Author: Lauren Roland
She laughed.
“Come on, you can’t catch me!” she teased, racing further through the woods, her blue dress flouncing with each step.
He was panting as he chased her, following the trail of swinging branches and leaves. “Won’t you slow down and enjoy the day?” he called after her.
Eventually, she did slow down. Stopped, even, right on the edge of the woods, the daylight dripping through the leaves and putting small bright spots all over her skin. “There’s always time to enjoy the day, Robert,” she sang. “Not always time to mess with you.”
He put his arm around her and laughed as they walked back towards town.
Marina busied herself with wiping her walls down. It was how she started every morning – wiped down the walls in preparation for the day’s wishes. Since paper and water didn’t mix, she couldn’t have a notebook to keep track in, so she used the walls instead. If you scratched hard enough with whatever coin they threw, you could make a pretty decent mark on the wall. Which would be wiped clean the following morning, unless they hadn’t come true yet. In that case, she would move them to a special section of the wall so she could work on them when she got ideas as to how to grant them.
She was still working on the whole coming-true part. Some things she could grant right away. Others, not so much.
Marina settled down on her perch in the wall. It had taken ages to move enough of the stones so there would be a slight dip for her to sit in, but it worked beautifully now. She decided that she’d wait until she heard the bells for ten, and if nobody had thrown a coin in by then, she’d go up to the top and see what was going on. Otherwise, it was gathering both wishes and coins until she had a lull.
She didn’t have long to wait at all.
The sun was now high in the sky and they had left the coolness of the woods far behind them. Just on the outskirts of the town, they came to the old well. The stones may have been more round than square with the passing of years, but it still held cool water.
“D’you want to stop and get some?” Robert asked.
Her breath was coming in short spurts now. “I don’t see why not.”
Robert removed the well cover, drew up the bucket and gave her the cup first. She settled down on the edge of the well to drink.
“Don’t you think it’s a beautiful day, though?” she asked, tilting her head back to stare at the sky. “One of those days where the clouds aren’t too thick and aren’t too thin. Where you can see the sky, but not the sky. Don’t you understand?” She brought her head back down to look at Robert, who had settled down beside her. He laughed and tried to wrap his arm around her waist, but misjudged and she found herself slipping.
It was a little girl who was first this morning. Margie, Marina thought. She’d been here a few times with friends, but never by herself. And never in such a state.
Margie gripped her piggy bank tightly as she peered over the rail into the well. “Please let Kissums come back. I didn’t mean to get mad at her, I really didn’t.” She dropped the entire piggy bank into the well. It splashed heavily.
Marina leaped from her perch and snagged the bank before it could hit the bottom of the well and shatter. It was surprisingly heavy. She looked back up at the sobbing girl and her watery heart broke.
Kissums. The name was familiar. It was Margie’s new kitten. Apparently, she was missing. Marina took a coin from the bank and scratched KISSUMS into the wall. Then she closed her eyes and reached out with her mind.
The kitten was easily located, napping behind the trashcans by the butcher’s back door. She had a full belly of scraps. Satisfied, Marina floated to the top of the well and whispered in Margie’s ear.
Have you tried the butcher shop?
Margie’s crying ceased and she looked around. She’d heard how the well sometimes spoke to people, but she’d always been skeptical. This, though – this she’d heard.
“The butcher shop?”
The butcher shop. Scared little kitten, hungry, she’d probably go to somewhere she smells food.
Margie clambered to her feet and looked around. She couldn’t see Marina, of course, nobody could. But she took off running towards the shop. Marina smiled and settled back onto her perch, picking up the piggy bank and rolling it in her hands. The coins inside jingled.
Not twenty minutes later, little Margie was back at the well, lost kitten in arms. “Thank you,” she called down. Marina looked up at the small silhouette on the edge of the well.
You’re welcome.
She toppled backwards with a squeak. Robert leaned over the well and grabbed for her, catching her by the left arm. Her booted feet tried for a hold on the slick stones of the well, but ended up just dangling uselessly, reflected in the water far below, and her right hand clutched desperately at the arms that were beginning to lose their grip.
“C-come on, now, Robert,” she managed. “You got me. Pull me back up.”
