finejellyfishline - Tumblr blog

[finejellyfishline]

[finejellyfishline]

[finejellyfishline]

The Well in the Forest 1

“Is this even legal?” she finally asks. I want to say I’m surprised it took her this long to ask, but I saw how pale she turned when I called in her debt.     

“They’re a public library.” I pull open another dusty filing drawer and continue flicking through the labels without looking at her.   

“It’s past midnight! And this room was locked with a do not enter sign.” The beam from the flashlight shakes and I bite back a sigh. Amateurs. 

“Technically we haven’t broken the law. Yet.” Damn, this drawer is all about past programs at the rec centre. They really need to fire their archivist.   

“Yet!? Fuck this. I’m leaving. I’m not breaking the law for you.” Before she can blink I have her wrist in my hand and she’s crowded against another filing cabinet. I can see the fear in her eyes even in the washed-out monochrome of the flashlight, I hope she can see the steel in mine. 

“Oh dear. Little Anna Lee is getting cold feet.”    

“Wha- “    

“It doesn’t matter Anna Lee, it’s far too late for that. You owe me a favour.” 

“A favour! Not breaking the law.”  

“You should have been more specific, Anna Lee. You already signed the contract.” The shadows begin to distort around me, I see my teeth sharpen and my eyes cloud over with black in the reflection of Anna Lee’s eyes. I want to stop, I cannot.   

“What the fuck are you!” 

“Manners Anna Lee. You came to me, you asked me for a favour, and I agreed. In exchange you would owe me one favour of equal or lesser value in return. Your blood is on the contract, you willingly signed. I ensured you had all As, you got on the honour roll, became valedictorian. I ensured you would meet your parents’ expectations. There were no other conditions.”   

“Wr-wren stop, you’re hurting me! I’m sorry, I’ll stay.” She’s openly weeping.   

I drop her wrist and turn back to the cabinet I was searching. The light is shaking in time with her sobs. Rainfall in 1970, flooding of the high school basement in 1983, proposed and ultimately dismissed plans for a local water park… locations of old wells. Finally. I flip through the maps and old town surveys to make sure the archivist didn’t misfile anything, but it all checks out. I slide the entire file into the pocket inside my jacket, button it shut, close the drawer, and turn back to Anna Lee. Her wrist is starting to darken where I grabbed it.   

“See Anna Lee? There was no need to get upset. We’ll leave the library, you’ll go home, and you can forget all about this. Your debt will be paid.” I wait but she doesn’t respond. Not wanting to waste any more time I quickly lead her back out of the archives and then out of the library, every door locking behind us like we were never there. I start to leave, she can get home on her own, but she suddenly calls out.  

“Wait! What happened to you Wren?” she sounds… worried? I turn back to face her.  

“What do you mean?” I watch her face twist into a grimace.  

“You changed. You’re cruel now. You,” she hesitates, “you told me once you felt like you were walking a tight rope. That you were scared of what would happen if you fell off.”   

The world gets cloudy for a moment, distant. She dares speak as if she cares for me?    

“You know very well that the town pushed me over that fine line ages ago. Don’t you ever speak as if you know me again.” I leave her crying in front of the library. I need to find a well.

[finejellyfishline]

[finejellyfishline]

Scenes from the North Woods

[finejellyfishline]

The Well in the Forest 2

The previous seven wells had turned up nothing. Three nights of sneaking onto farms and into homesteads with nothing to show for it except some scratches from a barbed wire fence. I check the map again. I should be reaching the property line for the abandoned and overgrown Cross Ridge Farm soon. According to the farm survey in 1835 they had a well between the house and silo, but they bricked it over in 1863 for reasons not included in the file and like hell am I going back into that disaster of an archive.       

“Hoo-hooo,” calls a barred owl loud enough that it must be right above me. I startle so badly I end up on my ass in the bushes.    

“Oh, Steel and Sand fucking bless.” Maybe I should just stay here, lay in the bushes until I rot into nothing. The owl is staring down at me. “What? Are you going to judge me too? Let me guess, I’m too cruel now, too cold. My mother must be rolling in her grave, her bastard child is a curse upon all who meet her.” 

