Darkness covered the yard as the girl crossed from the barn heading towards the house. She shivered, pulling her shawl about her, mindful of the ice that covered the stone flags; treacherous to the untrained eye, only yesterday her younger brother – Mikey, had tripped whilst running and badly injured his leg. Father had whipped him for it and now along with her usual chores; Margaret Anne had his to do as well. Father had promised her a new bantam hen at the end of the week for her troubles and she would hold him to it. She loved her hens; they were like friends to her in as much as they didn’t order her about and always seemed pleased to see her.
She placed the empty bucket down by the back door and wiped her hands on her apron. Just one last job before she went in for tea, Mrs Hobbs had mentioned a mutton chop and her mouth watered at the thought. She liked Mrs Hobbs; she was kind and didn’t scold like Mamma. Then she felt bad, Mamma was poorly, she hadn’t left the bed since the baby. Margaret Anne heard crying in the night, they were all afraid of going near her in case they set her off, even little Ralph who was always her pet.
Margaret Anne wiped her nose on her sleeve and pulling up the bucket she headed to the pump. Just as she reached it, the back door opened, and a grey head stuck out
“Maggie-Anne, hurry up to blazes with that water? Himself wants the tea.”
“Coming,” the girl shouted over her shoulder and muttered. “Give us a minute, damn it!” to herself. The door closed.
The pump was old, and rust coated the heavy handle. A couple of good pumps usually did the trick but not tonight. Margaret Anne rubbed her cold fingers together and pulled the handle again, down and then up. There was an answering creak but the bucket hanging on the nail remained empty.
“Christ on a stick!” She grunted and tried twice more in vain before trudging back to the house.
Mrs Hobbs pointed to her muddy boots. “Ah, ah, ah, you know the rules. Off with them out back.”
“But Mrs H, the pump’s gone dry.”
Margaret Anne looked across at the man who had seemed half asleep by the fire – Tall and thin, his face was ruddy and whiskered, and his dark hair was greying at the temples. In his arms, he held a sleeping child of no more than two years.
“What’s a miss? Margaret Anne, haven’t you finished those chores?”
“Lass says pump’s dry, frozen more like.” Stated Mrs Hobbs.
“Damn and blast.” He stood and passed the child to his daughter as he marched to the back door but paused as a voice called down the stairs.
“Dick, Dick are you there?” A look of sorrow passed over the tall man’s face and he turned up towards the hallway.
“But Da, the pump?” Margaret Anne followed him with the now awake and wriggling child in her arms.
“You may go down to the old cattle well, get your brother to carry the lamp.”
“But Mikey’s leg’s all bandaged!”
A tousle-headed lad of about ten years looked up from the corner of the room where he played jacks. “Aye, ‘tis rightly sore an’ all.”
“Blast.” Her father stood in the doorway to the hall and her mother called again.
“Dickie”
“I must go to her,” he hurried up the stairs without a backwards glance.
Margaret Anne handed the baby to her brother, “There you go, do something useful.” The little boy snuggled against his big brother’s arm and closed his eyes.
She turned towards the back door.
“Where you goin’, Maggie Anne?” Mrs Hobbs held her by the arm.
“I’m going for water, someone has to.”
“Wait for your father, love.” Mrs Hobbs’s face was all kindness and in faith, it was hard to leave the cosy room, but Margaret Anne shrugged her off.
“I’ll be fine Mrs H, there’s a bit of a moon and I’ll not be long.”
The yard seemed darker after the brightness of the kitchen, but she put that out of her mind. She trudged across the yard and past the last of the outbuildings. The field seemed foreign and uninviting in the faint moonlight and already a heavy layer of frost lay on the grass making it crackle beneath her boots. The lights of the house seemed to twinkle and fade fast behind her. Margaret Anne knotted the ends of her shawl and straightened her back against the army of bad thoughts that besieged her in the darkness. The well was just a few yards further, a place that was familiar in daylight but now seemed an eternity away in the grey light of the half moon. She remembered the stories her father had mocked her with as a young child – the old woman whose husband pushed her in after she told one too many tales and the little girl who fell in and wasn’t found until Christmas. They were told in jest but now she found scant humour in the visions that were forming in her young and fertile mind.
Margaret Anne forced herself to keep moving, placing one dirty boot in front of the other. Five minutes to the well, five to fill the bucket and five minutes back home, she counted. She imagined herself already back, sitting at the old farm table with the grease from the juicy mutton chop dripping from her mouth. She conjured up the grateful smile on her father’s face and moved purposefully to the well.
The stone walls seemed higher than she remembered, nearly to her waist and the sides were icy and gleaming in the weak moonlight. She reached up and grabbed the crank handle, the rope began to lower the old bucket down. The well was used regularly by her father and the rope slid easily. She kept lowering until she heard the splash and then she started to turn the handle the opposite way. It was much slower this time with the full bucket. She had to work twice as hard to bring it up. Finally, the top of the wooden bucket appeared over the level of the wall and she tipped its contents into her pail. She filled it to three-quarters full, anything more would be too heavy, better to bring back a bucket with a little less than to fill it too much and spill it all. She was determined not to make the journey again.
