by Jack Lewis
I still didn’t know if I’d believed it, but Jeremiah was right; better to risk believing and be wrong, than to be cynical and then regret it. I knew his change in heart, hell, in philosophy, only came about because it was his family that was in trouble this time.
The whys didn’t matter. All that mattered was that we did everything we could. While the police and others were searching for Hannah, we’d do what we could here.
“It’s clear,” said Jeremiah. “Most of the lazy bastards have probably given up looking.”
The well had a pulley attached to it. I wrapped the rope around it and then checked the pulley was fixed securely to the well. For what we had planned, the last thing I needed was for it to break. Even thinking about that made me want to curl up into a ball.
As confident as I could be about the pulley, I still wrapped the rope around it and fed a little into the well to test it. It worked; that was something, at least.
“You’ve got the Dictaphone?” said Jeremiah.
I tapped my pocket. “Hand me the flashlight.”
He gave it to me, and I put it in my pocket.
Jeremiah started wrapping rope around me. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he said. “If this works, I don’t know what you’ll find. I don’t know…where you’ll go.”
I’d be lying if I’d said I wasn’t scared. My stomach had shrivelled to the size of a walnut, and the forest seemed like my own version of hell. My nerves were fluttering worse than the birds settling into their nests in the trees.
Jeremiah’s niece was gone, and as crazy as this was, this could be a way to save her. A year ago, I’d have dismissed gateways and spellwords as bullshit, but then I’d gone to Scotland with Jeremiah. I knew now that things existed that we couldn’t explain, and it wasn’t enough to try to be rational about things.
We had to try this, and it had to be me. Even if Jeremiah wasn’t the heaviest of us, he had a busted leg. There was no choice.
“Are you sure you can use the pulley?” I said.
“My leg is knackered, not my arms. Trust me, Ella.”
I nodded. Having faith in him was essential right now. Without that I wouldn’t be able to do it, but I equally wouldn’t be able to live with myself if they never found Hannah, and I knew I hadn’t tried.
Jeremiah tied the rope around me. “I know you’re scared. This is a half-hitch knot, okay? It won’t come loose.”
“Okay.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “The fact that you’re doing this means more than I’d ever say, Ella. I’ll never forget it. You’ll be okay.”
Then he pulled me into a hug. As he squeezed me tight, I couldn’t believe it. I smelled his sweat, his unwashed clothes, and even with that, the hug meant more to me than I could have said. It was like something had changed between us. Countless days together on the road, and this was what it took.
With the pulley secure and the rope around my waist, I climbed up onto the edge of the well so my legs were dangling over the edge.
“I’ve got the rope,” said Jeremiah. “Ready when you are, Ella. Play the Dictaphone at the bottom. Wherever it takes you, whatever happens, the rope is attached. If…if it leads somewhere, get Hannah and get out. Okay?”
I felt dread churning in me then. The darkness of the well seemed even more pronounced. “Okay. Ready.”
I lowered myself down into the well and then struggled to turn so that my belly was against the well wall, and I was gripping the edge with my fingers. I was almost wholly inside it now. It felt like I was climbing down into the mouth of a giant whale.
“You need to let go,” said Jeremiah. He was only a few feet above me, but it was so dark in there that it felt like he was lifetimes away.
“Ella, let go,” he said.
But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I wanted to get out. To tell him to help me up.
No. I had to think of Hannah.
Taking a deep breath, I let go. I heard the sound of the rope unravelling, and I fell a few feet further into the darkness, before stopping with such a sudden jolt that it hurt my stomach.
“I’ve got you,” he shouted. “I’ll lower you. Flash your torch when you reach the bottom so I know when to stop.”
And with that I descended into the darkness of the well. Soon the calls of the birds and chirps of the forest insects were gone, replaced by nothing but silence. The darkness was so thick I could feel it on my face. I couldn’t help but imagine that it was like being in a shark cage, being lowered into the depths of the sea where predators waited.
God, I wanted this to be over. Get Hannah and leave.
Jeremiah worked the pulley and lowered me further, and foot by foot I went deeper into the well. It was hard to breathe. My chest felt tight enough to crack. A strange fear settled on me; the sensation of being watched, and I found I was holding my breath, as if I might get to the bottom and find someone down there, waiting for me.
If Jeremiah was shouting anything, I couldn’t hear him now. There was nothing but a crypt-like quiet. I couldn’t even hear the pulley, but I knew Jeremiah was still working on it because I kept dropping.
Finally, I felt my feet touch on something.
And that sent a jolt of fear through me, because it wasn’t the hard stone of the well bottom. It was something soft.
I took the flashlight from my pocket and went to click it.
A sound broke from above me. I looked up to see nothing but darkness, but I heard something tumble down, the sound getting louder and louder until an object smashed into my head, making my ears ring, sending a burning pain over my skull.
I staggered back into the wall. The torch slipped from my fingers, and my legs buckled.
I put my hands out to steady myself, only to feel something soft against my fingers.
Rats.
The idea made me squirm. The agony bouncing in my skull made me want to vomit, and my stomach roiled and sent a stream of liquid up my throat. I threw up, retching and coughing until I felt empty.