The owl blinks at me before turning its head in the direction I was walking. Guess it wants me to move along. I haul myself back to my feet, yank my skirt off the twigs that have caught it, and tuck the map back in my pocket. The moonlight illuminates a handful of rotten fenceposts not three feet in front of me, I’d almost walked into them. Given how long ago it was abandoned I definitely wasn’t breaking any laws by crossing into it, a very fine line of legal technicalities.    

“Old well number eight, here I come.” I cross over the invisible property line and the shadows change. They’re turning, reaching, clinging. Cold fingers wrapping around my ankles, my calves, tugging at my skirt where it brushes the ground. I can feel my face break into a grin, sharp and biting. “Found you.”    

The shadows tug me along, guiding me through the brambles and rot to the bricked over circle of stones. It’s exactly where the survey said it would be, the remains of the silo to my right, and the abandoned old farmhouse to my left. Now it’s time to do something likely illegal. I reach into my satchel quickly finding cold metal in my grasp. The shadows stir as I pull out the crowbar, shrugging my satchel off. My face won’t stop grinning as I jam the crowbar in the crumbling cement between the stone well walls and the bricks covering the top. It crumbles easily under my assault until the bricks are just a very heavy lid. The shadows eagerly join me as I begin to shift the lid off, and with their help the bricks slide off and crumble to dust as they touch the ground. Well, I’ve come this far, there’s no turning back now.    

“Hello down there.” I perch on the lip of the well and swing my legs over, so they dangle above the drop. “I’m ready to talk.” With a push I slip off the edge and fall.

[finejellyfishline]

id : a pen and ink drawing of a liquid looking shadow creature embracing a child, who is sleeping with a bunny plushie./end id

mashtober 1 - cuddles, but i messed up the ink so you have the pen drawing too

[finejellyfishline]

The Well in the Forest 3

“Hello Father, it’s time to pay seventeen years of fucking child support.” I bare my teeth at him where he towers above me, twelve odd feet of vaguely humanoid shadow with glowing embers for eyes. 

“Little one.” He exhales in fingers up my spine.                   

“Not that little anymore actually. Not since mom died and the townsfolk tried to drown me in the river.” I spit the words at him. I hope they hurt him even half as much as the events hurt me. Father stills for a long moment, eyes holding mine. Quicker than I can react I am wrapped in the icy shadows of his embrace, tucked close to his chest, head where a heart should be.   

“Mine, my Child, my Wren, my Child! How dare she, taking my Child, hurting my Child.” His words buzz like hornets under my skin, arms tightening around me. 

“She didn’t take me! You left, mom told me you left before I was even born!” I try to hit him but my limbs won’t co-operate, my voice shakes and I can feel tears sliding down my cheeks.  

“Lies, never leave, would never leave Child. Wanted Wren, called and called. She refused, trapped me down here, far from my Child.” His words soften, the buzzing fading into a comforting purr. I don’t want to believe him, but I can feel the truth of his words in the shadows the same way I could feel the grating lies in my mother’s. 

“Father, I want a favour.” This is why I finally crossed the line left by my mother’s memory. “A favour for a favour, of equal or lesser value.”  

“Tell me.”  

“I want them to pay. Everyone who knew about drowning me in the river, I want them to hurt, I want them to fear.”

“Yes, protect my Wren, cannot let enemies live, cannot let enemies hurt Wren again.” A contract forms in front of me, formed by my Father. It’s easy to slice open a thumb on my teeth, once more inhumanly sharp, and press a bloody thumbprint onto the shadow paper in front of me.   

“Father?” 

“Yes, my Wren?” 

“Can I sleep now? I’m so tired.” 

“Sleep little one, I guard, no more fear.” 

I let go. For the first time since the town crossed the line from ostracizing me to hunting me, since my mother died without a plan for me, since I was left alone and scared and so, so young. Noises choke their way out of my throat like the river water those too short years ago. Anguish. Betrayal. Desperation.         

I am tired of walking the tightrope. Tired of toeing the line. I’m ready to be what they always feared. Steel and Sand, I am ready to be the monster they made me into. No more hiding, no more running, no more fine lines and technicalities. I have my Father now, and we made a contract. They will never touch me again. We will leave this well together, finally free.