’t you want to know who lives there? She gives me a weird smile and looks all excited.

No, I fucking don’t! Let me go! Just as I am about to kick her in one of her bad legs, I finally manage to wrestle my arm free.

Look, Cathy says again, sounding breathless. She comes out now.

I dare a glance in the cabin’s direction, and keep my gaze there just long enough to see that the door is indeed being opened from the inside, scraping along the ground.

Then I bolt.

Elena! Cathy is hot on my heels, pleading and unhappy. It’s not dangerous! she promises behind me. She won’t hurt us!

I’m in no mind to stick around and find out, though, and rush down the path toward the castle, with my heart pounding in my chest and my mouth flooding with a metallic taste—like well water.

Fuck you, Cathy! I yell, but only because I’m scared.

Wait for me! she calls, far behind me now. She can’t move very fast on the uneven ground. I thought you’d like it. She wails. I thought it was the sort of thing you liked.

Fuck you! I cry again, loudly toward the sky, and it does help a little to curse at the moon. I come to a halt, panting and sweating, and angrily wipe tears from my eyes. I wait for Cathy to catch up, but mostly because I don’t want to be alone in these woods in the dark—not after what I’ve just seen.

She keeps rambling beside me as we continue down the path. It’s not really there, you know, so it can’t hurt us—

Shut up, I mutter. Shut up! I keep my gaze glued to the dark ground before me, just so I won’t have to look at her. My arm still hurts where her fingernails bore into my skin.

Please, Elena, don’t be angry, she pleads, but of course I’m utterly furious, and remain so until the brilliant glow from the castle windows penetrates the dark night before us.

Perhaps it never truly subsides.

When I ask Cathy about it later, she says that it never happened.

Fall

1

An open letter to the people of F—

I will openly state for the record that I had absolutely nothing to do with the death of Elena Clover. Despite our differences, no one could be more shocked by what happened to her than me. I had known Elena since we were girls, and though we later grew apart, she always kept a very special place in my heart.

I honestly think it is completely unfair that I’m being accused of this, as I have never been anything but an asset to this town, giving freely of my time and energy, especially in regards to the town archive and my extensive historical research. To have this taint to my name is a disgrace, and you should all know better! Don’t think that I don’t hear your whispers, or feel your eyes upon me as I venture the streets of F—. I know what you are saying. I hear it like a snake in the grass, a quiet slithering, barely there, but lethal all the same. You should all be careful. We have a sorry history when it comes to gossip and rumors in this town, and we should all have learned our lesson by now: not a single wagging tongue is innocent when the witch goes down the well.

In the spirit of full disclosure, and in the hopes of stopping the rumor mill, I have opted to write this letter with the aim of sharing all that I know about Elena’s return to F—, and what happened between us over the summer. I swear I won’t hold anything back, and feel confident that you too will be convinced by the end of it that the villain of this piece (if one there must be) is Elena herself, and not me. Even if things got a little heated and a smidge out of hand between us, that hardly leaves me with any responsibility for what happened to her later. I will tell you what I know, and then I hope the accusations will be firmly put to rest.

The story is a long one, so I will post it in installments here on my Facebook page and on www.ilsbethclark.com. I’m also in discussions with the editor at the F— Daily, in the hopes of having a shorter version of the account printed there. As I said, I have nothing to hide, and it is truly heinous that I’m even forced to take these steps, but no one is safe when the rumors spread—just look at poor Ilsbeth Clark! It is a shame that it has come to this, but I see no other way of quenching this unpleasantness. It is unfair to Elena’s memory too, as she’s no longer here to have her say, but I’ll do my very best to be fair in my recounts, and tell everything just the way that it happened. I will prove to you all that my hands are clean and that Elena’s death has nothing to do with me.

If you would like to read more about the terrible consequences of rumormongering, I suggest you read my novel, Ilsbeth in the Twilight, available from the bookstore on Main Street, at the town library, or from my website: www.ilsbethclark.com.

Signed copies are available on request.

2

As I mentioned in the first installment, I had known Elena Clover for years. The first time we met, I was a girl of ten, and Elena was one year younger. It was the same year that her uncle, John, bought the summerhouse that’s situated on the grounds where Nicksby once sprawled with its many acres of land.

