A Tower in the Well - Chapter 1

Okay, Ember, one story more. Only because our world is lost and we must remember what was. And not because I am an old lady who spoils children.

Years ago, I sang before the Royal Theatre, and I fell in love for the first—

—No, Tesla. Could you tell me a Brayman tale?

Oh child, I forgot. You want stories about magic not love. About mystery and terrible monsters — not the real ones of course. Alright, I know one and many, and they all happened in a faraway place, in a world of wondrous light...

Chapter 1

Eddie

The sun blinded Eddie as he reached the top of the hill, forcing him to grind his feet to a stop on the gravel shoulder of the road. Behind him, shouting and swearing, his fellow grade seven classmates closed in like wolves. Eddie needed to run.

            “You’re dead, city boy!”

            He didn’t look back.

            Eddie blocked the sun’s glare and tried to make sense of where the hell he was, but Beacon Island, this stupid island town, was more forest than town. Roads should run in streets and avenues. Buildings should block out the sky. Sidewalks should be cement not gravel. Trees should only decorate parks. But in front of him, the road disappeared behind yet another wall of evergreen forest. Through the trees, he saw houses, but they sat at the end of long dirt driveways or hid behind fences.

            This was all her fault of course, but Eddie couldn’t call his mother. He had no cell phone, which was also her fault. They couldn’t afford it, she said. She’d rather have her son run for his life with no way to call home. Eddie pictured her, bent over her sewing machine, making her dumb clothes....

            “Got you!” a boy yelled, grabbing onto Eddie’s arm.

            Eddie, bigger, stronger, swung the skinny boy around easily windmill style. The kid flew, briefly, before landing with a squish in the shallow ditch that ran beside a nearby fence.

            “I’m telling my mom!” the kid yelled, covered knees to chest in mud. Ditch Boy obviously didn’t have the stomach for fighting. That made Eddie grin, but that smile soon dropped. Five more kids had reached the top of the hill. Eddie's legs wobbled the first few strides, his breath pained his lungs, but he willed himself forward.

            On his left, a forest trail snaked into the woods. He almost cut in, hoping to lose his ‘friends’ in the trees, but a big, yellow sign read: DANGER: BEAR IN AREA.

            Hell no. Eddie stuck to the road. He would not be dinner for a bear.

            Two minutes of painful running later, Eddie turned a corner and found an open yard not blocked by forest or fences and he cut across. A garden extended all the way from a tall red-roofed house to the road. Eddie ran along flowerbeds, dodged between piles of raked leaves, and leapt over a row of shrubs — or tried to — catching his foot instead and stumbling forward, smacking hard into a wooden post.

            The post wobbled, but Eddie didn’t fall over.

            Something else did, however. A stone lantern, carved to look like horse’s head, toppled from the post to a cement slab below. The lantern cracked like an egg. Immediately, small green flecks in the grey stone sparked and crackled, followed by ribbons of smoke twisting up from the horse’s broken face. Eddie had seen his fair share of stone carvings in his life. Broken a few too. This definitely wasn’t normal.

            “You little brat,” someone said, pushing through the shrubs behind him.

            Eddie bolted forward and ducked under a large sign that read: Lancaster Retirement Home. He spun around to see an old woman wearing mud-stained clothes and armed with a rake. The gardener reached down and picked up a shard of broken lantern. “Look what you did!” Eddie glanced at the tall building, now imagining it full of sickly grandmas and grandpas.

            The other kids ran into view behind the old woman. Tabatha, a giant of a girl, led the charge, followed by Ditch Boy and several others. Eddie wheeled around and sprinted away. “Sorry, old lady!” Eddie called, jumping over a small ditch.

            “I know all your parents,” the gardener yelled. “Go straight home. It’s not safe out here.”

            Past the old folk’s home, houses were closer to the road. Eddie trusted them less now. The next house could be Ditch Boy’s, or Tabatha’s, or... Cody’s. He would run past houses until he found his own or he hit a dead end. His dead end.