So far so good. She placed the bucket of water on the grass and stood up to fix the shawl that had become loose, allowing the freezing air to blow up under her cardigan. Bending down she grabbed for the handle of the bucket when a sound floated up from the well, a sound like the cry of a baby. Margaret Anne let out a cry of her own. How could it be? She listened and there it was again – the cry of a hungry baby, clear as crystal.
She moved towards the sound. “Bella?” she whispered. Could it be? But her sister was buried in the little plot in the graveyard; she had seen the small mound of fresh earth with the flowers strewn across it. Was she not dead at all?
Even with her mind in its flustered state, she couldn’t credit the ability of a newborn infant to escape from its coffin to claw and climb its way through six feet of earth and crawl the three miles from the graveyard to the farm, only to throw itself down the well. She shook her head to clear it. She was a level-headed girl, not given to flights of fancy, much like her father. No, she told herself, ’twas nothing more than a trick of the wind.
It was a baby’s cry whispered a voice in her head. She shook her head again, no, just the wind she countered and now it is time to be bringing back the water before it freezes over. She bent down and grabbed the handle in a no-nonsense grip. Bracing herself against the weight she started back the way she had come. The mewling cry shattered the silence once more and Margaret Anne tripped over in the long stiff grass, the bucket flew out of her hands to empty its contents onto the field.
The sound seemed louder, more urgent. The scream of a hungry baby. She wondered why they didn’t hear it back at the farmhouse. Grabbing the now empty bucket she ran back to the well. The baby’s cries seemed more frantic. Oh, poor baby, poor, poor baby. With her heart in her mouth, Margaret Anne peered over the edge of the well. It was impossible to see anything in the inky darkness. How could a tiny baby be down there at the bottom of the well?
She thought of going back for help but as soon as she turned away from the well the cries started again as if the infant could sense her leaving.
“I’ll just take a look and then go back for Da,” she thought to herself. To be on the safe side.
She climbed up onto the top of the upturned pail and peered over the rim of the wall. The moonlight shone down into the darkness and she could make out the half-submerged bucket from where it had fallen back on the rope. But what was that? She peered over further gripping the slippery sides of the wall as she stretched into the opening. Something white moved down in the darkness, the pale light of the gibbous moon illuminated a tiny creature, its limbs moving like little flowers in the breeze.
There was a baby down the well and she had to get help. She had to save the wee mite, all alone and scared down there. She recalled the softness of her baby sister’s head, the sweet scent of her scalp. Oh, Bella. A sob escaped from her throat and she reached out an arm as if to lift the tiny white scrap. But with only one arm to steady herself on the glass-like wall, Margaret Anne lost momentum and toppled headfirst into the well. Her screams, echoing off the walls were soon snatched and carried away by the wind and lost in the snow that had begun to fall covering her tracks across the field. Her head hit the metal rail of the bucket and she was unconscious when the creature, that was not a baby, crawled towards her along the ledge that ran the circumference of the well. It chuckled and gurgled as its muscles twitched and moved, as its limbs rearranged themselves until there was no semblance of human form left. It slipped into the water and paddled to the young girl. Hungry it had waited, moving from place to place drawn by sorrow. It watched the young girl and bided its time. The well was as good a waiting place as any.
With an easy reptilian grace, it slithered across the surface of the water and reaching out a sinewy arm quickly pulled the inert girl beneath the surface.
In the churchyard, the tall figure of the farmer stood with his son. The boy sobbed and fidgeted, one hand holding a wooden crutch. The old woman beside them placed an arm around him and pulled him close, her other hand holding tight to a toddler clutching a ragged doll. They stood beside the newly filled grave as the priest read the final prayer, their black clothes stark against the fast falling snow.
The farmhouse creaked in the wind. In the parlour, the fire crackled merrily sending out blasts of heat to the empty room. Upstairs the woman tossed and turned in a morphine-induced stupor, her blonde hair stuck to her face in sweat and bright spots of fever burned high in her cheeks. She jumped at the noise on the stairs and called out. “Dick, Dickie is that you? Margaret Anne? Come take the baby, she’s fretting.” The door of the bedroom creaked open slowly and the woman, watched its progress, her visage brightened as the form of the visitor became clear to her. She flung her arms open wide to welcome her eldest daughter.
“Mamma,” the figure rasped as it dripped its wet progress across the carpet.
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – Entry #19 ‘Down in the Darkness’ by Fiona Hogan @cookehogan – Enjoy all this terrific, disturbing material you have in your hands, lots of horror stories at your disposal for your dark delight and vote!” username=”theboldmom”]
On October 23rd we’ll close submissions and open a poll for the readers to choose their favourite one! You’ll have a week to make your choice and on October 31st we’ll announce the winner!!!