I know the summerhouse is much admired in town, some of you call it the castle, but I assure you, it is not. It is an architectural anomaly with its multitude of widows of various shapes and garish tints, its gross tower and tasteless spire. How John decided upon that ghastly shade of arsenic green for its outer walls is anyone’s guess, I suppose.

Elena always claimed that her uncle was an artist, but I never saw him do anything remotely artistic. Mostly he spent his days by the lake with his fishing rod or in the kitchen with his old radios, tinkering with their innards, hoping to bring one to life. Elena’s paternal grandfather came from money and was a judge before he retired, so I guess Uncle John could spend his time thus without having to worry too much about the bills.

That first summer, Elena had arrived with her mother and brother to help John get the house in shape. It had stood empty for a time by then, and the walls were rotted through in some places. The paint (a simple white at the time) was flaking, and the plumbing left much to be desired. I remember they had to pee outside for the first three weeks of their stay.

As most of you already know, my father’s farm was located just a five-minute walk from the summerhouse, with the properties separated only by an old wooden fence that grew a multitude of lichen. While Nicksby still existed, cattle had been crazing on the land between us, but since it burned, the woods have taken over, and there’s a stretch of dense forest there now, rife with pine trees, oaks, and firs.

And the well, of course. The well is there too, badly neglected and almost forgotten, a silent witness to history.

It didn’t take many days from the summer guests’ arrival before the sounds of other children playing had me venture through those woods to investigate. I was at that time a lonely child. As most of you are aware, both my legs needed surgery after a car accident when I was eight. This required me to stay in the hospital for long stretches of time, and move around on crutches. I didn’t spend much time in school and didn’t see many children, besides my older sisters. The only other girl my age who lived in our neck of the woods had sadly disappeared the same year, likely kidnapped by her biological father. I had not been very close to Flora, but felt her absence all the same. That summer was also the first time since the accident when I had neither casts nor steel screws spiking out of my legs, having just recovered from the last procedure. Though I did not walk well yet, I managed to move around.

I remember being restless, and eager to experience something else. Something that was not the farm with its squat little house and a barn filled with lowing cows, the endless wheat fields, or the reek of manure. I wanted to see people who were not my mother with her tired face and drab clothes, my father with his dour expression, or my tittering sisters, already halfway through puberty by then, with glossy lips and ridiculous clothes, not at all concerned with a little thing like me. People who were not doctors, nurses, or physiotherapists with insistent and hard, kneading hands.

I think I was hungry for joy.

Elena had that in abundance. Back then, she was a coltish girl with golden skin and a freckled face. Her hair looked like wheat that had ripened in the sun, and every time she washed it, her mom helped her braid it so it later fell down her back as a crimped sheet of gold. The first time I saw her, she and her younger sister, Erica, were out on the unkempt lawn drinking raspberry lemonade from straws. They had brought out a set of wrought iron furniture that had once been white but had since turned a shade of pale yellow. The chairs and table rested on some flagstones under a gnarled old cherry tree, and the girls sat on seats of iron leaves with the pitcher of lemonade between them on the table. The sun was very bright that day, blazing from a pure, blue sky. Elena wore denim shorts over a red swimsuit, while her sister had donned a blue T-shirt and jeans. Erica had a purple bucket hat perched upon her head, hiding most of her chestnut curls from view.

I remember that I thought the two of them looked glorious, as cut from a Botticelli painting, for no other reason but that their newness gave them a special shine. These were city kids for sure; I could sense it just from the way they sat, or the way that they laughed, all loud and carefree in the wildflower-studded grass.

I didn’t dare to approach them. I was scared stiff by the worldliness of those two. When Erica whipped out a handheld game console, I thought that I should die. My parents could never afford such luxuries. I stood among the blackberry brambles that edged the garden and just drank in the sight of them until their mom, tall, slim, and freckled like Elena, came out and called them back inside, tempting their bellies with spaghetti. Then I limped back home again.

I never told Elena I was there that day.

That same night, I remember staring at myself in the cracked mirror over the bathroom sink for a good long while. I wondered why my hair looked so drab and lanky while hers was such a halo, why my skin was pale and not blessed with any freckles but just some unflattering splotches of red. I remembered her long, lean legs under the shorts, and thought of my own: weak and marred by angry scars. I don’t think I felt jealousy, per se; it was more of a reflection on how unjust the world could be. I didn’t think badly of Elena because of it, rather I was powerfully drawn to her, and the next day I went back to the summerhouse. I wasn’t merely curious anymore, but it seemed vitally important to connect with this girl. I’m not sure why I felt that way, but I did.

