The Well's End - Hardcover

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“How’s Will?” someone shouts. “And Tom.”

Tom. His name was Tom. The boy who bled on my jacket.

Devin doesn’t say anything, just puts his hand to his eyes to block the light. Someone else calls out, “What did you see past the gate, Dev?” This rouses him. He moves his hands and speaks in a voice that needs to be lubricated. There’s blood on his teeth, and someone gasps.

“Soldiers. Wearing those suits. Full mask and everything. A tank.”

Everyone gets really quiet. A couple of people discreetly back away from him.

“They’re dead.” His voice cracks.

The Well’s End

The Dark Water

1

WHAT’S THE FIRST THING YOU REMEMBER?

I’ve heard the Question before. Who hasn’t? But when someone asks me, the Question has a different meaning. It’s not often that the whole world knows who you are, has known you forever, has given you a nickname. Baby Mia. They still call me that. Strangers still call me that. Baby Mia, who fell down the well. Like a nursery rhyme. When someone asks about my first memory, what they really want to know is do you remember the well?

Do I remember the well? I was four years old in 1999, when I became famous. I broke my arm, two ribs and my nose—it’s still a little crooked. People tell me that they honked their horns when I was pulled free, that they hung the picture of me bundled and bandaged on their fridge for years. Baby Mia, who fell down the well.

But truthfully, there is no memory. Only darkness. Considering how deep I was, maybe darkness is the memory. Blackness, water up to my knees, lucky it was August and it didn’t rain, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich lowered in a Pink Power Rangers lunchbox. My memories are the stories everyone tells, the stories about where they were, what they were doing, about the time Baby Mia fell down a well.

Reporters come and go. When my mom died (blizzard, pine tree), at least a dozen inquiries came through. As if what I most wanted to do after my mother’s funeral was talk about my stint underground. The funny thing is, underground was all I could think about. My mother was going to be cold down there, dark, with no one to save her and with no one watching and holding vigils and honking horns and crying.

I’m sure that’s what reporters wanted to hear from me.

But I admit that something about this reporter feels different. For one, he looks different. No wrinkled, collared shirt underneath a wrinkled beige sweater. No notebook and no smell of fast food. He’s clean-shaven, his cheeks looking almost crisp, like a banker. But he’s not in a suit. Instead, he’s wearing a tight fleece, hiking boots and dirty jeans, as if he’s just returned from a stroll in the woods. His brown hair recedes hesitantly back up his forehead, leaving a small tuft up front. He smiles gently enough, and he has a notepad and paper, but he hasn’t pulled out a recorder of any sort. I’m not sure I remember ever doing an interview where there wasn’t a recorder. Staring at him, I find myself uneasy and keep wiggling in my chair. He seems distracted, uninterested in me and the story, which, I’m embarrassed to say, is making me jealous. We’ve been sitting here on a cloud-covered Thursday, in the conference room of the main faculty offices at my boarding school, Westbrook, for about ten minutes now, quietly bouncing our legs. We’re waiting on my father.

The reporter—his name’s Blake Sutton—glances at his watch and sighs, then pulls himself to his feet and goes to examine the class photos strung evenly along the walls.

“Your father is in one of these photos, isn’t he?”

These are his first words since nice to meet you. At least we’re done with the staring contest. “That’s right,” I say, pointing down a few frames from where he’s standing. “Class of ’78.”

Mr. Sutton shuffles over, bends and squints at the photo. He shakes his head a little and looks back at me, then to the image. “Quite the similarities.” It’s true: we both have the same high cheekbones and small foreheads, same wavy brown hair, same camera-shy smile.

“I guess,” I say, bored already. Why do I agree to do these interviews anymore? Maybe it’s time to stop. As if reading my mind he turns back to me and claps his hands together once and then pushes his right fist toward me—the mike’s on you—and asks me what the local attractions of Fenton, Colorado, are.

I don’t roll my eyes, but it’s close. “What? Are you talking about Gracie?”

“Gracie?” he asks, returning to his seat.

“The tallest sycamore in the world.” She’s five miles up the road and a few hundred yards into the tree line, and it takes five kids holding hands to ring around her trunk.

Mr. Sutton smiles, and his teeth are überwhite and straight and thick. “I didn’t know that.”

“You didn’t? It’s true. Did you know that Fenton has the only Roman aqueduct in North America? It’s handmade of over a million bricks.”

He leans back now, impressed, letting me run the show. “What else you got?”

“I’ve got annual migrations of locusts, and we’re the home of the national-chicken-thigh-eating competition.” Suddenly I’m relaxed, in my element, having answered this line of questioning dozens of times, the familiarity of this back-and-forth a comfort. He’s not taking any notes, but whatever—at least he hasn’t asked me the Question yet.

The door opens behind me, and since I’m staring at Mr. Sutton’s face, I get a good look at the moment he sees my father walk into the room. He grins, his lips parting slightly, and I see his tongue peeking out ever so slightly like a giddy dog. And then he seems to realize what kind of face he’s making, because he straightens up and stands, extending his hand. Dad hasn’t come into the room yet. He’s still in the doorway.

For some reason, I don’t move. I feel off-kilter, like I’m missing something very important. After a short while, Mr. Sutton lowers his hand, unshaken, and backs into his seat.

“Please, Mr. Kish, join us.” He nods toward the empty chair next to me. “I was waiting for you to begin. Mia’s been telling me all about Fenton.”

The boards bend under my dad’s feet, and he moves to kiss my head. “Hi, hon,” he whispers, and takes a seat. He’s clenching his jaw over and again, the bone protruding from his cheek like a twitch as he stares intently at Mr. Sutton.

“Dad?” I ask, sensing something wrong.

“Mr. Sutton,” Dad says, not acknowledging me, “when I agreed to this meeting I didn’t know it would be with you. I have to get back to work soon, so why are we here?”

Mr. Sutton nods his head knowingly, but ignores Dad’s question. “Yes, yes. Late nights at the Cave nowadays?”

My father grips the chair tight enough for the wood to creak. There is no Take Your Kid to Work Day with my dad. In fact, I’ve never met another employee of Fenton Electronics. I think about the tunnel he drives into every morning on his way to work. The one that’s behind steel doors. I’ve only ever seen the entrance of the Cave—a nickname since before my time—because all us kids do it in the summer: take our bikes to the door, dare each other to pedal up and knock. Not many...