            To his surprise, the next lot was different.

            Where a house should be there was only an empty square pit. Eddie didn’t think twice. He slid over the edge of the pit and dropped in. With a loud splat, he landed feet first in mud, sinking ankle deep. As cold water invaded his shoes and seeped into his socks, he leaned against the wall and listened.

            Footsteps pounded by. A girl screeched, “Hurry up!” Someone responded with a “Shut up!” Soon the voices and sounds were gone. Biting his lip, Eddie slogged forward, forcing his way through the mud. As quiet as he tried to be, the thick mud burped and farted with each step. Worried that someone heard him, he took a timid glance above the rim of the pit but saw no one.

            Cold gnawed at his feet, and Eddie knew he couldn’t stay in this pit much longer. Then he saw it. At the back of the lot, a hedge stretched up like a wall, except for one gap where shreds of daylight peaked through.

            Eddie crawled out, and stumbled up a slope to the hedge. He charged, crossing his arms over his face and, eyes shut, leapt through the gap. Branches grabbed him, scratched him, and spun him, but he landed on the other side.

            Eddie found himself sitting in a mess of tall grass and weeds. It was someone’s backyard, clearly suffering from years of neglect. On three sides, the tall hedge boxed the yard in, but the forest seemed to have broken through on the far side, with large openings leading into the woods.

            In the centre, a well, built out of white stones, waited for him.

            He felt as if he’d been there before. It couldn’t be true though. Eddie and his mom had only moved to Beacon Island a week ago. Still, he couldn’t explain away how familiar this yard or the well in the middle of it felt.

            He got to his feet and the crisp air chilled his bare arms. The hedge, he realized, had stripped him of his backpack and jacket. They both dangled on the branches. Eddie was left wearing the bright red shirt that had caused so much trouble that day.

*

            For breakfast, Eddie had pancakes. They hadn’t felt like a treat, because his mother had made them every morning since they moved to Beacon Island. Every morning when she handed him a stack of them, he wanted to say ‘I don’t want to be here.’ But every morning he drenched his pancakes in maple syrup and ate in silence.

            “Excited?” she asked as she stirred cream into her coffee.

            He squashed a pancake with his fork and watched it ooze syrup. “Very excited,” he muttered.

            “You don’t seem excited.”

            “I didn’t sleep good,” he said.

            His mom twisted her mouth — her worried face — and strummed her fingernails against her coffee mug. “I put a lock on your door in case you needed it again.”

            “It was just a nightmare.”

            Eddie had dreamt he swam in a river, struggling upstream, when a giant plucked him out of the water and tried to skewer him on a hook. Eddie had woken up in the hallway covered in a cold sweat. He had crept back to his room, hoping his mom wouldn’t notice he was sleepwalking again.

            “There’s a bear loose on the island....” His mother trailed off, looking out the window.

            “I’m not sleepwalking,” Eddie said. He didn’t want his mom staying up all night, camped out by the front door again. But if his sleepwalking was starting up, he’d end up outside. Only a matter of time. He’d use the lock tonight just in case.

            Eddie pushed his plate forward. “I’m done,” he said, expecting her to scold him for wasted pancakes.

            She simply smiled and took his plate. “I’ve got a present for you,” she said, and immediately Eddie started to worry. From beneath the counter, she pulled out a box and placed it in front of him. He knew it was clothes. Sure enough, when he opened it, inside was a red shirt. The palest of hopes for a brand name logo faded when he recognized the telltale style of his mother’s handiwork: black stitching, bold along the seams.

            Cat-patterned jackets, button-up scarves, bright red-green checkered pants, and a bumble bee jumper lurched up from his memory. Eddie always had suffered for his mother’s strange fashion ideas.

            “Why can’t I get some real clothes?”

            “Edward! Children make brand name clothes. We don’t support child labour. Clothes for—”

            “—children, made by children. I know. I know.”