As the thudding in my head got worse, my consciousness began to fade. I could feel it; like slipping into a deep sleep but worse than that, one accompanied by pain and ringing in my ears.
What the hell had hit me?
I tried to push myself to my feet, but I couldn’t. I felt the soft thing beneath my fingers on the ground again, and I realized that whatever it was, it wasn’t moving. I realized that it was hair.
-29 – Felicity-
She kept the crossbow trained on Jeremiah while Eric threw the pulley back down into the well. It wasn’t really necessary to guard the fat oaf – Eric had smacked Jeremiah on the back of the skull while he’d been standing next to the pulley, and he was more dazed than a badger hit by a shovel.
Detective Withers, on the other hand, had stayed back. He was standing next to a tree like the coward he was.
“Scared to get your hands dirty?” she said, not bothering to hide her disgust.
“If only you knew,” he answered, cupping his hand around a cigarette to hide the glow.
They had watched Jeremiah and the girl come out here. It was no coincidence that Jeremiah Lasbeck of all people had a fascination with the well, and that meant that’d had to do something about it. She didn’t relish it, but there was no choice.
“Eric?” she said.
“Hand me a torch.”
Eric took the torch from her, clicked the beam, then shined it down the well. “It’s her, alright. She isn’t getting back up.”
“That just leaves you, Jeremiah. What are we supposed to do with you?”
-30-
If I’d had anything left in my stomach when I woke up, it would have come straight out of my mouth. My head thudded like the fury of a thousand hangovers. I blinked and saw nothing but darkness, and that was when it hit me.
The well. The soft ground. The hair. Something flying down from above and hitting my head.
I started to tremble. I tried to control it but it was
involuntary, and my body wouldn’t listen to me.
“Oh, god.”
I needed to get it together, but that easier said than done when I was trapped at the bottom of a well with something on the ground beside me that I really didn’t want to shine a light on.
“Jeremiah?” I shouted. “Jeremiah!”
No answer. But I knew that already, didn’t I? The well was too deep, it did something with the sound. Muted it.
I had to get myself together.
Reaching down, I felt along the ground until I touched the flashlight. I held it firmly, not wanting to lose my source of light for a second time. I clicked it on, shining a light on the well bottom.
I gasped. Blood fled from my face, and cold seeped over me.
Detective Cromwell was there, lying in a twisted mess on the ground, his shirt covered in blood, his legs and arms snapped at impossible angles.
I screamed. It felt like all the tension and fear in me was trying to fly out through my mouth in one horrible shout. My legs turned to jelly, and the air stifled me.
I have to get out. I have to get out.
Grunting, I tried to find a part of the well that I could grab onto. Anything to get me away from him. From this mess of a man, twisted and bloodied and sharing the cramped space with me.
A light shone from above, sweeping through the darkness.
Thwack.
Something smashed into the stone next to my head, and then I saw a bolt on the floor.
It was Felicity. The thing that hit my head must have been the pulley. Felicity was above me, firing her crossbow bolts down into the well. That meant that…what? Was Jeremiah hurt?
Either way, the pulley was broken. I was trapped down here and even if I somehow managed to climb thirty feet up a smooth well wall, a demented pension with a crossbow was waiting for me.
There was nothing I could do. Just sit here with Detective Cromwell, the poor bastard. He’d eventually start to rot, and I’d be trapped here with the smell, choking on it, getting dehydrated. Then the rats would find their way down, and…
A wave of nausea passed through me, overwhelming me to the point I thought I was going to faint. I forced myself to get a grip. To think.
I clicked the torch off. At least for now, Felicity couldn’t see anything. She could still aim into the well with her crossbow, but she’d be doing it blind. What next?
No point checking Cromwell for a mobile phone. There was no signal in the forest, and there damn sure wouldn’t be at the bottom of a well.
Was there anything else?
I patted my pockets, and that was when I felt it. The last thing I had left to try. I unzipped my pocket and took out the Dictaphone.
A bolt thudded into the stone behind me, making me jump. Even without light, she was still trying to hit me. Odds were she’d get lucky soon, so it was now or never.
I had to try the ritual, or whatever it was. Thoughts of witches and spellwords and demons made me want to just shut my eyes and wish it all away.
I pressed play on the Dictaphone, and a voice spoke.
“Meyla,” said the woman on the tape.
A breeze smoothed my skin, and the well burst with a light brighter than phosphorus. I closed my eyes so that it didn’t burn my retinas, and I crossed my arms and hugged myself, willing it to be over.
When I felt the breeze fade, I opened my left eye just a tiny bit. Then I opened my right eye. That was when I realized that I wasn’t in the well anymore.
-31-
There was nothing but darkness and silence, mixed with the sense of a presence nearby. Even in the pitch black I knew I wasn’t in the well; the air felt more open, and I had the keen sense I could walk around if I wanted to. When I breathed in I smelled and tasted something sour, something wrong, the aroma of food gone bad.
