The Well (29 page)

She took the water bottle down and drank from it, grateful that she now at least had enough water –
well
, she considered,
perhaps enough until the end
.

Above her, a noisy pounding of wings heralded the return of the bird. She looked up. It sat there, cawing. Becca did her best to ignore it.

As well as she could, she wrung the water out of her soaked clothes and arranged them to dry, as she had before.
Not that it makes much difference,
she reflected.

Then, she set about exercising as much as she could – hampered by the confined space and her weary body. She couldn’t do much, but it did make her feel a little better.

After a while she reluctantly sat back down in the rancid water.

She felt drained – drained of energy, of emotion and of will. Although the thought crossed her mind to listen to some more music, she dismissed it, wallowing in the inevitability of her fate.

The speed with which the rain had fallen was preying on her mind.
What if it rains again?
she thought, doubting that she had the strength to live through another twenty-four hours like the last.

Something was wrong. Her mind was trying to make a connection, but she couldn’t complete the thought. She backtracked, thinking again about the rain. She thought about how long it had taken to fill her lunchbox, even with the rain hammering down hard. It wasn’t quick. Yet, by comparison, the well had filled up very quickly.
Just how much rain would it take for the water to rise above my head?
she thought. And the water had emptied from the well quickly – far faster than it had filled up. Her tired mind struggled to make sense of what she remembered.

It’s coming in from somewhere else,
she realised.
There’s way too much water.
And then, another leap:
And it’s going out somewhere, too. Somewhere fast.

Although Becca had explored pretty much all of the well above the waterline, she’d not really considered anything below it. All she had been aware of under the water had been the deep mud and scattering of rocks – hurting her feet when she stood and her bottom when she sat.

She felt around carefully.

The bottom of the well was indeed muddy – a thick silt that she could dig deeply into. It was hard to tell how much there was of it. Maybe six or eight inches; more perhaps. Near the edge of the wall, her hands touched a large, smooth rock. She lifted it – no, it was too light for a rock. She held it up out of the water, and then dropped it in horror, screaming. It was a small human skull, that of a child.
Smaller than a child
, she thought.
A baby.

Above her, the bird cawed in response to her scream.

Any thought, any hope that the woman had just been a dream or the product of her imagination disappeared.
Oh my God,
she thought.
Just how long has that been there?

“You fucking bitch!” she screamed. The only reply came from the bird.

She pulled herself together.
You just spent the night sat on a corpse
, she thought.
You can handle a few old bones.
She began to feel around again.

She found the skull again, and moved it over near Matt – so she would know where it was. Then she continued hunting. Within a few minutes, she’d found dozens more bones and another skull. She grouped them all together with the first skull.

Her hands also began to find other items. There were several coins; she couldn’t see well enough to identify them but some didn’t feel like modern currency – they were too rough and thick. There were also, literally, dozens upon dozens of pins and needles. These were all old, badly made and large; even to Becca, who had almost no knowledge of archaeology, it was obvious that they were very old. The coins made some kind of sense –
after all
, she thought,
don’t we throw coins in a well to wish?
She had no idea about the pins and needles, though. She placed all of these with the bones.

It took her over an hour, but she cleared the bottom of the well of everything except the silt. Where she could, she dug into the silt to retrieve objects lying there. There were more bones, pins, needles and lots of stones.

Tired and exhausted, she sat back – frustrated.
How is the water getting in and out?
she thought. After resting a while, she tried again, this time feeling around the side of the well itself.

Almost at once she found what she was looking for: a hole, perhaps a foot across, and three or four inches deep. She pushed away the mud which had collected around the entrance. Then, tentatively, she put her hand inside – gently probing around. There was mud, some more stones and a couple of bones within reach on the bottom, but above those, her hand wafted around in water.

It’s got to be coming from somewhere and going out somewhere
, she reasoned.

Of course!
The thought hit her like a slap.
The culvert: high above the quarry pool. Most of the time it’s nothing more than a trickle, but when it rains –

She tried to gauge the place in the wall that was opposite the opening and then moved to it, feeling around. Sure enough, there was another hole, though this one was much, much smaller.
One in, one out,
she thought.
The well had been dug down to an underground stream, that had probably existed way before the quarry had been dug.

Becca sat back, thinking hard.

She was pretty sure that from the well to the quarry pool wasn’t
that
far. She wasn’t good with distances, but she thought it might perhaps be between fifty or a hundred yards.
Closer to a hundred
, she decided.

If the weather was good, people often came to the pool. She wondered if there was any way she could get a message out. She had paper, pens and pencils, she realised.
Would the paper make it all the way to the pool?
There was no way of knowing, although common sense said that it would.
What if the paper got stuck at the grating? Even if it fell through, what if there’s no one there? If there is someone, would they take any notice?

Becca’s initial excitement evaporated.
It might work
, she thought,
but it might not. More likely not.
But, since it was the only hope she had, she decided to give it a try anyway, once she’d rested.

Another thought was gnawing at her. She kept splashing her hand gently in the water until the
eureka
moment arrived.
Why doesn’t the water all go away?

Now that,
she thought,
is interesting.

There can’t be water all of the way down the tunnel – or whatever it is – otherwise, the well would be dry. The water would all just run away. There has to be at least one air pocket.

It was, she realised, like the U-shaped drain from a toilet. An air pocket inside ensures that the water returns to the same height after a toilet has been flushed.