            “Besides, I’m new here. You modelling my clothes will drum up some local interest.” He didn’t dare say that was also child labour. “It’s meant for your first day,” she said pointing to the shirt. “It’s ironically cool.”

            Eddie unfolded the red shirt slowly. In a large, handwritten font it read: Let’s be friends! His face must have said everything.

            “It’s supposed to be ironically cool.”

            “So you keep saying,” Eddie said. He didn’t know what ironically cool meant, but ‘stupid’ and ‘death wish’ were probably synonyms.

             “It’s a fresh start. A new school for you, new opportunity for me. We’ve left our problems behind.”

            “Dad wouldn’t make me do this,” he said. An apology came to his lips, but died there. He expected anger to erupt or tears to start.

            His mother smiled but her eyes didn’t. “Please,” she said, with the smallest tremor in her voice.

            “Okay,” he relented.

            Maybe his classmates would be smart enough to understand ‘ironically cool.’ That or be too stupid to read handwriting.

*

            When Eddie walked into his new class for the first time, he wore that red shirt, accompanied by a sense of dread in his stomach.

            His new teacher — interrupted mid-lesson — grunted and waved him over to the front of the class. Eddie was tall, but this teacher was a boulder of a man: wide shouldered, big bellied, and had a broom-like mustache.

            “I am Mr. Burza, and this is division 2,” his teacher said, sweeping his hand lazily. “There is no division 1. Don’t ask why.” Mr. Burza settled into his chair before adding, “Introduce yourself.”

            “Call me Eddie,” he said to the class.

            A scant fifteen kids stared back at him, but all leaned forward to read his shirt. A girl snorted. Two boys twisted in quiet giggles. Most turned to another boy, looking for his reaction. That boy, with bright blue eyes and well-styled hair, gave Eddie a partial smile. He seemed friendly enough. Eddie stood there another awkward second before Mr. Burza, with a grumble and effort, rose from his chair and assigned Eddie an empty desk.

            “We need someone to show Eddie around,” he said. A hand shot into the air. Mr. Burza sighed. “Anyone else?”

            “You don’t trust me?” the blue eyed boy said.

            Mr. Burza stared at the boy blankly as if time had stopped.

            The boy smiled. “If I lead him astray, you can send me to the principal’s office.” That brought a hissing laugh out of a few kids in the class.

            “Fine, Cody. Prove me wrong,” Mr. Burza said. “So, again — before the interruption....”

            “You aren’t going to tell him about the bear?” Cody asked.

            “I’m sure he’s well informed.”

            “Beware the bear,” Cody said, wagging his finger at Eddie. “Deep in the woods, lurks a bear, infected with insane-brain rabies, and once it bites you—

            “That’s enough, Cody,” Mr. Burza growled.

            “It bites you, and its virus infects your brain, and then they lock you up in the hospital forever.” Eddie shifted uncomfortably in his desk, but he could tell by Cody’s gleeful eyes that he wasn’t serious.

            “Office. Principal. Now.”

            Cody got up on his chair with a dramatic hop. “You can’t silence the truth. There’s no bear at all! It’s all an Illuminati conspiracy to stop us playing in the woods... or,” he said, dropping to a loud whisper, “it’s a ninja bear. Think about it.”

            Mr. Burza calmly pointed to the door. Cody jumped out of his chair and sauntered out to a smattering of applause.

            “Unless someone else wants to blame secret societies for their problems,” Mr. Burza said with a glare, “we’ll continue.”

            Cody did not return.

            When the recess bell rang, Eddie decided to wander on his own. He was halfway down the bright, window-filled hallway, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

            “Did you think I forgot about you?” Cody said with a shrug.

            “Did you get yelled at?” Eddie asked.

            “Principal’s not in,” Cody said. “That takes the fun out of it.”

            “Principals are never fun.”

            Cody gave him a sideways glance. “I bet you’ve been to the principal’s office before.”

