Frightful Fairy Tales (3 page)

After that, the twins avoided this “nasty, wicked well that wants to drown us.” But one night when the girls were eleven, Dorret had a very strange dream. In this vision, Dorret watched out of the small window in the attic that stood for the twins’ bedroom as a beautiful damsel rose out of the old abandoned well like a vapor. The damsel drifted through the tall grass toward the Sorrels’ home. As the figure floated closer to the house, she moved out of Dorret’s sight. Moments later a beautiful woman’s face with entrancing pale blue eyes appeared on the other side of the glass. In the light of the full moon, the woman’s expression looked blank, her eyes yearning, her colorless fingertips touching the glass inches from Dorret’s face.

The woman was clothed in shreds of a dress that had once been simple but elegant, seemingly from another era. The damsel’s teeth glinted in the moonlight as she sang to Dorret with the liquid voice of a nightingale.

So many pearls

for pretty girls.

I love you dearly,

I love you sweet.

Come to the well,

and we shall meet.

When Dorret awoke, the woman was gone, and in her place the full moon shone brightly through the window, so bright she thought it might blind her. The girl sat up and rubbed her eyes. Outside, far across the meadow, she heard a woman singing. It was the same voice she had heard in her dream. Dorret suddenly felt afraid. She had once read in a book that those who slept in the light of the full moon would surely go mad by morning and become lunatics. She leapt out of bed and carried her blankets and pillow into the closet. There she finally fell asleep, but only after she pushed a bit of clay into the keyhole to keep the moonlight from shining through.

The next day was Sunday, and Ma and Pa had taken the cart to town for a church social. Dorret sat in the garden, pensive and quiet, scarcely noticing the bright blue sky, the rustling of the aspens, the song of the starlings.

“Why are you so distracted, dear sister?” asked Dulcet. “You have scarcely spoken all morning.” After much coaxing, Dorret told her sister about the beautiful damsel in the well. Dulcet was curious. Was there truly a damsel in the well, or had Dorret simply been dreaming? Hand in hand, the girls ran to the well and pried off the wooden cover. They gazed down into the darkness. Listening very carefully, they heard the faraway sound of dripping water. Tentatively, Dorret called a greeting down into the well. “Hello!” she cried. A very faint voice sounding nothing like her own returned from a distance. “Hello,” it said, echoing her greeting.

Dorret excitedly turned to Dulcet. “See? I told you. She’s in there!”

“Dorret, your imagination has always been so strong,” Dulcet replied. “I’m sure it is only an echo.” This time Dulcet called, “My sister says you’re the damsel in the well. Is this true?” The reply wafted up from the depths of the well, echoing three times in the same ghostly voice, “True, true, true.”

Dulcet and Dorret lay peering down for a few moments longer, mesmerized by what had just occurred. Dulcet turned to Dorret and said, “This is very interesting and all, but Ma and Pa told us to be good. We should go back to the house and wait for them like we’re supposed to.”

As the twins turned to leave, they heard a soft, lilting voice answer from deep in the well:

I’m eating cake.

I’m wearing pearls.

I have more cake

for two good girls.

I’m playing cards,

the game of hearts.

I need to fill

two other parts.

I am alone,

please play with me.

Come down the well

and we’ll make three.

Upon hearing this, Dorret ran back to the barn and fetched the lead rope for one of the horses. Dulcet ran after her, proclaiming that her younger sister should proceed more sensibly and not to rush into things.

“We have been afraid of this well for most of our lives,” Dulcet said. “It cannot be wise to jump into it. If you want to go, though, go ahead and drown yourself.”

Dorret was angry and impatient. “You are frightened and weak,” she said, “but I’m not. And when I climb out of the well with all my pearls, just you see if I share any with you!”

Then Dorret tied one end of the line to the remains of the well’s ragged rope with an adept knot, as any good farm girl could. She wrapped the new line around the arch that spanned the opening for good measure and began to lower herself into the black mouth of the well. She was frightened, of course, but determined not to let her older sister see.

After a while Dorret looked up and was shocked at how far she had descended. The mouth of the well was a small blue hole, her sister’s worried form a tiny silhouette. Then she looked down and saw nothing but darkness; the voice of the damsel grew louder, ever louder. In the narrow shaft of sunlight, Dorret saw something glinting far below.

What a smart little girl.

I long to see.

Come more quickly,

come join me!

Join me,

join me,

join me.

Dorret reached the slimy black bottom of the well and looked eagerly around for the pearls. When she took a step forward, her shoe nearly sank and she heard a crunching sound beneath the mud.

As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, Dorret saw that broken skeletons surrounded her. She lifted her foot to reveal a crushed skull. Her heart raced and she seized hold of the rope, anxious now to return to her sister. But she saw something gleaming white-could it be the pearls? At that moment the damsel stepped out of the shadow. In her outstretched palm she held a pile of teeth.

“So many pearls…,” said the damsel, her laughter making the grating sound of an old hinge.

As the damsel drew near, Dorret saw that the woman’s pale flesh was decomposed in patches, her dark blue veins stitching the skin together crudely. Unlike the beautiful countenance Dorret saw in her dream, the damsel was missing pieces of her ears and the entirety of her nose. The specter’s thin hair hung like spider webs, revealing the shape of her skull. Her bones had broken through the skin at the elbow and wrist. The only thing similar to Dorret’s previous vision was the dress the damsel wore. Now the cold air of the well grew colder still and a smell of drowned, dead things, things rotting away in darkness and the damp permeated the air.

“How old are you, my dear?” asked the damsel, hungrily.

“I’m eleven,” said Dorret, frozen in place by fear.

“I am a two-thousand-year-old spirit, my dear, and I have no body but those I can steal. I stole your grandmother’s fifty years ago but her body is almost worn out. Now I must have yours!”

Dorret leapt for the rope and screamed to Dulcet to pull her up. The damsel clutched Dorret’s right shoe, her grip terrible. Dorret screamed and tried to kick the damsel’s hand away. Though the blows tore loose more of the damsel’s skin, the fiend did not relinquish her grip. At the mouth of the well, Dulcet pulled at the rope with all her might to no avail. Just when Dorret thought she could not pull herself away from the damsel, an idea came to her. She dug the toe of her left shoe into the heel of the shoe the damsel clutched and pried it off her foot. Dorret scrambled up the rope, leaving the damsel clutching her shoe. When she reached the top, Dorret rushed to embrace her sister.

Dulcet and Dorret vowed never to tell their parents about the damsel in the well. The damsel visited Dorret for the rest of her life but only in nightmares. For the evil spirit could not leave the well unless she found a new body, and to this day she has not found one.

And the moral of this story is “Intelligent girls escape the troubles wise girls avoid.”

THE BLACK RIVER

Ivy sauntered along the pathway in the woods; she cooled herself with her collapsible fan and searched the ground for shining stones or hematite to add to her collection.

Ivy was a striking girl and her name suited her perfectly. She had green sparkling eyes the color of ivy, long dark hair that hung in tendrils like ivy, and like her leafy namesake, she was very curious and loved to wander and explore away from her home.

She particularly liked to meander about the forest and on the beach looking for shiny prizes. For Ivy admired the jewels and beads in notion stores and in shop windows, but because she was just a young farm girl who lived with her mother, she could not acquire them. Thus she used the stones she found on her beachcombing journeys in handcrafted jewelry and embroidery she created herself. In fact, as she wandered through the woods, Ivy wore a plain farm-girl dress that she had embroidered with leaves and ivy made of hematite.