Playing the witch’s word on the Dictaphone had done it. When I pressed play, I hadn’t expected it to work; I was just making sure we used all of our options. I didn’t want Jeremiah to think that we hadn’t tried everything we could.
And now here I was. Where, exactly? Jeremiah hadn’t known where the well would open to, but the ritual said it was a central point, a place where all the five wells connected to. Some kind of gateway.
That meant I was in Viseth’s domain. If Viseth was real, then I was in his habitat. He was here, somewhere, and I was sharing the utter darkness with him.
The image of the demon that Jeremiah had shown me flashed in my mind. It was the last thing I wanted, and it arrested all my other thoughts.
All I could see was him. His human-like face but with something bestial about it, and his hair, thick and wet with sweat or maybe blood. Then there were his eyes. They burned in my mind now. His knowing stare, the hint of cruelty about it.
Worse, his legs. I could see the picture in my head now, and I felt sick. I saw his five crooked legs set all around him like a flesh windmill.
Viseth. Once a cousin of the princes of hell, or whatever version of it the Effigia believed in, and now banished to somewhere between. Not Earth, not the afterlife, but the other.
The place I was in, maybe.
A seed of terror started to bloom in me. I could feel it, and it made me want to vomit.
I gripped the torch in my hand. I didn’t click it yet. I had the sense that if I did, then if anything shared this room with me, it would be drawn to the light.
I touched my chest, and my insides twisted when I couldn’t feel the rope. It hadn’t come through with me; I’d lost my anchor. Never mind that the pulley was broken, the rope had been a symbol of safety.
Now it was just me, here in the darkness. But maybe not alone.
If the spellword had taken me here, then the ritual written on the note was real. That meant Viseth was here, but also Hannah. I didn’t have the luxury of being afraid if that was true. I couldn’t do nothing.
Okay. I had to do this. I had to take a chance.
First, I rewound the Dictaphone, since I might have to use the spellword again. Then, I gripped my flashlight.
So far, I couldn’t sense anything moving around me, and my eyes hadn’t adjusted to reveal even an inch of the darkness. That meant there wasn’t a single source of light down here. Whatever lived in this gateway, did so in darkness.
With my mind more alert, I did sense something. A draught. A slight, cold blow of air on my cheek.
Was it a way out? A crevice where wind was sneaking through? It would be good to know, and I wanted to shine my torch to see, but I was scared. I feared what I might attract if I illuminated this place. Besides that, I needed to find Hannah first.
A few, quiet steps. try to get the measure of the size of the place. That was the first thing.
The thought of having to move, take action, made my heart thrum with nerves. I felt the fear flow through me to every extremity. I didn’t want to move. My legs were like weights.
Come on, I told myself.
I took my first step.
And then a voice whispered in my ear, their breath cold.
“My name is Ronnie Adlam. I’m twelve years old.”
My heart almost leapt up my throat. The sound jumbled my insides. It was one of the children from the tape, but it was different up close. Ronnie Adlam was the boy who had disappeared in 1963, wasn’t he? He’d been here for decades.
I flicked my torch on and off four times, turning in a circle as I did.
Nothing. No sign of the boy.
“My name is Ronnie Adlam. I’m twelve years old.”
I flicked the torch again. He sounded so close to me, yet he wasn’t. I was alone.
From deep into the darkness, I heard another sound.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
The sound of feet on the ground. Five feet falling one after the other, such an irregular way of walking that it could have only come from one thing.
Oh god.
Viseth’s image flashed in my mind again. His body like a bicycle wheel, with crooked legs instead of spok
es.
I heard the sound again. I could imagine his feet hitting the ground now, I pictured him walking in some monstrous way, his five legs scuttling toward me.
I had to run, but where? It was so dark. For all I knew, I could run off the edge of a cliff or something. Or I could run right into him.
Five footsteps sounded again. Closer this time.
A hand grabbed mine.
“He’s awake,” said a voice. It was a girl’s voice, and her touch was real.
“Hannah?”
“This way.”
I wasn’t going to argue. Holding the girl’s hand and trusting she knew her way around this place, I let her guide me. It was dizzying, running into such impenetrable darkness, and I felt at any minute that the ground would disappear underneath me.
Soon, though, she stopped. I heard her ragged breaths. I tried to catch my own.
“Is that you, Hannah?” I said.
“He likes to let them roam before he kills them,” she said. “It makes him happy to watch them try to escape.”
“God, Hannah. You’re okay. Your uncle sent me here.”
“My uncle?”
“Jeremiah.”
“Jeremiah,” she repeated after me.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“He makes us say our names and our ages,” she said, her voice almost hypnotic. She must have been scared out of her mind. “He likes to hear them.”
I flicked the torch. A beam of light illuminated the ground by my feet and I saw dark stone. Alien-looking, almost cave-like, but different. I shined the light on Hannah.
My blood cooled to ice. I couldn’t move. I felt my bladder squeeze.
Viseth was beside me, not Hannah.
His crooked legs, hoofed and hairy. His wild hair, stained with goop. And his face. He smirked at me as the light glowed on his face.
Then he spoke in Hannah’s voice. “He likes to bring us here,” he said.