Hey. My name is Courtney and I've been telling stories for as long as I can remember. I hope you like them.
Hey. My name is Courtney and I've been telling stories for as long as I can remember. I hope you like them.
This is a short piece I wrote in June 2019 after a very silly worldbuilding discussion with my brothers.
The road you’re following is well-worn and well-used, but this stretch is quiet – you haven’t crossed paths with another traveller in a day and a half now. You don’t mind the quiet. The weather has been kind, warm and sunny with a cheerful breeze, and you have your mule and your terrier for company. Sometimes you walk, and sometimes you sit astride the mule’s back, resting a book on the horn of her saddle and glancing up every so often to make sure she hasn’t turned astray. Rarely is the road so smooth and the pace so leisurely that you can read on the go, but you’ll take the opportunity when it presents itself.
Mid-afternoon, you look ahead at the gentle curve in the path, and notice that along its outside edge there’s a break in the brush, grass leading out into a small clearing. As you grow closer, you can see an old covered well standing in the space – perhaps not in the best state of repair, but there’s something idyllic about it sitting there in the sunlight nonetheless. Patting the half-full waterskin hanging at your waist, you wonder if the well is serviceable. Perhaps this would be a good time for a break, either way.
You dismount and take the mule’s reins when she reaches the bend in the road, leading her and the loyal dog into the little clearing. A sign sits crookedly in the ground near the edge of the grass, worn smooth by the elements but still readable: wishing well.
The mule is happy enough to stop and graze while you investigate. The terrier, for his part, sniffs around the clearing a little bit, giving the well itself a wide berth and a small, suspicious growl before something catches his attention in the trees, and he darts off to follow it. You know he’ll be back, so you don’t worry. You’re more surprised by his mistrust of the well – maybe it smells off? Better you didn’t drink from it, then. Not that you could. There’s no bucket to lower, and even if there was, it would probably come up tasting of nickel and copper.
A smile quirks your lips at the thought. What’s the harm, really? You fish in the purse at your belt for small change, and come up with a shilling, shiny and new. That seems appropriate. You lean against the stonework and shut your eyes, searching for just the right wish. Then, when you find it, you flick the coin and let it spin in the air before falling down the shaft.
You don’t realise you’re expecting a splash or a clink until it doesn’t come. Curious, you look down the dark well, and then blink in surprise – surely you can’t have seen what you thought you did. But you let your eyes adjust to the dark for a moment, and there it is: what little light makes it into the depths of the well reflects off a pair of reptilian yellow eyes, unreadable, but unmistakably looking back at you. You almost think you ought to be startled, and certainly you’re a little alarmed, but you feel compelled to keep watching – as if you might discern the face they belong to, might detect some hint of an expression.
Instead, after a long moment, there’s a sound. Small, unsettlingly inhuman, a smug little voice: “SHMUCK.”
(The very silly worldbuilding discussion? It was entirely about trolls. Mean, greedy, crocodilian trolls, living under bridges and in dark caves, swindling people out of their hard-earned money by demanding tolls for safe passage… or maybe, for one particularly small specimen, by hiding out in the bottom of a so-called wishing well and letting the money come to him.)