“Sorry about that.” He looked down at her with a mixture of relief and worry. “Good thing I’ve got–”
She smiled up at him, expecting him to set her safely back on the side and then continue on their way back. A different story played out: his hands slipped from hers and she reached for them again, but she was just a little too far gone for him to catch. She plummeted the rest of the way down the well, her billowy dress doing nothing to slow her descent, and landed with a splash and a small shriek in the water at the bottom, some thirty feet down. She sank quickly, but forced herself back to the surface.
“Robert,” she cried, coughing up a mouthful of liquid. She was treading water frantically in the small space that she had. “Please, you have to help.” Her hand touched the smooth walls of the well, worn to an incredible slickness by the decades. “Get the bucket.”
Robert had gone as white as a sheet. She looked so frail from such a lofty height. He panicked. He slammed the covering over the well, muffling her screams, and ran in the other direction, heading as far away from the town as he could.
The scene repeated itself throughout the day. Someone would throw in a coin, make a wish, and Marina would scratch their wish into the wall with the coin. Then she’d use a little ghostly magic and attempt to fix whatever was ailing the wishers.
Day turned into months, which turned into years, which turned into decades. Still Marina scratched wishes into the wall and tried her best to answer them. Days got busier as more and more people heard about the “real” wishing well. She could no longer instantly grant requests, and her lists on the wall would sometimes take three to four hours to remedy at the end of the night. There was one column on the wall that she didn’t touch, though: the wishes she had been unable to grant. They languished, sometimes for years before she was able to give the wisher what they were looking for. Many were looking for miracles.
Fifty years passed, and the day of what would have been her seventieth birthday arrived. She was still stuck in the shell of a twenty-year-old, still stuck at the bottom of the well she’d expired in, and still granting wishes as best she could. She’d celebrated with a walk through the town the night before, marveling at how large it had grown and how few people she recognized were still there. There were more recognizable names in the cemetery, but no flowers on her grave yet. She looked forward to seeing if anybody remembered her day.
By anybody, though, she hadn’t expected him.
Marina’s fingers were bloody and her toes were scraped to hell and back. She’d long ago kicked off her boots to keep them from weighing her down. Her socks had come off soon after. She braced herself against the sides again and attempted her seventeenth shuffle up the wall to freedom. It didn’t work, and as she slid back towards the water she knew she didn’t have the strength to hold on much longer. Her voice was already gone, from all the laughing she’d done earlier in the woods with Robert – where was he? – and from screaming for someone to “Help! Help, please!”
She held on to the two slightly jutting bricks that were right above the water level. It conserved a bit of energy just hanging there instead of trying to tread water. She closed her eyes. “It can’t be that bad, to die,” she whispered. “People do it all the time.”
She was organizing the previous days’ coin collection, sorting it into denominations (somebody had thrown in a fifty-cent piece!) when a large shadow blocked out the sun. She looked up, surprised. Nobody leaned over the well when tossing in their wish; it was a superstition left over from the days when people had still talked about her.
The profile was familiar. That made her smile, considering how few people were still around that had known her in life. She decided to leave her coins and drift closer to see who it was.
Robert McAffey stood staring back at her.
Marina’s arms were stiff. Judging from the weak light coming in from the minuscule cracks in the well covering, she’d been in the water for several hours. She no longer had enough in her to cry, and she was sure her entire body was blue with cold. Robert wasn’t coming back. Nobody was.
She let go of the wall.
He was old. That was a shock. She had seen others grow old, but she’d never imagined that Robert would have, too. His brown hair was white, his green eyes more gray, and his face was a lot droopier than she remembered.
His hand shook as he fished in his pocket and came up with a handful of silver dollars. There were twenty of them, all dating from the year she had died. He stood over the well and held out his hand.
“This is for you, Marina. I wish that I could say that I’m sorry. Fifty years and then some of regretting what I did to you. Who knows why I did what I did? I sure as hell don’t.” He turned his hand over and let the coins fall. They plinked merrily into the water below, unlike Marina’s fatal splash all those years ago. His eyes began to drip.
Marina picked one coin up and scratched ME into the wall.
Robert stood looking into the well for a long time afterward. The feel of the air changed, and tourists looking to toss a coin were deterred by the sight of the old man sobbing by the wishing well. She floated just below, watching him, working up the courage to make the connection. Finally, she did it.
Hello, Robert.
She floated for a while, because every time she started to sink she’d panic and wave her arms and bring herself back to the surface. Eventually, she could no longer feel her arms, and the well was pitch-dark.