            “From time to time,” Eddie said. He’d lost count.

            Cody grinned, and in that moment, Eddie had felt a spark. Friendship.

            “Is your mom that new doctor in town?” Cody asked.

            “No, she’s a clothing designer,” Eddie said and gestured at himself.

            “Ah... so that’s why you’re dressed like a fool.”

            Eddie let that one pass. “She just wanted me to model some clothes for her.”

            “This shirt’s amazing,” Cody said, running his finger over a black stitched seam on Eddie’s shoulder. “It’s amazing when people overcome their disabilities... she’s blind right?”

            Cody smirked like it was any other joke, but Eddie turned sharply and glared. “You’re hilarious,” he said, mustering his deepest voice.

            “It’s only a joke. I’m funny,” he said, putting his hands up defensively. “Look, my mom used to call me her little comedian.”

            “Then your mom’s braindead.” Eddie took a step closer, an inch from Cody’s face. “You put people into comas that’s how boring your jokes are.”

            Cody didn’t answer for a moment, but his smirk disappeared. “Touché,” he said, taking a big step back. “Wait here.”

            As he disappeared down the hall, Eddie unclenched his fist and took a deep breath to calm down. Even though Cody deserved it, he knew he shouldn’t be insulting mothers.

            He’d apologize when Cody came back, but he never did. When the bell went, Eddie found him back in the classroom, whispering to a group of his friends.

            “Hey, Cody. Can I... um talk to you?” he asked. A couple of the friends looked over at Eddie, but Cody ignored him.

            In fact, for the rest of the school day, Cody pretended he didn’t exist. Eddie found schoolwork a good escape from all that drama. The geometry was the same unit he had done at his old school already. The adventure book the class was reading was mildly interesting. And what did Eddie care if Cody couldn’t take teasing being thrown his way? The final bell rang, Mr. Burza handed him some unwanted catch up work, and Eddie escaped the first day at a new school.

            Or so he thought.

            A path ran from the school to the road. Halfway along, Cody sat on a bench, legs lazy in front of him. His friends chatted and joked, clogging the path. Eddie could have gone around, but he wanted to get the day over with. He walked through, avoiding eye contact, glancing instead at the forest looming behind the nearby buildings. Forest seemed to fill all the empty spaces. Remove the people and the forest could swallow the town whole.

            Eddie tripped and fell hard to the asphalt path.

            “Careful, Zed,” Cody said from the bench, swaying his foot back and forth casually. Cody’s friends looked down at Eddie with that hungry look people get when they smell a fight. Eddie’s palms stung, but he pushed up from the ground and leapt at Cody.

            “You did that on purpose!” Eddie poked him once in the chest with his finger before curling it back to join his fist.

            Cody’s eyes widened as the fist waved in his face, but then he frowned and slid away on the bench. He slowly got to his feet, as casual as a cat crossing a room.

            “Sorry, Zeddie. But am I responsible for you being clumsy?” He gave a shrug to his cronies.

            Eddie grabbed Cody by the shirt, “My name’s Eddie, not Zed. Not Zeddie. Eddie. Get it?”

            “Sure thing,” Cody said, leaning in and then half-whispered, “Zed.”

            Eddie hurled him as far as he could. Cody hit the top of the bench, hard. He flipped over the bench, lost a shoe into the air, and flopped onto the ground, arms flailing.

            Air whistled through Eddie’s nose. His palms felt raw and prickly. The shoe landed with a thud. There was no turning back. Eddie readied himself to fight.

            Cody stood up swearing, holding the side of his face. He looked past Eddie to a girl trying to pretend that she wasn’t a part of this. “Diane,” Cody said. “Go to the principal. Tell my father that the new kid just attacked me.” Cody didn’t wait for her reply, he turned to the rest of his gang. “Gary, Roy, Tabby. Grab him and hold him down. We need to welcome him properly.”