She went back to the larger hole, crouched in front of it, put her hand inside and felt around. It was hard to reach too far inside the hole without getting so low that her head was under water, but she stretched as far as she could. The tunnel was much bigger on the inside, but Becca found it difficult to determine its size.

How large?
she wondered.

An idea surfaced in her mind: an idea so deeply frightening that considering it even for a fleeting second seemed utterly insane.

If I could just make the entrance big enough
, she thought, trying to decide whether the hole beyond the entrance was big enough for her to squeeze into. Terrified, she dismissed the idea – there were just too many reasons why it would be foolish to even try.
Fifty yards,
she thought,
perhaps one hundred, under water, with possibly no air pocket, in a space that could be way too tiny for most of the distance.

She sat back down in the water, her mind racing. Now that the thought had surfaced – and even though it was madness – it refused to go away.

She ran through the scenario in her mind, exploring its flaws. Tired and hungry, Becca found it hard to think clearly, but she mentally listed the problems as best she could. First, she had no real idea how far the tunnel ran – it could be twice what she had estimated. Next, there was no way of knowing if she could fit down its entire length – it could be little more than a crack in some places. Then, there was her strength – normally she had a great deal of stamina, but now she was desperately weak. Holding her breath while swimming under water in a public pool was something she’d been able to do for years, but that was totally unlike crawling through a tight tunnel. Also, since there would be no light – a dreadful thought – there would be no way of gauging progress. And, worst of all, she realised, she could crawl in entirely the wrong direction.

Two holes
, thought Becca.
I’ve no way of knowing which one, if any, leads to the quarry. And what if I have a coughing fit partway down the tunnel? I’d end up trapped, breathing in water. And, if I did make it, I’d be stuck halfway up the quarry wall, behind a metal grille. So, if I can’t move the grille, I’m just as stuck – although someone might come. If I can move the grille, it’s got to be a ten or fifteen-foot drop into the water – followed by a swim that I probably won’t have the strength for by then.

It wasn’t hard to come up with reasons why she would fail. There were plenty – and probably as many more that she hadn’t even considered.

Any elation she’d felt at her discovery had been beaten down by Becca’s own logical objections. She felt tears trickle down her cheeks and instinctively brushed them away, her wet hands only making her face wetter still.

Becca felt utterly defeated by the sheer volume of factors conspiring to keep her in the well. The most depressing thing of all was that if she did die halfway along the tunnel, she’d probably never be found. Even if they found Matt, she doubted it would occur to anyone to hunt for her
below
the water. It would be the bravest thing she’d done – and, if she died, no one would ever know.

There were so many reasons why she couldn’t do it and only one reason why she must: if she didn’t, she’d almost certainly die. The chances of someone finding her within the next few days were almost none, she knew.

What’s worse, she knew that if she was going to take this insane route out, it would have to be very soon. She had plenty of water, but no food. She couldn’t remember how long someone could last on water alone, but it was certainly only several days. But that would be several days of getting continually weaker. In a couple of days, any real exertion would be totally beyond her.
It might be bad now
, she thought,
but I’m in far better shape now than I will be in a few days.
But maybe all I would be doing would be choosing how I die, fighting for at least a chance of life rather than sitting here waiting for the end
.

Becca’s low morale was a depression that seemed deeper than the well itself, something she felt equally unable to climb out of. Her mood annoyed her because it ran counter to her usual determination to succeed. She decided that rather than focus on why she would fail, she’d think about how she could succeed.

Although she had never thought so until now, she was blessed with a petite build and light frame.
Bony Becca
was probably the only one of her group of friends who could even consider squeezing into such a tight place. And if anyone could hold their breath for so long, it would be her. And Becca was convinced that at some point along the way, there would be at least one air pocket – only that could explain the way the well’s water level had dropped so quickly, but then stopped. Plus, if she needed a little extra air, she could carry the empty water bottle – it wouldn’t be much, but it could be the mouthful that made the difference.

Even with all of those things in its favour, Becca knew it was still a harebrained plan. But harebrained was better than nothing. Better than sitting in the dark and wet, waiting to die.

Becca decided that she had nothing to lose by at least identifying which of the two holes led towards the quarry – and then perhaps trying to enlarge the hole until it was big enough for her.

She knelt in front of one of the holes and placed her hand inside, hoping to be able to feel the flow of the water. After a couple of minutes, she gave up. If the water was moving, it was impossible to tell. Disheartened, she moved to the smaller of the two holes and tried again. Again, she could feel nothing.
It probably barely moves when the water’s at its natural level
, she thought. One hole was as good a choice as another, but even at 50/50, the odds did not seem good enough to Becca to justify her life on a guess.

Becca tried to think through the problem – to remember where she and Matt had been standing when they fell into the well; how they fell and where they had fallen. She was pretty sure that they had been standing on the side of the well facing away from the ruined cottage. That would mean that the quarry would have been to her left before she stood on the wall to kiss Matt and to her right when she was on the wall and fell backwards. So, it would be to Matt’s left, unless he had twisted as he fell. That reasoning made it the smaller of the two holes. She held her hand there again, but still couldn’t feel anything.

Becca sat back and pondered, coughing.
Even if it was flowing slowly, it still had to be moving
, she reasoned.
It trickles out of the culvert
–
but it does trickle, even in the middle of summer.

Picturing the culvert in her mind gave her hope – it hadn’t occurred to her before now, but the hole was easily big enough for someone to climb into, so perhaps the same was true of much of the tunnel. That was encouraging, but it didn’t solve her immediate problem: which of the two holes led to the quarry?