On One Terrible Night: The Family Well

November 8, 2024November 8, 2024 Jamie Lee Hamann 456 Views 0 Comments family well, Girls Adventure, Mexico City

^{ON ONE TERRIBLE NIGHT}

^{By Jamie Lee Hamann}

^{CHAPTER ONE: THE FAMILY WELL}

1.)

a.)

^{“Alfonso will be out of the city for a few more days,” Vicenta, in her favorite Sunday supper dress, said as she walked over to the pantry. “I am sure he is just over at the next borough, drinking and carousing.”}

^{“Perhaps to avoid Mass,” Isabella de Baca, Vicenta’s mother, replied as she continued to flatten dough with a rolling pin. “Keep such thoughts to yourself, Vicenta; your daughter is at your feet. She should not hear such things about her Papa.”}

^{Outside the window of their flat, the Sunday sun set upon Mexico City, its last rays of the day illuminating Beatrice, a six-year-old, playing with a small wooden toy on the kitchen’s dirt floor.}

^{“Beatrice, be a good girl and hand Abuela this bunch of parsley for dinner.” Vicenta passed the herb to Beatrice and instructed her to stand. “I must light our lanterns they should have done so earlier. pray to do it before we are in the dark this evening.” Vicenta swiftly left the kitchen as the glow from various oil lamps gradually filled the flat.}

^{“Thank you, Beatrice. Please be careful not to soil your Sunday dress.” Abuela Isabell bowed slightly as she placed the parsley on the table next to the freshly prepared dough. “Almost ready for supper Beatrice. Go wash up at the basin.”}

^{“Abuela, what is under that wooden cover on the floor?” Beatrice asked as she walked over to the wash basin.}

b.)

^{“That is our family well, Beatrice,” Grandma Isabell answered as she placed the fresh flattened bread onto a rack in the oven. “It is over one hundred years old.”}

^{“Do we ever open the cover?” asked Beatrice.}

^{“Never!” Grandma Isabell twirled away from the stove and moved to the other side of the wash basin. “Now you listen to me, Beatrice. You must never go near that old well!”}

^{“Why not Grandma? I am brave.” Beatrice argued.}

^{Taking a pause, Grandma Isabell continued after a deep breath, “It is said that the well holds secrets untold, dark tales of the past that are best left undisturbed. If I catch you within a few feet of the well, I will smack you with a switch!” Grandma Isabell sternly said as she pointed a finger towards Beatrice. “Do you hear me? The demons in that well will hurt you more then my switch!”}

2.)

a.)

^{Beatrice finished and dried her hands briskly on a towel hanging on a shelf nearby. She had never heard her Abuela raise her voice, and she felt slightly shaken. Vicenta returned from lighting the oil lamps and told Beatrice to move to the dining table for supper. Beatrice loved suppertime with Abuela and her mother. The odor of savory food and the scary ghost stories Abuela told always filled the dingy eating space. The three of them settled down at the table and served hot bread with shredded rabbit meat to place on top. Beatrice ate everything including a fresh tomato Mom picked that morning.}

^{After they sat and digested their meal, she took the plates to the sink to wash and Abuela began to tell a story and drink tea with Mom. Beatrice washed the dishes slowly so she could hear every word.}^{The story was of the woman who came back from the underworld to seek revenge which was Beatrice’s favorite. Every night brought a new story of the wonder of the underworld that made her get goosebumps while she quietly placed clean dishes in the rack.}

b.)

^{“Beatrice did you hear the story about the beginning of the world?” Grandma Isabell lifted her tea to her mouth and sipped as she opened her tale in her familiar way. “Mother of Toads roamed our world and craved human flesh. An addiction that would leave a path of destruction in her wake. The giant Serpent God, Quezcotl, sent an army of serpents who fell onto our world. Quezcotl’s serpent army quickly defeated Mother of Toads and banished her to the underworld. Quezcotl’s brother, Tezcan, jealous of Quezcotl’s fame, poisoned his brother and buried him near Mother of Toads. Quezcotl survived the poison and summoned his serpent army to the underworld to plan revenge on Tezcan. The Goddess Chalchi, who loved Quezcotl with all her heart, would send rabbits to the underworld every year to feed the serpent army of Quezcotl and provide them strength to fight against Tezcan.”}

c.)

^{She could hear Grandma stir her tea and Mom opening her sewing kit to sew while Grandma finished her tale. Tonight’s story did not follow in the footsteps of the ghost stories told and barely matched the bad deeds of most villainous monsters. She finished the dishes and started to wipe down the kitchen.}

^{“Mother of Toads immediately sent multitudes of flesh-eating toads to beat Quezcotl’s army and kill him. The great war between Toad and Serpent began and all efforts of Quezcotl to destroy his brother faded. Below this war, in Mictlan, the land of the dead, Mictlantenhtln, the God of the Dead, and his wife Mictercain began to feel the tension created by the conflict. They became frustrated with the fighting and the disruption the battles had on spirits trying to navigate the nine levels of the underworld before reaching the land of the dead. Soon the God and Goddess of Mictlan found themselves in the war when their daughter, Itbenicai, found herself lost in the tunnels of Mother of Toads.”}

^{“Oh, Mom, why do you teach us history lessons?” Vicenta looked up from her sewing and interrupted Grandma Isabell. “I want to hear a ghost story that will make me fall in love and then shutter in fear!”}

3.)

a.)