            Eddie wondered what Cody’s father had to do with any of this, but Gary charged at him before he could make sense of it. Eddie pushed him aside with a stiff palm to the face. Someone smacked Eddie’s head and another person yanked on his arm, but Eddie wrestled away. And ran. He ran fast and stupid, down this road and that road until he was lost, winded, and standing in some secret overgrown yard staring at an old well.

*

            A twig snapped. Eddie froze, about to slip his jacket back on. Seconds later, he heard voices on the other side of the hedge.

            He crept away, scanning for an escape route.

            To his left, the flow of the hedge was interrupted by a tall, wooden gate. Over it, Eddie recognized the red roof of the building peering down into the yard. The gate led to the retirement home.

            In front of him, a large gap in the hedge revealed a path, leading into the forest that quickly became lost in gloom and shadow. That’s where the rabies bear would be hiding.

            To his right—

            Eddie yelped.

            A dark bronze sculpture of a humanoid creature, one that had slithered out of some twisted welder’s imagination, stared at Eddie with bulbous and honeycombed eyes. It had two long feathery bunny ears and a thin lipped mouth. Its arms and legs bent this way and that, similar to the tentacles of an octopus. But it was small, the height of a kindergartener.

            It was a creepy looking thing.

            Eddie kicked it over, and it fell with a dull thud, thankfully half-disappearing in the tall grass. But Eddie couldn’t stop a shudder from snaking through his body.

            And to his right, a final escape route, a massive blackberry bush that had bullied its way through the hedge. If he crawled, he could slip between the tangle of thorny branches and have his skin scratched off. It was a lovely option.

            Eddie ran to the gate and pulled on its paint chipped handle. The grey planks of the door creaked but did not budge. It also loomed eight feet tall, so climbing it would be slow and tricky.

            “Shh! I think he’s in the wellyard,” someone yelled from the other side of the hedge.

            Eddie took a step towards the forest but stopped. It was dark and deep and probably a maze of paths. If he got lost in there.... A bloody nose was better than being eaten by a bear. Eddie didn’t even consider the blackberry bush again. Diving through the thorns would be like swimming in a pond of angry cats. Instead, Eddie was drawn to an even stupider idea.

            Maybe the well wasn’t that deep.

            He dropped his coat and backpack in a bundle beside the well and put his hands on the white stone. He half expected it to feel special somehow. The well was familiar like an old memory or a half-forgotten dream, but the stone simply felt cold and rough.

            The wooden lid came off easily, old rain water pouring off of it. A ring of green slime, now exposed to daylight, suggested that nobody had taken the lid off for months. Inside, a rusty metal rod spanned across the top of the well, stuck into the stone at either end. Around that rod, a rope coiled around several times before dropping down and disappearing into the darkness blow. It was bottomless for all he knew.

            Nothing on this Earth would make Eddie jump down into that abyss.

            “Hello, Zed. Did you fall in the mud or just crap your pants?”

            Eddie wheeled around, holding the well cover in front of him for a shield. Cody emerged from the shadows of the forest path with Gary, Tabatha, that girl Diane, and Ditch Boy beside him. That cozy smirk, that Eddie already loathed, was stretched proudly across his face. A patch of red, a forming bruise, was under his right eye.

            “He’s here!” Cody yelled and the others hooted and hollered in response. Four more kids came through the small hole in the hedge. The little wellyard had filled up with his enemies. Now, there were eight kids that Eddie would have to fight through.

            “Drop the shield, Zeddie. We aren’t playing knights and dragons.”

            “You’re ugly like a dragon,” Eddie said, too quickly.

            “Really?” Cody said, jaw hanging open for a second. “That is the best comeback you got?”

            “I’m not the little comedian.”

            “No jokes then.” Cody looked over at his cronies. “Grab him.”