Perhaps I wanted to see if some of her dripping beauty would transfer onto myself, as if just by being near her, the golden sheen would coat me, too.

I found the sisters working that day, or pretending to, anyway. Erica pushed the lawnmower around. It was an ancient thing with no engine; rust bled through the green paint. Elena stood by the table, emptying dead greenery from old flowerpots into a black plastic bag. She had tied a kerchief with a strawberry print over her hair to keep the draft from playing with it and blowing it into her eyes. She wore a pink T-shirt over the denim shorts that day, it was a nice one with puffed sleeves and heart-shaped buttons running down the chest. I immediately wanted one, and tried to picture what it would look like on myself.

The weather was cooler that day, though still warm, and the sky was a pale shade of gray, yet Elena still seemed to shine before me, and I remember thinking how unfair it was from my spot among the brambles.

It was then that she saw me, standing there in my blue plaid dress among the monstrous growth of blackberry, and to my own utter delight, she didn’t squint her eyes with disapproval or put up a cold face, but rose her hand in greeting, while a lovely smile appeared on her lips.

Hi, she called out. What’s your name?

Cathy! I called back, while my heart beat fast with excitement.

I’m Elena! answered Elena. Come over here!

I thought that I should die then, from happiness, but worry too, for what if this wonderful girl didn’t like me? I still did it, though. I went to her, slowly made my way across the lawn, barely even noticing the discomfort in my legs.

When I arrived at the table, she offered me a chair.

I just have to finish this, she motioned to the row of metal flowerpots bursting with things long dead that stood waiting by her feet. Then we can play if you like.

I most certainly did want that, and we were friends ever since. Every morning that summer, shortly after breakfast, I laboriously climbed the rotting fence and trekked across the stretch of woods to be with Elena. Sometimes I even had dinner there, grilled cheese sandwiches or chicken salads hastily thrown together by Elena’s mother or uncle. Sometimes I slept over too, sharing the queen-sized bed in Elena’s spacious room up on the second floor. It looked as if an old woman had lived there before, with a crocheted white bedspread and a flower-patterned wingback chair.

Everything in the summerhouse smelled like fresh paint that first summer, as John and Elena’s mom, Susan, were at it in every neglected room, bringing new color and life to the castle. Even if I lived close by, it was as if I woke up to a whole other world when I was there. The light that came pouring in through the widow every morning was brighter, and the air felt somehow cleaner. The grown-ups were attentive and laughed a lot. Elena told me early on that her father had died from cancer, but that it was a long time ago so I didn’t have to feel sorry for her. That was a relief to me, because I would have had some problems feeling that way about her. To me, she did not seem pitiful at all.

It was as if bad things couldn’t touch her.

Though my legs were in poor condition, Elena’s were in excellent shape, and she ran more than she walked. She was rarely ever at peace but sprinted across the lawn while chasing a ball or some such, or to the lake when we went swimming. Elena was the one who taught me how to do that. I had found that it was easier to move my legs under water, and so she decided the time was right for some lessons. By the end of that first summer, I could do breaststrokes and float on my back. To me that was a breathtaking victory after all the damage, and I had my new friend to thank for all of it.

So you see, I truly did love Elena.

I don’t think her shine ever truly transferred to me, though. I looked much the same every night in the mirror, but it felt like it did. It was as if when I was with her, I could do anything; I was stronger, faster, and more daring than I had ever been. If we were playing outside below the cherry tree, draping the furniture in sheets to make tents, exploring the hot attic crammed with old furniture, or roaming the woods surrounding the lake, I felt a sense of freedom that was new to me. Elena never pitied me or asked about my legs, she only accepted things as they were and slowed down her pace so I could keep up.

It truly was pleasant back then.

Too bad it had to come to an end.

Spring

3

Elena Clover’s journal

April 28

I really hate being back here. I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but I do. I’m disappointed, too, that this is how I feel, as I had been hoping that being here among Uncle John’s things, in a place that he loved so much, would be soothing somehow, but it’s not. Instead, it only reopens the wound. I just miss him, a lot, and there isn’t a place in the castle that doesn’t hold memories of him. I even catch a whiff of his cologne from time to time, which only goes to prove my point: he always wore too much of it, but I even miss his vehement denial whenever I mentioned the