^{“I like Mother of Toads.” Beatrice said while drying the last dish. “She is my favorite.”}

^{“You always choose the monster Beatrice.” Vicenta replied. “I think it is almost your bedtime my girl.”}

^{“Yes Mom.” Beatrice put away the towel she used for cleaning and headed to her small room after she placed goodnight kisses on Mom and Abuela’s cheeks. “Goodnight.”}

^{The back of the house gradually fell into darkness as Beatrice moved farther from the oil lamps. She walked quickly to avoid the sudden chill that came with the darkness. Soon she reached her room where she quickly changed into her pajamas and crawled under her bedspread. She could not sleep and stared upward into the darkness. Soon, Mom would come in with a candle and gently tuck her in and whisper ‘good night’ in her ear. Most of the time Beatrice was fast asleep when her mother whispered. There had been a few nights where she woke up yet kept her eyes closed and quietly enjoyed the feeling of comfort and safety.}

^{Beatrice decided to keep her eyes open a little longer since sleep seemed far off. Her thoughts fell upon serpents and toads and other monsters from Abuela’s story. Then she thought about Itbenicai and wondered if the daughter of the God of the Underworld felt lonely and missed her parents. She wondered if Mother of Toads kept Itbenicai in a muddy cave with bars. Her thoughts were interrupted by a slam of the door.}

b.)

^{“Alfonso, how dare you arrive as drunk as you are!” Beatrice could hear Vicenta screaming at Alfonso. “You know better! Go back into the night and sleep on the ground for all I care!”}

^{“This is my house!” Alfonso yelled back. “I will sleep here! On this floor!”}

^{“You will not!”}

^{Beatrice could hear loud stammering and shuffling, as if furniture were being rearranged, followed by a loud grunt. She strained her ears to hear more but only silence followed. Not being able to lie on her bed if her Papa was on the floor in the kitchen, she stood up and quietly navigated the dark and found her bedroom door. After a struggle with knocking over a picture frame and remaining still for a long time, she finally arrived at the dining area. Moonlight lit the room and helped her see as she looked for her father. No sign of him remained to be seen and it looked like her mother had finally dragged him to their bedroom. She felt her way around the chairs thrown on the floor and glanced over at the thick wooden cover to the family well.}

4.)

a.)

^{“I am sure there is no harm in looking at the carving in the wood,” Beatrice whispered to herself as she shuffled past a collection of Madonna statues who stood praying by candlelight. One large statue, with layers of shiny melted wax from many candles, peered down upon the wooden well cover. “I wonder what the carvings say?”}

^{Beatrice knelt upon the cold dirt floor next to the solid wooden cover latched with a tough looking steel bolt. She could see the top of the well illuminated by moonlight from the window. Carvings of figures and symbols circled the border. Her fingers moved to each figure and symbol as she closed her eyes and imagined what the symbols meant. They seemed to emit heat on Beatrice’s cold hands, and she thought she saw them glow blue for a second. A whisper filled her mind and called her name.}

^{“Beatrice.” The whisper seemed to come from the voice of another little girl. “Find me.”}

^{Shock made Beatrice stand up quickly. She wanted to run back to bed but her feet seemed stuck to the floor. Again, the carved symbols lit the room with a blue incandescence and Beatrice shut her eyes tightly. A loud clang followed by a rusty squeak made her jump backwards and sent a jolt up her spine.}

b.)

^{“Beatrice.” The whisper returned, this time a little louder. Beatrice opened her eyes and saw that the corner of the well had opened revealing a dark entrance to the ancient well. “Find me.”}

^{Her feet, released from the floor, seemed wobbly and she felt dizzy. Within seconds she realized she had fallen into the darkness. Beatrice saw the flame from the candles placed at the foot of Madonna, a shrine built by Abuela, fly upward toward the heavens. Trying to stop her fall with flailing hands, Beatrice felt thick mud that slipped through her fingers like frogs. As she fell, she tried to scream but no sound came from her mouth. Her senses felt terror and she closed her eyes. Beatrice, with her hands outstretched and her eyes shut tightly, hurled toward the bottom of the well.}

^{She remembered Abuela’s words as she fell into the darkness.}

^{“The Demons in that well will hurt you more than my switch.”}

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Jamie Lee Hamann

My name is Jamie Lee Hamann and I have a passion for writing short fiction and poetry.I started writing for TCE around 2015 and since then I have finished seven collections of poetry and plans for more.I currently live in Lemmon Valley NV with my family.If you desire to find my other work on the internet feel free to stop by my website simplepoetics.weebly.com.The website offers articles on poetry, poems, and links to all my other writing.

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