She sank. The water closed above her head with a kiss. Her first breath of water caused her to cough, to sputter, to rethink the whole dying thing and try one more time to get up the walls. The second breath was easier, and the third, and then she could feel the bottom of the well scrape against her back. She closed her eyes and sighed.
His head snapped up. “Not funny,” he growled.
I don’t really have much of a sense of humor any more.
He looked around, fury billowing out of his eyes. “What sort of coward would dare–”
That’s a curious question, coming from you, of all people. What sort of coward would leave his fiancé to drown in a well?
By now, Robert was checking around the frame of the well’s little gazebo for hidden wires or speakers. He found none, because there were none to find. “Who are you?”
That’s a pretty stupid question.
“Oh, God.” Robert’s face took on a sickly green tinge. “The well. You’re the well.”
Ding-ding-ding. Give the man his prize.
“You’re the reason all these things come true. Makes sense, though. You were always helping anybody you came across.” A smile crossed the old man’s face. “Even those of them that didn’t deserve it.”
Like you?
He scowled. “That’s not fair.”
They found her the next morning when an elderly gentleman went to the well to get some water on his way back from an early morning walk. She was an ethereal beauty in death, her blonde curls unfurled and drifting across the water, her face as blue as the dress she was wearing. She was peaceful.
The old man was not.
Within twenty minutes of the discovery, the sheriff dragged his macabre prize from the depths of the well. She was limp and water streamed off her clothing. She wasn’t wearing any shoes. They were fished out later, two scuffed black boots, along with her white lace socks.
What do you want to say?
“I spent twenty years in prison for running away.” He passed a hand over his thinning hair and sighed. “I was a coward. I panicked and I left you behind.”
I saw you come to my funeral.
He nodded. “I was a wreck.”
What changed you?
Robert gave a small laugh. “The obvious answer is prison. Several people in there couldn’t believe what I’d done. I was beaten more times than I can count. And I broke. Got out early for good behavior.” His fingers gripped the well’s railing so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “And I’ve hated myself ever since.”
She looked at his arms and noticed the scars. She put her hands on them and he shuddered at the sudden chill.
“Yes, I tried to kill myself. Took me thirty years to get up the courage to come back.”
I forgive you.
He looked up, eyes still red from weeping. “What? Why?”
If you hadn’t, there would be a lot more unhappy people around here. Have you noticed? Fifty years of granting wishes. Everything from finding lost pets to healing broken hearts. I’ve only had twenty-three wishes I’ve been unable to grant. She smiled, even though she knew he couldn’t see her.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “We should have spent the last half-century together. Instead, you’ve spent it at the bottom of a well and I’ve spent it in regret.”
I’m not angry. Not any more. I’ve been able to help so many more people in death. Hundreds and thousands of wishes.
“Thank you.” He relaxed his grip on the railing and straightened up. “What – what do you do with the coins?”
Homeless shelters and people on the street. She paused. A little like a modern Robin Hood. But the rich freely part with their money.
“I’ve got to go.” Robert put out his hand, and he could feel the shiver of her touching him.
I’ll see you around.
The town grew. Marina faded from most memories, but the well was never used for drinking again. The story of the girl in the well was brought up from time to time, but nobody paid attention. Soon, tourists began visiting, and some decided to throw coins into the disused well and make a wish.
It wasn’t long before they realized that their wishes were coming true.
Years passed. More people made wishes, more people found what they wanted. And still Marina worked, and her list of unanswerable wishes gradually dwindled to zero as she figured out how to grant them.
The day she wiped her wall completely clean, someone arrived at the well after midnight.
Marina? It was Robert.
Still here.
A light drifted down to her, and the Robert of old was standing there – her Robert, the twenty-three-year-old wonder she’d fallen in love with all those years ago.
She was suddenly very aware of how she looked – exactly like a drowned girl. Just the way she’d been found.
You’re beautiful, he said. He held out his hand. This time, I’m not leaving you behind. Let’s get out of this well and go home.
She looked around at the blank stones and dark water. She felt the chill and the damp for the first time in decades. She took his hand and her appearance changed. Gone were the limp hair, soggy dress, and bare feet. Her golden curls shone in the moonlight, her dress swayed happily in the wind, and her boot heels clicked softly against the wall of the well.
She smiled, a big smile, one that made her whole face hurt.
Let’s go home.