They kept the well covered at all times and told us that we were never to look down there. Even when we were drawing water from it we had to keep our eyes dead ahead. We were never even told why but in those days you listened to your elders without question and hoped you'd survive to be let in on all their secrets as an adult.
All my life I've only heard of one person looking down the well and living long enough to tell us. Her name was Jasmine and she was only nine when she eventually died. We were told it was dropsy but she'd already said what had caused it.
We all knew the fluid in her body was the same water we drank from the well, the same water infested with creatures she described as being a cross between a baby and a puffed up frog. Looking back I now realise she'd been seeing the corpses of the children that had been "lost" during the flu epidemic earlier that year.
The well would have been an easier burial place than the frozen earth but the toxins released by all those decaying bodies caught up with us eventually. We all began seeing them, their little bloated bodies staggering from doorway to doorway, belting their watery lungs out for mothers who had already mourned them and moved on.
Eight weeks after Jasmine died, ten weeks since we began seeing the dead infants, the council ordered the well to be closed for good and a new one dug five miles from there. We knew that wouldn't solve it, only lessen it. Those children should have been brought up and buried in the dirt where they could rest among the worms in peace rather than be left down there to sit and soak for Lord knows how many years.
Any time I walk past the old well I can still hear their muffled cries.
They always sound so fresh.
All my life I've only heard of one person looking down the well and living long enough to tell us. Her name was Jasmine and she was only nine when she eventually died. We were told it was dropsy but she'd already said what had caused it.
We all knew the fluid in her body was the same water we drank from the well, the same water infested with creatures she described as being a cross between a baby and a puffed up frog. Looking back I now realise she'd been seeing the corpses of the children that had been "lost" during the flu epidemic earlier that year.
The well would have been an easier burial place than the frozen earth but the toxins released by all those decaying bodies caught up with us eventually. We all began seeing them, their little bloated bodies staggering from doorway to doorway, belting their watery lungs out for mothers who had already mourned them and moved on.
Eight weeks after Jasmine died, ten weeks since we began seeing the dead infants, the council ordered the well to be closed for good and a new one dug five miles from there. We knew that wouldn't solve it, only lessen it. Those children should have been brought up and buried in the dirt where they could rest among the worms in peace rather than be left down there to sit and soak for Lord knows how many years.
Any time I walk past the old well I can still hear their muffled cries.
They always sound so fresh.
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