            Eddie had one chance to hit them hard with the wooden lid and scare them back. He rushed the nearest kid, Roy or Ralph or whatever his name was Eddie didn’t care. He brought his arm back, ready to strike, when his foot slipped, and he landed hard on the grass. The wooden lid rolled away like a wheel, wobbling before falling over.

            Then they dog-piled him.

            Someone sprawled over his back, another sat on his head. Hands pulled at his legs and arms. He gasped for air and yelled “Get off!” A moment later they did, but, held tight, he couldn’t move. “Turn him over,” Cody ordered.

            The overcast sky swung into view and Eddie could see Ditch Boy holding down one arm, Roy the other, and Gary and some other kid sitting on his legs. Tabatha was standing almost directly above his head, her foot and weight pressed on his chest. He couldn’t see Cody, but could hear him. “Comfortable Zed?”

            “My name isn’t Zed!” The anger inside him spun and sparked.

            “Oh, but it is, Zed. Zed stands for last place. You see the principal, my dad, is going to talk to you about your violent behaviour.” Cody was standing next to him now, bending down. “Shocking how you couldn’t go a day without starting a fight. Sure, I might have fought back, but that’s self-defence.”

            Eddie stopped his struggling, finally understanding why it was such a joke for Mr. Burza to send Cody to the principal. A sense of hopelessness overwhelmed him.

            “No comeback? Good. Now, I’m not stupid like you.” Cody pointed to the red welt on his face. “Tabby, punch him in the gut.”

            Some would say Tabatha was an attractive girl — tall, blonde, and brown eyed — the kind of pretty his mom would tease him about. After delivering a few punches to Eddie’s stomach, Tabatha was ugly as all hell. She hit hard too.

            “That’s enough. Cody stop this!” A girl yelled, and a moment later everyone climbed off of him. Eddie curled into a ball, tears rolling down his cheeks. He didn’t care if they saw him crying. He just didn’t care anymore.

            “What about his shirt?” a boy asked.

            “Let’s be friends,” two chanted in nasally, mocking voices.

            “Cody, what about down there?”

            “Excellent idea, Tabby. Strip it off him.” Cody commanded and they obeyed, yanking the shirt over his head. It hurt, but Eddie lay limp. He felt the icy, damp grass on his bare back. Through wincing eyes, he saw the blur of Cody dropping the red shirt down the well.

            He didn’t hear Cody and his thugs leave, but when he looked up, he was suddenly alone.

            Like worms, pain writhed in Eddie’s stomach. He crawled slowly to the well, found his jacket and then wrapped it around himself. He spent a few minutes like that, huddling his arms and legs together to warm up. When the worst of the pain faded from his gut, Eddie stood up and slipped on his jacket. He peered into the well with the faint hope that the shirt might have snagged on something. But all he saw was a rope plunging into the dark depths.

            He cleared his throat and spat onto the grass. He never should have worn that shirt. All of this wouldn’t have happened if his dad were there. Eddie staggered away from the well, dragging his backpack behind him. He looked back and knew he couldn’t let his mom know what happened. She couldn’t find out that he had already ruined their fresh start.

            Length by length, Eddie started to haul up the rope, hoping to find his shirt at the other end. The dampness numbed his hands, but the dull clang of metal kept him pulling. Soon, a discoloured copper bucket appeared at the end of the rope. Eddie let out a disappointed sigh. The bucket hadn’t caught his red shirt. It was still lost at the bottom of the well.

            However, a suggestion of light glowed briefly in the bucket.

            Arms tired, Eddie robotically pulled the bucket up and reached inside. He found a scroll of paper. It wasn’t regular, white paper or newsprint. Instead, it was rough with fibres criss-crossing through it, like the fancy, homemade paper his mom used for Christmas cards.

            Eddie carefully removed the scroll and placed the bucket on the stone rim. The paper had a strong curl-back to it, so his numb fingers fumbled with it twice before he could smooth it out and read it.

            On the paper, in slightly smudged golden ink was a message:

             Yes. I would love to be your friend.